Chapter 30
I KNEW WHAT I WAS GOING TO DO for the next few weeks, that is.
Which led me to cancel my flight back to New York altogether and stick around Avila Falls through Christmas, until after the new year.
Those weeks were filled with cozy nights at home with my parents, who were over the moon; afternoon visits with Edith, who’d spent much of her time recovering in the comfort of her home; and, of course, many hours spent with Noah.
The past few weeks of getting to know one another had been, for lack of a less mushy word, magical.
I couldn’t deny it. We hiked the wintry trails around the town and shared pieces of our inner worlds, frequented the Bistro and spent hours laughing, went to Cedar Cinemas and bashfully stole glances at one another in the dark of the theater, and exchanged small Christmas gifts as the falling snow dusted our heads in fairy-tale fashion.
He had given me a dainty, silver aspen leaf necklace that I hadn’t wanted to take off since, while I had gotten him our mutual favorite indie artist Aria Winters’s newest record for his growing library.
He’d asked me that night to be his girlfriend, a title that had felt so far off for so many years that it continued to surprise me every time I was reminded that it was mine.
And with each time I had seen him since, I’d felt my heart becoming his, more and more.
And then, my early January flight back home to New York crept up.
My whole life still sat back there, strewn about in my Upper West Side apartment.
As the city’s skyline slipped into view through the plane window, I wondered if I was going home after all, or if the truth was that I’d just left home.
Agnes and Mara requested a girls’ night no sooner than the wheels had touched the tarmac. We met up at Nocturne, a reservations-only wine bar that sat atop a chic hotel in Tribeca. They showed up glitzed and glammed while the city sparkled all around us through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Alright, Jane,” Mara jokingly cut to the chase. “You have some explaining to do.”
“Tell us everything and leave absolutely nothing out,” Agnes ordered with a twinkle in her eye.
I complied, filling them in on Edith and the bookstore, my conversations with Liv, and the events that led to my new “girlfriend” title, an unexpected reality that still made me blush.
“So,” Mara said, “what you’re telling me is, you’re dating the male lead of a Hallmark movie.”
Agnes and I laughed at Mara’s succinct assessment of the last few weeks of my life that were right out of a romantic novel. A life that had so often felt unenchanting, unworthy of the pages it would take to tell.
“So . . . I guess all this means you’re leaving New York?” Agnes asked.
“I guess it does,” I said, out loud for the first time. Excitement bubbled up in my chest.
The evening wrapped up with a promise to bring my “small-town boy” to the city sometime and Agnes assuring me that she’d pay a visit the next time she went skiing in Aspen.
I walked for a while up Sixth Avenue, the frigid January air swirling about. Familiar sights, smells, and sounds surrounded me—groups of exhausted working professionals and dreamy-eyed students, food carts stocked with hotdogs and roasted nuts, blaring honks every now and then.
I knew it all so well. And yet, it no longer felt like home. Like where I was supposed to be.
I whispered a goodbye to the city that had called my name a decade ago.
The next week found me packing up my life in the city, a step of faith that at times felt like a freefall.
I had stuffed my favorite clothes into an oversized suitcase and donated the rest to Goodwill, given that Burberry didn’t have a place in my Avila Falls wardrobe; I had neatly packed the collection of novels I’d amassed throughout my decade in New York into moving boxes; I had bubble wrapped my gallery wall and ensured each piece would make the journey into the Rockies in one piece; and I had prepared my dear feline friend, Poe, for his trip across the country—and eventually new position as a bookstore cat once the shop was open again.
Six weeks had passed since I sat on that lookout with Noah, burdened with more questions than answers. And those weeks had flown by, filled to the brim with decisions and happenings that Jane from two months ago would never have made with a sound mind or believed could be real.
And yet, here I was in Avila Falls, pulling out the last of my books from their boxes and squeezing them into the surprisingly narrow space that was left on the bookshelf, real estate even more sought after than that of SoHo.
All that was left to do now was to hang up the few pictures I’d brought back with me from the city.
