Love Fortunes and Other Disasters (33 page)

*   *   *

The Tunnel of Love was a twenty-four-hour tourist attraction. Still, with the majority of the town celebrating the statue's return, Fallon was surprised to see someone operating the ticket booth. The wizened old man wearing a newsboy cap refused to take Sebastian's money.

“Why not?” Sebastian asked, curious. “What makes us different than the next couple?”

The old man ignored his question and left the booth, jingling a key ring as he walked. One particular key drew Fallon's attention: it shimmered, larger than the rest. She felt as if she knew that key, but the thought was gone as soon as it came.

“Enjoy the ride,” he said, turning the key inside the control box next to the ride. A seductive tango suddenly filled the dark tunnel, beckoning them inside.

The Tunnel of Love's entrance was heart-shaped. Fallon climbed into the boat first, sinking into the cushioned seat. Sebastian joined her with a boyish grin on his face. “I've never done this before.”

“Me neither. I didn't want to go alone,” she said, blushing.

Sebastian rested his arm against the back of the seat. He twisted a lock of her hair around his finger; the gentle tugging made her skin tingle.

The boat moved forward on a track, meandering through the smooth canal water. As relaxing as the gentle boat ride was, the decorations were excessive. Cupid dolls with fuzzy, plush faces and googly eyes hung from the ceiling, pointing their arrows at each other in a silent war. Love letters, scanned and printed to poster size, showcased happy couples writing sweet words to each other over the years. Porcelain couples embraced under pink lights. Fallon leaned forward to see hundreds of chocolate boxes, fake flowers, and a zoo's worth of animals wearing suits and dresses, handing candy hearts to their loves.

When the tunnel darkened, the love letters on the tunnel walls turned into reproductions of Zita's loveliest fortunes. A wave of panic pierced her heart. Fallon stuck her hand underneath Sebastian's shirt, searching until she felt his heart beating beneath her fingers. Not a trace of the fortune left.

“Fallon?” he said huskily.

“Just checking,” she said.

Sebastian shifted so that he was facing her. The boat rocked, but he held her steady by the waist. “I thought love would kill me,” he said, his expression solemn. “That was never my future, but it could take a long time for it to sink in.”

“Get used to it. I'm never going to be a spinster.”

Sebastian cracked a smile. “That, my princess, may be a good alternative for when you get sick of me.”

Fallon tucked her hair behind her ears, raising her chin. “Don't be silly. I am the girl who stole Bastion's heart. That's not a role I'm willing to give up, not for anything.”

“You didn't have to steal it,” he whispered.

They fell into silence as the music ended. The water lapped at the sides of the tunnel. Wheels and cogs creaked as the plastic people and animals continued dancing, giving flowers, blushing with the help of painted cheeks and electric bulbs.

This is the boy I love,
she thought, memorizing the slant of his eyebrows, his dark bangs falling across his forehead. The dim, glowing lights made him look dreamlike, and she supposed she looked the same.

This time Fallon didn't need to touch his heart to know it was still beating. Instead, she buried her fingers in his hair. His kiss was better than pressing the last wrinkle out of a blouse.

 

Acknowledgments

Without Swoon Reads, this book simply wouldn't exist. Thank you, Jean Feiwel and the Swoon Reads staff for falling in love with Fallon Dupree and Grimbaud. My editor, Holly West, is pure magic. I like to imagine her wearing an Indiana Jones hat as she found her way through my prose, cutting away the overgrowth and excavating the gems underneath. Special thanks to Christine Barcellona for being a great brainstorming partner during my first revision meeting. There are no words to express my joy over the charming cover designed by Richard Deas and illustrated by Zara Picken. It's the stuff of dreams. I could not have felt more welcomed when I had the privilege of visiting Swoon Headquarters. As wonderful as the staff is, I wouldn't be here without the Swoon Reads community. Thank you for the votes, feedback, and support. And a big, warm hello to my fellow sister-authors: Sandy Hall, Jenny Elliott, Katie Van Ark, Temple West, and Karole Cozzo.

