Chapter 9. Lenore #2
“There is nothing sweet about the vultures at the historical society,” he hisses, a split second before Patty materializes out of the crowd. I wonder whether her hearing has held up as well as her eyesight.
“Lenore,” she says, beaming. “I was hoping I might hear from you this weekend.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I haven’t had a chance to check out the attic yet.”
Patty waves my apology away with a hand. “Well, don’t wait too long. This buyer of yours, there’s no telling whether they’ll give a rat’s ass about local history. It could all end up in the landfill.”
Right. No pressure.
“I believe you know Callan,” I say, and glance over my shoulder, half expecting him to have slipped away. Instead, he’s standing with his hands shoved in his jacket pockets, scowling at the octogenarian in a pumpkin cardigan.
“We’ve met,” Patty says, thin lips pressed into a smile that doesn’t quite reach the crinkled corners of her eyes. “How’s your father doing?”
“Fine. Great,” he says.
An awkward pause follows.
“Well,” I say with forced cheer, “it was really nice seeing you again.”
“You remember to give us a call as soon as you have a look through that attic.”
I mumble some vague reassurance and excuse us from the conversation. We cut between a couple booths to the sidewalk, taking refuge a moment later inside a used bookstore with a hand-painted wooden sign that reads AFTER THE END. A bell chimes overhead, but no one emerges from the stacks to greet us.
A prickling sensation at the nape of my neck suggests that someone is watching me, though. I turn my head to find Callan raising his eyebrows at me, expectant.
“A little aggressive,” I concede.
“Understatement,” he says.
“I’m going to need you to explain what exactly an eighty-year-old woman did to traumatize you like this.”
Callan pushes ahead into the store. A raggedy long-haired cat dozes in a camel leather lounge chair beside the woodburning stove. Vintage magazines litter the coffee table. “Where to begin,” he says. “There was the time she chased me inside a porta potty at the county fair.”
I gape at him. “Why?”
“I took refuge in there because it was the one place she couldn’t follow me, but she waited outside for forty-five minutes before giving up. Do you know what that does to a person’s respiratory system, being locked inside one of those things for forty-five minutes?”
I snort. “I meant why was she chasing you.”
Callan squats down in front of a chair and scratches beneath the cat’s chin.
It tips its head up and squints its amber eyes, accepting worship.
“Oh, the same reason she was bothering you. My dad has all these letters he keeps in an old trunk that are supposedly ‘of historical significance.’” With his free hand, he throws up air quotes around the phrase.
“Why doesn’t your dad just donate them?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know.”
I fold my arms. “A little curiosity wouldn’t kill you.”
He straightens up. “You try asking my dad why he’s hoarding a bunch of old letters and get back to me.”
The cat bows in a deep stretch before hopping down from the chair, landing with a soft thud. It curls its long body around Callan’s legs, rubbing a cheek against his work boots.
I gesture at it with my palm turned out. “See, that’s not even fair.”
Cal knits his brow. “What?”
“Everyone knows that animals can tell when you’re a bad person. How am I supposed to find your red flag when even the cat can’t see it?”
“Cats are colorblind,” he says, deadpan.
I give him a look.
With an uneasy laugh, he sidesteps the cat and wanders down an aisle, the shelves stuffed with creased paperbacks and hardcovers missing their dust jackets. An earthen smell, adhesive and well-worn pages, permeates the air. “I don’t know why you’re so fixated on this.”
“You could just tell me,” I say, trailing after him.
Cal stoops down to set his thermos on the floor. “Why”—he slides a book from the shelf, a dense crime thriller, and cracks it open to read the summary inside the cover—“so that you can convince yourself not to fall in love with me?”
“You’re deflecting,” I say.
“So are you.”
His tone is light, teasing, but then he turns and we’re standing alone between the shelves. Our eyes meet. The book is splayed open in his hand between us.
It’s right there, on the tip of my tongue, to ask him about the wedding. I put myself out there that night, and he shut me down. To ask him why would mean putting myself out there again.
“Tell you what,” he says. “I’ll tell you my red flag if you tell me why you ended things with your fiancé.” His eyes flit over my face like he’s searching for something more.
“Who said I ended things?”
“You’re not the sort of woman that guys break up with.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what I said.”
