Chapter 20 #2
“Miranda works at the library, and Paige owns the yoga studio. We were just on our way for our weekly coffee date, but then saw you, and since everyone in town is dying to meet you, I figured you might want to join us. Did you know the entire town has been trying to set Lenox up for months? He wasn’t biting. ”
I may gasp. “You were trying to set him up? With whom?”
“Any single warm-blooded female,” Paige explains.
Wow. That’s some stuff right there. I cackle just picturing the town busybodies trying to play matchmaker with him. No wonder he married me without much of an argument. He must have hated that.
“That’s fabulous. I wish I had seen it.” The women give me strange looks, and, oh, right, I’m married to him and supposed to be in love.
Oops. I clear my throat. “I was going to check out the yoga studio and the library,” I say, changing the subject.
“I haven’t gotten a chance to explore the town yet.
” Because I’ve been hiding out for a week.
“Come have coffee with us,” Paige suggests. “We’ll happily show you around?—”
“After you give us all the dirt on your marriage to Lenox,” Miranda throws out with a teasing smile.
“We still can’t believe he’s finally married.
And to you.” She blanches and doinks her forehead.
“Gah, nothing I’m saying is coming out right.
Sorry, I’m a bit starstruck. I’ve seen all of your films. My favorite is Holiday Bright . ”
I laugh. “I was like sixteen when I filmed that. ”
“I know!” she exclaims. “But you were so good in it, and I wanted to be your best friend. Sorta how everyone wants to be Taylor Swift's best friend.”
“Yeah, I can get that,” I admit. “I’d like to be best friends with her too. Or at least get sloppy seconds on some of the men she’s dated.”
“Right?” Paige snorts. “I’m there with you on that.”
“Though you’re married to Lenox now. He’s a celebrity. A hot celebrity. Kind of scary and intimidating, but still hot.” Miranda sighs in a self-deprecating way. “I really need to stop speaking.”
“You’re totally fine. I promise. But you mentioned coffee, and I’d like to get off the sidewalk if there’s paparazzi lingering about.”
Brooklynn gives me a funny look as we start walking. “There’s no paparazzi. We scared them all off. I mean, there were several lurking about last week, but we don’t fuck around in this town, especially when it comes to Lenox.”
I trip over my feet. “For real? No paparazzi in town? Does Lenox know this?”
Her eyebrows bounce in surprise at my question. “Of course he knows. The last of them were run out of town on Saturday.”
I wipe at the smirk on my lips. I could kill Lenox, and yet… ugh. That man is a weasel squirming his way back in.
“How’s the nose ring?” Brooklynn asks.
“Good. Healing well, as far as I can tell.”
“It looks like it is,” she asserts, inspecting me. “Wave to my husband.”
“Huh?”
She points at the hardware store. “That’s my husband, Max. He owns the hardware store.”
I wave to the tall man inside the store talking to a customer, though he doesn’t seem to notice me. The frosty bite of the wind slaps into us, and we all huddle a bit into our coats, my boots crunching on the fallen leaves strewn about the sidewalk.
“I take it I need to get used to the cold.”
“It’s supposed to snow this weekend,” Paige informs me with an apologetic grimace .
“Ugh,” I moan. “Don’t tell me that. I’m not ready for snow. It’s only the second week of November.”
“Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but it already snowed up here. Last month, we had a small storm. You get used to it.” Miranda laughs at my appalled expression.
It’s been a while since I lived in Boston. Four years, to be exact, since I graduated with my master's and then moved back to LA to be near my parents.
“You’re a midwife, right? I mean, not that we haven’t totally cyberstalked you, because we obviously have.”
I laugh at Paige. “Yes, I’m a midwife. And you’re what… sixteen weeks or so?”
“Seventeen. Good call. Brooklynn and I were wondering if you were going to be practicing locally. The nearest OB’s office is at the hospital, which is about forty minutes away. It sucks. It’s the one thing this town is missing. A good women’s health provider.”
“Yeah,” Brooklynn picks up as we continue to walk to the other end of Main Street.
“And since it’s such a young town, there are several of us preggo women.
We need you. Please tell me you can be our midwife.
” She holds up her hands in supplication, and I’m rendered momentarily speechless as the idea swirls through my head.
I miss practicing something fierce. This past week, I filled out all the necessary applications and forms to get licensed in Maine.
It’s insanely easy, and in Maine, I can work as a sole provider without physician supervision.
Even though I did that, I haven’t applied, or even looked for a job because I don’t know how long I’m going to stay.
If the paparazzi are already gone, I might not have to stay much longer.
But I never considered my own practice.
It's…
No way. Not possible. Starting a private practice means I’m staying.
Lenox and I haven’t even discussed a timeframe for this.
I’m only here because Ezra and Alfie are looking into contesting my marriage to Lenox, and we need to make this thing look real to everyone.
I never thought of Maine as anything long-term .
But now…
I clear my throat. “I have to get my license here first, and after that, I have no idea what I’ll do.” It’s the truth. I can’t tell them that my time here is limited because no one knows my marriage to Lenox is fake.
We enter the coffee shop that has a cute little bell over the door and collectively groan at the blasting heat and the smell of freshly brewed coffee and baked goods.
The store is just as cute as everything else in this town seems to be.
Cozy-looking chairs and mixed seating areas with a gas fireplace in the back.
The walls are more of the exposed brick that Lenox has in his shop, with a giant chalkboard affixed to the wall behind the counter boasting various drinks and sandwiches.