Many thanks to the readers who saw this book change and grow. First, Figgies Underground, a motley crew of talented writers and precious friends, including: Lydia Albano, Kristin Yuki, Cara Clayton Olsen, Emily Rose Warren, Hannah Horinek, LiAnn Yim, Samantha Chaffin, Patrick and Janelle Labelle, Savannah Finger, Reagan Dyer, and Enaam Alnaggar. Christina Im and Maria Dones, for the constant support in the form of funny, delightful e-mails. Don and Valarie Eckhart, for making the long days at the office fun. Christina Pletchan, for asking the hard questions during my early draft and feeding me peanut butter cup cookies. Steven Georgeson, for being patient with my questions about hearts. Also to Lauren Christian, a friendship I could never do without.

I owe a lot to my readers from
figment.com
for believing in me. Without you, I could not have been as tenacious, brave, and unfailingly strange with the stories I spun and shared with you.

Thanks to my professors Rita Ciresi, John Henry Fleming, and Ira Sukrungruang for advice and three full years of eating, sleeping, and breathing the craft of fiction. My University of South Florida MFA cohorts, you know who you are, for providing critical eyes and companionship as we all continue to follow our dreams. Phillippe Diederich, my author photo is stunning thanks to you; I keep looking forward to our friendly who-wrote-the-most-this-week competitions.

To my friends and fellow English majors from Florida Southern College: I didn't know at the time that ripping open a mystery bag of romance books would have led to a novel, but I'm glad we did it. Thank you for many nights of silly conversations held over our dog-eared literature textbooks.

Then there's my family. Even though he lives hours away, my brother, Bill Karalius, deserves my heartfelt thanks for listening when I rambled about charms and chocolate over the phone. This book has surely benefited from my dog, Misty, who fell asleep on my lap while I typed. My parents—my practical father and creative mother—have always supported my dreams, even though I was a weird kid. I couldn't ask for anything more.

 

 

Read on for some

Swoonworthy Extras …

 

Sebastian's Dating Rules

1. You will not fall in love with me.
*

2. Failing Rule #1 results in an immediate breakup.

3. If you're dating me with ulterior motives, tell me. I prefer being prepared.
**

4. I'm kind to you because I like to be kind, not because I'm in love with you.

5. I will not go further than kissing. This is nonnegotiable.

6. In the event of a breakup, stop keeping vigil outside my door.

 

*
If you fall in love with me, I will know. There are many ways this can happen: confessing your love to me in person, writing me a letter, leaving me thoughtful presents, looking at me funny, trying to claim I bought you an engagement ring, or candlelit dinners.

 

**
I'm fine with you dating me to get back at your ex, make your parents angry, or annoy your friends. But since those people would potentially lash out at me, I'd rather know ahead of time so I can plan for it.

 

A Coffee Date

with author
Kimberly Karalius
and her editor, Holly West

“About the Author”

Holly West (HW): What's your very favorite way to spend a rainy day?

Kimberly Karalius (KK): Usually when it's rainy out, the house cools down, which is something you notice in Florida because it's always so hot all the time. I like sitting on the floor with a blanket playing really old board games like Candy Land. I love playing them because they are kind of goofball-y—nothing too challenging, but always fun.

HW: If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?

KK: The most practical thing for me would be the ability to change my size at any time. I could become tall enough to reach the highest shelf on the bookshelf with no problem, because I'm a really short person. Or become small enough to go explore dollhouses and things like that.

HW: That's an interesting choice. I like that. Do you have any hobbies?

KK: Besides, of course, reading and writing, I watch silent films. Anything with Buster Keaton is an instant favorite for me. Then there are cartoons too. Nineties cartoons hold a special place in my heart, having grown up watching them, but I just can't get enough. If it's animated, I'm interested! And, of course, I love going to theme parks, especially Disney, but I don't discriminate.