I had cleaned up and started staying in the apartment that sat directly above And Then There Were Books, which Edith hadn’t used for anything other than extra storage for years and insisted I move into. “I won’t have it any other way,” she’d said.
I tore open the bubble wrap on an artistic black-and-white photo of Central Park and set it down by the window.
Then the picturesque snowfall outside drew my attention.
A million feather-light flakes descended peacefully, slowly, methodically.
The old streetlights that lined Main Street were blanketed in ivory, giving Avila Falls an otherworldly, Narnian feel.
A figure moving across Colores Park caught my eye. It was Noah, bundled up in a green coat, making his way to Hardware Haven. A smile swept across my face. He would be coming over soon to help me hang my pictures and to repair a kitchen drawer that wouldn’t open all the way.
He had welcomed me back to Avila Falls, insisting that he pick me up from the airport and shyly telling me that he’d missed me.
Still, doubts gnawed at the back of my mind about my relationship with Noah.
Was there a real chance that this could last, or was it too good to be true and would it all fall apart in a few months?
Did I truly not have to worry about his ex–high school sweetheart, Alice, or was there still a possibility that he would want her back one day?
How deep were Noah’s feelings for me, and were they as deep as mine went?
Where did he see things going . . . and where did I see things going?
Liv had maintained that Noah seemed different from all the others when I talked to her over the phone last, which we had started doing every week despite no longer needing to work on her memoir.
“Jane, everything you tell me about him is a green flag. Trust me, he’s head over heels for you. ” Was she right about Noah?
Poe trilled as he jumped up onto the windowsill and looked out.
“What do you think, my boy?” I asked him. His luminous eyes glanced up at me as if to say, “Isn’t it obvious?” I sighed. If only it were.
I zipped my aspen leaf necklace back and forth across the chain as I watched Noah disappear into the hardware shop. A phone call from Edith forced my thoughts elsewhere.
“Hey, Edith.”
“Jane, my girl. How are you settling into the apartment? Is everything working all right?” Edith’s familiar voice wrapped around me like a hug.
“Settling in just fine. My books made it, which is the most important thing.”
She laughed in response. “You have your priorities in order.”
“Edith, you have no idea how grateful I am that you let me move in here. It’s such a beautiful space,” I said, glancing around at the little one-bedroom apartment that was starting to come together. Certainly more than my mind was.
The exposed brick walls added character, as did the wide, bright windows that covered two of the walls.
There was more than enough room by the far window to set up a writing desk.
The kitchen was small but cozy, and the living area only allowed for a simple couch, which Edith had gifted me, and a basic television set.
The apartment had far less room than my place in the city did, but I didn’t mind that.
By all accounts, it gave me exactly what I needed.
And yet, even as I spoke on the phone to Edith, a part of me still wondered if I would be staying here for good.
Would I be happy? Happier than I was before?
Could I make things work here, or would I be running back to New York by the end of spring?
Ever since I hadn’t gotten on my return flight to JFK back in December, Edith had assured me that I would find blessing on whatever path I chose, so long as I kept in touch with God and believed that my life mattered. “After all,” she’d said, “nothing can not matter when God is involved.”
Weeks ago, I might have been more dubious about her positivity, chalking it up to sweet thoughts from an elderly woman who wanted my best and needed to believe these things to make sense of the pain she’d experienced in her own life.
But lately I had begun to wonder if she had been right all along: If the problem hadn’t been that God didn’t care about me or my dreams but that I hadn’t been able to recognize his care without knowing him.
If the answers to prayer that should’ve been clear as day were hidden by my mind’s cloud coverage.
That maybe I had been treating my own life as if it couldn’t matter unless it looked exactly like the image I had in my mind.
That perhaps my definition of a life worth living had been too narrow, too staunch, too limited.
And that possibly, going by my definition was where I’d gone wrong.
“That apartment would’ve sat empty otherwise. And besides, I can’t think of a better use for that space,” Edith said, her smile apparent through the phone. “Do you have a grand opening date yet?”