Inexpressible Island Read online

  There, he knew what to do. He nodded.

  “Should we find out if it’s a boy or a girl? I don’t think I want to, is that okay? I can’t wait, I just want to have it right fucking now—no no, I don’t mean that, I want to be pregnant, and also we’re going to need at least nine months to learn to control our potty mouths, the poor kid can’t be around parents who curse like sailors—oh, hey, if it’s a boy we can name him after you. Jules Junior, hah! Or that name you said you’ve always liked, Sam? You said it means lucky. Well, if this is not a lucky baby, I don’t know what is. Sam Cruz. I love it. And if it’s a girl, we can call her Juliet. Oh, yes! Juliet Cruz, it’s a stage name already—a star in the making. The sweetest flower in all the field. Or we can name her anything you want. You gave me my Viennese dessert bar at our wedding and took me to Hawaii. In return you get to name all our kids. I really want to call my mom, though. Do you think I have time? They have to redo my makeup anyway. I know I should’ve told you tonight, but I couldn’t wait. You know what they say—good news must be shared at once. And you sure looked like you could use some good news. I’ll Facetime my mom later. I have to see her expression when I tell her. I hope it’s as priceless as yours. She’s going to want to take the next plane out, oh, my love—I simply can’t believe it. We are going to have a baby. Everything in our life is changed.”

  Behind her, they were wheeling the red bus and black cab into position, wiping the glass on the windows for a streak-free reflection, hosing down the sidewalks and the flowers . . . because it was always raining in London. Julian hoped his face didn’t look like he felt, like he was about to break down. He wanted to look like a man who was simply outranked by the good news flanking him. The tension had fled his body. While he had been doing his own thing, panicking, fretting, dreading the worst, the universe was doing its own thing, loading the dice, dealing the cards, breaking the crystal quartz. Relief flooded him, and joy. He knew everything was going to be okay, at least for a while. He felt it in his gut.

  Mirabelle was gazing at him expectantly. Something demanded to be said. What’s my line? Please give me my line.

  Ad lib, Julian.

  He closed his eyes and spoke the only words to say when there was nothing left to say.

  “Oh my God, thank you,” said Julian.

  There was familiar noise, and Ashton and Zakiyyah strode across the fake street, both of them grinning from ear to ear, as if they had already known. Grabbing two chairs, they fit around the small metal table, Ashton next to Julian.

  “We were dying!” Zakiyyah said. “Jules, Ash and I stood over in the corner the whole time, watching her tell you!”

  “Z was right, it was better than any horror movie has a right to be,” Ashton said. “Now we know what kinds of shenanigans really go on in this so-called dungeon.”

  Zakiyyah waved her phone through the air. “I taped the whole thing,” she said. “It’s going viral, baby, I’m posting it on Instagram in five minutes.”

  “Look at my poor buddy, it’s like a bomb has gone off.” Ashton threw his arm around Julian. “Has he managed even a single word, Mia? What’s the matter, Jules? How do you feel, happy or scared shitless?” Ashton laughed. “Hard to tell, right? Both emotions feel about the same.”

  “Ashton!” said Zakiyyah. “Anyone can see—he’s so thrilled, he’s been rendered speechless.”

  “Oh, Z, quick, you have to get pregnant, too,” Mia said, “so we can have our babies together.”

  “Well, if anyone can be quick about it,” Zakiyyah said, winking at Ashton.

  “Thanks a lot, Jules,” Ashton said.

  “Places, everyone!” the AD yelled, “it’s almost time—all non-essential personnel off the set! Wait,” he said to the director, pointing at the four of them, “maybe we can have those two sit at another table? Instead of just the one guy sitting by himself. We’re trying to make it real. Plus, look how flash they’re dressed, like they’re already in costume.”

  “Fine,” Pagaro said. “Call Florence. Ask her to bring the paperwork right away.” He addressed Ashton and Zakiyyah. “What do you say—want to be extras on your friend’s movie?”

  “I dunno,” Zakiyyah said. “Who’s got that kind of time?”

  “Oh, let’s do it, Z,” said Ashton. “We can always go to Disneyland tomorrow.” He smiled at Mia. “You two want to join us?”

  “Disneyland? Ashton, are you out of your mind?” Mia said.

  “You’ll be fine, we’ll put you on It’s a Small World with Z,” Ashton said. “I’m not telling you to go on the Tower of Terror, am I?”

  Across the table, Julian and Mia gazed tearfully at each other.

  “Florence! Sometime this century, please! She’s got one job—casting. Why isn’t she here doing it? Does she even understand the concept of time? Florence!”

  In you is every woman I have ever loved.

