Chapter 5
Later that afternoon Arnie shooed Stella out of the library, forcing her to take off early. “The cozy-mystery group rescheduled,”
he said. “One of the members inherited a fortune and has mysteriously disappeared, leaving no note and not responding to texts
or phone calls. When they went to her house to check on her, they found evidence of a break-in and two untouched glasses of
wine on the dining room table. The group let me know that the game is afoot.”
Stella snorted a laugh. “You just made that up.”
“I did, but not about them rescheduling.” He motioned around the library. “There are two people on the computers, someone
reading yesterday’s newspaper, and one kid researching how to build a floating maglev train. I’d bet you lunch tomorrow that
the evening stretch will be duller than last night’s dishwater.”
“It’s not as though I have anything else to do.
” Other than what she’d been doing all day: allowing the conversation with Ariel yesterday, the mysterious words, the returned books combined with the archives incident, and Arnie’s college brochure surprise to run on a loop in her mind.
Stella hesitated. She hadn’t broached the archives subject again yet.
Maybe now was the best time. “About last night in the archives, can we talk about what I saw—”
The library phone rang, and Arnie snatched at the receiver as though it could be an emergency. He talked for a minute and
then pressed the hold button. He handed Stella her purse. “Spend this free afternoon engaging in entertaining activities or
hang out with friends.”
With the exception of Ariel, Stella didn’t have anyone she considered a close friend. She knew lots of people in town because
of her job, but she spent most of her time in the library, at home reading, or hanging out with Ariel when they weren’t working.
“Is that a joke?”
Arnie’s smile dimmed. “Stella, you’re too young not to be enjoying yourself with others your age. You can’t busy your life
away.”
“I can’t?” she asked. “So far my strategy is working.”
“Is it, though?” Arnie asked, his bushy eyebrows lifting and creating furrows across his forehead. “When it slows down here,
which should be in the next hour, I plan to research more in the archives.”
Stella’s curiosity returned. “About the archives—”
He pointed dramatically to the phone in his hand. “I need to get back to this call.”
Not ready to give up, she asked, “What are you researching? Anything I can help with?”
He hesitated just long enough to stir up her suspicion. “Nope. Nothing of interest to you.” He pointed toward the door. “Out
with you, and I don’t want to see your face until tomorrow.”
Stella huffed. Her questions would have to wait because Arnie wasn’t cooperating.
He pasted on a winning smile. “Have fun. Try it out.”
While Stella drove home, she wondered if Arnie was being evasive on purpose. But why? What could he possibly have to hide in the archives?
In the kitchen, she took two aspirin and filled a glass with cold water from the fridge. She drank half the glass and stared
down at the linoleum. Colored in earth tones, mostly mustard and tan, the octagonal designs alternated with diamonds. The
stain-resistant flooring had been laid when the house was built. It had probably been modern and popular once, but now the
dated pattern froze the house in time. And it wasn’t just the kitchen that had halted. The entire house could be a model home
from thirty years ago.
Brittle-edged words, quivering like a tremor, moved across the linoleum. Stagnant. Enervate. Misplaced. The words shuddered out of the kitchen. Stella followed them into the living room and then down the hallway toward her parents’
bedroom, where her steps slowed on the worn carpet.
The irony of still thinking of the room as her parents’ bedroom wasn’t lost on her. They hadn’t shared that room together
in more than twenty years. Yet it hadn’t changed. Had her dad left everything the same in case his wife returned? Had he hoped
if she saw the bedroom was still hers she might decide this was, in fact, where she belonged? If that had been his tactic,
it had failed. Magnificently. Heartbreakingly. The thought made her want to hug her dad tight, squeeze him until all the sadness
he must have carried for years released. Because one thing Stella and her dad shared was the understanding of heartbreak.
Knowing he’d frozen time in this room and it hadn’t worked, why hadn’t Stella changed anything since he died? His clothes
still hung in the closet and crowded the dresser drawers.
The last book he’d been reading, Fahrenheit 451, sat collecting dust on the bedside table.
In all these years, she could have updated the room and moved her own things into the larger space.
But she hadn’t. She’d done exactly what he had—left the bedroom as a museum piece, showcasing “life as we hoped it might be . . . but wasn’t. ”
Why was she still sleeping in her childhood bedroom with the frilly dust ruffle and poofy white comforter with the eyelets
frayed and torn from years of washing? The faded, pale pink wallpaper her mother had chosen years ago still plastered the
walls. The hope chest at the foot of her bed was stuffed full of her childhood drawings, dreams, and diaries—a testament to
her hope and a reminder of its disappearance.
