One True Loves

The story begins with a teenage Emma living in Acton, Massachusetts with her parents, Colin and Ashley Blair, and her older sister, Marie. Emma’s parents run Blair Books, started by Colin’s uncle in the 1960s. Ever since she was old enough to legally hold a job, she has been working at Blair Books on weekdays and Saturday mornings.

One Saturday morning in her freshman year, Marie takes Emma out to buy a new pair of jeans; the new hire at the store, Sam Kemper, will be covering Emma’s shift. Emma and Marie are not close, as they are extremely different. Marie is popular, well-read, and aspiring to be a writer, earning her the nickname the “Bookseller’s Daughter.” Emma is decidedly not popular, hates reading, and longs to travel the world. Marie finds Sam cute, causing Emma to steer clear of him.

After shopping, Emma and Marie go to a swim meet to watch Marie’s boyfriend, the captain of the swim team. Emma hangs out with her best friend, Olive Berman, who is also at the meet. Olive points out a girl she has a crush on, but Emma notices the “tall, lean, muscular boy” (20) talking to the girl instead. Olive informs Emma that he is Jesse Lerner, who attends the same school, in the same year, as them. Emma is impressed that he made the varsity team as a freshman. She catches a glimpse of his smile before leaving, and immediately falls head over heels for him.

Once Emma learns who Jesse is, she begins to notice him everywhere. Olive encourages Emma to introduce herself, but Emma doesn’t feel confident enough to do so. Jesse begins dating Carolyn Bean, the captain of the girls’ soccer team, and a heartbroken Emma resolves to quell her feelings for him.

Emma’s parents hear her swearing at Marie, and assign her an extra Friday night shift at the store as punishment. At school, Sam asks Emma if she needs a ride to the store after school, as he, too, will be working the Friday shift. Emma accepts the offer, struck by his kindness; she decides to be herself and befriend whoever she genuinely likes, regardless of how Marie feels about them.

On the way to the bookstore, Sam plays jazz music in the car. Emma notices his car has different instruments strewn inside. Emma’s father Colin is at the register inside the store, tidying up a stack of bookmarks. They have a picture of a globe being circled by a plane, captioned by the words “Travel the World by Reading a Book” (30). The bookmarks were commissioned by Emma’s great-uncle, and Colin loves them to the point of keeping their design; Emma, however, hates them, as they represent everything she resents about the store. She wants to be free and travel the world one day.

After Colin leaves, Emma and Sam discuss the music from his car. She discovers that Sam plays multiple instruments, and is in the marching band, jazz band, and orchestra at school. However, he works at the bookstore because he wants to do something completely different from music.

Carolyn’s (Jesse’s girlfriend’s) older sister, Lindsay, comes in to buy a book. As she leaves, Carolyn is dropped off outside the store by Jesse and his father. Watching them together leaves Emma heartsick. When Sam asks an overwhelmed Emma out on a date shortly after, she is too stunned to speak. Sam immediately backs off, and Emma realizes that she has “sent Sam Kemper straight into the friend zone” (39).

Sam graduates high school two-and-a-half years later, and Emma and her parents attend the ceremony to cheer him on. Despite Emma’s best efforts to get Sam to ask her out again, he never does; they end up good friends, instead. Marie is at the University of Hampshire, and dating someone named Mike. In the summer, she will be working as the assistant manager of the bookstore.

Emma dreads the summer, between Marie being her boss and Sam no longer working at the store. He will be leaving for Boston in the summer for a music internship, before heading to Berklee for college. Emma teased him about staying so close to home, as she herself wants to leave Acton and attend the University of Los Angeles.

After the graduation ceremony, Emma and her friend Olive attend a high school party together. Jesse is also at the party; he broke up with Carolyn some time ago, and Emma hopes to grab his attention. In truth, she doesn’t think it probable; Jesse is now captain of the swim team, and is being touted a prodigy for having broken state records and championed the team to victory in an unbroken streak. Sam is also at the party; Emma spots him diving into the pool and is impressed by his physique. She suddenly feels nervous at the thought of talking to Sam.

Emma runs into Jesse at the keg and they strike up casual conversation. Suddenly, the cops arrive, and everyone scatters. Jesse takes Emma’s hand and pulls her along to hide with him in the bushes. Once the cops leave, they emerge from the bushes and walk down the street together, hoping to hitch a ride home with someone. They talk about Jesse’s swimming, and he confesses that even though his parents are pushing him to train for the Olympics, he wants to quit, as he hates swimming. Emma is the first person he has said this to. In turn, Emma tells him that she hates reading despite her family owning a bookstore.

There is a charged moment between the two, which is broken when they are apprehended by the cops and taken to the station, where they wait to be picked up by their parents. Emma is terrified, as her father sounded extremely angry on the phone; she is certain she will be working shifts at the store for a long time. Despite her parents hoping one of their daughters will run the store one day, Emma has no interest in doing so; she wants to leave Acton for good. Jesse reveals that he, too, has been thinking of applying to schools in California. Emma and Jesse encourage each other to follow their dreams.

Jesse asserts that Emma is nothing like he imagined. Carolyn once told him that Emma had a crush on him, and Jesse had hoped it was true. Emma and Jesse confess their feelings for each other, and Jesse kisses her. That summer, Emma has to work extra shifts with Marie as her boss; Olive is out of town, and Sam leaves town two weeks earlier than planned, without saying goodbye. Emma doesn’t mind any of it, as Jesse and her fall in love.

Emma and Jesse end up attending the University of Los Angeles together. Jesse supports Emma in breaking the news to the family, and stands by her when she declines to move home after graduation and run the bookstore. Emma takes a travel literature class in college because it subsidizes a trip to a different place every year. She visits Alaska and discovers that she enjoys writing about new places as much as she likes seeing them. She eventually graduates with a journalism major and becomes a travel writer. By 25, she is an assistant editor for a travel blog, while Jesse is a production assistant for nature documentaries. Both jobs don’t pay much, but allow the pair to travel extensively, and they see the world together.

Nine years after their first kiss, Jesse proposes to Emma with a small, second-hand ruby ring. Five years ago, in Barcelona, Emma had pointed it out to Jesse from among the wares of a street hawker, declaring that she didn’t need anything fancy; a ruby ring would do. Jesse had snuck out of their hotel room that same night and bought it for Emma, carrying it around ever since. Emma immediately accepts Jesse’s proposal.

Emma and Jesse get married at his family’s cabin in Maine. Emma’s parents are thrilled, with her mother Ashley coordinating arrangements with Jesse’s parents; Olive is the maid of honor. Marie is also married, having wed Mike nine months ago; neither sister asks the other to be their maid of honor. Jesse’s parents open up to Emma after the engagement; they had always been distant with her because they blamed her for Jesse deciding to stop swimming competitively.

The wedding passes in a haze, and Emma doesn’t remember much of it. However, she does remember sneaking into the cabin with Jesse and making love on the kitchen counter. When the couple are announced for the first time later that day, Emma feels a jolt to hear herself called “Emma Lerner.” She brushes it aside, focusing on the man whom she will spend the rest of her life with. However, “(three) hundred and sixty-four days later, he was gone” (69).