  Julian reached for Mia’s hand, looking at her with all the emotion there ever was on the prefab streets and painted sets of this fakest and realest of cities. Their time for irresistible grace had come. And they were both in place to receive it. Turned out there was something stronger than death. Their brief ecstasy had been remade into enduring glory. Love is the only perfection, Mirabelle, Julian wanted to say but was too overwhelmed to speak, and it wears the shiny robes and swaddling clothes of immortality.

  Their story continued. It wasn’t finished. Julian knew all too well: only the storyteller was left behind, only his telling of it was finished. Yes, the curtain fell, but the story itself never ended, the story of what it was to live a life, and to love another.

  That’s it, ladies and gentlemen! Thanks so much for joining us!

  Make it real.

  Make it last.

  Make it beautiful.

  Acknowledgments

  I spent so many years alone in my room, working on making the End of Forever books come to life that I forgot how many people were outside that room, advising, cajoling, inspiring, bolstering, believing. I’d like to gratefully acknowledge their help and support.

  Many thanks:

  To Carl, my first husband, for introducing me to London and for giving me my first child, Natasha, when we were both so young.

  To Natasha, who has brought me so much joy and who has grown up into such a remarkable young woman, who, among many other things, kept the running lists of hundreds of titles we considered for the EOF books, and who very early on said, “I love Julian,” when she read The Tiger Catcher, and I knew then we were going to be okay because she is a tough critic.

  To my last child, Tania, who kindly allowed her mother to drive her to school every morning at 7:30 and therefore get to her studio early; otherwise these books might have taken another five years to finish.

  To my sons, Misha and Kevin, for banding together and keeping the household machinery running and the jokes flowing.

  To Lee Sobel, for his friendship and advice in good times and dire, and to Declan Redfern, for his invaluable counsel.

  To Jennifer Richards of Over the River PR and to Fiona Marsh and Kate Appleton of Midas PR, my U.S. and U.K. publicity teams, for their tireless efforts on behalf of the End of Forever books.

  To Lorissa Shepstone, my website, graphics, and design guru, who’s created some real artifacts from my imaginary places.

  To Nicole and Sissi, my constant devoted readers and friends, for running my fan club, my social media support groups and for being my cheerleaders both online and in life.

  To Zakiyyah Job, a beautiful young woman who appeared on my driveway in 2015 as if by magic because she loved The Bronze Horseman and lent me her name for End of Forever, enriching my fictional world by her real-life presence.

  To Kasia Malita, my Polish translator extraordinaire and my friend, for mailing me chocolates to keep me going, and for weeping when she read A Beggar’s Kingdom and calling me “a sorceress.” I hope she means the good kind.

  To Shona Martyn, my publisher for fifteen years, who sai
d to me in 2016, “You write it however you can, and whatever it will be in the end, we will figure out a way to publish it.”

  To Michael Moynahan, who in 2011 spent considerable professional and personal resources to start me on this remarkable journey.

  To Brian Murray—who made it all possible.

  To Kevin, who for the last five years, the last 25 married years, the last 38 “best friends” years walked every day of both the real and creative life with me, which so often amounts to the same thing. Kevin is the one who said the books are everything. Just have faith.

  Sometimes I joke with my readers that the only true happy ending to a Russian is when at the end of her journey, she finally learns the reason for her own suffering.

  Well, these three End of Forever books are the reason and the end of the story of the last five years of my life.

  I hope they bring you some happiness.

  Paullina

  2019

  About the Author

  PAULLINA SIMONS is the author of Tully, The Bronze Horseman, and other beloved novels. Born and raised in the Soviet Union, she immigrated to the United States in the mid-seventies. She has lived in Rome, London, and Dallas, and now lives in New York with her husband and a dwindling number of her four children.

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  Also by Paullina Simons

  FICTION

  Tully

  Red Leaves

  Eleven Hours

  The Girl in Times Square

  Road to Paradise

  A Song in the Daylight

  Lone Star

  The Bronze Horseman Series

  The Bronze Horseman

  Tatiana and Alexander

  The Summer Garden

  Children of Liberty

  Bellagrand

  The End of Forever Saga

  The Tiger Catcher

  A Beggar’s Kingdom

  Inexpressible Island

  NONFICTION

  Six Days in Leningrad

  COOKBOOK

  Tatiana’s Table

  CHILDREN’S BOOKS

  I Love My Baby Because . . .

  Poppet Gets Two Big Brothers

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  INEXPRESSIBLE ISLAND. Copyright © 2019 by Paullina Simons. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Cover design © HarperCollins 2019

  Cover photographs © Lee Avison / Trevillion Images (parliament); courtesy of the author (hands)

  Originally published as Inexpressible Island in Australia in 2019 by HarperCollins Publishers Australia PTY Limited.

  FIRST U.S. EDITION

  Digital Edition NOVEMBER 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-209820-7

  Version 10142019

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-209819-1

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