Book Lovers

37

ON DECEMBER TWELFTH at eleven twenty, I make my way over to Freeman Books.

It’s the one day a year I’ve always taken off at the agency, and as soon as I started at Loggia Publishing, I requested the twelfth off there too.

The learning curve is brutal, but after so many years of knowing exactly how to do my job, the challenge is exhilarating. I comb through each of my newly inherited authors’ manuscripts like an archaeologist at a newly discovered dig site.

Is it possible to be a zealot for editing books?

If so, that’s what I am.

I almost hated to miss work today, but if I’m going to be out of the office, at least I’ll still be surrounded by words.

I take my time walking, enjoying a surprise bout of sunshine that melts the snow into slushy lumps on the sidewalk, the feeble warmth seeping into my favorite herringbone coat.

At the diner where Mom used to work, I buy a cup of coffee and a danish. It’s been a long time since anyone recognized me here, but I’m pretty sure the same cashier rang up Libby and me last December twelfth, and that’s enough to fill me with a pleasant sense of belonging.

And then the sharp ache, like I’ve brushed up against the blistered part of my heart: Charlie should be here. I don’t avoid thinking about him, like I used to do with Jakob. Even if it hurts, when he shimmers across my mind, it’s like remembering a favorite book. One that left you gutted, sure, but also one that changed you forever.

I pass a flower shop with a heated plastic tent propped up around its storefront and duck in to buy a bouquet of deep red petals sprinkled with silvery green leaves and tiny white blossoms. I don’t know flower types, but for these to be blooming in winter, they must be hardy, and I respect them for that.

At eleven forty-five, I’m still two blocks away, and my phone vibrates in my coat pocket. Shifting the bouquet into the crook of my arm, I fish around in my pocket, then tug my glove off with my teeth to swipe the phone unlocked and read Libby’s message.

Happy birthday! she writes, like she’s sending the text straight to Mom.

Happy birthday, I write back, my chest stinging. It’s hard to be apart today. It’s the first time I’ve had to do this without her.

FaceTime later? she writes.

Of course, I say.

She types for a minute as I hurry across the last block. Did you get my present yet?

Since when do we do presents for Mom’s birthday? I write.

Since we have to be apart for it, she says.

Well, I didn’t get you anything.

That’s fine, she says. You can owe me. But you haven’t gotten yours yet?

No, I write. I’m out.

Ah, she says. At Freeman’s already?

In about three seconds. I shoulder the door open and step into the familiar dusty warmth.

I’ll let you go, she says. But send a pic when the present gets there, okay?

I reply with a thumbs-up and a heart, then drop my phone and gloves into my pockets, freeing my hands to browse.

I head straight for the romance shelves. This year, I’ll buy two copies of whatever I choose and mail one to Libby. Or, better yet, take it with me when I visit her for the holidays and Number Three’s birth.

As I wander along the hundreds of pristine spines, time unspools around me, the current slowing. I have nowhere to be. Nothing to do but peruse summaries and pull quotes on dust jackets, skimming some last pages and leaving others unread. Again and again, I ask, What about this one, Mom? Would you like this?

And then, Would I like this? Because that matters too.

Whenever I’m in front of a row of books, it’s like I can hear Mom’s loud yelp of a laugh, smell her warm lavender scent. On one occasion, Libby and I were so absorbed in our December twelfth process that, for like ten minutes, we failed to notice the man in the trench coat next to us doing his level best to expose himself.

(When this happened, and I finally noticed, I heard myself calmly, disinterestedly, say — a book still in my hand—No. The look on his face gave me the greatest surge of power I’ve had to date, and Libby and I laughed for weeks about what otherwise might’ve been a fairly traumatizing experience.)

So though I’m aware a couple of other people are milling around in my periphery, I don’t exactly acknowledge any of them until I reach for January Andrews’s novel Curmudgeon, only to find someone else reaching for it at the same moment.

Most people, I guess, would blurt, Sorry! What comes out of my mouth is, “Agh!”

Neither of us lets go of the book — typical city people — and I spin toward my rival, unwilling to back down.

My heart stops.

Okay, I’m sure it doesn’t.

I’m alive still.

But this, I realize, is what they mean, all those thousands of writers who’ve tried to describe the sensation of following the trail of your life for years, only to smack into something that changes it forever.

The way the sensation jars through you, from the center out. How you feel it in your mouth and toes all at once, a dozen tiny explosions.

And then an unfurling of warmth from your collarbone to your ribs, to thighs, to palms, like just seeing him has triggered some kind of chrysalis.

My body has moved from winter into spring, all those scraggly little sprouts pushing up through a crush of snow. Spring, alive and awake in my bloodstream.

“Stephens,” Charlie says softly, like a swear, or a prayer, or a mantra.

“What are you doing here?” I breathe.

“I’m not sure which answer to start with.”

“Libby.” The realization vaults up through me. “You’re — you’re my gift?”

His mouth curves, teasing, but his eyes stay soft, almost hesitant. “In a way.”

“In what way?”