My stomach growls accordingly.
The people in the café are definitely staring while blatantly whispering about me.
“It’s because you’re married to Lenox,” Paige explains. “That’s all. He’s done so much for this town, and everyone here loves him and protects him, but he’s still a total mystery to us. Like Bruce Wayne to the people of Gotham.”
Clearly, they get the Batman vibes from him too. I shake my head. “I don’t understand what you mean by he’s done so much for the town.” This seems to be a recurrent theme I’m missing.
She gives me an incredulous look, but before she can answer me, a woman with brown hair and blue eyes comes rushing from behind the counter to greet us. She hugs each of the women one by one, and then grabs my hand and starts shaking it.
“Hi! I’m Heather. This is my place. I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Hi, Heather. I’m so glad to be here.” I hold in my laugh at her overexuberance.
“Heather, slow your buttered roll. You’re going to rip her arm off,” Miranda chastises.
“Right. Sorry.” Heather pulls back. “I’m just so excited to meet you. Everyone in town has been talking about you. In a good way, of course. What can I get you? On the house. Any wife of Lenox’s can have whatever she wants. ”
What is with this town and loving Lenox so much?
“Um. I’ll have a cappuccino and a blueberry muffin, please.”
“Coming up. I already know what they’re having.” She waves the other women away. “Go sit with them, and it’ll be right out.”
“Thank you. You sure I can’t pay?”
“Your money is no good here.”
I blink, too perplexed to argue, and dumbly follow the other women to a corner sitting area that’s near the fireplace. Brooklynn pulls the reserved tag from the table and plops down on one of the couches.
“Like I said, this is our weekly thing, and Heather usually joins us when she can.”
I take a seat but shift to face them so I can speak in a low tone without the other patrons hearing. “Can someone explain the whole Lenox is the Bruce Wayne god of this town to me?”
The women all exchange looks and lean in conspiratorially, giving me curious expressions. “You don’t know?”
“Lenox and I didn’t talk for a while until we reconnected.
” I’m getting more puzzled looks, and I feel like I have to explain, but how the fuck do I explain this?
“We, uh, we were… together for a couple of years while I was in college, and then when we broke up, well, it wasn’t under the best of circumstances.
So I didn’t talk to him for a while, and he’s certainly never one to boast or brag. ”
The women exchange looks again, and then Heather is carrying a large tray loaded with food and drinks. She sets it down and then drops into the seat next to me. “What did I miss? Everyone is staring at Georgia like she’s a lobster crawling around the floor.”
That’s sorta what I feel like right now. I pick up my cappuccino, which is bigger than my face, and take a sip, then lick my upper lip to make sure I don’t have a froth mustache.
“She’s asking why everyone in this town is so in love with Lenox,” Paige informs her.
Heather laughs. “Well, Brooklynn knows him best, or should I say speaks to him the most, but despite the fact that he was a rock star in a band we were all obsessed with and obviously looks the way he looks while mastering the sexy, tall, silent type thing?— ”
“You realize that’s her husband you’re mentally ogling,” Miranda quips.
Heather waves her away. “Whatever. I’m answering the woman’s question.
” She turns back to me. “Anyway, he purchased this town six years ago, renovated the hell out of everything, and rents out the businesses essentially at cost, which is obviously so much less than market value. He earns little to no profit for himself.”
Forget lobster, I’m impersonating a goldfish. “I’m sorry, what?”
They all laugh lightly. “The only buildings he doesn’t own are the public and municipal ones, like the library and town hall, but he donated huge amounts of money for massive overhauls and renovations,” Miranda explains.
“It’s all run through some dummy corporation or something, but everyone knows it’s Lenox.
Sorta like his house in the woods. No one actually knows where it is or how to get there, but we know he lives there. ”
“Um.” I take another sip of my coffee, needing the caffeine more by the second. “Why would he... why would he do all that?”
They shrug in unison. “No clue,” Brooklynn states. “Legit, I’ve asked him a hundred times, but he never answers me. It’s how we can afford to own the hardware store.”
“Same for me,” Paige says as she picks at her breakfast sandwich and takes a big bite, chewing as she talks. “I’d never be able to own the yoga studio if I was paying premium rent.”
Heather is nodding in agreement, and I can’t seem to understand what’s happening right now.
Six years ago, is when Lenox left Boston.
When he left me. But who does that? Who buys a town, shells out an untold fortune, pays to renovate everything, including businesses he doesn’t own, and only charges enough rent to cover his expenses?
“It’s done wonders for this town,” Brooklynn tells me.
“I grew up a half an hour from here, and this town wasn’t much of a town.
It’s always been pretty run-down, but he renewed the whole thing, and in doing so, it brought families and businesses in, and that helped with the school systems. It was a snowball effect. ”
I’m utterly floored. I sit back against the soft leather cushion and stare out into the café .
What did he say to me today? My life was a mess, and you loving me was the wake-up call I never knew I wanted or needed.
I had to go out and try and fix it. I had to make amends for all my wrongs the only way I could.
But hurting you has been one of the main regrets of my life. Up there with letting Suzie die.
Oh, Lenox. Look at all the good you did here. Do you even see it? You certainly never take credit for it.
Because he doesn’t feel he deserves any.
It makes me want to find him and kiss the hell out of him, but it also makes me want to find him and hold him. Lenox’s demons run deep. His guilt along with them. Did he do all this as part of some strange atonement for sins he believed he committed? And am I now a part of that?