Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Henry
“How could you want to live anywhere else in the world after reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn?”
—Henry’s Staff Pick
I still hadn’t packed all of Leo’s things up. A lot of it had been placed in boxes, shipped off to my mom or donated. But there was plenty to do. And since Ella was off with her family tonight, I figured I’d use the day to get ’er done.
When I first got here, I never suspected it would be hard to leave again. I thought New York might bring up some old feelings that I’d buried deep, but I’d get closure and say goodbye to the store and Leo.
But it hurt worse than I ever thought. I was torn open and raw.
Unable to even think about Ella without feeling nearly sick to my stomach, but wanting to think about her because how could I not?
It was paradoxical, how horrible and amazing it was to love someone who loved you right back, but being unable to do anything about it.
Like always, when I was struggling, I called my mom. She was on speaker as I taped up boxes of books and neatly folded clothes.
“Remind me again why you have to leave?”
“Because I have a house in Tennessee. Friends. A life,” I said for the millionth time. “I’ve got to figure out what I want to do now. Find a new job.”
She harrumphed. “The Last Page is a good job, too.”
“My mind is made up, Mom,” I said, lightly. “I’m coming back.”
She was quiet for a moment, which meant she was deep in thought. My mom was a chatterbox until she had to sort out the thoughts in her own brain.
“Promise me something, Henry,” she said softly. “Promise me you’re not coming back for me.”
I was quiet for a moment. My hands were on my waist as I looked down at the floor. I was heartsick, miserable in the worst way.
“Mom, it’s not worth getting into.”
“I can’t let you do this—”
“You had a stroke,” I said incredulous. “You live alone. I was lucky you were at work and someone was there to call an ambulance. What happens if you have one while making dinner?”
“Plenty of people live alone,” she said calmly.
“No. That’s my final answer, Mom,” I said, an edge too sharp. “You’re getting older and it’ll only become more frequent and—”
“Remind me why you didn’t want to inherit The Last Page all those years ago?” she asked, cutting me off. I fell silent. “It was because you didn’t want someone else to dictate your life. Didn’t want to have your future determined by something you couldn’t control.”
“Mom, c’mon—”
“And here you are, doing it again!” she insisted.
“It’s different.”
“You’re right. It is different. You’re happy.
You’re in love. You want something for the first time in God knows how long.
My job as a mom is to give you the best life I possibly can.
If there’s a reason for you to stay here and worry, I would tell you.
But I’m telling you, that flight from New York to Tennessee isn’t as long as you think.
I know you’re scared and probably have doubts, but sweetheart, life is full of doubts.
In the end, you write your own fate in the stars. ”
My throat was thick with tears. Because she was right. Against all odds, I was happy in New York. I’d miss sleeping to sirens and random conversations on the sidewalk. And my morning walk in the West Village, or even the bodega on my corner where I got an overpriced bacon, egg, and cheese bagel.
My phone buzzed with a text, or a sign from the universe, you pick.
Ella: i have to stop by the store at close to help julie out with something, wanna stop by and say goodbye one last time to the last page before your flight?
My heart leaped.
“So what?” I whisper to my mom. “I just … stay? Like it’s that easy?”
“Wouldn’t leaving be harder?”
My mom loved romcoms. I grew up on them. She used to say that’s what made me so emotionally mature, which was definitely debatable at times.
When Harry Met Sally was her favorite. That final scene brought her to tears every time—when Billy Crystal runs through New York City to make it to Sally on New Year’s Eve.
“Why doesn’t he just take a taxi?” I would ask as she’d hush me.
“It’s more romantic this way,” she would say. “Not every girl will admit it, but every girl wants someone that would run to them.”
And I ran to Ella.
Ella was my best friend, not just the woman I loved. I wanted to tell her the good news that tomorrow morning, we could go to the coffee cart on my corner. That I could find her shelving in Egyptian History and tease her until she cried laughing.
I couldn’t wait, so I ran to her.
Breathlessly, I keyed open the front door to the bookstore. The main floor was empty so I raced up the stairs to Leo’s office, but when I reached the top of the stairs, I stopped dead in my tracks.
The lights in the events room were on. I frowned since there weren’t any events scheduled today. I peeked inside to find all the booksellers were sitting in the event space, murmuring quietly among themselves. Ella stood on the stage.
“He’s here,” Joey whispered loudly, causing every head to turn my way.
I frowned. “What’s going on?” Ella beckoned me to the front of the room, up on the stage where a singular chair was waiting for me. “Ella, honey, what’s everyone doing?” I whispered when I was close enough to touch her.
“We’re all here today to host an intervention for Henry Martin,” she said loudly, widening her eyes at the booksellers.
