Finding Colin Firth: A Novel Read online

  Praise for The Meryl Streep Movie Club

  “A heartwarming, spirit-lifting read just in time for beach season.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Consume with a bowl of popcorn and plenty of hankies.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A touching story of self-discovery and the strength of family.”

  —Booklist

  “Mamma Mia! Any romance that offers life lessons from Meryl wins on style points alone.”

  —USA TODAY

  “Emotional and heartwarming.”

  —Woman’s Day

  “March’s debut novel is a romantic, heartfelt read, one that will likely be pulled out of beach bags from California to the coast of Maine this summer season.”

  —Bookreporter

  “March’s debut is a treat for movie lovers and fans of meaningful women’s fiction. The main characters have their flaws, but are easy to relate to, and one can’t help but root for their success in life and love.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “A well done and original novel. March has crafted a thought-provoking story with relatable characters, and she placed them in a lovely and suitable setting. This is a fun, highly-readable story that begs to be discussed and should be a winner with book clubs!”

  —Beth Hoffman, New York Times bestselling author of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt and Looking for Me

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  For my beloved Max, who made a mother out of me

  “I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”

  —Fitzwilliam Darcy, Pride and Prejudice

  “I realize that when I met you at the Turkey Curry Buffet that I was unforgivably rude and wearing a reindeer jumper that my mother had given me the day before. But the thing is, um, what I’m trying to say, very inarticulately, is that, um, in fact, perhaps despite appearances, I like you. Very much.”

  —Mark Darcy, Bridget Jones’s Diary

  “I’m fully aware that if I were to change professions tomorrow, become an astronaut and be the first man to land on Mars, the headlines in the newspapers would read: ‘Mr. Darcy Lands on Mars.’ ”

  —Colin Firth

  Chapter 1

  BEA CRANE

  The letter that would change Bea’s life arrived while she was in the kitchen at Boston’s Crazy Burger, working on four orders of Mt. Vesuvius specials—three patties stacked a foot tall and layered with caramelized onions, bacon, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, sour pickles, and hot sauce. One of her new roommates, Nina, subletting for the summer in the dumpy three-bedroom apartment that Bea now shared with two strangers, poked her head in and said she’d signed for a certified envelope for Bea, and since she was coming to Crazy Burger for lunch, she brought it over.

  “Certified? Who’s it from?” Bea asked, taking a fast glance at the parcel as she scooped up the caramelized onions from the pan. Mmm. She’d been frying onions for three hours and still, the smell never got old.

  Nina glanced at the upper left-hand corner of the envelope. “Return address says Baker Klein, Twelve State Street, Boston.”

  Bea shrugged. “Will you open it up and read the first few lines to me? I need both hands to finish this burger.” Her manager, Barbara, would go nuts if she caught anyone but employees in the kitchen, but Bea was curious to know what the package was about, and Crazy Barbara, as the staff called her behind her back, was in her office, going over inventory.

  “Sure,” Nina said. She slit open the envelope, pulled out a letter, and read, “My darling Bea.”

  Bea froze, her hand paused on lettuce leaves. “What?” That was how her mother had always addressed the letters she’d written to Bea at college. “Turn it over—who’s it from?”

  “It says Mama.”

  Bea raised an eyebrow. “Well, since my mother died over a year ago, it’s definitely not from her.”

  “It’s handwritten, script,” Nina said, “but it definitely says Mama.”

  That made no sense. But Bea’s mother always signed her letters Mama. “You can just drop it on that chair, Nina. I’ll finish this last burger and read it on my break. Thanks for bringing it over.”

  Bea was due for that much-needed fifteen-minute break; she’d been on shift at Crazy Burger since eleven and it was now close to two. She loved working at the popular burger joint in Boston’s Back Bay, even if it was supposed to be temporary since she’d graduated from college a year ago and still hadn’t found a teaching job, but her boss was driving her crazy. If Bea took sixteen minutes for her break, Barbara would dock her pay. The woman lived to dock pay. Last week, one of her Mt. Vesuvius burgers was randomly measured and discovered to be only eleven inches high; Bea’s paycheck was cut short five bucks.

  In between each layer of burger—three of them—Bea piled on the toppings, added an extra helping of hot sauce, put on the top bun, then measured it. Just shy of a foot, which meant she had to add more lettuce. Finally, she set it on a plate next to the three other Mt. Vesuvius burgers, plunked down a basket of onion rings and a basket of cheese fries, then rang the bell to alert the waitress to pick up. She called Manny, the other cook, in from his break, then took the manila envelope outside into the back alley. She lifted her face to the June sunshine. The breezy, warm day felt wonderful on her skin, in her hair, after she’d been cooped up in the small kitchen all afternoon.

  She pulled out the contents of the envelope and her body went completely still. The letter was from her mother; there was no mistaking Cora Crane’s handwriting. It was dated just over a year ago and attached to what looked like forms.

  My darling Bea,

  If you’re reading this, I’m gone now. A year gone. I’ve kept something from you all your life, something I should have told you the moment you were placed in my arms when you were just a day old. I didn’t give birth to you, Bea. Your father and I adopted you.

