21
After the raucous group book signing at Old Town Books, Emily, Dr. Flores, the expert tour guide at Hemingway House, and nearly
everyone they’d met on the island, gathered at the observation deck for one last cocktail party. Then it was off to their
farewell dinner at an oceanfront resort. They ended the night around a firepit with prosecco. Leo, who had not been tempted
by alcohol all weekend, even as it flowed abundantly around him, craved a touch of Jack London’s white logic, the brutal clarity
that only alcohol could provide. He had to speak with July, tell her everything. How his feelings for her had evolved from
the day they’d met to this night. He might not go that far, but he’d introduce the conversation. It was now or never. And
never meant not just a lifetime but an eternity pursued by the twin hounds of doubt and regret.
The opportunity did not present itself until late in the night, after a fireside chat. Daphne shared her parents’ dream to
carve a space for Haitian culture in a city that often overlooked their contributions. The restaurant was just a start. Daphne
wanted to expand the business to include an art gallery to showcase the colorful oil paintings and stone sculptures the Caribbean
nation was known for. They drank to the ingenuity and traditional craftmanship of the Haitian people.
Sebastien and Alexandre provided a relationship status update, including the terms of their reconciliation, negotiated under specific conditions.
The engagement was over, the wedding called off.
Alexandre would seek therapy to deal with his attachment issues.
Sebastien would do the same to improve his communication skills.
They raised their glasses to Alexandre and Sebastien’s future.
Emily voiced her concern that her homage to Richard Carlisle might not have gone over well with the literary society’s top
brass. “Do you think I went too hard?” she asked the group. Leo took in Emily’s steely-gray eyes and her honest face. If Daphne
had wanted someone to go easy on Carlisle, she would’ve chosen someone else. The consensus, led by Daphne, was “Fuck that!” They toasted opinionated women in the arts.
Vicky canceled the night’s séance. “In light of new information that has surfaced, I don’t think Aurora would allow herself
to be manipulated like that. She’s a Latina, after all. She’ll come and go as she pleases.”
“What new information?” Sebastien asked.
Leo didn’t care enough to find out. If he could manipulate time, he would have skipped over the fireside chat entirely. He
needed five minutes alone with July before they called it a night. That’s all, five minutes to share the obsessive thoughts
he’d been carrying around for a decade, no matter the outcome. She could laugh in his face or walk away. It was better than
living like this. He envied the couples wrapped in each other’s arms. He could only steal glances at the woman he wanted from
a safe distance. He strained to hear her low laugh and tried his best not to stare at her luminous face. Once, he caught the
reflection of the flames leaping in her dark eyes. God, she was beautiful. Her beauty was not an innocent thing. It had him
on tenterhooks.
“I’m not at liberty to say,” Vicky answered Sebastien.
“Go ahead and tell them,” Ayesha said, resigned to whatever scrutiny she was about to receive with this revelation.
Vicky could not get the words out fast enough. “Ayesha’s heard a knock on her door every night at three on the dot.”
“A soft knock, yet it still manages to wake me up,” Ayesha added. “It’s the most unsettling thing.”
Fueled by this revelation, the chat raged on. Leo despaired they would stay out all night, swapping ghost stories. But then,
slowly at first, as if by his machinations alone, the group splintered into twos and threes. Couples left to stroll the beach,
and friends took off for a refill of prosecco. July stood, set her glass on a tray and crossed the patio, heading toward the
pier.
It was time.
“Got a light?”
She was at the end of the pier. All around them, darkness. The night erased the horizon. The ocean churned underfoot. Leo
stepped closer until he saw the curve of her upheld chin, the glint in her eyes. The ocean breeze ruffled her short hair.
Her reply came moments later. “Thought you quit.”
“This is a social experiment,” Leo said.
She reached into the small bag she wore loosely across her body and produced the lighter. Its silver case flashed in the darkness.
She tossed it to him without a word. Leo caught it and examined it. Though timeworn and tarnished, it felt the same in his
hand. He tested the flame. Just as strong, though it flickered in the wind.
“Do you take this everywhere you go?” he asked. “Does it have some sentimental value?”
“It belonged to my mother. A pack a day.”
“I see,” he said quietly.
“It once belonged to my father,” she continued. “My mother stole it from him.”
Leo clutched it tighter, now that he understood how much it meant to her.
She stepped closer. “It triggered your memory, I guess.”
“What?”
“The lighter. Last night in the tower. I caught you staring at it.”
He didn’t need a visual aid to trigger anything. That would imply that he’d forgotten. That face, those eyes, their brief
conversation, the exact words they’d exchanged, all the details that had haunted him for years.
“I never forgot you, July,” he said. “Never.”
“It’s okay, Leo!” Her laughter dissipated in the wind. “I was a waitress on a break, someone to chat with. No one special.”
“Not to me,” he insisted.
“Well . . .” She looked away. “That’s sweet.”
“I’m not here to sweet-talk you,” he said. “I have something to say.”
“So do I,” she said. “I’m sorry. I was rude to you.”
“Don’t apologize,” he said, sensing they were drifting toward goodbye.
She stepped up to him and cradled his face between her delicate hands. Leo closed his eyes and listened to the ocean lapping
against the pier and her rolling breath.
“One day I’ll be that type of person who can enjoy a weekend in the sun with a really great guy. But it’s clear that I haven’t
hit that milestone yet. I still have work to do, and I don’t know how long that will take.”
Then she slipped her hand in his, took the light, and left.