Chapter 24 #2
“She could have finished,” Mabel said, placing her hands on her hips. “Don’t just assume because she’s a woman she didn’t.”
“I’m assuming because she’s not acting like someone who got laid,” Noah muttered.
“You’ve been hanging out with Joey too much,” I said, frowning. “Don’t be so nosy.”
“I’m not being nosy if you’re shoving it down our throats,” Noah insisted.
“So?” Mabel asked as I called for the next customer.
“So what?”
“So who’d you have a one-night stand with?”
The woman I was checking out leaned in curiously. Like she was desperate to be part of our nonexistent gossip session.
Before I could respond, Jack came up to the registers for God knows what and when he did, he said, “Ella didn’t have a one-night stand. She hung out with Henry last night.”
The whole line of registers stopped checking out their customers to stare at me. I squeezed my eyes shut, as if that would make me invisible.
“Oh my God,” Noah said.
“I’ve been manifesting this,” Ameerah said excitedly.
“I cannot believe Henry didn’t make sure you finished. He seems like the exact type to satisfy a woman!” Mabel exclaimed.
I shoved my customer’s book in their bag and turned toward the booksellers.
“Alright, enough. You all know this isn’t appropriate work talk.
I’ll say this just once. No, Henry and I didn’t have a one-night stand.
And no, I didn’t have one with anyone.” Last night, at least. “I’m wearing the same clothes because I got a little too drunk and Henry let me stay over at his.
That’s it. If you keep talking about it, I’ll send you off to shelve in World History. ”
They all were quiet for a moment until Noah spoke up. “You know, their kids would be really cute.”
“Ugh,” I groaned, stomping away from the registers.
I liked to think I lived my life by logic. Writers and artists lived by passion, searching for art in the way the wind blows, thinking it would lead to inspiration. I was a reader. I searched for clues in mystery novels and studied the footnotes in nonfiction.
Even though it was the best kiss of my life (possibly of anyone’s life), I knew it couldn’t lead somewhere. The store was the most important thing, not getting each other off. And whenever we saved the store, he’d go back to Tennessee and my life would go back on track here.
I risked going to the second floor, avoiding the side that Leo’s office was on, and beelined it to the event space, shutting the door behind me. I found Julie sitting in the greenroom, working on her laptop.
She smiled when she saw me, snapping her laptop shut. “I heard the news,” Julie said, wiggling her eyebrows.
“How?” I asked, slipping into the chair across from her.
“Ren called me from downstairs.” She nodded at the phones that hung on the wall and sat at every station. “You are wearing the same thing as yesterday. I didn’t expect that to be true.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“I hope it’s what I think. He’s got that buff nerdy thing going on. It’s confusing, but really hot.”
I leaned forward, conspiratorially. “He played football.”
“I knew it. He’s got the body of a linebacker.”
“How do you know what a linebacker is?”
“Travis Kelce” was all she replied and I nodded in understanding, even though I wasn’t completely sure that was right. “So? How was it?”
“We didn’t do anything.” She shot me a look. Reluctantly, I said, “We kissed.”
“I knew it!” she shouted. “And?”
I scowled. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“I know how many fingers were inside you when you went on the date with the playwright from Bushwick. You fuck and reenact, Ella.”
I blushed and shrugged. This was different because it was Henry. Henry, whose tips of his ears turned red whenever he got a little shy or embarrassed. Henry, who I’ve spent more time with in the past couple months than anyone else. It felt wrong to gossip about him.
“You know I won’t tell anyone,” Julie said quietly. “Mabel and Noah and the rest of the booksellers like to gossip, but you’re my best friend.”
“I know, I know.” I tucked my hair behind my ears, shooting a nervous glance around us. Quietly, I said, “Do you think Leo can hear us?”
Julie choked out a laugh. “No, Ella. I do not think Leo’s ghost is hanging around here wondering if his grandson is handsy. I think he’s got bigger and better things to do in the afterlife, like you know, float on clouds and shit.” She poked me in the side. “Now tell me.”
I relayed the night to her, all the drinks I had, how he looked so nervous but eager in the bar. How he gave me his bed and carried me to it like it was absolutely nothing. And the kiss.
It was what the poets sat near candlelight about. What the romance section downstairs wanted to emulate. There had been nothing like it and I hated the idea that there could be nothing like it ever again.
When I finished, Julie had a small smile on her face.
“Why are you smiling like that?”
“Because it all just sounds too good to be true.”
“Exactly.”
“But the best things are,” she said. “And he seems to be one of those things.” Before I could respond, she held her hand up. “I get it, saving the store is a priority. Spare me the speech. But who knows what’ll happen when it’s all said and done?”
“Henry will move back to Tennessee,” I insisted. “I don’t even know if I want him to stay. He hates New York.”
“Well, maybe he needs to fall in love with two things at once,” Julie said, nodding to herself. “And maybe it’s time you let yourself fall in love, too.”