  I’m not entirely sure why, but I was ashamed that I couldn’t bear a child, something I wanted so desperately, something your father wanted so desperately. When the adoption agent placed you in my arms, you were mine. It was as though I had given birth to you, and I suppose I wanted to believe it myself. So your father—God rest his soul—and I made it so. We never breathed a word to you, never told you. And you grew up believing that you were born to us.

  Now that I feel myself going, I can’t bear to take this with me. But I can’t bear to tell you with my final breaths, either, I can’t do that to you. So I’ll wait on this, for both of us. But you should know the truth because it is the truth.

  How I wish I’d been brave enough to be honest from that first minute. To tell you how grateful I was, how you were mine before I even met you, from the second the adoption agent called with the news.

  I hope you will forgive me, my darling girl. You are my daughter, and I love you with all my heart.

  Mama

  Bea pulled the letter from its heavy paper clip and looked at the forms. Adoption papers, dated twenty-two years ago, from the Helping Hands Adoption Agency in Brunswick, Maine.

  Her hand shaking, Bea stuffed the letter and papers back inside the envelope, paced around the alley, then stopped, pulled out the letter, and read it again. The words, in black ink, started blending together. Should have told you. Adoption agent. Sorry. The truth is the t
ruth. If it weren’t for her mother’s handwriting and the good stationery she’d used for all correspondence, Bea might have thought someone was playing a trick on her.

  Adopted? What?

  The letter and papers had been sent by a law firm Bea had never heard of; her mother had been long widowed and not well off, and when Cora Crane died last year, there was only the sparsely furnished year-round rental cottage far from the beach on Cape Cod to settle up. Bea had gone through the drawers and closets looking for every last precious memento of her mother, and if this letter had been in that house, she would have found it. Her mother had clearly arranged for Bea to hear the news well after she was gone, after the grief had subsided some.

  She tried to imagine her mother, the sweetest person Bea had ever known, propped up in her hospice bed, writing that letter, in anguish, most likely. But another image kept coming: her mother, her father, twenty-two years ago, meeting Bea as a day-old newborn. “Here’s your daughter,” the adoption agent must have said. Or something like that.

  Who the hell am I? Bea wondered. She thought of the framed photograph on her bedside table. It was her favorite family picture, taken when she was four, and Bea loved looking at it every night before she fell asleep and every morning when she woke up. Bea, sitting on her father’s shoulders, her mother standing beside them, looking up at Bea and laughing, a tree ablaze with orange and red leaves behind them. Bea had been wearing the Batman cape she insisted on every day for months, and the red hat that her mother had made for her. Cora had saved those old favorites and now Bea kept them in a keepsake box in her closet. Another picture came to mind, one she kept on her desk in her room, of Bea and her mother at Bea’s college graduation last May, just over a year ago, and just a few weeks before her mother had gotten very sick and diagnosed with ovarian cancer, as though she was holding on to watch Bea graduate. Two months later, her mother was gone.

  Cora Crane, piano teacher with the patience of a saint, with the dark curls, bright blue eyes, and a smile for everyone, was her mother. Keith Crane, handsome construction worker who sang her an Irish song before bed every single night of her childhood until he’d died when she was nine, was her father. The Cranes had been wonderful, doting parents who’d made Bea feel loved every day of her life. If someone else had given birth to Bea, that didn’t change anything.

  But someone else had given birth to her. Who?

  A hollow pressure started building in Bea’s chest.

  “Bea!” Her boss, Crazy Barbara, came charging outside, glaring at Bea. “What the hell are you doing? It’s still lunch rush! Manny said you went out at least twenty minutes ago.”

  “I just got some very strange news,” Bea said, her head spinning. “I need a few minutes.”

  “Well, unless someone died, you need to head back to work—now.” Barbara started muttering under her breath. “Taking an extended break in the middle of lunch rush. Who does she think she is?”

  “Actually,” Bea said, barely able to think straight. There was no way she’d be able to get through the craze of orders. “I need to go home, Barbara. I just learned some weird news, and—”

  “You either get back to work or you’re fired. I’m sick to death of all these excuses—all day long, someone has a headache, someone’s grandmother’s sick. Do your job or I’ll find someone who actually earns their paycheck.”

  Bea had been working at Crazy Burger for three years, full-time since last summer, and was the best cook in the kitchen and the fastest. But nothing ever was good enough for Crazy Barbara. “You know what? I quit.” She took off her apron, handed it to a for-once-speechless Barbara, and went back inside to collect her bag from her locker.

  She shoved the letter in her bag and walked the half mile home in a daze, tripping over someone’s backpack the minute she walked through the front door of her apartment in the four-story brick building. God, she hated living here this summer with strangers. She headed down the narrow hall, stepping on a pair of boxer-briefs, then unlocked her door and locked it behind her. She dropped her bag on the floor of her room and sat down on her bed, hugging her mother’s old cross-stitched pillow to her chest. She didn’t move for hours.

  “Wow, Bea, your entire life has been a lie.”

