Book Lovers

3

THE MAN’S EMERALD green eyes go wide. “Sorry!” he cries as I swiftly sidestep the door without any damage.

It’s not often that I’m stunned into silence.

Now, though, I’m staring, silent and agog, at the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen.

Golden-blond hair, a square jaw, and a beard that manages to be rugged without looking unruly. He’s brawny — the word pops into my head, supplied by a lifetime of picking over Mom’s old Harlequin paperbacks — his (flannel) shirt snug, the sleeves rolled up his tan forearms.

With a sheepish smile, he steps aside, holding the door for me.

I should say something.

Anything.

Oh, no, my fault! I was in the way.

I’d even settle for a strangled Hello, good sir.

Unfortunately, it’s not happening, so I cut my losses, force a smile, and slip past him through the door, hoping I look like I know where I am and have definitely come here on purpose.

I never loved Mom’s small-town romance novels the way Libby does, but I’ve enjoyed enough that it shouldn’t surprise me that my next thought is, He smells like evergreens and impending rain.

Except it does, because men don’t smell like that.

They smell like sweat, bar soap, or a little too much cologne.

But this man is mythic, the too-shiny lead in a rom-com that has you shouting, NO DAIRY FARMER HAS THOSE ABS.

And he’s smiling at me.

Is this how it happens? Pick a small town, take a walk, meet an impossibly good-looking stranger? Were my exes onto something?

His smile deepens (matching dimples; of course) as he nods and releases the door.

And then I’m watching him through the window as he walks away, my heart whirring like an overheated laptop.

When the stars in my eyes fade, I find myself not atop Mount Olympus but in a coffee shop with exposed brick walls and old wooden floors, the smell of espresso thick in the air. At the back of the shop, a door opens onto a patio. The light streaming in hits a glass display case of pastries and plastic-wrapped sandwiches, and I basically hear angels singing.

I get into line and scope out the crowd, a mix of hip, outdoorsy types in strappy hiking sandals and people in worn-out jeans and mesh-backed hats. Toward the front of the line, though, there’s yet another good-looking man.

Two in my first hour here. An exceptional ratio.

He’s not as striking as the door-holding Adonis, but good-looking in the way of a mere mortal, with coarse, dark hair and a lean elegance. He’s around my height, maybe a hair taller or shorter, dressed in a black sweatshirt whose sleeves are pushed up and olive trousers with black shoes I have no choice but to describe as sexy. I can only see his face in profile, but it’s a nice profile. Full lips, slightly jutted chin, sharp nose, eyebrows halfway between Cary Grant and Groucho Marx.

Actually, he kind of looks like Charlie Lastra.

Like, a lot like him.

The man glances sidelong at the display case, and the thought pops across my brain like a series of bottle rockets: It’s him. It’s him. It’s him.

My stomach feels like someone tied it to a brick and threw it over a bridge.

There’s no way. It’s weird enough that I’m here — there’s no way he is too.

And yet.

The longer I study him, the more unsure I am. Like when you think you spot a celebrity in person but the longer you gawk, the more sure you become that you’ve never actually looked at Matthew Broderick’s nose before, and for all you can remember, he might not have one at all.

Or when you try to draw a car during a game of Pictionary and find out you have no idea what cars look like.

The person at the front of the line pays, and the queue shifts forward, but I duck out, tucking myself on the far side of a bookshelf filled with board games.

If it really is Charlie, it would be mortifying for him to see me hiding here — like seeing your stodgiest teacher outside a teens-only club while wearing a crop top and fake belly button ring (not that I had that experience [I did]) — but if it’s not, I can put this to rest easily. Maybe.

I get out my phone and open my email app, searching his name. Aside from our first heated email exchange, there’s only one more recent message from him, the mass email he sent with his new contact information when he moved from Wharton House to become an editor-at-large at Loggia six months back. I tap out a quick email to the new address.

It’s not like I expect an out-of-office reply to detail where he’s traveling, or what precise coffee shop he’s likely to be in, but at least I’ll know if he’s away from work.

But my phone doesn’t beep with an auto-reply.

