Chapter 3 Nostalgia Eyes
NOSTALGIA EYES
ALICE
The metal handles of the grocery basket dig into my forearm as I stare at the different types of pasta on the shelf. I’ve been frozen, deciding between pastina and macaroni for five minutes—which isn’t a long time, but is forever when you’re grocery-store-perusing.
Fuck it, I’ll buy both.
I toss them into my cart, the dried pasta rattling in their blue cardboard homes, and check out. With my canvas totes thrown over my shoulders, and my hands busy forcing my wallet into my purse strapped across my chest, I push open the front door with my hip.
My eyes squint at the bright flare of the sun, temporarily blinded as it begins its dip beneath the marina’s horizon. Main Street runs perpendicular to the small bay, an arrow shooting all the passersby directly to the bobbing sailboats and ferry dock.
Soft swaths of pink and orange streak through the western half of the sky, melting into the darker blues of encroaching night to the east. My cheek twitches, as if it wants to break into a grin.
One of the perks of this town being nestled on Long Island’s north shore is that you get both sunsets and sunrises over the water.
A couple sits at one of the benches lining the dock, sharing a melting ice cream cone. The salty breeze carries their giggles over to me and the light douses their hair in brilliant gold.
They seem at peace. Happy.
Maybe I should try to paint here.
I could bring my travel watercolor set, which I’ll have to dig for, since I don’t know when the last time was that I actually used it. But it should be tucked in the box that has all of—
My thoughts are cut off as a solid body collides into me, and I go tumbling onto the sidewalk. I wince a curse as my palms scrape against the pavement, bracing my fall.
“Fuck, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t looking.” A shadow descends as the person who barreled into me kneels at my side. His voice is smooth and soft. Kind. “Are you okay?”
Sucking in a breath between my teeth, I lift my stinging hands. The scuffed skin is red and indented with bits of rock and sand, but I’m not bleeding.
“Yeah,” I huff, detangling my arms from the straps of my bags. I quickly shove the few fallen groceries back into their totes, groaning at the wet spot blooming on my carton of eggs. “I can’t say the same for my eggs though.”
I ready myself for the feat that will be going back inside to ask for an exchange but freeze when lithe hands ornamented with a leather watch pull the damaged carton from my grip.
“Shit. I’m running late for something but—here, let me give you some cash to buy new ones.”
I look up and am frozen again, lips parted at the most unique looking man I’ve ever seen.
His hair is pure white, strands sticking up at weird angles as if he’s run his hands through it all day.
A smattering of freckles, much like mine, line the bridge of his nose, sitting under circular glasses.
And beyond those panes of glass are brown eyes that err on the side of red.
Wide, wise, and weathered, they bore into me.
They are nostalgia incarnate, those irises.
The soft glow around a cherrywood fireplace on a stormy evening. The rusted chain of a bike that should have given out years ago but holds firm and carries you home. The sparkle of amber seashells over molten sand, the ones that prick the soles of your feet when you run home at sunset.
“Here,” he repeats, breaking our gaze and holding out a twenty.
“That’s too much,” I say, shaking my head.
“No, it’s not,” he says. Then, one eye squints as he winces a nervous smile. “It’s also the only cash I have. Please take it.”
When I don’t immediately take the bill, my brain taking too long to process the interaction, the man grabs my wrist. I choke on a shocked squeak as his soft hands press it into my palm and guide my fingers to curl around it.
“There,” he says.
His hands linger on mine for a second longer than is appropriate for two strangers. But his white brows knit together, a small crease forming between them as he stares at the place our flesh connects—as if he, too, is confused as to why he hasn’t let go.
He clears his throat. “Sorry again.”
A nervous tick twitches his expression as he drops my hand, stands, and pockets his wallet before scurrying away.
I watch as he jogs towards the water, his brown dress shoes smacking against the pavement.
He makes an abrupt turn west down Maple Drive and disappears with the dying sun.
A second later, the streetlamps flicker on above me, the clicking of their timers making me flinch.
I grunt as I stand, the twenty-dollar bill crumpling in my fist.
“Strange,” I say, turning back to the market, but the word is swallowed by the wind.
