I step back, cheeks flaring up, but I don’t look away from his blue eyes. There’s something in them that really does make me want to see. “What are you talking about?” I ask. Curiosity has trumped my awkwardness. “What did you find?”
Kat doesn’t wait for him to answer but jumps in, and her words tumble out in one ecstatic rush. “Okay. After I left the library I read the whole journal during second, and with all that stuff about art in there, it got me thinking that there might be something left of hers in the art supply closet because everyone knows Mr. Potter is a serious hoarder, so I asked Trevor for the keys and he wanted to know why, so I told him the whole thing and he offered to help. And then we found this.”
Trevor pulls a canvas out from behind his back and puts it on display in his hands. “Voilà. A Julianna Farnetti original. Signed and dated. From before the crash.”
I blink once, twice, three times. Then I let my eyes trail over the familiar lines of the Minarets and the sky behind them. It’s almost the same painting as in the cafe, but less complex, without the sharp emotion or sophistication of the other one. Like an earlier draft. I stare at the blank space in the sky where the stars outline the constellation Orion in the painting in Kismet. This was before everything. Before she met him. Before she had to make a choice that didn’t feel right and lied to do what she thought was. Before the sadness of Acquainted with the Night. I swallow hard and bring my eyes down to the bottom corner. Her signature is there in this one, scrawled out in the same swirly, hopeful hand as it is on the front of her journal, which Kat is now holding up next to it.
“Can you believe it?” Kat can barely contain herself. “What are the chances? That’s why I wanted to see the painting so bad when I got there today—to compare them—but you yanked me out of there like a crazy person.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t want you to say anything to Josh yet.” I can’t take my eyes off the painting. “This is amazing, I—” I simultaneously forgive her and feel like the world’s worst friend for jumping to the worst possible conclusion about her and Trevor and what they were doing together. “I am an idiot.”
“Actually,” Trevor says, handing it to me, “I think you might be kind of a genius for putting it all together.” He smiles when he says it, and I melt a little inside.
Kat jumps in front of him again. “So like I was saying. It’s her. It has to be her. It’s fate, and they’re supposed to be together, like you said. Like in all your sappy-ass movies.”
The doubt and worry from a few moments ago try to hold on, but everything in me wants to agree and run with this idea. I look down at the painting in my hands. “I don’t know . . .”
I look at her name in the corner of the canvas, and in that moment I’m sure. For some reason this is the one unexpected, important thing I’m supposed to do.
“Come on,” Kat says. “We’re doing this. We’re going to find Julianna Farnetti and reunite her with her one true love, and it will be brilliant and beautiful and the best thing you’ve ever done. I’ve got it all planned out. There aren’t very many little art towns around Hearst Castle, and I found one that seems promising. It’s called Harmony.” She gives a nod of finality and skips the part where either one of us get to respond, then continues, all business.
“So I think we should go with my original, brilliant plan to use Senior Ditch Day. It’s the perfect cover. You’ll get up and act like everything’s normal. Pack your stuff in your backpack, park your car at school, then walk to the Carl’s Jr. parking lot.”
“Of course.” I have to laugh at this, because in our little town, Carl’s Jr. was somehow established as the official meeting place for anything. My theory is that it was before cell phones, when everyone had to actually meet up somewhere to find out what was going on and where the parties were. Now it’s like a Summit Lakes teenager tradition. Meet at Carl’s Jr.
“We’ll all meet there,” Kat says. Then she nudges Trevor. “Right?”
“Yep,” he nods. “Bright and early.”
“He’s driving,” Kat says. “Your car needs to stay at school, mine would never make the trip, and it’s never bad to have a guy along for this type of thing, anyway.”
Trevor smiles. “And I thought you were only using me for my car. Happy to know it’s me you might actually need.” Kat ignores him, and though I’m still unclear on exactly why he’s coming along, I attempt to do the same, which doesn’t really work. That smile, and those eyes—
“Parker—you listening?”
I nod and make a conscious effort to look only at Kat.
“Okay. So we’ll pick you up and get on the road, and we’ll have a head start since the entire senior class will be gone. I don’t think they even bother calling parents that day. Then, ‘after school,’ you just call your mom and tell her you’ll be at my house for the night. My mom’s working a double so she won’t be home to answer, and we’ll be back by Tuesday afternoon before your mom has a clue you were ever gone, and in time for your dinner thing the next day.”
“But what about—”
“Your speech? Easy. Write it this weekend, and you can practice it in the car, all the way there and back.”
“But my mom—she’s never gonna say yes to me staying at your house that night.”