The Gray Moose offices smelled like new paint and hazelnut coffee, but there was no talking at all. It was kind of disorienting—I’d expected something like a newsroom, maybe. People bustling around, sharing ideas, storyboards with sketches of smiling geckos, and princesses as small as peas. But that wasn’t how it was. It was silent like a library under the authority of a militantly introverted librarian. It was so quiet, in fact, that the noise of the air conditioning from the ceiling vents whirred like a white noise machine, by far the loudest thing in the place. At the front desk sat a chic-looking girl with straight-across bangs, like a Sixth Avenue Zooey Deschanel.

“Hello, can I help you?” she asked.

“I’m Rose Madden, I…”

“Oh!” She rose gracefully from her chair and extended an equally graceful, lean white hand. “So good to meet you. Rosie, isn’t it?”

I hoped to heavens that my palm wasn’t sweaty and gave her hand a shake. Her bangs were so straight and clean, it made me wonder if she’d just had them trimmed that morning. She could’ve been a ballerina, she was that pretty, that thin, that exotic. And with a matte fuchsia lip to die for, the type of thing I could never pull off, no matter how hard I tried. “I’m Emilia,” she said. “Let me take you back to meet Ms. Poindexter.”

She led me back into the offices, which were equally silent and quiet. There were desks where people should have been, but weren’t. Everything was immaculate, like an ad for office furniture. But there was nobody, and still no noise besides the air-conditioner wind.

It was weird. Very weird. But I didn’t have time to ask the chic Emilia about it before she opened the door of another corner office and said, “Sam, this is Rosie Madden.”

The woman gasped like I was her long-lost niece. “Darling! I totally forgot you were coming today! Where is my mind? So good to meet you!” She hopped up from her desk and held out her arms for a hug. She was as chic as Emilia, but in a very different way—lots of linen, short-cropped white hair, tawny skin. Absolutely beautiful.

After the hugs and fancy air kisses, I sat down in the comfy chair across from her big maple desk, like a farm kitchen table from another time. “Can I just ask…where is everybody?” I glanced out at the empty workspaces. “I’m ready to start on whatever you’d like.”

Ms. Poindexter looked a bit confused, but then slowly a realization seemed to dawn on her. “Honey, our in-house illustrators don’t actually work in-house.”

I clutched my black purse to my chest. Yet another page in the rule book that hadn’t gotten to me in time. How had I missed so many memos? “They don’t?”

She shook her head slowly. “They live all around the world. I invited you to the city to meet for the afternoon. There’s a place down the street that does the most amazing coconut prawn soup.” She kissed the tips of her fingers. “Heaven.”

Now I was even more confused. I’d spent the last week looking for an apartment that cost as much in a month as I paid in property taxes in a year in Truelove. But here, linen-fancy Ms. Poindexter was talking about coconut soup?

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Nobody works here?”

Ms. Poindexter made something that looked halfway between a cringe and a smile. “We keep the workspace for tax purposes, and they drop in when they can.”

“Is that…” I blinked hard, trying to reorient myself with this new and totally amazing idea. “Is that…an option? Can I work from Maine?”

Ms. Poindexter held her handmade mug of tea with both hands and smiled behind the swirling steam. “Only if you’ll let me come visit! Because boy do I love a good lobster roll!”

* * *

After lunch, I used some of the cash that Max had given me to treat myself to a cab. I was too impatient to wait for the ancient elevator where I was staying, so I took the steps two at a time and flung open the door to my Airbnb, where I found Julia with a strip of the curtains in her mouth.

“Good news, you old battle-ax!” I told her as I closed the door behind me. “It’s time to go home.”

Like a woman possessed, I flew into action. I packed up the assorted tiny, slightly sticky, travel-sized bottles from the bathroom—they were always sticky, I could never understand it. I got all of Julia’s things organized into her canvas bag, emblazoned with the phrase, TO BE A CAT IS DIVINE. I shoved all my stuff into my suitcase willy-nilly, not even attempting to fold my things. Once I’d half zipped my suitcase, I pulled out my phone to check the trains.

First one was leaving tomorrow.

Not going to cut it, I thought as I zipped my half of the heart back and forth across my neck, hooking the chain over my lip and staring at my phone. Calling Max would ruin the surprise, and I just couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when I appeared unexpectedly with this amazing, life-changing news. For him, for me, for both of us.

I woke up my phone and did some Googling. It really didn’t matter how much it cost—it was worth it. Within a matter of minutes, I’d signed up for Zipcar, reserved one just a few blocks away, and left forty dollars for the curtains with a note that said, “So sorry!”

Sharing a ham sandwich, and with all the windows down, Julia and I zoomed out of the city against traffic. We headed north, with the sun shining in the driver’s side window, on our way home.

Home.

* * *

The sun was just setting when we turned onto my driveway, and I saw Max in the front yard with his shirt off. Heavens. He turned when he heard the engine and shielded his eyes from the low summer sunshine with his cupped palm.

Like a bat out of hell, I tore down the driveway, gravel spraying out from behind my tires, and slamming on the brakes like I was skidding into a pit stop. I flung my door open, undid my seat belt, and sprang out of my seat. “Hi!”

“Holy shit!” he said and opened his arms wide. “It’s you!”

I slammed my door and trotted toward him. I kicked off my heels and didn’t fix my pencil skirt as it rode up my legs. “A better question is, what are you doing!” I asked and stared at the For Sale sign in his hands. “Did someone buy the place?”

Max’s face got serious. He nodded once, and my heart dropped.

“No,” I gasped. “No, no, no. All the way home, I was having a fantasy about a vegetable garden with a deer fence and planting beds full of peonies and you playing with kids in the yard. This front yard, our front yard.” I took the For Sale sign from him and clutched it to my chest. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t my real estate agent call? Who bought it?”

Still, though, he frowned. He had his eyes down, looking at the gravel. He ran his hand through his hair. He gritted his teeth, and the muscles in his jaw fluttered. Then he lifted those beautiful eyes and hit me with that All-American heart-stopper smile. “This guy.”

“You did!” I squealed, my eyes suddenly welling up with tears of utter, pure, perfect happiness.

“I did,” he said. “We did.”

I dropped the sign and wrapped my arms around him. He picked me up off the ground and twirled me so that soon the forest was nothing but a deep green blur. “But what are you doing here?” he said into my ear. “Something wrong?”

“Everything’s right,” I said as I spun. “I’ll explain later, but I just had to see you. I had to get back. I had to come home.”

“Home,” he said, beaming as he set me down, while the world spun and spun behind him. “So you’re here to stay? To stay-stay?”

I couldn’t suppress my squeal and clapped my hands together. The wind in the trees picked up, and my wind chimes dinged a little louder. “Yes!”

“Well, in that case,” he said, taking a deep breath and reaching into his pocket. “I’ve got a question to ask.”

Then, to my utter shock, my total astonishment, and my overwhelming joy, my very best friend in the world and the love of my life took something from his pocket…

And got down on one knee.