Chapter 27
MOLLY
Enzo walks over with the packages.
My eyes roam over them, and excitement kicks in my gut. I know what this is.
He hands me a package. “Your disguise.”
I can barely contain my excitement. I pull out the fabric. A fluffy cardigan, a floral blouse and a calf-length skirt. There are accessories. I pull out a grey wig, large glasses and an oversized handbag.
Enzo’s personal assistant is a genius! She thought of everything. I have no idea what these clothes were originally intended for, but somehow she’s managed to send the perfect disguise.
This woman has an amazing sense of humor.
This outfit looks like it’s inspired by Mrs. Doubtfire. I won't look anything like her. I'll look like a young woman who has dressed decades beyond her age. But I will definitely look like an old lady who makes curtains twitch as she spies on the neighborhood.
“This is going to be so much fun!” I hold out my clothes only to look up and find Enzo staring.
“You'll look eighty.”
“I’ll be embracing my autumn years.”
He nods. “Interesting.”
“It will be interesting, just you wait and see! Let's see yours.”
From his package, he pulls out a corduroy jacket, a short fake beard, thickly rimmed reading glasses and a canvas messenger bag filled with documents.
“What is that?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe a professor?”
“Oooh … Professor Sexy!” I exclaim. “You look like the kind of professor a student would have a crush on.”
I’m in such good spirits today. This hasn’t been the torture chamber I was afraid it would be. And we’ve been out. That’s a big deal.
But Enzo is quiet. He stares at me for the longest time and doesn’t say a word. I hope I haven’t offended him. He likes his clothes and he dresses so stylishly, it now makes me wonder if he actually finds this painful.
“Maybe you teach comparative pottery,” I suggest.
He frowns. “That doesn’t sound like something a professor would teach.”
I make a face. “Not with that attitude you won’t.”
But I can’t wait to get dressed, and to go out, even if it’s just around the block.
***
ENZO
This is silly.
This is not how I should be spending my time, but a part of me is secretly thrilled. I’ve decided that we’re going to the bookshop Molly hovered around the other day, but I’m not going to tell her yet.
I’m also aware that we can’t be out for too long, because as funny as these outfits are, I’m worried that they’ll attract attention rather than not. I can’t believe I’m taking such a risk. I’m a very risk-averse person, but there’s something about Molly that has rubbed off on me.
She soon appears before me, pushing the glasses onto her nose, bending slightly at the waist and pointing a cane at me.
“Where did you get that?”
“It was buried inside the clothes. It’s a collapsible cane. I didn't see it at first, but this outfit isn’t complete without it.”
I stare at her. It's jarring. She has the skin of a twenty-something, as well as the figure, but her outfit doesn't match the personality I know.
Once again, we retreat to our rooms and get changed. When we come out, we stop and stare at one another.
Molly looks me up and down. I do the same to her.
“Well,” she says. “I definitely wouldn’t look twice at you.”
“I’m not sure whether to be insulted or relieved.”
“Relieved. Definitely relieved.”
I glance at her. “You don’t look like you either.”
“Perfect.” She grins. “Then we’re ready.”
We get outside the building, and I look around to hail a taxi. I told the bodyguard our plans, and we decided that he’ll follow discreetly.
“How many bodyguard do you have?” Molly asks.
“Sometimes two. It depends.”
“Why didn't your bodyguard stop me from filming you at the ball?”
“Because they look out for actual threats. Someone with a weapon. You holding up a phone didn’t exactly qualify.”
She appears to consider this. That’s when I notice that she’s struggling to maintain her elderly posture.
“You don’t need to walk like you’re in pain,” I whisper.
“I have a complicated relationship with my right hip.”
“You do?” I ask, genuinely concerned.
“The future me does.”
Here we go again.
I let out a groan, so that I don’t laugh out loud. “You're really getting into character.”
“I don't like to talk about it. I choose to deal with my pain quietly.”
She stares at me, her gaze going over my beard and glasses and stares.
“What?”
“You’re extremely attractive as a disgraced academic.”
“Why disgraced?”
“The comparative pottery drove you to ruin, much like Van Gogh.”
I stifle another laugh. I seem to be doing a lot of that lately. Something seems to have changed and even my working days are almost unrecognizable.
“He wasn't a potter,” I counter.
“But he was a tortured artist.”
“Earlier you said I was a history professor.”
“A professor of medieval comparative pottery. That’s a sort of history professor …”
“I see we're having another non-conversation.”
“Don't be so rude.”
I try to suppress my laughter. She seems so much more effervescent today, and it catches me off guard, especially with the way she’s so comfortable teasing me.
I don’t mind it one bit.
She gives me a playful swat of her hand on my thigh and the sparks she sets off are still zinging long after she’s moved her hand away. Once again, she has no idea of the effect she has on me. Even when she’s dressed as an eighty-year-old.
I look her over again. Her face doesn't fit the outfit. “I don't know if I can get used to you in this.”
“You don't have to get used to it. It's temporary.” She looks me up and down again. “By the way, you look adorable.”
Adorable.
She thinks I look adorable. Earlier she called me a sexy professor.
“We can walk around the block,” she offers. “We don’t have to get into a taxi or anything.”
I step back and assess her, wondering why the sudden change of mind. I thought this was what she wanted. “Don’t you want to go out?”
