Still neither of us moves.
“So you and Amaya are hanging out.” I add, almost involuntarily: “I wasn’t eavesdropping — it’s a quiet shop.”
His eyebrow ticks. “ ‘Not eavesdropping,’ ” he teases in a low voice. “ ‘Not stalking.’ I’m sensing a pattern here.”
“Not jealous.” I challenge, stepping closer. “Not adorable.”
His eyes dip to my mouth and slightly dilate before rising. “Nora . . .” he murmurs, a heaviness in his voice, an apology or a half-hearted plea.
My throat squeezes as our stomachs brush, every nerve ending on high alert. “Hm?”
He sets his hands on my shoulders, his touch light and careful. “I need to go,” he says quietly, avoiding my gaze. He sidesteps me and slips from the room.
On Friday another batch of Frigid pages hits our inboxes. I spend the first couple of hours reading and rereading, gathering my thoughts into a document and resisting the urge to live-text Charlie in the other room. Libby’s only around from lunchtime to about three, at which point she leaves with the reminder that she has another surprise for me tonight.
I try to convince myself that’s what her disappearance the other day was about, but I can’t escape the thought that it had something to do with Brendan. I’ve suggested we video call him a few times, but she always has an excuse.
At five, I pack up and leave to meet her. Once again, Charlie’s not at the register, and now I’m not only annoyed and frustrated, I’m sad.
I miss him, and I’m tired of us hiding from each other.
Steeling myself, I duck into the office. He looks up, startled, from where he’s leaned against the bulky mahogany desk on the right side of the room, reading. His eyes, his posture, everything reads jungle cat. If by some strange, ancient curse, a jaguar was turned into a man, he would be Charlie Lastra. After a seconds-long staring contest, he remembers himself and says, “Did you need something?”
Last year, I would’ve thought he was being snotty. Now I realize he’s cutting to the chase.
“We should schedule a time to talk through the next hundred pages.”
His eyes bore into me until there’s smoke lifting off my skin. I’m an ant beneath his sunlit magnifying glass. Finally, he looks away. “We can just do it over email. I know Libby’s keeping you running.”
“It needs to be in person.” I can’t take this tension between us anymore. Avoiding him is only making this worse, and I hate feeling like I’m hiding. With Libby, the way to get to the heart of things might be a slow, cautious obstacle course, but this is Charlie, and Charlie’s like me. We need to bulldoze through the awkwardness. I miss him. His teasing, his challenges, his competitiveness, his care for my overpriced shoes, his smell, and—
Shit, I didn’t expect the list to be so long. I’m in deeper than I realized. “Unless you’re too busy!” I add.
He flashes his first smirk-pout of the week. “What could I possibly be busy with?”
His plans with Amaya surge to the front of my mind. I picture him sweeping her over a puddle to save her shoes, flicking open an umbrella to protect her blown-out hair.
“Maybe that Dunkin’ Donuts grand opening,” I say. “Or the divorce proceedings for that couple who fought at town hall.”
“Oh, they’ll never split up,” he says seriously. “That’s just the Cassidys’ foreplay.”
Foreplay. Not a word I would’ve chosen to introduce to this conversation.
“Does tomorrow work for you?” I ask. “Late morning?”
He studies me. “I’ll reserve us a room.” At my expression, he laughs. “At the library, Stephens. A study room. Get your mind out of the gutter.”
Believe me, I think, I’ve tried.
19
LIBBY HOISTS ME out of Hardy’s cab, toward the sound of chatter, and positions me for optimal drama. “Ta-da!”
I pull down the scarf-cum-blindfold she made me wear and blink against the pink and orange of dusk. I’m facing an elementary school’s marquee.
TONIGHT, 7 P.M.
SUNSHINE FALLS COMMUNITY THEATER PRESENTS:
ONCE IN A LIFETIME
“Oh,” I say. “My. God.”
She lets out a wordless shriek of excitement. “See? Local theater! Everything New York has, you can find right here too!”
“That is . . . quite the leap.”
Libby giggles, hooking an arm around me. “Come on. The tickets are general admission, and I want to get popcorn and good seats.”
I’m not sure there’s such thing as “good seats” when you’re choosing from rows of folding chairs in a school gymnasium. The stage is elevated, meaning we’ll be craning our necks for the length of the play, but as soon as the house lights drop, it’s clear the seating arrangement is the least of this production’s issues.
“Oh my god,” Libby whispers, gripping my arm as an actor shuffles out in front of the painted apothecary backdrop. He wanders to the prop counter and gazes wistfully at a framed picture there.
“No,” I whisper.
“Yes!” she hisses.
Old Man Whittaker is being played by a child.
“What about the drug abuse?!” Libby says.
“What about the overdose?!” I say.
“He can’t even be thirteen, right?” Libby whispers.
“He has the voice of a ten-year-old choirboy!”
Someone harrumphs near us, and Libby and I sink in our chairs, chastened. At least until Mrs. Wilder — the owner of the lending library — comes onto the stage and I have to turn my bark of laughter into a cough.
Libby wheezes beside me. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” She’s not looking at the stage, just staring at her feet and trying not to explode.
I drop my voice next to her ear: “What do you think the age gap is between these actors? Sixty-eight years?”
She clears her throat to keep a handle on her would-be laughter.
The woman playing Mrs. Wilder could easily be Old Man Whittaker’s grandmother.
Hell, maybe she is. “Maybe little Delilah Tyler will be played by the family Rottweiler,” I whisper. Libby flings herself forward over her belly, hiding her face as her shoulders quake with silent laughter.
Another dirty look from the woman to our right. Sorry, I mouth. Allergies. She rolls her eyes, looks away.
Into Libby’s ear, I whisper, “Uh-oh, Whittaker’s mommy is mad.”
She bites my shoulder, like she’s trying not to scream. Onstage, Little Boy Whittaker grabs his back and winces out the F-word at the pain of his character’s chronically pinched nerves.
Libby squeezes my hand so hard it feels like she might break it.
“It is very clear,” she whispers haltingly, “that small, bearded child has yet to experience physical pain.”
“That boy has yet to experience the dropping of his testicles,” I reply.
As if to disprove this, his next line sends his voice lurching, cracking into a squeak that makes Libby scrunch her eyes shut and cross her legs. “I will not pee myself!”
We stare at our feet, erupting into silent shivers of laughter every few minutes. It’s the most fun I’ve had in years.