Chapter 37 Clara
E VERY TIME I OPEN MY eyes, it feels like there’s a ticking clock of doom following me around.
And for once, it isn’t caused by my mother reminding me about my biological clock. It’s getting louder and more annoying and it is entirely in my subconscious.
There’s this anxious feeling of needing to be doing something , which I sense Jack is feeling too.
He was quiet last night when we finally finished at the book event.
I thought he was tired because it took hours—Matilda wouldn’t rush anyone away and spent time hugging and taking pictures with every single person—but he said he was okay, just had a lot on his mind.
He blamed work before I could ask any other questions.
Matilda is a beautiful person inside and out, and I loved listening to her talk about putting her characters through the complexities of love and healing. So did Tommy, and he gave me a full rundown of his thoughts while we helped Wilhelmina clear up the theater.
Gossip lover, my ass. That man loves books.
Jack went home to get Elf and I walked over to the tavern with Tommy and Dove, talking about our favorite reads. When he eventually rejoined us, I tried to switch the topic back to something he was more likely to take part in, but he subtly pushed us back to books and continued to not say much.
His arm stayed across the back of my chair, his fingers playing with strands of my hair. It felt like a normal Friday night with friends and the only thing missing for me was Honor. She took her sister to the Brooklyn event on Wednesday so she didn’t take up my invite to come here for ours.
Jack and I walked hand in hand back to the B the muscles on his back ripple beneath the incoming sunlight.
Far too long later, I’m finally dragging a hairbrush through my mostly dry but still tangled hair.
Having a man wash your hair is all fun and games until suddenly he’s holding on to it while you’re on your knees.
“Baby, we need to leave if you want to eat something before it starts selling out,” Jack says from his spot on my bed.
Why do men take just as long to get ready, but if they’re done even a tiny bit before you, they sit somewhere in your eyeline and look like they’ve been waiting since the beginning of time?
“Take it up with yourself, mister.”
“What can I do to speed this process up? What’re you going to wear today?” he asks.
“My jeans that are over the chair in the living room and my black sweater that’s hanging in the closet. I put fresh underwear on and my socks are in the laundry basket on the dining table.”
Jack moves quickly to the closet, pulling the two shutter doors open. “Uh, Clara?”
I look at him over my shoulder. “Yeah?”
“Are you a serial killer?” He holds up a neon-pink sticky note. “And should I be concerned that there’s a question mark under my name?”
“Do serial killers give their victims head in the shower instead of killing them?” I ask, finally working out the last knot in my hair. I braid it over my shoulder and stand from the floor to meet him at the closet.
He pulls out the black sweater he went in there for and there’s another sticky note stuck to it. “True crime isn’t really my thing so I’m not sure.”
“It’s my plan,” I explain. “To help the town, not kill the town.”
He sits on the bed in front of the closet, my sweater and the sticky notes still in his hands. “You really did have a plan this whole time. I thought it was a figure of speech or something.”
I push my clothes out of the way so he can see the whole mess, peeling from the wall. “You made me realize when I first got here that for people to trust me they needed to like me first. So I decided to gain the town’s trust by being proactive, helpful, and visible.”
“You were visible all right. I felt like I saw you everywhere. You were like a ghost haunting me,” he says.
“My plan got a little messy after that. I should’ve bought string.
My main focus was raising the town’s profile, getting more visitors, and earning everyone more money.
But then I thought that the people involved in the Holly project needed something specific for them.
I realized that everything all linked into my main focus—which is why I think I should’ve bought string, but you live and learn.
Except for you, actually. Which is why your name’s on my closet wall with a question mark. ”
“I was a phase of your plan?” he asks.
“In the achieving-my-goals sense, not in the dying-my-hair-black-and-listening-to-emo-music kind of way.” I see him smile out of the corner of my eye.
“Walk me through it. It’s interesting to see the town through your eyes.”
Putting these sticky notes up feels like a lifetime ago. “Okay, but before I start, so many of these things had multiple people contributing. Please don’t think I achieved them all on my own.”
Jack kisses the top of my shoulder. “I know.”
“I put Mel and Winnie in touch with my mom to do an event for her; it’s a boost of income, which meets my earning-money goal.
“My mom loves them and she’s giving their name to all her socialite friends. Obviously, the Small Business Saturday stamp book coincided with the most profitable Fraser Falls SBS ever, which also fits into the earn-money goal. Could just be a coincidence…”
“It wasn’t a coincidence. You nailed it,” he says.