“Goode Books,” he says carefully, “is under new management.”

I shake my head, trying to clear the fog. “Your sister came through?”

He shakes his head. “Yours did.”

My mouth opens but no sound comes out. When I shut it again, tears cloud my eyes. “I don’t understand.”

But some part of me does.

Or wants to believe it does.

It hopes. And that hope registers like a burning knot of golden, glowing thread, too tangled up to make sense of.

Charlie slides the book caught between our hands back onto the shelf, then steps in close, his hands taking mine.

“Three weeks ago,” he says, “I was at the shop, and our family showed up.”

“Our family?” I repeat.

“Sally, Clint, Libby,” he says. “They brought a PowerPoint.”

“A PowerPoint?” I say, my brow wrinkling.

The corner of his mouth curves. “It was very organized,” he says. “You would’ve fucking loved it. Maybe they’ll email you a copy.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “How are you here?”

“They put together a list,” he says. “ ‘Twelve Steps to Reunite Soul Mates’—which, by the way, involved multiple Jane Austen quotes. Not sure if that was Libby or Dad. But what I’m getting at is, they made some compelling points.”

Tears flood into my eyes, my nose, my chest. “Such as?”

A full, bright smile; an electrical storm behind his eyes. “Such as I’m desperate to see your Peloton in real life,” he says. “And I need to know if your mattress deserves the hype. And most importantly, I’m so fucking in love with you, Nora.”

“But — but your dad . . .”

“Graduated early from physical therapy,” he says. “The PowerPoint said ‘with honors,’ but I’m eighty-eight percent sure that’s not a real thing. And Libby took over the store. The girls run wild there every day, and Tala arm wrestles anyone who tries to leave without buying anything. It’s beautiful. Libby also said to tell you that she and Brendan are ‘Manhattan Destitute but North Carolina Rich,’ so after the baby comes, Principal Schroeder’s going to help out while Libby takes a leave, then when she’s ready to come back to work, she’ll hire a nanny, so you should stop worrying before you even start.”

I laugh wetly, shake my head again. “You said your mom would never let someone outside the family run the store.”

His eyes settle on my face, his expression going serious. “I think she’s hopeful Libby won’t be outside the family forever.”

That’s it. The dam breaks, and I burst into sniffling, happy tears as Charlie frames my face with his hands. “I told my parents I couldn’t leave them if they needed me, and you know what they said?”

“What?” My voice cracks about four times on that one syllable.

“They said they’re the parents.” His voice is damp, throttled. “Apparently they don’t need ‘jack shit’ from me except for me to be happy. And they wouldn’t mind a hot, sexy daughter-in-law.”

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry some more, or maybe just scream at the top of my lungs. Excited scream, not scared scream. (Is that how you’re supposed to say Spaaaahhh?)

“Exact quote from Sally?” I say.

He grins. “Paraphrasing.”

The knot is unbraiding, unsnarling in me, reaching upward through my throat and rooting down through my stomach as he goes on.

“Nora Stephens,” he says, “I’ve racked my brain and this is the best I can come up with, so I really hope you like it.”

His gaze lifts, everything about it, about his face, about his posture, about him made up of sharp edges and jagged bits and shadows, all of it familiar, all of it perfect. Not for someone else, maybe, but for me.

“I move back to New York,” he says. “I get another editing job, or maybe take up agenting, or try writing again. You work your way up at Loggia, and we’re both busy all the time, and down in Sunshine Falls, Libby runs the local business she saved, and my parents spoil your nieces like the grandkids they so desperately want, and Brendan probably doesn’t get much better at fishing, but he gets to relax and even take paid vacations with your sister and their kids. And you and I — we go out to dinner.

“Wherever you want, whenever you want. We have a lot of fun being city people, and we’re happy. You let me love you as much as I know I can, for as long as I know I can, and you have it fucking all. That’s it. That’s the best I could come up with, and I really fucking hope you say—”

I kiss him then, like there isn’t someone reading one of the Bridgerton novels five feet away, like we’ve just found each other on a deserted island after months apart. My hands in his hair, my tongue catching on his teeth, his palms sliding around behind me and squeezing me to him in the most thoroughly public groping we’ve managed yet.

“I love you, Nora,” he says when we pull apart a few inches to breathe. “I think I love everything about you.”

“Even my Peloton?” I ask.

“Great piece of equipment,” he says.

“The fact that I check my email after work hours?”

“Just makes it easier to share Bigfoot erotica without having to walk across the room,” he says.

“Sometimes I wear very impractical shoes,” I add.

“Nothing impractical about looking hot,” he says.

“And what about my bloodlust?”

His eyes go heavy as he smiles. “That,” he says, “might be my favorite thing. Be my shark, Stephens.”

“Already was,” I say. “Always have been.”

“I love you,” he says again.

“I love you too.” I don’t have to force it past a knot or through the vise of a tight throat. It’s simply the truth, and it breathes out of me, a wisp of smoke, a sigh, another floating blossom on a current carrying billions of them.

“I know,” he says. “I can read you like a book.”