Along with a fresh carton of eggs, I treat myself to a pint of chocolate fudge brownie ice cream, courtesy of the kind stranger.
I don’t go to the marina the next day, or the day after that. I’d like to say I tried, but that would be a lie.
No, for a whole week I stay cooped up in the house, a bandanna knotted around my crown to hold back my curls, as I dust every baseboard, wipe off every shelf, and break down every moving box I unpack.
Cleaning is the greatest form of procrastination. You have so much to show for it, yet none of it is what you need.
I’m throwing the last of the cardboard carcasses into the garage on the seventh day of my purge when my phone buzzes against my thigh.
I sigh, a familiar thread of dread weaving between my ribs as I pull it from the pocket of my leggings.
It’s been a quiet week, and they’ve let me unpack in peace, so a check in was bound to happen at some point.
Proof of life?
STEPH
With my lips mashed together in an unamused expression, I snap a picture of myself from way too high of an angle.
Thank you. I hope cleaning and unpacking is going okay.
STEPH
But more importantly… proof of art?
STEPH
I groan, scrubbing a hand over my face.
What I also haven’t done this week is work on any of my pieces for the exhibit.
Sure, I have plenty of half-started projects shoved into the drawers of my grandma’s studio, but they’re all pieces from before.
I couldn’t unpack them without getting blurry-eyed.
How was I supposed to stare at them for hours on my easel?
Tears don’t mix well with oil paint.
I respond to Steph with the emoji of the little French painter—at least, I assume he’s French, given the beret on his head.
That’s not a real answer.
STEPH
You said you had stuff you were working on in April??
STEPH
“Goddamn it,” I grumble, my head falling back.
I did try to paint in April. But all I did was glare at the blank canvas for two hours, a brush grasped in my hand so tight I thought it would snap. My knuckles became so stiff that I had to run them under hot water afterwards.
Alice… I can’t push this commitment back again. It’ll look bad.
STEPH
You still haven’t turned off read receipts, so I know you’re seeing this. I don’t understand how you’re so bad with technology.
STEPH
I pinch the bridge of my nose and type out a reply that will satisfy her.
Probably.
Hopefully.
For now.
I scrapped those.
I’m doing research on something new. I have a library trip planned for inspiration.
Will report back later.
Fine.
STEPH
BUT I need pics of sketches or notes on your ideas by this time Tuesday.
STEPH
And that’s not up for debate. So don’t even try. I will not see you blacklisted!!!
STEPH
Also, Erica says you should FaceTime her and show her all your grandma’s vintage clothes so she can pilfer some when we visit.
STEPH
I like her messages rather than responding, my shoulders sagging with a relieved sigh.
I just bought myself forty-eight hours.
In college, students often referred to the library as the stacks.
It was a self-explanatory nickname, though I was partial to calling it the maze.
Despite the neat, gridded rows of shelves, stacked five floors high, you could absolutely get lost in it.
There were many nooks you could tuck yourself into: the stray desks left in the awkward three feet of space between the wall and the edge of a shelf, the random armchair pushed against the window next to the reference book section, or the study room no one wanted to climb up four flights of stairs to get to.
But more than that, you could disappear. There were never eyes on you in the stacks.
There are eyes on me here.
The pinpricks of his gaze tickled my neck thirty minutes after I sat down with my pile of art history books.
When I was in school, I adopted the habit of flicking through these kinds of books in search of inspiration. I’d pull tiny pieces from them: a color that struck familiar, a particularly haunted expression in a portrait, or a motif that twisted my gut.
In art, half the battle is harnessing inspiration when it strikes. The other half is developing the dedication to see that inspiration to fruition. I’m able to do neither, as of late. And nothing pops out at me as I flick through the last pages of a book on Rococo art and architecture.
The heat crawling up my spine doesn’t help either. This library is too small, and there’s nowhere to hide.
There’s only one study area: a few wooden tables that sit in the open space between rows of books in the main room. I had no choice but to sit here, where all the eyes can see me. Or really, the kind stranger’s eyes.
Turns out, he’s one of Meadowbrook’s librarians.
My suspicious gaze slides from my book to the man. He casually strides between the shelves, ID badge and keys jingling from where they’re clipped to his belt loop, re-stocking books from a wheeled cart.