Chapter 15
When it had been Max’s turn to plan our dates, he had an unfair advantage in that he could rely on his extraordinary profession for inspiration.
How the heck could I ever top the adorable campiness of accompanying a real-life astronaut to a planetarium or Space Mountain?
My first thought had been to simply take him to our local public library and jump him in the stacks.
That had also been my second thought. But alas, my sense of propriety prevailed.
That’s how, on Thursday night, I ended up waiting for him at the entrance to Barnes & Noble at the Grove.
Nervously, I glanced at my watch, and when I looked up, there he was. And this time he was wearing dark jeans and a white linen button-down, untucked, with the sleeves rolled up like a boss. Hot damn.
“Hey, gorgeous,” Max said as he closed the distance between us and leaned in to kiss me. “I’ve been looking forward to this all day.”
“Me too,” I responded with what felt like an appropriate degree of symmetrical enthusiasm. In actuality, I was holding back, as it felt like I’d been looking forward to this for a year. With a theatrical gesture toward the massive glass doors, I said, “Are you ready for this?”
“Am I ready for a bookstore?” His brows flew up in jest. “Yeah, I think I can handle the heat. But, um, as a point of information: Will there be food involved at some point in the evening? Because I sort of missed lunch today. And breakfast. I mean, that’s cool if we aren’t eating, but just so I can set my expectations. ”
I loved how he always seemed a little nervous at the beginning of each date.
And I loved how quickly he settled into a groove once our playful banter kicked in.
With a hand on my hip, I gave him my most indignant pose.
“What do you take me for, Max? A sadist? Obviously there will be food involved. In one hour. We have a reservation at La Piazza. I hope you like pizza?”
“Pizza? As in the universe’s most perfect edible triangle?”
“My thoughts exactly. Except for the triangle part.” I shrugged. “Sorry, but I don’t do geometry.”
He laughed.
“Anyway,” I continued, “thank goodness you like pizza, because if you said no, I was going to have to rethink this relationship. Have you ever realized that if you get pepperoni and mushrooms on your pizza, you can hit every food group with each bite?”
“I’ve always been too busy shoving it down the hatch to consider its nutritional value. I guess I can stop feeling guilty when I eat it.” He took in the large Barnes & Noble sign overhead. “But first, we read?”
“First we read.” I nodded. “Follow me?”
He grinned. “I’d follow you anywhere.”
“We’ll see,” I said with a wink.
As I led him through the bookstore, we passed the fiction, mystery, nonfiction, cooking, and self-help sections, and then we went up the escalator and passed the reference, sports, and toys and games sections.
I purposefully ignored his questioning glances as we moved through the bookstore, pleased to note he was being a good sport.
When I finally stopped, we were smack in the middle of the store’s extensive children’s section. “Ta-da!”
He looked exactly as perplexed as I’d hoped. “I don’t mean to be rude, but you are aware astronauts can read past a third-grade level, right?”
I cracked up. “Yes, Max. I’m aware.” I pivoted for a moment, scanning the shelves, then spotted what I was looking for on the shelf to my right.
I walked over and pulled out a copy of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and handed it to him.
“This was my favorite story as a kid. I thought maybe I could read you a few of my favorites. And, like, tell you some things about my childhood. And then you could do the same?”
“Oh, like a relationship icebreaker but with pictures and rhymes?” he asked.
“Exactly. You are a bright one.”
“Cool! This is going to be fun,” he said.
“You sound surprised,” I teased.
“You, Thea, are incredibly surprising in every way.” He pulled me into a hug. “I want to kiss you right now, but I’m guessing that might be against the rules in the kids’ section?”
I couldn’t help myself. “As the wise Dr. Seuss might say: I will not kiss you in a store. I will not kiss you on the floor. I will not kiss you here or there. I will not kiss you anywhere.”
“I sincerely hope you’re kidding with that,” he said.
“Oh, I’m just getting started, pal.” I waved If You Give a Mouse a Cookie in his face.
“Besides, if there’s one thing this book taught me as a kid, it’s the logic of cause and effect.
