Book Lovers

35

THE CENTER OF town is a wonderland of string lights and bunting, long tables covered in pretty gingham cloths and loaded with pies. A dance floor sits in the square, and a branded Coors truck sells beer behind the gazebo. Next to it, Amaya and Mrs. Struthers hawk donated wine, every glass poured with a heavy hand. I doubt they have the permits for most of this stuff, but then again, Libby made it sound like just about everyone at that town hall meeting was involved in one way or another in making this happen, so there’s a small chance this is all aboveboard.

Brendan, Libby, the girls, and I stop by Goode Books to catch Dusty’s event, but the place is packed and we don’t linger long. Charlie and Sally arranged all the new furniture — along with the old folding chairs — into rows in the café, with Dusty’s videoconference projected onto the far wall and her audio playing through the shop’s speakers so that even the overflow of visitors could hear while they shopped.

The girls are bouncing off the walls, so we take them over to Mug + Shot’s pop-up soda shoppe for frothy pink cows.

“This is a huge mistake,” Libby notes as she passes the red-soda-and-ice-cream-plus-whipped-cream concoctions to Bea and Tala.

“A delicious one, though,” I point out.

“And,” Brendan adds, dropping his voice, “they always crash after a sugar blitz.”

Back in the town square, we gorge ourselves: on popcorn, on chocolate pie and rhubarb, on sugar-dusted pecans that make me think of cold mornings in Central Park, and on one local wine that has to be the worst I’ve ever had, along with another that’s actually pretty good.

We dance with the girls to pop songs Bea somehow knows better than Libby or I, and as the night wears on and total darkness falls, bringing a slight chill with it, Tala falls asleep in Brendan’s arms while he and Clint Lastra are talking about catch-and-release fishing spots.

Brendan’s never fished in his life, but he’s determined to try, and Clint’s happy to get him started.

Libby’s going to be happy here, I think as I watch them from a distance. She’s going to be so fucking happy, and that will make the distance bearable, almost.

She and Bea slip off to see if they can find some sweatshirts or blankets in Brendan’s rental car, but I hang back, watching Gertie and her girlfriend, the bickering couple from town hall, and a dozen other pairings sleepily sway on the dance floor.

I spot Shepherd in a gap in the crowd, and he gives me a sheepish smile and wave before ambling over. “Hey there,” he says.

“Hey,” I say. After an awkward moment, I begin, “I’m sorry about—” right as he’s saying, “Just wanted to say—”

He smiles again, that handsome, leading-man smile. “You go first.”

“I’m sorry if I misled you,” I say. “You’re a great guy.”

He gives another warm, albeit vaguely disappointed smile. “Just not your kind of great guy.”

“No,” I admit. “I guess not. But if you’re ever in New York and you need a tour guide — or a wingman . . .”

“I’ll look you up.” He stifles a yawn with the back of his hand. “Not used to being up this late,” he says apologetically. “I should turn in.”

Of course he’s a morning person. Life with Shepherd would be a lot of slow, romantic sex with intensely loving eye contact, followed by watching the sunrise over the valley. He will, no doubt, be part of someone’s happy ending. Maybe he belongs to someone already, in a way that can’t be explained.

For someone else, he will be easy in the best way.

As if the thought has conjured him, Charlie appears a few yards behind Shepherd, and my heart lifts, warm and reliable as Old Faithful.

Shepherd catches me looking away, a sunflower finding its light source. He follows my gaze straight to Charlie and smiles knowingly. “Have a good flight, Nora.”

“Thanks,” I say, blushing a little at my own transparency. “Take care, Shepherd.”

He walks off, pausing for a moment to talk to Charlie on his way to the edge of the town square. Smiles are exchanged, Charlie’s a bit wary but not so guarded as that day outside Goode Books. Shepherd claps him on the shoulder as he says something, and Charlie looks toward me, that geyser of affection erupting in my chest again at his faint smile.

With a few more words, they part ways, Shepherd making his way to the fringes of the crowd and Charlie coming toward me with his smile tugging wider.

“I heard you might be cold,” he says quietly. He holds out a bundled-up flannel shirt I hadn’t noticed him carrying. I glance toward where Libby and Bea have rejoined Brendan, and Libby flashes me a quick smile.

“Wow,” I say. “Word does travel fast here.”

“Once, in high school,” he says, “I went to a barber on a whim and got my head shaved. My parents knew before I got home.”

“Impressive,” I say.

