Chapter 10 #3
I turn to see an older woman standing behind the front counter, near the register. Her curly gray hair is barely contained by a banana clip on the top of her head.
“Hello.” I smile, wide and bright, as I walk up and pull out my wallet to produce the receipt. It’s bent at odd angles, and I try to smooth it out against the wood countertop. “I made this purchase back in March.”
She looks at the receipt, then up to me. “We don’t accept returns after thirty days.”
“Oh, I would never return a book. Do people really do that?” Then I laugh, hoping she’ll join me. Instead, she just looks confused and my confidence falters. “No, I don’t need to return anything. I was just wondering if you remember the purchase?”
She raises her eyebrows at me from behind the rim of her red reading glasses. “From six months ago.”
When she says it like that, I realize how insane it sounds. How insane I sound. “Sorry, I know it’s an odd request. But I already own a copy of Jane Eyre, so I’m trying to figure out why I bought another one.”
“You don’t remember?”
Wow. I never imagined such an innocuous question could land like a punch in the gut.
“Right. Good point,” I say, working to maintain my smile as I scramble for an apology that will let us leave as soon as possible. “I’m sorry, we’ll get out of your hair. You’re probably busy, and it was a long shot, so—”
“What about this particular edition?” Ben asks, leaning forward and resting his hand on the wooden counter. His fingers splay across the top edge of the receipt, like he’s unconsciously measuring its angles. “Do you have another copy in stock that we could take a look at?”
“Oh, no, it’s okay,” I say, bringing my hand up to his arm to pull him back. “It’s not that important.”
He turns his head slightly, just enough to look down to where my fingers gently grasp the sleeve of his canvas jacket. Then he slowly slides his gaze up to mine.
“Yes,” he says. “It is.”
His dark eyes are trained on me and, for a moment, I can’t move. I can only stare back, trying not to focus too much on the way his jaw ticks under his stubble, or how his hair falls over his forehead.
Then, just like that, he turns away, bringing his attention back to the woman behind the counter.
She looks from him to me, then back at him, before giving us both a smirk and typing away on her computer.
“There’s a copy in the literature section,” she says a moment later. “This floor, all the way back.”
Ben thanks her and then motions for me to go ahead.
It’s a maze among the stacks, and I’m not sure I’m heading in the direction of the literature section, or if we’ve ventured to geopolitics.
All I know is that Ben is behind me, so close that I can actually feel his presence as we turn into the next aisle, then another.
It’s like trying to navigate our neighborhood all over again—long, dark passageways, half of them ending in dead ends.
I think we’ve finally found the right spot a few minutes later, but my hope dims as I scour the shelf where the book should be.
The titles of the other Bronte sisters are here: Villette and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey.
But no Jane Eyre. I turn around to suggest we ask the woman at the front desk for help again, but stutter to silence when I realize my face is just inches from Ben’s chest.
He smells like sawdust, I think. Like sawdust and sandalwood and soap.
I immediately push the thought away and turn back to the bookshelf. “I don’t think it’s here.”
“Are you sure?” his voice rumbles behind me.
I do another quick scan of the titles lined up in front of me, then sigh. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you apologizing for?”
“This,” I say, my arms flopping from my sides, a pathetic attempt to motion toward the entirety of the bookshop. “I dragged you all the way here for nothing.”
“I don’t mind.”
“But I do,” I say, turning enough to look at him over my shoulder. “I already knew this would be a long shot, but this is ridiculous. And now—”
My words stutter to a halt as his hand comes up from his side toward me, like he’s about to cradle my cheek in his palm. My heart trips and I hold my breath, waiting… until he reaches past my shoulder to pull a book from the shelf behind me.
I clear my throat, feeling a bloom of heat rising up my neck, and look down at the paperback in his hand.
Jane Eyre is written across the front in simple white font, along with Charlotte Bronte’s name, while the rest of the cover features a Victorian oil painting of a young woman standing in the corner of a library.
The colors are muted, the design simple, but something about it feels significant. I just can’t pinpoint what.
“Does it look familiar?” Ben asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” I murmur to myself. “Then again, it’s a mass market paperback. I’ve probably seen it a dozen times before.”
Ben doesn’t rush me. He just holds it out for me to study, letting me do a slow audit of every inch.
But after a few more minutes, I admit defeat. I don’t remember this book or why I bought it. I don’t remember anything at all.
I’m back at square one.