As in, there is no world in which the mouse gets a cookie without immediately needing a glass of milk to go with it. ” I grinned.
“Well, I’m definitely the kind of mouse who likes milk with his cookies,” he warned.
“Noted,” I said with a smile. I couldn’t help noticing this was next-level flirting for us. And holy cow, was I here for it.
“Be right back,” Max said before he began to wander up and down a couple of aisles, browsing the books. A minute later, he returned with two selections: The Magic School Bus: Inside the Earth, and Captain Underpants.
“Inside the Earth, huh? But wasn’t that about the earth’s crust or core or whatever? Isn’t that sort of the wrong direction for an astronaut?”
“I suppose it was, but for me, it was more about escaping my parents’ fighting than the destination. I remember looking at this one under the covers, trying so hard to read all the words.”
“Did your parents stay together?” I asked.
“Sadly, no, they didn’t. My dad left us when I was ten and my little sister was four. It sucked. But it made me grow up fast. I was the man of the house before I hit puberty. How about your parents? Still happily married?”
“Nope. They divorced, too. But not until right after I graduated from high school. They split up a few weeks after my first short story was published in my high school literary journal.” I took a deep breath. “Weirdly, it was a story about a girl who was blindsided by her parents breaking up.”
“Wow. Did you know when you wrote it that your parents were struggling?”
“I had absolutely no clue. I was as shocked as the protagonist in my story.” I bit my lip. “There was a part of me that always worried I’d caused their breakup by writing that story. Like I’d somehow planted the idea in their heads.”
“Did you ever ask them?”
“Nope,” I said. “My mom was a pretty closed book by then, emotionally speaking, so I don’t know, I let it go with her.
I worked up the nerve to ask my dad when I came home from college for Thanksgiving break.
But before I could get the words out, he announced he was marrying his brand-new girlfriend, and the moment passed. ”
“I thought I was the reason my dad left, too. I thought it was because I kept getting into trouble at school and the principal had called them in one too many times. Which brings me to this one,” he said, holding up Captain Underpants.
I waited for him to elaborate.
“I made a lot—and I mean a lot—of juicy fart sounds in my fourth-grade classroom.”
I burst out laughing. “Are you going to tell me why?”
“Why? I don’t know, maybe because my teacher was boring, my parents were fighting nonstop, and I was a boy who thought potty jokes were the highest form of humor?”
“Do you still?”
“Uh, yeah!” Max grinned ear to ear. “Do you know what happens to fecal waste from the space station?”
“No?”
“Let’s just say not all shooting stars are what they seem.” He looked serious, like he was expounding on the meaning of life. “Some are blazing containers of poo.”
“Gross! Can we please go back to talking about broken homes now?” But I was laughing. Hard. “Or reading?”
“How about this,” he said, nodding to two beanbag chairs sitting side by side in a nook. “I’ll read you mine if you read me yours.”
“Deal,” I said, stifling a smile.
His reading voice was smooth and dreamy, like a spoken poem or a lullaby.
I closed my eyes for a few seconds and pictured him reading to Lucy.
And then, like that demanding little mouse, one thing led to another, and I was imagining Max taking Lucy to a father-daughter dance or camping weekend.
Suddenly, I imagined having a real-life partner again, until a familiar wave of panic engulfed me and my eyes flew open.
“Are you OK?” Max touched my arm.
I started to nod, but it turned into a headshake. This was too hard. It was time.
I scrambled to stand and then held out a hand for him.
He took it and popped up from the beanbag.
Wordlessly, I led him back the way we’d come, down the escalator, but this time stopping in the adult fiction section.
I went straight for the N authors and pulled out The Long Way Home, relieved it was still there after I’d called ahead to ask. I held it out to him.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“It’s my debut novel,” I told him.
“But I thought Love You to Mars and Back was your first book.”
“That’s because I wanted you to think that,” I said. “I wanted everyone to think that.”
“But why? That’s so cool! You’re a two-time author. Why hide that?”
Here went nothing.