“Demented.” He holds the flannel up and I turn, feeling like a delicate socialite in an old black-and-white movie as he slips it over my arms, then turns me back to him and starts buttoning it.

“Is this yours?” I ask.

“Absolutely not,” he says. “I bought it for you.” At my surprise, he laughs. “It was on your list. I got Libby one too. She screamed when I handed it to her. I thought she was going into labor.”

For a few moments, we just smile at each other. It’s the least awkward extended eye contact of my life. It feels like we’ve both signed on for the same activity, and this is it: existing, at each other.

“How do I look?” I say.

“Like a very hot woman,” he says, “in a very unimpressive shirt.”

“All I heard was hot.”

His mouth splits into, quite possibly, my favorite of his various smiles, the one that makes it look like there’s a secret tucked up in one corner of his mouth. “Do you want to dance, Stephens?”

“Do you?” I ask, surprised.

“No,” he says, “but I want to touch you, and it’s a good cover.”

I take his hand and pull him out onto the dance floor, beneath the twinkling lights, while James Taylor’s “Carolina in My Mind” plays like the universe just wants to tease me.

Charlie folds my hand up in his warm palm and I rest my cheek against his sweater, closing my eyes to focus on how this feels. I imprint every detail of him on my mind: the scent of BOOK and citrus, with the almost spicy note that’s all his own; the soft, fine wool and firm chest underneath it; the eager, pulpy thud of his heart; his cheek brushing my temple; the indescribable shivery feeling when he nestles his mouth into my hair and breathes me in.

“Are you excited to eat?” he says quietly.

I open my eyes to study his thick, serious brows. “I already ate. I had Pie Dinner.”

He half shakes his head. “I mean when you get back to the city.”

“Oh.” I press my cheek into his shoulder, fingers curling in, trying to keep him, or me, here awhile longer. “We don’t have to talk about that.”

His hands gently increase their pressure for a moment. “I don’t mind.”

I close my eyes against tears, and after a pause say, “I’ve been craving Thai.”

“There’s a great Thai restaurant around the corner from my apartment,” he says. “I’ll take you someday.”

I let myself picture it again: Charlie in my apartment, his laptop in front of him, his face stern as he reads on my sofa. Ice hiding in the corners of the windowpane behind him, snowflakes melting across the glass, Christmas lights wrapped around the lampposts on the street below, people carrying oversized shopping bags past.

I let myself imagine this feeling lasting. I imagine a world within a world just for Charlie and me, moving the stone walls back a few feet to fit him inside them, and not spending every second looking for the cracks.

This, I think again, is what it is to dream.

And then, because I have to — because if anyone deserves honesty, it’s Charlie — I invite the truth forward to replace the story.

Me working twelve-hour days, trying to off-load my clients, then settle into a new job. Charlie exhausted from long days at the bookstore, weekends at physical therapy appointments with his dad, hours’ worth of googling how to fix leaky sinks and replace loose shingles.

Missed calls. Unanswered texts piling up. Hurt. Grief. Missing each other. Visits canceled for work or family emergencies. Both of us stretched too thin, our hearts spanning too many states, the tension unbearable.

My chest squeezes so tight it hurts. He told me someone needed to make sure I have what I need, but he deserves that too.

My heart races and my body feels like it’s on the verge of coming apart. “Charlie.”

There’s a long silence. His throat bobs as he swallows. His voice is a hoarse, growly whisper. “I know. But don’t say it yet.”

We don’t look at each other. If we look, we’ll know this game of make-believe is over, so we just hold on to each other.

His long-distance relationship was the worst year of his life. Mine almost broke me. He’s right that it’s different, that it’s us and we understand each other, but that’s why I can’t do it.

“A week ago,” I say, “I liked you so much I would have wanted to try to make this work.” I swallow a jagged, fist-sized lump, but still my voice has to scrape by to get out. “But now I think I might love you too much for that.”

I’m surprised to hear myself say it. Not because I was unaware of how I felt — but because I’ve never been the first person to say the L-word. Not even with Jakob. “You don’t have to say anything,” I hurry to add.

His jaw flexes against my temple. “Of course I love you, Nora. If I loved you any less, I’d be trying to convince you that you could be happy here. You have no idea how badly I wish I could be enough.”

“Charlie—” I begin.

“I’m not being self-deprecating,” he promises softly against my ear. “I just don’t think that’s how it works in real life.”

“If anyone could be enough,” I say, “I think it might be you.”

His arms squeeze around me, his voice dropping to a soft scratch. “I’m glad we had our moment. Even if it didn’t last as long as we wanted it to.”