The book snaps shut, stirring dust motes in the light. I slide sideways between him and the shelf, blocking him from putting it away. Something sparks behind his eyes, a warning.
“Your red flag,” I prompt.
“You first,” he says in a low voice.
I weigh what he’s asking and decide to tell the truth.
“Matt was seeing someone else behind my back. Everyone knew about it but me. His business partners, our so-called friends we met for brunch every Sunday. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but somehow I was the one embarrassed by it all, because I was the only one too naive to see it.
” I take a deep breath, my chest rising and falling in the space between us.
“I put my trust in the wrong person, and he made me look like an idiot.”
Dark blue eyes flick back and forth between mine. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I whisper. “Not for this.”
Maybe he didn’t leave me outright, but Matt was drifting, a slow tug in another direction, and I didn’t hesitate to sever ties.
People had left before. I hadn’t begged then, either.
The day my mother left us, I stood on the porch and watched her car lumber down the driveway, her back window cluttered with trash bags and sun-bleached clothes, and I thought: Good riddance.
It was a full-circle moment, the same stoicism I’d learned from her, that grin-and-bear-it grit she modeled every time we asked her about our father. I’d learned not to want anyone who didn’t want me, and I wore that unwanting like armor.
Too much wanting, I understood, left me wide open for heartbreak.
Callan tilts his head, considering me. It has the unintended side effect of slanting our faces closer. “Why do you care so much what other people think?”
“What does this have to do with other people?” I say, agitated.
I don’t know when it happened, but his free hand is braced against the shelf above my shoulder. There’s that scent again: like the outdoors, only each time it’s a little different. Today, it’s sun-warmed skin mingling with something fresh, like leaves or chopped wood, clinging to his jacket.
“You said ‘look,’” he says, dropping his mouth to my ear. “He made you look like an idiot. Like you’re guessing at what other people are thinking. It’s the same thing you said about your art.” His breath feathers across my cheek, making me shudder.
I angle my head to look at him and he draws back a fraction, mouth hovering near mine. We’re playing a dangerous game of chicken, both waiting to see who will pull away first. “You assume too much,” I say. “Maybe that’s your flaw.”
His laugh is soft as a whisper. “You sure it’s not my aversion to sweet old ladies?”
I hum thoughtfully. “Could be.”
Miles away, a doorbell chimes. This time, a woman calls from a few aisles over, “Be right with you!” followed by shoes clacking briskly on the hardwood floor. Callan pushes away from the bookcase and glances down at the hardcover still clutched in his other hand.
Right on time, too: A slight woman with a blond pixie cut halts at the end of the aisle, eyes darting between us from behind gold Ful-Vue glasses. “Oh,” the bookseller chirps. “Excuse me. I didn’t hear you folks come in.”
My body is a heat map, burning in all the places we were almost touching. “It’s no problem,” I mumble, too embarrassed to meet her eye.
Callan steps back to let the bookseller pass between us.
His boot knocks over his thermos in the process.
Thankfully, it’s empty, but it clatters and rolls up against the bookcase before he manages to collect it from the floor.
As soon as we’re alone, he reaches to slot the book back onto the shelf, and this time, I don’t stand in his way.
I tuck an unruly strand of hair behind my ear. “We should probably go.”
Moments later, we’re back on the street, swept up in the current of market goers.
We stop at a booth selling plastic-wrapped miniature bundt cakes and walk the market while we eat.
We come to rest at the grassy knoll in the town square, where the live band has struck up a folksy tune.
Yellow birch trees rustle in the breeze.
Families sit on picnic blankets and folding camp chairs, enjoying the fair weather before the season turns in earnest.
“So, what is it, then,” I say, dusting crumbs from my pants.
Cal shoves the rest of his cake into his mouth and manages a garbled, “Wah ish wah?”
“You never told me your red flag.” Though I’m wondering at the moment whether it might be talking with his mouth full.
“Nm.” He wads up the plastic wrap, tossing it in the nearest trash can while he chews and swallows. With a tiny shake of his head, he finally says, “You already know it.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You do,” he assures me. “It’s pretty obvious.”
“All right,” I say. “So humor me.”
Callan looks over at me, one eye squinted against the sun. “I don’t go after the things I want.”