It’s not that I didn’t believe in love. I mean, look at my parents.
But if I could choose fiction over reality? Why on Earth would I choose reality?
Example A for staying away from romance would be my little brother, Jorge. He had been seeing some girl he’d been obsessed with for a few months and out of nowhere, they broke up. He locked himself in his room and was playing “Hero” by Enrique Iglesias on repeat.
My parents begged me to come over for dinner today for an intervention.
“Ay, I hate his voice,” my father said, wincing as the sound traveled downstairs to the living room. “So nasally. I don’t know how anyone can stand it.”
“You’re just jealous,” Maya teased.
“Am not!” He harrumphed and crossed his arms over his chest like a child. “Your mother married me, not him. Why would I be jealous?”
“I mentioned it one time,” my mom murmured to me. “Only once I’ve mentioned I thought Enrique Iglesias was attractive when I was in my twenties and I can never live it down?”
“He was around when you were in your twenties?” Maya asked, her head tilted. “That long ago?”
My mom narrowed her eyes and reached forward to pinch her cheek. “Yes, mi diablito. I’m not a hundred years old, you know.”
Carlito started to hum along to Jorge’s music as he played with one of his toys. My dad threw his head back and groaned.
“What did you need me here for?” I asked. “Are we just going to complain about him listening to music instead of doing something?”
“No, no we’re going to have an intervention,” my mom insisted. “We just need a game plan. Should we write letters?”
Maya rolled her eyes. “If Jorge comes down here and sees a bunch of letters, he’s going to run right back up to his room.”
“Why’d they even break up?”
“Tennis has started back up for the summer,” my dad said. “Said she’s going to be the next Coco Gauff and can’t have any distractions.”
“And how long did they date?”
“Three months,” Maya said. “He’s being dramatic. I broke up with my boyfriend and no one knew!”
My mom’s head whipped over to Maya. “You had a boyfriend?”
“Okay, wrong time to mention it,” she muttered.
Carlito set his toys down and moved to sit on my lap. I wrapped my arms around him, giving him a firm hug.
“Is this your life now, hermanito?” I tapped his nose. “Utter chaos?”
He nodded sleepily, snuggling into me.
The song upstairs ended and for a second there was silence before the strings started back up all over again, causing everyone to groan.
“Mamita,” I said. “Just call him down to dinner and tell him to turn off the music. That’s what you made me do when I broke up with my first boyfriend.”
She shot me a look. “That boy was a vagrant.”
“Oh, c’mon.”
“He rode a motorcycle.”
“It was cool! I was fifteen. Every fifteen-year-old loves a motorcycle.”
“And every mother loves their fifteen-year old-daughter to date nerds, not boys who wear leather jackets.”
I didn’t mean to, but I blushed at the word “nerd,” as if it was synonymous with Henry now.
“Call him down for dinner and we’ll tell him everything will be okay,” I insisted. “He’s going to wallow forever if we don’t.”
My mom sighed, stomping up to his room and pounding on his door. Maya stood at the base of the stairs to listen, like any sister eager to get their sibling in trouble.
I held Carlito closer in my lap as he began to drift off, humming contentedly to himself.
“Mom told me,” I said quietly to my dad once Maya was out of earshot. “I’m sorry.”
My dad looked down at his hands, ashamed. “I’m sorry. Carmelita, you’ve spent so long worrying about us, I don’t want you to start again.”
I ignored him and said, “Have you been able to find somewhere else?”
“Uber,” he said with a shrug. “I start early in the morning and end late at night. I’ve applied to a few places, but times are tough.”
“Papí, if you need anything from me …”
“Hija, no. I know you want to give us money, but you have bigger things to focus on. Until the store is okay, you don’t need to worry about us.”
“You know you all are more important to me than the store,” I admonished. I glanced down to Carlos and whispered, “It’s for them, too.”
“No,” he said, firmly. “It is my responsibility.”
I sighed, knowing I wouldn’t win this fight against my dad. “When the store is back on its feet, which it will be, then you have to let me help you.”
“We’ll talk about that later. I want to hear about your big plans for the store first.” After I explained everything to him, he leaned back in his chair with a grin. “If anyone could do it, it’d be you.”
“We need to actually pull it off first.”
“Mi vida, do you remember when you were little and Miguel across the street broke his arm? And the insurance wouldn’t cover it? We banded together to help them pay for it, even though everyone was struggling. You have that there, too. And your community will be there for you when no one else will.”
“Huh,” I said, my mind racing. We did have a community.
Not just a literary one, but our neighborhood.
There were our go-to coffee or lunch spots, the florist where we purchased bouquets for visiting authors, or even the local hardware store that helped us out when we had to rebuild our bookshelves.
Funding the book fair would be difficult, but maybe if we reached out to local companies as sponsors, we’d be able to fund it while adding a different factor.
“You’re right, Dad. That’s a good idea.”
“Not the first time I’ve heard that,” he said, smiling.