Chapter 5 Mona
MONA
On Saturday I bring up Douglas’s breakfast at seven like usual.
Colleen and Roy left yesterday for ten days in Asheville, and I forgot to check about his schedule on the weekends. Colleen certainly didn’t indicate that anything about his days or habits change for Saturday or Sundays.
I saw him return from running this morning like normal, so at exactly seven I’m tapping on the library door with his breakfast tray, wearing a casual floral dress and my favorite boots.
No particular reason to look cute today, but I do.
“Good morning,” I say brightly as I enter after his normal brusque response.
“Morning,” he says, glancing up from the book he’s reading. He’s on a leather couch today and doesn’t have his stack of books and printouts beside him.
“It’s Saturday.” I frown at him, taking in his outfit and position.
“And?” His eyebrows form a lofty arch.
“And don’t you ever relax?”
“I am relaxed.” He’s frowning now too—in confusion more than displeasure. He looks down at himself and the book in his hand. “I take weekends off from work.”
I set his tray down. “How are you not working? You’re in the library, dressed in uncomfortable clothes, reading some sort of obscure, difficult tome like you always are.”
“I’m reading for pleasure.”
“Isn’t that philosophy?” I peer at the spine of the book, but it’s old and I can’t make out the print.
“It’s David Copperfield.”
“Oh.” That’s one of the books I read in college that I actually liked, but it will hurt my argument to admit it. “I guess that’s a little better, but it’s still pretty heavy for first thing on a Saturday morning. Do you not watch TV or anything?”
“I occasionally watch films.”
“Of course you do.”
“What does that mean?” He looks genuinely curious rather than defensive. It’s really hard to rattle this man.
I know. I’ve tried over and over again this week.
“It means I know exactly what kind of films you watch, and it’s not the relaxing kinds. You should at least try to get outside today. It’s going to be sunny and warm.”
North Carolina Decembers are variable, and days like today aren’t rare.
“I already ran this morning.”
“I know that. But running in pitch-darkness is not the kind of outside time I’m talking about. I was going to take a walk later this morning. You should come with me.”
His eyebrows lift even higher. “You want me to take a walk with you?”
My cheeks flush slightly. Why do I keep doing this?
I’ve never before kept poking at someone who quite clearly doesn’t want to be poked.
But I’m in it now, so I might as well commit to the bit.
“I want you to get out of this room and get some sunshine. Since you don’t appear inclined to do so on your own steam, I figured I could help.
That’s my job after all. See what needs doing and help my clients do it. ”
He huffs a few times, his eyes warming slightly. It’s as close as I’ve seen to a laugh from him. “Very well. I will take a walk with you today. What time are you planning to leave?”
“I was thinking around ten thirty, but I’m not on a schedule, so whenever works for you is fine with me.” I wiggle my eyebrows toward his book. “If you’ve got to reach your allotted reading time first or something.”
He huffs again and shakes his head. “Why have you taken it on yourself to pester me this way?”
The question is startlingly astute, so I stall. “What makes you think I’m not always this way?”
“None of your former clients I spoke to indicated you were like this in any fashion. In fact, my impression was that you perfectly adapt yourself to any situation, that you somehow manage to intuit what will best serve your clients’ needs and skillfully shape yourself to meet that need.”
I clear my throat. He obviously got good recommendations for my services, which is always nice to hear. But what’s more unsettling is that he so perceptively interpreted the varied descriptions he must have received of my personality and came to the true conclusion about me. Before he even met me.
“So I would have assumed, from that history, you would adapt yourself to my quiet, routine life so perfectly I’d barely notice you were here.”
I’m flushed, but the big room is lit only by a couple of lamps, so hopefully he won’t see the red on my cheeks. “Maybe I am adapting,” I manage to say. “Like you said, I try to figure out what my clients need. And what you need isn’t for me to fade into the background.”
“Hmm.” His tone is skeptical, but he’s obviously thinking through what I said.
“My job is to look for the mess and clean it up. But there’s not a trace of a mess in this household.”
“Other than me.”
I snort. “Other than you.”
“Very well. I will take a walk this morning. But I’ve been living this life for a long time. I fear my habits are too established to alter.”
