Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
I t wasn’t a surprise for Alex to find himself back at the front desk of The Rooster. The “new” employee Roger still wasn’t accustomed to the late-night schedule and was thrilled to get a good night of sleep tonight. Alex was thrilled not to spend another aimless night alone at home, not sleeping as the black sky pressed hard against the roof of his cabin.
Alex stood at an empty desk. He hadn’t brought his computer tonight, because he didn’t have anything to edit. Maybe he’d stop taking film projects entirely. Maybe Rowan’s confession that he’d taken his funds out from under him had been the final nail in his already-dying career. And it wasn’t like he was living a bad life here at The Rooster anyway.
Alex’s head had been heavy with thoughts of Victor Sutton ever since he’d come by to talk about Joel. He was a broken man. A man who’d tried so desperately to live. A man who’d messed up so often along the way. Much like Alex. Maybe Alex’s greatest accomplishment would be staying sober for the rest of his life. Perhaps it involved running The Rooster after his parents passed.
Suddenly, the front door opened. It was eleven at night, far later than most Nantucket tourists stayed out on a night like this, and Alex stiffened his spine in preparation.
But the woman who walked through the door and stood before him wasn’t a Nantucket tourist. Not really. Not to her bones.
It was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. A woman with brunette tresses curling down her shoulders and catlike eyes that caught the light. A woman in a pair of Levi jeans and a V-neck T-shirt—a tomboy to her core, just as she’d been when they were kids. In a flash, it all rolled over him: the nights when they’d held each other, giggling until sleep found them; the mornings they’d stuffed themselves with breakfast and watched the San Francisco rain spill from roiling clouds; the night they’d let Elvis join them in holy matrimony.
And then there was the fact that he’d left.
There was also the fact that they’d never bothered to get divorced.
The woman before him was his wife.
Alex’s eyes welled with tears. Valerie’s echoed his. She crept closer, tentatively, as though he were an apparition, and she couldn’t trust that he’d stay where he was. Alex walked around the side of the front desk and stood three feet away from her. He could smell her perfume. He stirred with longing.
So many years after we last said goodbye. How do we say hello?
Valerie touched her hair. She smiled that secret smile of hers, which meant they were sharing a joke that nobody else knew. Alex couldn’t help it. He smiled back.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But he couldn’t say it all aloud. It was too much.
Valerie had to be the one to speak first, he decided. Because she was braver than he was, and she knew that.
Finally, she raised her chin and said, “I heard a rumor you turned forty.”
Alex hadn’t expected that. He burst with laughter, then clapped his mouth shut. “Too old?”
Valerie took a delicate step toward him. “Do you feel forty?”
“Sometimes I feel ancient. Sometimes I feel ten years old.”
Valerie pressed her lips together. “That’s the only correct answer.”
The air between them sizzled with tension. Alex hadn’t realized he’d been anticipating this moment ever since he’d learned Valerie was back on the island. It had taken every ounce of his willpower not to stride over to the Sutton House and tell her he was and would always be in love with her.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Was sorry ever enough?
“I was supposed to publish a book about my family,” Valerie said suddenly.
Alex tilted his head. “I heard your father was, too.”
“That was sort of the point. I wanted to get back at him for that.” Valerie snapped her fingers. “I wanted to face the problem head-on. With language. With accusations.” She let her fingers flutter to her side. “But when I sat down at the computer, all I could write about was you.”
Alex inhaled sharply. He thought he was going to collapse.
Valerie reached out to touch his arm.
And he thought, This is all I need. Even if she can’t give me anything else. This will be enough.
Finally, she whispered, “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you what you needed. I couldn’t protect you.”
Alex shook his head. His chest spasmed. “I couldn’t give you what you needed. I couldn’t be there.” He swallowed. “I left.”
“I told you I couldn’t do it anymore,” Valerie said.
Alex bowed his head. Still, her hand remained on his arm. It kept him grounded on the planet.
Valerie stepped closer so that her body was just a few inches from his. Heat emanated off her.
“Do you remember what Elvis said when he married us?” she asked softly.
Alex sniffed with laughter. “Did he say, Thank you, thank you very much ? That classic Elvis quote?”
Valerie’s smile lit up the foyer. “No. He said, ‘You’ll make some mistakes along the way, baby. You gotta remember to keep your love first.’ Or something to that effect.”
“Right. That’s the other classic Elvis line. The one I always forget,” Alex joked.
Valerie cleared the distance between them, so that both of her hands took his. Their lips were just a few inches apart. Alex didn’t dare kiss her. His body would erupt into flames if he did.
“I kept waiting for the divorce papers,” Valerie said.
“I kept waiting for them from you.”
“It was a game of chicken.”
“Which one of us won?” Alex asked.
“Do you want to win?” Valerie raised her eyebrows.
“I’ve only ever wanted to win your love, Valerie Sutton,” Alex said.
“Garland,” Valerie corrected him. “Valerie Garland.”
“That’s not what it says on your website.”
Valerie’s cheeks flashed with pink. “Have you been stalking my website?”
“I was hoping you could plan an event for me,” Alex said.
Valerie shook gently with tears and laughter. Their emotions swirled around them like the morning's dewy pink and orange clouds.
Alex suddenly suspected they would see them together in six hours. He imagined they’d stay up all through the night. He imagined they wouldn’t find a way to leave one another again.
“What’s the event?” Valerie asked.
“I don’t want to tell you yet,” Alex said.
“The trick about planning events is that you have to know what the event is.”
“I hadn’t heard that rule.”
“It’s an essential one,” she said.
Alex’s smile hurt his cheeks. He gathered her in his arms, unable to stop himself. From upstairs in the inn came the sound of muffled feet. He imagined it was the older married couple who’d checked in right when he’d arrived. “It’s our anniversary,” the woman had announced. “Forty years. You’d think we’d be sick of each other. But it’s not like they say! You just don’t get sick of the person you love. Don’t believe what they say. True love doesn’t die.”
Alex touched Valerie’s hair, drawing a curl around her ear just as he once had. He shivered as he kissed her forehead, then her eyebrow. He flashed with a spontaneous memory of that night he’d left, his quest to find drugs, then immediately scrubbed that thought out. Stay here. Stay with Valerie. For whatever reason, she’s giving you another chance. You don’t deserve it.
He couldn’t stop himself from saying, “I don’t deserve you.”
“What does it mean to deserve anything?” she asked.
This was true. Joel didn’t deserve to die. Who deserved to live? Who deserved to triumph? Who deserved to succeed in filmmaking, event planning, or novel—writing and live a happy and uncomplicated life in the Nantucket sun? People made up their own rules. At the end of the day, you had to live with the wonder, sorrow, fear, and exhilaration of being yourself.
It wasn’t then that Alex kissed her. It wasn’t even an hour later when she convinced him to order a massive pizza with extra jalape?os, and they sat on the front desk cross-legged, ate with greasy fingers, and told one another stories.
In fact, it wasn’t until the sun shivered into the front Rooster windows and a horse clopped by happily, a stranger riding on him wearing a sun hat, that Valerie rose on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on Alex’s lips. Alex was consumed with her.
Alex left his post early for the first time in his tenure at The Rooster. He wrote his mother and father a note saying, “Something came up. I left at six fifteen, which means you should be here soon to tend to things. I will make it up to you. Love, Alex.”
In a flash, Alex and his wife were out the door. In a flash, they were speeding through a gorgeous yellow morning to spend the rest of it tucked away in Alex’s bed. It was almost as though the previous years hadn’t happened. Almost as though they’d been allowed a sliver of magic in an otherwise dark and lonely time.