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I’m still getting those annoying notes.
    And I can’t wait for 11:30 tomorrow.

CHAPTER
    FIVE
    Seriously: Did You Think This Was a Joke?
    Linus found Big Bowl with no problems but hadn’t known he would. So because he left himself plenty of time to arrive, he was forty-five minutes early. And delighted to find Hailey already waiting. Part of him had spent the night worrying she’d forget about their date, or would change her mind before they even sat down, or would rush off before the pot stickers came because she’d double booked herself.
    So he spoke without thinking when he saw her: “Hey, you’re here! Great!” And was mortified by his big mouth, and relieved by her smile.
    “Oh, I wouldn’t miss it.” Then she frowned, as if she might have said too much. He was pleasantly startled to see her hair was lighter today; the red was fading to pure blond.
    They sat, chatted with the friendly waitress, ordered dumplings and soup and pot stickers and peanut noodles. And talked, of course: about people they knew, about their homes, about (of course) their jobs, and other shared interests.
    “I was really hoping for an It Girl sighting.”
    Hailey instantly frosted: “Why? She’s not real. And if she was, well . . . that would make her a glory-seeking moron.”
    Which was how he found out Hailey Derry had no love for heroes.
    “Oh, come on,” he coaxed, stupidly ignoring the warning signs. “I’ve lived here half my life. I know—”
    “Half?”
    “Maybe a third. We moved here when I was little, then headed up to Duluth until I finished my UMD degree. Anyway, I know people who’ve seen her . . . She’s real.”
    “A real idiot.” The waitress plunked down two plates of dumplings, and Hailey speared one with a single chopstick and tossed it into her mouth. “Who does things like that? Who could, and who would? She’s a YouTube myth. They talk about her because they can’t get her to talk. They can’t prove her and it just makes them want her more. My mother—” She cut herself off and sucked down another vegetable dumpling.
    Whoa. Deep water. “Yeah? Your mom? She says she saw her?”
    “Ah . . . no.”
    “Was she from around here?”
    “Briefly. Like you.” Hailey smiled a little, more a quirk of her lips than a warm expression. “I was born here and then . . . we left.”
    “Okay.” Linus felt like he was in a minefield. A minefield of pot stickers. He tried to sound noncommittal, like he didn’t much care what she was saying, or wasn’t listening very hard. It was strange, but sometimes that was the best way to keep someone talking. “Born, then left.”
    “Yes. She had to—she was infertile, see? And unmarried. And rich. Don’t forget that last part; it’s important later.” Another small, bitter smile. “She went to a clinic. Several times, in fact. Got pregnant, stayed here through her pregnancy, my birth, all that. Then left. Promised never to return. And never did.”
    “Okay.” He sucked down half his ginger ale. He couldn’t recall being on a more stressful first date.
    “The point is, she had to spend a lot of money to get me. And my mother always valued the things that were the most expensive, the things she actually had to work for. Coach bags. Louis Vuitton suitcases. Clé de PeauBeauté cream. A last-minute lunch rez at Menton. Dinner at Addison’s. And me.”
    “Okay.” Weirder and weirder. It’s wrong that her intensity is turning me on, right?
    “Anyway.” Hailey had trailed off and was staring over his shoulder, then seemed to regain her train of thought. “She died a couple of years ago. And I didn’t have anything to hold me to New York. So I came back here. Where I began. Where she first started to value me, before she ever saw me. Long, long before she knew me. Which brings me back to my point—the only reason people have any interest or liking in that person—”
    “It Girl.”
    “Awful, awful name—yes. My point: they can’t know .