The tears are so thick in my eyes that the dance floor dissolves into streaks of color and light.

“But,” I finally get out, my eyes scrunching shut, “it really was fucking perfect.”

“You’re going to be okay, Nora,” he whispers against my temple, his hands loosening. “You’re going to be better than okay.”

Just like I asked, there’s no goodbye. When the song ends, he presses one last kiss against the curve of my jaw. My eyes flutter closed.

When I open them, he’s gone.

But I still feel him everywhere.

I am Heathcliff.

As I escape toward the dark edge of the town square, I fire off a text to Libby and Brendan, telling them that I’ll meet them at home.

“You taking off?”

I not only yelp in surprise but throw my purse. It crashes into a planter.

“Didn’t mean to scare you.” Clint Lastra sits on a bench, his walker beside him, a few stray moths circling overhead.

I retrieve my purse, wiping at my eyes as discreetly as I can. “Early flight tomorrow.”

He nods. “I wouldn’t mind getting to bed either, but Sal won’t let me out of her sight.” He casts me a wry look. “It’s hard getting old. Everyone treats you like a kid again.”

“I would’ve given anything to see my mom get old.” It’s out before I realize it wasn’t just a note in my brain.

“You’re right,” Clint says. “I’m lucky. Still, can’t help but feel like I’m failing him.”

I feel my brows flick up. “Who? Charlie?”

The corner of his mouth flinches downward. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He shouldn’t be here.”

I balk, torn for a moment about how much, if anything, to say. I’ve barely spoken to Clint in the weeks I’ve been here.

“Maybe not,” I say tightly. “But it means a lot to him, to get to be here for you. It’s important to him.”

Clint gazes wistfully toward the crowd on the dance floor, where Charlie and I stood together moments ago. “He won’t be happy.”

I’m not sure it’s that simple. It’s not like I wouldn’t be happy if I were here with Libby. It’s more that it would feel like I was borrowing someone’s jeans. Or like I was taking a break from my own life, like this was a period of time when I’d sidestepped out of my own path for a while.

I’ve done that before, and I’ve never had regrets, exactly. There’ve always been things to be grateful for.

That’s life. You’re always making decisions, taking paths that lead you away from the rest before you can see where they end. Maybe that’s why we as a species love stories so much. All those chances for do-overs, opportunities to live the lives we’ll never have. “He wants to be here for you and Sally,” I say. “He’s working so hard to be what he thinks you need.”

Confirmed Sweet Guy Clint Lastra wipes at his cheek. His hands shake a little when they rest against his leg.

“He’s always been special,” Clint says. “Like his mom. But sometimes . . . well, I think Sally’s always enjoyed standing out a bit.”

His mouth twists. “I think my son has spent most of his life feeling lonely.” Clint glances sidelong at me, appraising, that same X-ray sensation his son’s so good at evoking. “He’s been different these last few weeks.”

Clint laughs to himself. “You know, I used to try to read a book a month with him. Did it all through high school, and college too. I’d ask for recommendations — the last thing he’d read and loved, so we’d always have something to talk about, that mattered to him. He was probably fourteen years old the first time I read one of his books and thought, Shit. This kid’s outgrown me.”

When I start to argue, Clint lifts a hand. “I don’t mean that in a self-deprecating way. I’m a smart enough man, in my way. But I’m amazed by my son. I could listen to that kid talk for way longer than he ever would, about pretty much anything. The first time Sal and I visited him in New York, it all made perfect sense. It was like he’d been living at half volume until that moment. That’s not what a parent wants for their kid.”

Half volume.

“He’s been different these last few weeks.” In the twitch of his mouth, I see shades of his son, biological or not. “More comfortable. More himself.”

I’ve been different too.

I wonder if I’ve been living at half volume too. With agenting. With dating. Tamping myself into a shape that felt sturdy and safe instead of right.

“You know,” I say cautiously, not wanting to out Charlie in any way but also needing to be in his corner, to not choose politeness or likability or winning over anyone over him, “maybe you’re trying to prove you don’t need him, because you think he doesn’t want to be here. But don’t act like he’s not doing any good, or like he can’t help. This place already gave him enough reason to feel like he was the wrong kind of person, and the very last person he needs to get that from is you.”

White rings his eyes. He opens his mouth to object.

“It doesn’t matter whether that’s how you feel or not, if that’s how it looks to him,” I say. “And if you do let him help you, he’ll do it. Better than you ever expected.”

With that, I turn and walk away before any more tears can fall.