I’m hiding a smile as I turn to leave. “We’ll see.”
I’ve almost reached the door when he asks, “What’s this?”
When I turn, he’s picked up one of the bars I baked yesterday. “It’s an oat and-honey square.”
“I have my smoothie.”
“Even so, you should try it. It’s really good.”
I’m smiling for real now because, as I leave the room, he’s taking a bite.
* * *
I come downstairs at ten thirty to find Douglas sitting on a bench in the entry hall, tying the laces of his walking shoes.
He’s changed into jeans and a long-sleeved gray crewneck. When he stands up, I blink at how good-looking he is.
He’s always been good-looking, but in those clothes and outside of the library, he seems more real.
It’s odd. And disturbing.
He frowns as he eyes me from my sneakers to my long ponytail. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” I shake off the strange impression and grin at him. “I just wasn’t sure you were actually going to follow through.”
“Then you don’t know me as well as you believe.” He holds my eyes with his green-gold ones. “I always follow through.”
Okay then.
Swallowing hard, I manage to hold on to my smile. “We’ll see about that. I took a walk around the edge of the lake the other day, and it was really nice. I was thinking of doing that again unless you have a better idea.”
“I love that walk.”
Assuming that’s agreement, I head for the side door that’s closest to the head of the trail I found on my second day here. We walk side by side in silence for a few minutes, and I’m surprised it’s not awkward or uncomfortable.
With a lot of people, unless I know them well, silence feels like pressure. A demand for me to fill it, to fix it. But Douglas obviously doesn’t mind silence, and he doesn’t appear to be searching for something to say himself.
So it’s nice. He points out a few cardinals and a couple of squirrels taking advantage of the warmer-than-normal day. He stops to watch the animals, his expression relaxed.
He likes them. The critters mean something to him.
I wouldn’t have expected that.
Because he appreciates them and keeps pointing them out, I enjoy the wildlife even more than normal.
We come to the spot I liked the best on my walk four days ago—a piece of land jutting into the lake and providing a vast view—and we move to the edge of the water without discussion. Perfectly in sync.
I snap a few pictures because the sun’s reflection on the rippling lake is so beautiful, but then I put my phone away.
I’m not even tempted to take a quick look at my email or Instagram account before I do.
“Do you ever start taking it for granted?” I ask after a few minutes.
“Take what for granted?”
“This view. The lake. Living here all the time. Does it become routine for you?” He’s around six inches taller than me, so I have to tilt my head to meet his eyes.
He thinks before he answers. “Yes. It can. Sometimes it does.” After a pause, he adds, “But then something will happen that wakes me up.”
I smile, and he smiles back.
* * *
When we start walking again, he asks a question about how I started my business, so I tell him about my very first job in the summer before my senior year of college.
A friend’s parents were both having surgery in the same month, and my friend desperately needed help.
I volunteered to stay with them and help out with the household stuff so she could devote herself to her parents’ care.
I planned to do it for free, but they insisted on paying me afterward.
Then they raved about me so much that one of their friends wanted to hire me for a couple of weeks the next month to help sort through the cluttered house of their grandmother who just died.
I tackled that job too. Got paid more. Started taking on more jobs over school breaks during my last year in college and had three monthlong jobs lined up for the summer right afterward.
Douglas appears genuinely interested, asking thoughtful questions and somehow quietly getting me to ramble far more than I ever do.
“What did your parents think of your job choice?” he asks when I finish explaining the early stages of my business.
I tighten my lips and glance away toward the lake.
“They were disappointed?”
“You could say that.” With a sigh, I look up at him again.
His eyes are still serious—I’ve never met anyone more serious than he is, anyone who takes me so seriously—but he also seems warm.
Fully engaged with me in a way that’s undeniably intoxicating.
“My parents are both professors. And my four older brothers all have suitable, academically impressive careers. Two are professors. One is a neurologist. And the other is a research scientist.”
“Ah. I see the issue.”
“I was supposed to go into academics too. At least that’s what everyone assumed. I always got good grades. School was never that hard for me. But I didn’t love learning. I much prefer to do things. But domestic work is not anywhere close to what my parents wanted for me.”
“Have they come around?”