I peer around the shelf. The man who may or may not be my professional nemesis slides his phone from his pocket, head bowing and lips thinning into an unimpressed line. Only they’re still too full, so basically he’s pouting. He types for a minute, then puts his phone away.

An honest-to-god chill slithers down my spine when my phone buzzes in my hand.

It’s a coincidence. It has to be.

I open the reply.

The queue moves forward again. He’s next up to order. I don’t have long to make my escape without being seen, with even less time to confirm or dispel my fears.

As soon as I hit send, I snap to my senses. Why, of all the words available to me, is this what I said? Maybe my brain is organized by the Dewey decimal system, but right now all the shelves seem to be on fire. Embarrassment courses through my veins at the sudden image of Charlie opening that email and instantly gaining the professional high ground.

The man pulls his phone out. The teenage boy in front of him has just finished paying. The barista summons Maybe Charlie forward with a cheery smile, but he mumbles something and steps out of line.

He’s halfway facing me now. He gives his head a firm shake, the corner of his mouth twisting into a grimace. It’s got to be him. I’m sure of it now, but if I run for the door, I’ll only draw his eye.

What could he possibly be doing here? My middle-class party trick tallies him up from head to toe: five hundred dollars of neutral tones, but if he was going for camouflage, it’s not working. He might as well be standing under a movie-theater marquee advertising THE OUT-OF-TOWNER with an arrow pointed straight at his peppery hair.

I face the bookshelf, putting my back to him and pretending to peruse the games.

Considering how short, not to mention asinine, my message was, he takes a surprisingly long time to reply.

Of course, he could be reading any number of emails other than mine.

I nearly drop my phone in my frenzy to open the next message.

No firm opinions as of yet, but extreme curiosity. Feel free to forward to me.

I check over my shoulder. Charlie has rejoined the queue.

How many times can I keep making him get out of line? I wonder with a thrill. I understand being glued to your phone when it comes to important work-related things, but I’m surprised the instinct runs so deep that he thinks a message about Bigfoot erotica requires an immediate response.

I do actually have a Bigfoot erotica submission in my inbox. Sometimes when my boss is having a rocky day, I’ll do a dramatic reading from Bigfoot’s Big Feet to cheer her up.

It would be unethical to share the manuscript outside the agency.

But the author actually included a link to his website, where a handful of self-published novellas are available for purchase. I copy the link to one and send it to Charlie without context.

I glance back to see him scowling down at his phone. A reply buzzes in.

This costs 99 cents. . . . . . . . . . . .

I reply, I know — such a bargain! If my professionalism is a gel manicure, then Charlie Lastra is apparently the industrial-grade acetone capable of burning right through it.

I search his name on Venmo and send him ninety-nine cents. Another email comes in a second later. He’s sent the dollar back to me, with the note, I’m a grown man, Nora. I can buy my own Bigfoot erotica, thank you very much.

The cashier greets him again, and this time he shoves his phone into his pocket and steps up to order. While he’s distracted, I take my chance.

I am famished.

I am desperate to know what he’s doing here.

And I am half running toward the door.

“No freaking way!” Libby cries. We’re sitting at the rough-hewn wooden table in the cottage, devouring the breadsticks and salads we ordered from Antonio’s Pizza. I had to trek back down to the mailbox to collect the order when the delivery guy said he wasn’t allowed to climb the stairs “for insurance reasons.”

Sounds made-up, but okay.

“The guy who was so rude about Dusty’s book?” Libby clarifies.

I nod and stab a surprisingly juicy tomato in the salad, popping it into my mouth.

“What’s he doing here?” she asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Ohmygosh,” she says, “what if he’s a Once in a Lifetime superfan?”

I snort. “I think that’s the one possibility we can rule out.”

“Maybe he’s like Old Man Whittaker in Once. Just afraid to show his true feelings. Secretly, he loves this town. And the book. And the widowed Mrs. Wilder.”

I’m actually unbearably curious, but we’re not going to solve the mystery by guessing. “What do you want to do tonight?”

“Shall we consult the list?” She digs the sheet out of her bag and smooths it on the table. “Okay, I’m too tired for any of this.”