“The Swoon Reads Experience”

HW: How did you first learn about the site?

KK: I read an article on its launch on
GalleyCat
in September, because I'd made it a habit to always give my creative-writing students news about what was going on in the creative-writing world. When I saw that article I got really excited, because Swoon Reads was definitely something I wanted to participate in as soon as I had a novel that I thought fit.

HW: That probably answers the “when did you decide to post your manuscript up” question too.

KK: Well, I did write
Love Fortunes
specifically for Swoon Reads. My other manuscripts have romance in them, but not as a central focus. So I felt like I had to write something new. I ran through the first draft as quickly and safely as possible, revised it a few times, and then put it up as soon as I felt like it was ready.

HW: I love it when the books are written specifically for us. Before you were chosen, what was your experience like on the site?

KK: I really enjoyed it because it was so different from my other experiences posting, sharing, and writing online. I came from Figment first, and that was really fun because it was like play-by-play comments. I would post a chapter and see what everybody was thinking and sort of plan it like, “This is what I want to happen, but they said this and it's interesting, so let me see if I can do that too.” But with Swoon Reads, the entire manuscript was finished, so I got to find out from readers what they thought of the entire story on its own. That was a completely different type of critique and I enjoyed getting those comments. It was always exciting to log in and see if I had gotten any new ratings or comments, and also, of course, to read other people's manuscripts.

“About the Book”

HW: So let's talk about
Love Fortunes
. I know that you wrote it specifically for Swoon, but how did you get the idea for this book?

KK:
Love Fortunes
came from an idea that I've always wanted to put into a novel, but since I tend to write YA, it had been a challenge to think of how it could fit. When I hung out with my college friends, we would talk about literature studies. We read a lot of classic literature, so the word “spinster” wasn't scary to us. We used it all the time. We used to joke that since we had a shortage of boys on our campus, we were going to graduate and become glamorous spinsters. We would all have mansions. I would have one hundred dogs, because I'm a dog person, so no cats. And we'd have butlers, of course. Trying to put some germ of those discussions into a YA novel was tough. But I wondered, “Spinsters are usually older women, right? Why would a teenager be concerned about that?” And then I started asking more questions like, “OK, well, what if somebody told her that she was going to be one and there was no way to change that?”
Love Fortunes
took off from there.

HW: So how does the revision process work for you? When you get your giant edit letter and you have to go back and face the manuscript again, how do you do it?

KK: I went through the edit letter and marked down all of the smaller changes to make. So the more specific you were in your edit letter, the easier it was for me to revise those. The larger-scale changes were the ones I saved for last. I needed time to think them over before actually unstitching those parts of the narrative. And when I couldn't solve it, I knew I needed to brainstorm with you. So I kind of went with revising the small, concrete issues first, then tackling the global issues later in the process.

“The Writing Life”

HW: Where do you write? Do you have a specific place or any specific writing rituals that you do when you're writing?

KK: In terms of where I write, I prefer couches. They're big and soft, and I can tuck my feet underneath me while I write. After college, I feel like I can write anywhere. The less desk-like, the better. But I do have a nice pull-out secretary writing desk that I write on when I'm serious, and nobody bothers me if I have my headphones in. I also like to listen to music when I'm writing. A lot of times sound tracks help me focus and also set the mood for whatever scene I'm working on.

In terms of writing rituals, I've always wanted them, but I don't think I've really formed any. The only thing I can think of is technical. When I'm writing, I like to zoom my Word document out to 60 to 70 percent. Being at 100 percent is too close to the trenches for me when I'm writing a first draft. I like being able to see more of the page while I'm working—a bird's-eye view of the manuscript. If I can't adjust the zoom, I'm totally guilty of shrinking the text to ten point.

HW: What's your process? Are you an outliner or do you just make it up as you go?