Kate in Waiting Becky Albertalli (best way to read books TXT) 📖

Our car. Mine and Ryan’s. Officially.

I felt nervous this morning—but it was a manageable kind of nervous. Kind of like theater nerves. Like stepping onto a stage when you know every line by heart. In the weeks since the play, I’ve practiced driving every single day, with both my parents. Which definitely paid off, seeing as I got a perfect score on the driver’s test.

So it’s official: I’m a driver’s seat person. All that’s left is the picture.

“Look into the bottom lens, please,” the woman says. “Eyes open, neutral expression.”

Anderson shakes his head frantically, poking the corners of his mouth up with his fingers. “Ignore her,” he mouths.

Like I could ever—in a million years—make it through this moment without smiling.

THE END

Acknowledgments

THE PART WHERE YOU MAKE THE SUNDAY MATINEE AUDIENCE WATCH YOU PRESENT YOUR DRAMA TEACHER WITH FLOWERS AND AN ENLARGED FRAMED PRINT OF THE PROGRAM ART SIGNED BY THE CAST AND CREW AND YOU’RE ALL CRYING BUT NO ONE’S CRYING HARDER THAN THE FUCKBOYS WHO CAN’T LEAVE THE THEATER AND ARE THEREFORE MISSING CRUCIAL TELEVISED SPORTING EVENTS BECAUSE THEY LIVE BY YOUR RULES NOW AND IT’S VERY SAD OF COURSE BUT THE CURTAIN SPEECHES MUST GO ON

Hi! Can you all hear me? Good! Okay, first of all, on behalf of the entire cast and crew, I want to thank you all so much for being here. I’m Becky, the author, and this production has truly been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career so far. I’d like to take a minute to acknowledge the people whose work and support behind the scenes brought this story to life.

First, I’d like to present this giant unicorn head mask to my editor, Donna Bray, who deserves top billing for her wisdom, humor, and utter mercilessness toward fuckboys. And on behalf of the RHHS theater department, enormous thanks to every member of my team at HarperCollins/Balzer+Bray, including Tiara Kittrell, Patty Rosati, Suzanne Murphy, Jacquelynn Burke, Sam Benson, Ebony LaDelle, Sabrina Abballe, Shannon Cox, Kristin Eckhardt, Mark Rifkin, Shona McCarthy, Jill Amack, Nellie Kurtzman, and Alessandra Balzer. It’s my honor to present each of you with your very own medieval costume (yours to keep for two years).

Thanks to Jenna Stempel-Lobell, Alison Donalty, and Pepco Studios for this showstopper of a book cover. I hereby present each of you with your own name in lights (maybe even floating paper lanterns).

At the special request of Noah Kaplan, I’d like this sawed-off cast (signed and illustrated by Jack Randall) to go to my agent, Holly Root, along with Alyssa Moore, Heather Baror, and my entire team at Root Literary—with infinite thanks for keeping me together behind the curtains.

Next, I’d like to present Devon Blackwell’s heavily annotated copy of Once Upon a Mattress to Mary Pender-Coplan, Orly Greenberg, Julia Brownell, Julie Waters, Isaac Klausner, Laura Quicksilver, and my teams at UTA and Temple Hill (without whom the show would simply not go on).

For Brooks Sherman, Roma Panganiban, and the wonderful team at Janklow & Nesbit, I’m thrilled to present you with this baseball signed by the entire MLB.

For my standing-ovation-worthy international publishing teams, I’d like to present official hall passes to Senior D (signed with extra flourish for Leo Teti, Anthea Townsend, Ben Horslen, Ruth Bennett, and Mathilde Tamae-Bouhon).

Top volume thanks go to Bebe Wood, for an audiobook that sings. It’s my pleasure to present you with Kate’s guitar.

To thank my earliest readers for sharing their wisdom and knowledge, I’m presenting a bound copy of my full doctoral dissertation in the field of Fuckboy Studies: Julian Winters, Mark O’Brien, David Arnold, Aisha Saeed, and Nani Borges.

With heartfelt gratitude for keeping me from losing my everloving mind, I’d like to present each and every one of my friends, in and outside the book community, with a pair of Cotton Mather’s cotton trousers. In addition, I’d like the following people to join me onstage to receive limited edition RHHS baseball hats, each one signed by all eight of Sean Sanders’s abs (please hold your applause until the end): Adam Silvera, Adib Khorram, Aisha Saeed, Amy Austin, Angie Thomas, Arvin Ahmadi, Ashley Woodfolk, Becky Kilimnik, Chris Negron, Clark Moore, Dahlia Adler, David Arnold, David Levithan, Diane Blumenfeld, Emily Carpenter, Emily Townsend, George Weinstein, Gillian Morshedi, Jenny Mariaschin-Rudin, Jeri Green, Heidi Schulz, Jacob Demlow, Jaime Hensel, Jaime Semensohn, James Sie, Jasmine Warga, Jennifer Dugan, Jennifer Niven, Niki Malek, Jodi Picoult, Julian Winters, Julie Murphy, Kevin Savoie, Kimberly Ito, Lauren Starks, Lindsay Keiller, Luis Rivera, Mackenzi Lee, Manda Turetsky, Mark O’Brien, Molly Mercer, Nic Stone, Rose Brock, Sam Rowntree, Sarah Beth Brown, Sophie Gonzales, and Tom-Erik Fure.

Mr. D would like to extend a hearty Suckle to all of you booksellers, bloggers, librarians, educators, and readers. You’ve earned it.

I’d like to present every member of my family with a ball of rolled-up challah, to be placed underneath twenty mattresses (and if a single one of us is kept awake, we’re all royalty) (that includes all of you Goldsteins, Albertallis, Reitzeses, Thomases, Bells, and Overholtses, I don’t make the rules).

In addition: to my sister, Caroline Reitzes, I present Kate’s mom’s old guitar, #jammin. To my brother, Sam Goldstein, I present a giant neon Bulbasaur. To my mom, Eileen Thomas, I present an early draft of this book before I had to cut the parts about Tamiment. And to my dad and stepmom, Jim and Candy Goldstein, I present you with official permission to slip out the side door after the first hour of thank-you speeches.

Anderson’s Rapunzel keychain, of course, goes to Dan Fogelman.

Next, please stand and applaud as I invite my husband and kids onto the stage so I can properly embarrass them with a weepy public thank-you. You three are my stage crew and my neverending happy epilogue. It is my greatest honor to present Owen and Henry with Kate’s teddy bears, Amber and Ember. As for Brian, I owe you the kind of thanks that can only be