“Hi Henry,” Joey said in a monotonous voice before turning to the rest of the group with a betrayed look. “What the hell, guys?”
“That’s for AA, not interventions,” Stewart replied.
“Is there a difference?” Joey asked.
“Big one,” David replied. “We’re not trying to get him to quit doing something, we’re trying to get him to stay.”
“Ergo, we’re trying to get him to quit leaving,” Joey said, confused. He turned to Stewart, “I can’t believe you’re not backing me up on this.”
Mabel let out a long groan. “I can’t hear them bicker one more time. All this back-and-forth is going to send me to my grave and then I’ll haunt you both.”
“I don’t think a haunting sounds that bad,” Mina chimed in. “Everyone talks about it like it’s a bad thing, but isn’t it kind of sweet? That someone wants to stay with you in their afterlife?”
“Wait, that’s so romantic,” Ameerah said, turning in her seat to smile at her. “Mabel, you can haunt me.”
“Y’all want me to stay?” I interrupted, looking between the booksellers and Ella. “To stay at the store?”
Ella nodded, a little hesitant. “Look, I’m well aware of the fact that you hate pressure and things like this, but this is my last-ditch effort. These are all my cards on the table.”
“We wrote letters on why you should stay,” David piped up.
“You did?” I asked, unable to keep the disbelief out of my voice.
“Even Jack!” Joey said. “Jack, read yours.”
Jack unfolded his arms from his chest with an eye roll. “Fine. ‘Henry, you shouldn’t leave,’ ” he read from his paper.
“Touching,” Ella said drily, her eye twitching. “Remember when I said there was a paragraph minimum?”
“You can’t fire me for this,” Jack said pointedly.
“No, but don’t forget who holds the company card for the Magnolia Cupcakes.”
“The point is we want you to stay,” Mabel said. “If not to bang Ella so she’s less strung out—”
“Hey!”
“Then because we actually like you,” she finished.
“You can’t leave,” Mina said quietly. “You’re one of us now.”
“And you were really fun when we all got drunk that one time,” Sarah added.
“People leave all the time,” Jack pointed out. Suddenly, he ducked as a paperback came hurtling his way. I glanced at Ella, who held her hands behind her back, looking up and whistling. “But the right ones don’t.”
Ella turned to me and said, “You won’t be lonely with us here.
And I know everything with your mom and job is complicated, but you can split your time.
I’ll pay half your airfare. Or she can move up here!
I think we can all sit here and figure this out instead of just throwing in the towel.
I’ll understand if you do leave … but all of our memories would be threaded in gold for forever, Henry. ”
No one had ever fought for me like this.
No one had ever wanted me to be part of their friend group or their life as much as these people.
Whenever Ella said I wouldn’t be lonely, I was hesitant, a little disbelieving.
But looking out at the friendly faces that I’d come to know and love in the past few months, I knew she was right.
I knew I had found a family in the store Leo had started.
“Ella,” I whispered, a little astonished. I wiped the tears away from my eyes and stood, towering over her a little bit. She held my gaze, her eyes a cocktail of hope and worry. “I’d like nothing more than to stay by your side.”
Her shoulders dropped in relief. “Really?”
Without another word, my mouth descended on hers. The booksellers cheered as I clutched her waist, pulling her closer to me.
Ella laughed out of the kiss. “Really? You’ll stay?”
“How about this? When you leave, I will, too,” I said.
“I’m never leaving.”
“Fine by me,” I said with a smile.
Ella pressed up on her tippy-toes to give me another kiss right as Joey said, “This calls for cupcakes, right?”
On the walk home, Ella and I were drunk off each other.
Her hand was intertwined with mine, squeezing tightly.
It was eight thirty, but the sun was just beginning to set.
It was officially summer in New York. The sunset peeked through the buildings as tourists and New Yorkers alike wandered the streets.
There were bars and restaurants with lines outside, no one particularly grumpy because they had survived the brutality of a New York winter.
I couldn’t stop smiling.
When we reached an intersection too busy to jaywalk and stopped, I pulled Ella toward me.
“Hey,” I said softly. “I want you to know I wanted to stay the whole time. I was tortured over the decision and it always came back to you. That I wanted to stay because of you. Even if there wasn’t a store and I didn’t fall in love with New York, I fell in love with you.”
I was starting to think they were synonymous—Ella and New York. Both full of whimsy and surprises and so so easy to love.
“I never saw any of this coming,” Ella said, smiling up at me. “I never thought … I guess I thought the romance in my life would be fictional. I didn’t ever care about falling in love with someone, but you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Henry.”
I pressed a quick kiss to her mouth as the light changed. And as we crossed the street, it felt like turning the last page of a book. A whole new one awaited us.