“I stepped up to help Dove with the toy drive and emailed every single rich person I know. I don’t know what the final donation number is and there’s a truck of toys still to arrive that I ordered, but I think the donations are up significantly from past years.”
“I heard that too,” he says. “Raising our profile by telling people about it.”
This is why I need string. “Yeah, I guess it is. I connected Miss Celia with my friend in publishing. Obviously the event last night brought dozens of people here and they not only spent money at the Green Light, but they went to other stores and we saw loads of them at Tommy’s.”
“You found Wilhelmina’s nutcracker.” There’s a tinge of something playful in his tone.
“ We found Wilhelmina’s nutcracker. I gave Arthur a lesson on how to utilize the email mailing list opt-ins to push other things like the nativity and the ballet. I also showed him how to stop sending everything twice, but that was more for me.”
“When the hell did you do that?” he asks. “I didn’t even know teaching him was possible.”
I wave my hand flippantly. “You were fixing someone’s toilet or something. I wrote it all down for him, too, so you shouldn’t get any calls about it. But that should help bring repeat visitors back to town, where they’ll hopefully spend money.”
“You’ve been busy,” he says. “What else?”
“Well, Flo was the person I truly wanted to win over. I’ve been the most helpful, most visible, and most proactive with her. I’ve bought something from her every single day I’ve been here. Said yes to every little thing she’s wanted.”
“Dangerous territory. That’s how it starts, now look at me.” I do look at him. He’s listening to my plan attentively and hasn’t once interrupted to call me a scheming weirdo. I’m going to miss him so much it makes my bones ache. “Sorry for interrupting, baby. Carry on.”
“I hoped I’d impress her with the stamp book, and I know she was happy, but I knew I could do more.
That’s why I got the news here for the Santa run.
That’s the best way I know how to raise a profile.
Then the bad reviews happened and I helped get them removed, although I maintain that she needs to thank Sahara, not me. And finally the article.”
“I think anything you do in town directly helps Flo, Clara. But you’ve done a lot for her and I know she appreciates you for it.”
I look at the newer row of sticky notes beneath my original ones.
“The more time I spent here the more things I picked up on. I’m sure even the hairdresser’s and ice cream parlor need something so I put them on there somewhere.
I’ve just run out of time. It’s hard when you have to use your brain instead of your AmEx. ”
“You’re missing one,” he says quietly.
I lean against his shoulder, slowly breathe in his clean smell. “You’re still a question mark, Jack.”
“You don’t think you’ve helped me while you’ve been here?
” Above everything, he sounds confused. He grips my chin gently and angles my face toward his.
“Clara, you’ve helped me in ways I’m not even sure I’ll realize until you’re not here anymore.
But even at work things have been easier with you supporting me. ”
“When you say ‘until you’re not here anymore’ it makes me feel like I’m never going to see you again. Makes me feel like I’m grieving before I’m even gone.” The words hurt as I say them because the past forty-eight hours have felt different. Like we’re both slowly crawling toward the end.
“It doesn’t feel good saying it.”
Jack kisses my temple and it takes every single shred of my inner strength to not burst into tears.
This is not how this was supposed to go.
I was supposed to skip my way back to New York and happily accept my promotion.
Something I don’t even know if I want anymore.
“You know, you could charge like four times the price for your stuff if you moved your store to Brooklyn. You can keep the beard, we can pitch you as the tortured-artist type. Elf would love having so many questionable things to sniff.”
“You could live here. Rent an office space and commute a couple of times a month. Or even better, quit and work for people who value you. Everyone would be happy to see you stay. Me especially.”
I feel angry when I think about how easily Davenport hurt people in this community.
They’ve strayed so far from our company values that it’s borderline unrecognizable.
The reason it hurt so much when Jack called me their first victim is because I can see the truth in his logic.
He’s right, I do need to stand up for myself.
I have let them take advantage of me, of my ideas and my skills.
The fact he can tell knowing barely anything about my professional and family life is worrying. I think back to Max’s urgent want to meet with me and it reminds me how paranoid I’ve become.
“We’re going to miss the farmer’s market,” I say, reaching for my sweater. “We shouldn’t waste your day off sitting here, you staring at me.”
“You want to hide your murder closet?” he asks. “Or are you going to leave Maggie with questions and probably very serious concerns?”
“Close it. There’s not much more I can do now anyway.”