How could she have been so stupid?
She’d been played for a fool, a complete, utter fool. Worse than that, she’d probably given Jack the idea in the first place by pestering him into seeing The Shop Around the Corner!
No, what was worst of all was how she’d laughed to herself that, no, of course she wasn’t playing out that very scenario in her emails with him. She’d thought herself too smart, too clever, too sophisticated to fall for something that ridiculous.
Well, the joke was on her, wasn’t it?
And what had he given her as a parting gift? A stupid envelope! What was inside it? Another joke? One last insult?
She should have just taken the chocolate instead. She’d have been within her rights, and by now she could easily have plowed through half the box.
She ought to throw the envelope away, unopened. Or, even better, burn it. Burn it just like they burned Rosebud without ever figuring out what it really meant.
No. Real life was not like the movies. It might be more dramatic to get rid of the envelope, but she’d only regret not looking inside. And she knew herself well enough to know that she’d speculate endlessly about what she’d thrown away, obsess about it until she convinced herself that it was the answer to everything, the Holy Grail.
Better to read it now, suffer whatever final indignity lurked inside, and close the book on Jack Nelson, and the Duck-Man, forever. The end, that’s a wrap, no sequels, please.
She had an antique letter opener on the little desk in her bedroom. If she was going to do this, she might as well do it properly. Still in her Vera-Ellen outfit, she sat down at the desk, slit the envelope open, and pulled out a stack of papers. It had to be twenty pages, at least, single-spaced. It looked like a manifesto, something that crazy conspiracy theorists wrote.
But it wasn’t.
From: Jack Nelson, Oregon Office of Historical Preservation, Cultural Affairs Division
To: Amanda Jackson, Assistant Director, Oregon Office of Historical Preservation, Cultural Affairs Division
Re: Onsite Investigation of Esmerelda Theater, Town of Romance
Date: December 13, 2018
I have completed my onsite investigation into the application for a determination of status as a State Historical Landmark for the Esmerelda Theater (109 Douglass Rd., Romance, OR 97128).
After a thorough investigation, including numerous interviews with local residents, multiple visits to the Theater itself at various times of day, and exhaustive research in the town’s archives, I recommend that the Esmerelda Theater’s application be approved, and the Theater declared an official State Historical Landmark.
Marianne reread the first page again, and then again. The words did not change.
Jack had been investigating the theater – investigating her – all along. He never worked for the Tourism Board. He’d lied to her all along. About everything.
Except, unlike Jimmy Stewart, or Van Johnson, or even Tom Hanks, his lies were not for any selfish purpose. They were to help her. Of course he hadn’t told her he was investigating the theater, trying to decide whether it should be named a landmark or not. He couldn’t tell her, not if he wanted to do his job right.
And not if he wanted his boss to believe him. Especially once he’d started to fall for her, which he had. He definitely had. It all made sense now – the teasing, and all the times he arranged for her to just happen to bump into him, and the whole stupid thing with the emails from the Duck-Man.
And he had followed the plot of the movie to the letter. That whole business about him seeing the Duck-Man at Sweet Hearts Pastry making his reservations, that was almost word for word from every version of The Shop Around the Corner.
She had her landmark status, but she’d lost the guy she had totally fallen for – fallen for twice over! – and she wasn’t about to let things end that way.
She had to do something, and she had to do it now.