Halfway to You by Jennifer Gold
ANN
Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia
September 1999
Ten thousand miles from home, I realized: He’s not coming.
I don’t remember exactly when that realization formed. I’d planted myself at a patio table at our agreed-upon hotel and waited an hour—maybe two?—before my doubt set in.
I’ll never forget how the air smelled of plumeria and tropical rain. How the heavy sea breeze sought to extinguish my cigarette. How, beyond my table, the surf of Matavai Bay surged and flowed over the black sand beach.
It was the fifteenth anniversary of our first meeting, and I knew Todd wasn’t coming.
I also knew that I loved him—a deep certainty that rippled through my heart like the tide. Todd had always been the ocean to my beach, warm and smooth and lovely even as he swept through my everything. He could wipe me clean with perfect devastation. And I was the sand, the sum of a million fragmented, pulverized parts, stirred up in his wake.
Had he never planned to come?
I should’ve expected to be stood up—but then again, when it came to Todd, I never learned. I could never quite reach him. I was always halfway there, trying desperately to close the distance. Waiting in some foreign land and hoping beyond hope that he’d prove me wrong and show up, after all.
But as you know by now, Maggie, it was never quite that simple.
MAGGIE
You can’t build trust on a half truth.
—Excerpt from Chasing Shadows, by Ann Fawkes
Anacortes, Washington State, USA
Friday, January 5, 2024
“Should you be talking while driving?” Grant’s voice vibrates through the surround sound car speakers.
“You called me. And I have Bluetooth.” Maggie taps the cracked screen of her dash-mounted iPhone, switching the call display back to Google Maps. “What’s up?”
“I thought you’d be there already.”
Maggie doesn’t bother to scrub the frustration from her voice. “So did I.”
The six-hour trip is currently pushing nine. After an early-morning departure from Oregon, Maggie braved a traffic-congested drive up I-5 north and faulty directions that landed her on the wrong ferry to the wrong island. She’s now following a scenic sixty-mile highway to board one more ferry through the glacier-carved islands of northern-Washington-almost-Canada.
As if she wasn’t nervous enough already, without the stress of getting lost.
“Did you take a wrong turn?”
“It’s almost as if she doesn’t want to be found,” Maggie jokes.
She’s heading to San Juan Island on assignment—her first field assignment with the podcast Stories Behind the Stories. Tomorrow, she has an appointment to interview her favorite author of all time, an elusive jet-setting one-hit wonder named Ann Fawkes. SBTS reasoned that conducting the interviews in Ann’s secluded residence would make her feel more relaxed; Maggie has her doubts the plan will soothe Ann’s wariness, but an opportunity is an opportunity.
“So,” Maggie continues. “Is this a friend call or a producer call?”
“I’m just checking in.” Her boss sounds anything but casual.
Maggie waits for his next question, the static road noise consuming his pause.
“Are you nervous?”
“I’m fine, Grant,” Maggie says. “I have interviewed people before, you know.”
“Brit said you were nervous.”
Traitor. Brit is a junior sound engineer and Maggie’s BFF. After separate internships postgraduation, they were hired by friend-of-a-friend and SBTS producer Grant as a duo because of their college radio reporting.
“Of course I’m a little nervous,” Maggie relents. “This story is a big deal. But that just means I’m even more motivated to do a good job—all right?”
Grant chuckles. “Fine, fine. Come to me if you have any concerns before the interview tomorrow morning. I’ll check in via text.”
“Roger that,” Maggie says and ends the call.
The January afternoon is dreary enough for Maggie to switch on her headlights. Everything appears gray—from the rain-heavy sky to the moisture-burdened boughs of evergreen trees to the pavement—except for the solid yellow road lines leading her through the forest. When Maggie reaches a straightaway, the lines break into dashes that blip past at the same quick rate as her heart.
She’s about to interview legendary author Ann Fawkes. Maggie is definitely nervous, but she’d never tell her boss the extent of it—not the fact that she’d practically memorized Ann’s novel, Chasing Shadows, as a teen nor the flush of starstruck wonder she experiences even now, just thinking about meeting her—no. Maggie is already acutely ashamed, knowing a personal connection to Ann tipped the scales in her favor when she convinced the producers to put a rookie like herself on such an important project.
Granted, Maggie has never met Ann—but much of her family did, way back when, and while Maggie always knew there was an unspoken dislike, she hadn’t expected it to run so deep. Her parents had been furious when she told them the exciting news. She’s not a very trustworthy person, dear, her mother, Tracey, had said, near tears. Take everything she says with a grain of salt. Be careful.
No one fully trusts Maggie to run this interview—not the producers, not her parents. And if Maggie’s trip up from Portland is any indication, perhaps she is destined to fail. The only reason she hasn’t turned around is for the sake of her timid teenage self, the suburban girl whose worn, Post-it-Noted copy of Chasing Shadows still endures as her most treasured possession. That, and her dream of one day becoming a producer. Her father, Bob, always says that an opportunity is not something you receive; it’s something you seize.