  Slice of pizza en route to her mouth, Bea stared at Tommy Wonkowksi, star running back for the Beardsley College famed football team. A half hour ago, she’d been lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, grappling with yesterday’s bombshell, when her phone had rung: Tommy, at Poe’s Pizzeria, asking if he’d gotten the time wrong for their date. She’d forced herself up and out the two blocks to the restaurant; she hadn’t eaten since she’d gotten her mother’s letter, hadn’t left her room. But now, as she sat across from Tommy, she wished she’d canceled. With her universe tilted, she needed comforting and familiar, and Tommy Wonkowski was anything but. She wasn’t even sure why she’d said yes to this first date, but it wasn’t every day a hot jock asked Bea out. When they’d met last week at the university’s Writing Center, where she had a part-time tutoring job (Bea had been helping him write a final paper for the freshman English class he was now bothering to take as a senior in summer session), she had been charmed by his good looks, his very differentness from her, and the fact that he towered over her. Bea was five feet ten, and Tommy made her feel kind of dainty for once.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” she said, wishing she’d never told him about the letter. But they’d run out of things to say to each other by the time the waitress had set down their large pizza, and she’d blurted out what was consuming her every waking thought as she’d shaken Parmesan cheese on a slice. Guess what I just found out yesterday? Turns out I was adopted.

  But yes, it did sort of feel like her whole life had been a kind of lie. Friends, strangers—Bea herself—marveling over the years at how utterly different she was from both Cora and Keith Crane. They were dark-haired; Bea was blond. Her mother’s eyes were startling blue, and her father’s were hazel, yet Bea’s were driftwood brown. Her parents were average height; she was an Amazon. She wasn’t musical like her mother, nor mathematical like her father. They were both quiet introverts and she could talk and talk and talk. More than once, Bea could remember strangers, friends, looking at her and saying, “Where on earth did you come from?”

  And her father responding, “Oh, my father is quite tall, almost six-two,” and pictures of the late grandfather she’d never met reflecting that. Or her mother casually tossing off, “My mother—God rest her soul—had Bea’s brown eyes, even though I have blue like my father’s.” And that was true too. She’d seen pictures of her maternal grandmother, who died when she was very young. Brown eyes, like Bea’s.

  It was as though I had given birth to you, and I suppose I wanted to believe it myself. So your father and I made it so.

  “Holy crap, you must hate your mother now,” Tommy said around a mouthful of pizza. “I mean, she lied to you your whole life about something so . . . what’s the word?”

  “Fundamental,” Bea said through gritted teeth. How dare you suggest I’d ever hate my mother, you oversize blockhead, she wanted to shout. But once again, the image of Cora Crane, dying in that hospice bed, her hand holding Bea’s with the last of her strength, was all she could think of. Her sweet mother. “I don’t hate her at all. I never could, ever.” Though if Bea let herself go there, as she couldn’t help but do in the past twenty-four hours, she’d feel a strange anger that would build in her head and start her heart pounding, then give way to confusion that made her head spin and her heart just plain hurt. A fundamental truth had been withheld. But she couldn’t be mad at her mother; she couldn’t bear that. Her mother was gone. “She explained herself in the letter. And if you knew my mother—”

  “Adopted mother.”

  She glared at him. “Actually, it’s adoptive. But no, she’s my mother. Just my mother. That she adopted me doesn’t change that, Tommy.”

  He picked up a second slice and bit into it, gooey mozza
rella cheese extending. “It kind of does, Bea. I mean, someone else gave birth to you.”

  Bea sat back, defeated. Someone else had given birth to her. Someone she hadn’t known existed a day ago. Someone she couldn’t even conjure up. There was no face, no hair color, no name. Last night, as her eyes were finally drifting closed at three o’clock, she imagined her birth mother to look exactly like herself, just . . . older. But how old? Had her birth mother been a teenager? A very poor older woman who couldn’t feed an additional mouth?

  On October 12, twenty-two years ago, someone had given birth to Bea and then had given her up for adoption. Why? What was her story? Who was she?

  “Yes, Tommy, someone else gave birth to me,” she told him, her appetite gone again. “But that just makes that person my birth mother.”

  “Just? There’s no just about a birth mother.” He chuckled and dug into his third slice of pizza, looking out the window at the busy Boston street as though Bea was proving to be the one who needed tutoring. He turned back to her. “Like, what if you’re married and have a kid, and that kid is dying of some kind of horrible disease, and your blood and your husband’s blood aren’t a match. Your birth mother could save your kid’s life. Man, that’s epic. I mean, think about it.”

  But Bea didn’t want to. Her parents were Cora and Keith Crane, la, la, la, hands over her ears. Still, the more she sat there, listening to Tommy Wonkowski tell her how she should feel about all this, the more she realized he was right about a lot of it.

  For a week, Bea walked around Boston with the strange truth knocking around in her head. A week ago, she’d been one thing: the daughter of Cora and Keith Crane. End of story. Now she was something else. Adopted. She’d started as someone else’s story. Ended someone’s story, maybe. What was that story? She couldn’t stop thinking about her birth parents. Who they were. Where she came from. What they looked like. And yes, Tommy Wonkowski, what their medical histories were.