She had also left Percy’s room exactly the same, as though he might show up one day, still fascinated by his basketball bedspread
or high school trophies and blue ribbon awards. His small desk held the same dinosaur lamp and pencil sharpener, neither used
in the last fifteen years.
The halting words moved over her parents’ floral-patterned mauve comforter, a gaudy design that, in Stella’s opinion, had
always been hideous. Stagnant. Enervate. Misplaced.
As the words shuddered and disappeared, she felt them sink deep into her bones, causing a tremor to move through her. She
was living in a time capsule—stagnant as roadside ditchwater.
Stella walked out of the bedroom. Ariel was right. Her inability to let go of things was her own doing, and not just with
Wade. Proof of her stalled-out life was everywhere. She slumped onto the couch. Her dad was also right. On the roller coaster
of life, she held on with a grip so tight, she’d never be free or truly happy. She’d never have open hands to receive anything
else. Unless she let go.
Could she be more like Percy, riding through life with his hands waving in the air like fangirls at a Taylor Swift concert?
Her cell phone lit up on the coffee table, and she leaned forward to see Percy’s name and image on the screen.
She debated sending him to voicemail, but then he’d text and call back within a day.
“Hey,” she said, trying to sound peppier than she felt. “I was just thinking about you.”
“I figured you’d ghost me,” Percy joked.
She sagged back against the cushions and propped her feet on the table, even as she heard an echo of her dad telling her to
keep her feet on the floor. “I thought about it.”
“I bet you did,” Percy said. “I’d just text and call back tomorrow.”
“Which is why I answered,” she said. “Saves us both the trouble. Listen, about the Realtors—”
“You heard from them?” Percy asked, his voice buzzing with excitement. “Great! Have you discussed options yet?”
Stella pinched the bridge of her nose. “What would it take for you to lay off about the house?”
“What would it take for you to consider the idea of moving forward?” Frustration tinged his words.
Stella noticed a thread fraying on the throw pillow. She worried it between her fingers. How could two truths exist inside
her at once? The house trapped her in the past, and the house connected her to people she loved. “I’m not ready yet.”
“Yet?” Percy asked. “So there’s a maybe in there somewhere?”
She sighed and smoothed her hand across the couch cushion. Maybe she could loosen her grip on the past. Maybe she could ease into changing some things.
Percy’s voice was gentle when he said, “Hey, we can talk about that later. Today I’m calling for a good reason.”
“You make it sound like you usually call for bad ones. Did you get a raise? Find another great job? Buy a house on the beach?
Charter a yacht?” She grimaced at the hint of jealousy in her voice.
“As a matter of fact, I did find a job, but not for me,” Percy said. “For you! I just got off the phone with a client who works down in Miami, and they’re looking for someone with your qualifications.”
Stella sat up. “Miami? That’s almost eight hundred miles from here.” Definitely not a change she was ready for.
“You do know there are multiple forms of transportation these days, right?” Percy shot back.
“What’s the job?”
“It’s a posh accounting firm that handles only wealthy clientele,” he said.
She barely contained a groan in response. “Why would I want to move to Miami?”
Percy went on, ignoring her question. “They’d start you out with a six-figure salary, and the benefits are—”
“Percy, listen,” Stella interrupted, “I appreciate your eagerness to share this with me, but it’s not for me.”
“Why not?” he asked, not masking his irritation. “You haven’t even given it any thought. Give me one good reason.”
It was true, she hadn’t given it more than ten seconds of thought because her immediate response had been a knee-jerk no.
“I don’t want it?” The idea of moving again, and to a town she had no interest in, instantly caused a twinge in her solar plexus. She rubbed her hand against her stomach.
“That’s not a good reason, Stella,” Percy countered. “You can’t spend the rest of your life not doing anything. You’re shelving
books in our hometown library, for Pete’s sake. That’s not a real job. It’s a . . . it’s a . . .”
Now it was Stella’s turn to fire up her annoyance. “It’s a what, Percy?”
His sigh pushed through the phone, and his voice carried years of disappointment. “A job for a kid, and, Stella, you’re not a kid anymore. You’re thirty years old.”