“Too tired?” I say. “To pet a horse and save a local business? Even after your nap?”

“You think forty minutes is enough to make up for the three weeks of Bea crawling into bed with us after a nightmare?”

I wince. Those girls must have an internal body temperature of at least three hundred degrees. You can’t sleep next to them without waking up drenched in sweat, with a tiny, adorable foot digging into your rib cage.

“You need a bigger bed,” I tell Libby, pulling my phone out to start the search.

“Oh, please,” Libby says. “We can’t fit a bigger bed in that room. Not if we plan on ever opening our dresser drawers.”

I feel a spark of relief right then. Because the change in Libby — the fatigue; the strange, intangible distance — suddenly makes sense. It has a cause, which means it has a solution.

“You need a bigger place.” Especially with Baby Number Three on the way. One bathroom, for a family of five, is my idea of purgatory.

“We couldn’t afford a bigger place if it were parked on top of a trash barge forty-five minutes into Jersey,” Libby says. “Last time I looked at apartment listings, everything was like, One-bedroom, zero-bath crawl space inside a serial killer’s wall; utilities included but you provide the victims! And even that was outside our price range.”

I wave a hand. “Don’t worry about the money. I can help out.”

She rolls her eyes. “I don’t need your help. I am a whole adult woman. All I need is a night in, followed by a month of rest and relaxation, okay?”

She’s always hated taking money from me, but the whole reason to have money is to take care of us. If she won’t accept another loan, then I’ll just have to find her an apartment she can afford. Problem halfway solved.

“Fine,” I say. “We’ll stay in. Hepburn night?”

She gives a genuine grin. “Hepburn night.”

Whenever Mom was stressed or heartbroken, she used to allow herself one night to lean into that feeling.

She’d call it a Hepburn night. She loved Hepburn. Katharine, not Audrey, not that she had anything against Audrey. That’s how I wound up with the name Nora Katharine Stephens, while Libby got Elizabeth Baby Stephens, the “Baby” part being after the leopard in Bringing Up Baby.

On Hepburn nights, the three of us would each pick out one of Mom’s over-the-top vintage robes and curl up in front of the TV with a root beer float and a pizza, or decaf and chocolate pie, and watch an old black-and-white movie.

Mom would cry during her favorite scenes, and when Libby or I caught her, she’d laugh, wiping away her tears with the back of one hand, and say, I’m such a softy.

I loved those nights. They taught me that heartbreak, like most things, was a solvable puzzle. A checklist could guide a person through mourning. There was an actionable plan for moving on. Mom mastered that, but never quite got to the next step: weeding out the assholes.

Married men. Men who didn’t want to be stepfathers. Men who had absolutely no money, or who had lots of money and family members all too willing to whisper gold digger.

Men who didn’t understand her aspirations to be on stage, and men who were too insecure to share the spotlight.

She was saddled with kids when she was little more than one herself, but even after everything she went through, she kept her heart open. She was an optimist and a romantic, just like Libby. I expected my sister to fall in love a dozen times over, be swept off her feet over and over again for decades, but instead she fell in love with Brendan at twenty and settled down.

I, meanwhile, had approximately one romantic bone in my body, and once it shattered and I pinned myself back together, I developed a rigorous vetting process for dating. So neither Libby nor I have need for our old-fashioned Hepburn nights. Now they’re an excuse to be lazy, and a way to feel close to Mom.

It’s only six o’clock, but we change into our pajamas — including our silk robes. We drag the blankets off the bed in the loft and down the iron spiral staircase to the couch and pop in the first DVD from the Best of Katharine Hepburn box set Libby brought with her.

I find two speckled blue mugs in the cabinet and put the kettle on for tea, and then we sink into the couch to watch Philadelphia Story, matching charcoal sheet masks plastered to our faces. My sister’s head drops against my shoulder, and she heaves a happy sigh. “This was a good idea,” she says.

My heart twinges. In a few hours, when I’m lying in an unfamiliar bed, sleep nowhere to be found — or tomorrow, when Libby sees the lackluster town square for the first time — my feelings might change, but right now, all is right in the world.