“I do, but I don’t want to take up too much of your time. You’re supposed to be working, Enzo. I’m on spring break. School’s closed for the week, so I’m okay. I worry that your family might get angry.”
She’s more worried about me. Typical Molly. “Don’t worry about them.”
I slip my arm through hers instinctively. She glances at me, but I focus on flagging down a taxi. When one arrives, we get in. I don’t look at her, because I don’t have an answer to give her, nor do I understand why I hooked my arm through hers like it’s the most natural thing for me to do.
“Where are we going?” she asks, staring out of the window. “We could have just walked around the block.”
“So you keep saying.”
“But … don’t you have to work?”
I glance at my watch. “Not right now. But I have a meeting in about an hour.”
Molly didn’t hear me tell the driver where we were going, but I’m secretly excited to bring her back here. I can’t wait to see her reaction.
In a short while, we reach our destination. I pay the driver, then climb out, holding the door open for Molly. I watch her intently.
She stares at the bookshop, her mouth turning into a big “O.”
No sound comes out.
She gazes up and at the window display. I move her away from the curb and she rushes to the window, stares at it for a few seconds then turns around and throws her arms around me.
“The bookshop! Oh, Enzo.”
She holds me a moment longer and I savor the moment. The feel of her, her soft cheek barely brushing mine, her hands slowly trailing down my arms and clasping my hands. Her scent reminds me of wildflowers.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
I scoff, like it’s no big deal. Because it isn’t. No one has ever hugged me for bringing them to a bookshop before. And I suspect no one ever will. There’s only one Molly. The smallest things bring her so much joy.
She moves away, and I tap my watch. “I’ve only got an hour,” I remind her, but I’m secretly pleased with myself for doing this. For wearing disguises, for coming here. For making more of her New York stay than she expected.
It hasn’t turned out anything like I thought it would.
Seeing how happy this makes her feels better than anything I’ve done all week.
We go in. It's so much bigger inside. There are narrow aisles and stacked books, and lots of small round tables with warm amber lamps, and comfy leather armchairs dotted around.
The elderly owner looks up as we walk in, pushes his metal-framed reading glasses up and stares at us. My insides harden.
We look odd.
Its obvious that Molly isn’t old.
And me? I must look odd.
I stroke my fake beard. The owner nods then gives a friendly smile, before going back to his book.
Maybe we don’t look as odd as I thought.
Molly walks around, her fingers trailing and tracing along the bookshelves. Every now and then she picks up a book, flicks through it, then sets it back into the shelf. A few times she’s holds the book up to her face and inhales.
I caught her doing it once and she blushed and put it away quickly.
I have a vast collection of books at home, but I buy mine mostly online. If I do venture into a bookshop, it’s to look at a book, decide if it’s something I want, and then I buy it.
What Molly does is something else. She inhales and absorbs, and lovingly touches these books as if they are precious.
A couple of times I notice people staring at her and but Molly doesn’t notice them at all. The clothes are doing their job because people are looking at the weird outfit instead of looking closely at the woman inside it. Right now, she has her head in a book and is oblivious to everything else.
How strange is it that I’m in a bookshop with a woman dressed like Mrs. Doubtfire, and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else?
I walk around, looking at books, then putting them back. After a while, I notice that I can’t see Molly anywhere. It sets off an unexpected jolt of fleeting panic inside me. I rush along the narrow aisles, looking for her in all the nooks and crannies, but I don’t see her.
If I were a bookworm, I’d never leave this place.
I pray Molly hasn’t left.
She wouldn’t.
But still, my heart thunders loudly inside my chest with every passing second that I don’t see her.
I round a bookshelf and that’s when I see her. Sitting in a corner, bent over a book resting on her knees.
I let out a sigh of relief. I don’t like not knowing where Molly is. “I thought I’d lost you!”
She looks up at me. Closes the book and stands up. “I got carried away.” She hugs the book to her chest.
“What are you reading?” I ask, moving closer.
“It’s a poetry book. Emily Dickinson.” She sets it down on one of the tables.
I glance at my watch and am shocked that it’s been three quarters of an hour. By the time we get, I’ll be ready for my online meeting.
“Do we have to go back?” she asks.
“Sorry.” I wince, because the time flew. It seemed like we only just got here, and yet somehow the time has flown by, and now it’s time to get back to work.
Once, work would have sufficed but these days it’s the last thing I want to do. I quickly glance at the book Molly has set down, before we both leave.
“Where's your cane?” I ask, as we get into the taxi and travel back to the penthouse.
“Oh!” She puts her hand over her mouth and gasps. “I forgot it in the bookshop. So much for having a disability.”
We both burst out laughing.
“Did anyone notice?” A tiny sliver of worry crosses her face.
“People did stare at you.” I noticed that it happened more than a few times.
“You were watching them?”
She catches me red-handed, because, of course I was.
“I was being cautious. I didn't want anyone finding out that it was us.”
She nods in agreement, but its not the truth. I was watching her because every day I wonder how much time we have left.
It's been idyllic.
The Knight world and everything related to it has been the furthest thing on my mind. And as the days melts into another, I dread the phone call when Rio gives me the all clear to leave.
Father hasn't called. I'm assuming that the TV interview has been uppermost in his mind. I haven’t heard much from Matteo either, so I assume that the recent media interest has probably died down.
Which means that any day now, we will return to normal life.
Much to my disappointment.