Anything broken can be fixed. Any problem can be solved.

When she drifts off, I pull my phone from my robe and type out an email, bcc’ing every real estate agent, landlord, and building manager I know.

You are in control, I tell myself. You won’t let anything bad happen to her ever again.

My phone chirps with a new email around ten p.m.

Ever since Libby shuffled up to bed an hour ago, I’ve been sitting on the back deck, willing myself to feel tired and nursing a glass of the velvety pinot Sally Goode, the cottage’s owner, left for us.

At home I’m a night owl. When I’m away, I’m more like an insomniac who just mixed a bunch of cocaine into some Red Bull and took a spin on a mechanical bull. I tried to work, but the Wi-Fi’s so bad that my laptop is a glorified paperweight, so instead I’ve been staring into the dark woods beyond the deck, watching fireflies pop in and out of view.

I’m hoping to find a message from one of the real estate agents I reached out to. Instead CHARLIE LASTRA is bolded at the top of my inbox. I tap the message open and barely avoid a spit take.

I would have preferred to go my whole life without knowing this book existed, Stephens.

Even to my own ears, my cackle sounds like an evil stepmother. You bought the Bigfoot erotica?

Charlie replies, Business expense.

Please tell me you charged it to a Loggia credit card.

This one takes place at Christmas, he writes. There’s one for every holiday.

I take another sip, contemplating my reply. Possibly something like Drink any interesting coffee lately?

Maybe Libby’s right: Maybe Charlie Lastra was secretly as charmed as the rest of America by Dusty’s portrayal of Sunshine Falls and planned a visit during publishing’s annual late-summer hibernation. I can’t bring myself to broach the subject.

Instead, I write, What page are you on?

Three, he says. And I already need an exorcism.

Yes, but that has nothing to do with the book. Again, as soon as I’ve sent it, I have to marvel-slash-panic at my own unprofessionalism. Over the years, I’ve developed a finely tuned filter — with pretty much everyone except Libby — but Charlie always manages to disarm it, to press the exact right button to open the gate and let my thoughts charge out like velociraptors.

For example, when Charlie replies, I’ll admit it’s a master class in pacing. Otherwise I remain unimpressed, my instant reaction is to type, “Otherwise I remain unimpressed” is what they’ll put on your headstone.

I don’t even have the thought I shouldn’t send this until I already have.

On yours, he replies, they’ll put “Here lies Nora Stephens, whose taste was often exceptional and occasionally disturbing.”

Don’t judge me based on the Christmas novella, I reply. I haven’t read it.

Would never judge you on Bigfoot porn, Charlie says. Would entirely judge you for preferring Once in a Lifetime to The Glory of Small Things.

The wine has slipped one Jenga piece too many loose from my brain: I write, IT’S NOT A BAD BOOK!

“IT’S NOT A BAD BOOK.” —Nora Stephens, Charlie replies. I think I remember seeing that endorsement on the cover.

Admit you don’t think it’s bad, I demand.

Only if you admit you don’t think it’s her best either, he says.

I stare at the screen’s harsh glow. Moths keep darting in front of it, and in the woods, I can hear cicadas humming, an owl hooting. The air is sticky and hot, even this long after the sun has sunk behind the trees.

Dusty is so ridiculously talented, I type. She’s incapable of writing a bad book. I think for a moment before continuing: I’ve worked with her for years, and she does best with positive reinforcement. I don’t concern myself with what’s not working in her books. I focus on what she’s great at. Which is how Dusty’s editor was able to take Once from good to outrageously unputdownable. That’s the thing that makes working on a book exciting: seeing its raw potential, knowing what it’s trying to become.

Charlie replies, Says the woman they call the Shark.

I scoff. No one calls me that. I don’t think.

Says the man they call the Storm Cloud.

Do they? he asks.

Sometimes, I write. Of course, I would never. I’m far too polite.

Of course, he says. That’s what sharks are known for: manners.

I’m too curious to let it go. Do they really call me that?

Editors, he writes back, are terrified of you.

Not so scared they won’t buy my authors’ books, I counter.

So scared they wouldn’t if the books were any less fucking fantastic.

My cheeks warm with pride. It’s not like I wrote the books he’s talking about — all I do is recognize them. And make editorial suggestions. And figure out which editors to send them to. And negotiate the contract so the author gets the best deal possible. And hold the author’s hand when they get edit letters the size of Tolstoy novels, and talk them down when they call me crying. Et cetera.

Do you think, I type back, it has anything to do with my tiny eyes and gigantic gray head? Then I shoot off another email clarifying, The nickname, I mean.

Pretty sure it’s your bloodlust, he says.

I huff. I wouldn’t call it bloodlust. I don’t revel in exsanguination. I do it for my clients.

Sure, I have some clients who are sharks themselves — eager to fire off accusatory emails when they feel neglected by their publishers— but most of them are more likely to get steamrolled, or to keep their complaints to themselves until their resentment boils over and they self-destruct in spectacular fashion.

This might be the first I’m hearing of my nickname, but Amy, my boss, calls my agenting approach smiling with knives, so it’s not a total shock.

They’re lucky to have you, Charlie writes. Dusty especially. Anyone who’d go to bat for a “not bad” book is a saint.

Indignation flames through me. And anyone who’d miss that book’s obvious potential is arguably incompetent.

For the first time, he doesn’t respond right away. I tip my head back, groaning at the (alarmingly starry; is this the first time I’ve looked up?) sky as I try to figure out how — or whether — to backtrack.

A prick draws my gaze to my thigh, and I slap away a mosquito, only to catch two more landing on my arm. Gross. I fold up my laptop and carry it inside, along with my books, phone, and mostly empty wineglass.

As I’m tidying up, my phone pings with Charlie’s reply.

It wasn’t personal, he says, then another message comes in. I’ve been known to be too blunt. Apparently I don’t make the best first impression.

And I, I reply, am actually known to be very punctual. You caught me on a bad day.

What do you mean? he asks.

That lunch, I say. That was how it all started, wasn’t it? I was late, so he was rude, so I was rude back, so he hated me, so I hated him, and so on and so forth.

He doesn’t need to know I’d just gotten dumped in a four-minute phone call, but it seems worth mentioning those were extenuating circumstances. I’d just gotten some bad news. That’s why I was late.

He doesn’t reply for a full five minutes. Which is annoying, because I’m not in the habit of having real-time conversations over email, and of course he could just stop replying at any moment and go to bed, while I’ll still be here, staring at a wall, wide awake.

If I had my Peloton, I could burn off some of this energy.

I didn’t care that you were late, he says finally.

You looked at your watch. Pointedly, I write back. And said, if I recall, “You’re late.”

I was trying to figure out if I could catch a flight, Charlie replies.

Did you make it? I ask.

No, he says. Got distracted by two gin martinis and a platinum blond shark who wanted me dead.

Not dead, I say. Lightly mauled, maybe, but I would’ve stayed away from your face.

Didn’t realize you were a fan, he writes.

A zing goes down my spine and right back up it, like my top vertebrae just touched a live wire. Is he flirting? Am I? I’m bored, yes, but not that bored. Never that bored.

I deflect with, Just trying to watch out for your eyebrows. If anything happened to those things, it would change your entire stormy scowl, and you’d need a new nickname.

If I lost my eyebrows, he says, somehow I think there would be no shortage of new nicknames available to me. I’m guessing you’d have some suggestions.

I’d need time to think, I say. Wouldn’t want to make any rash decisions.

No, of course not, he replies. Seconds later, another line follows. I’ll let you get back to your night.

And you to your Bigfoot novella, I type, then backspace and force myself to leave the message unanswered.

I shake my head, trying to clear the image of growly Charlie Lastra scowling at his e-reader in a hotel somewhere nearby, his frown deepening whenever he reaches something salacious.

But that image, it seems, is all my brain wants to dwell on. Tonight when I’m lying in bed, wide awake and trying to convince myself the world won’t end if I drift off, this is what I’ll come back to, my own mental happy place.