With my mind made up to be cheerful, I headed out, head high. If Tucker didn’t want me, then I didn’t want him, either. It was his loss. It was—
The light slam of a door turned me around. Otto Bingham was standing on his front porch, looking across to the boardinghouse.
“Hi,” I said.
Otto jumped at the sound of my voice.
“Nice night,” I went on, “if you’re a polar bear.”
He nodded in my general direction, then turned back around and put his hand on the door handle.
With an internal flash of light and heat, I’d suddenly had enough. Enough of Tucker, enough of Stephen, the library board, and definitely enough of this man, who had spoken to me only once in all the times I’d been friendly to him, and even then it had been a short and strange conversation.
“Mr. Bingham,” I said firmly, using my librarian voice as I marched up to him. “Why do you walk away from me almost every time I talk to you? If I’ve done something to offend or anger you, please tell me so I can make amends. It seems as if you’re avoiding me, and I hate being on bad terms with my neighbors.”
Otto Bingham stood quietly, his hand still on the oval doorknob. “I’m . . . I’m not avoiding you. It’s just . . .” He stopped talking and shook his head.
“Just what?” I practically shouted. “It’s my hair? You can’t stand curly hair—is that it? Or maybe you don’t like short people? Which is a silly prejudice, but that’s pretty much an oxymoron. Or, wait, you hate librarians. You were scolded by one as a small child and still haven’t recovered. Or it is that you have an innate hatred of cat hair, and, since I have a cat, you have to hate me, too?”
Suddenly, I realized that I was waving my arms and shouting at the top of my lungs. Mom would not have approved, and actually, I didn’t approve of myself, either.
I dropped my arms and took a deep breath before starting my apology about having a bad day, about being tired, about having no excuse for that kind of behavior. But before I got out the first “I’m sorry,” I heard an unexpected sound. Otto Bingham was laughing.
“It’s the curly hair,” he said. “No doubt about it.”
I peered up at him. “You’re joking, right?”
“Of course I am.” He pushed open the door to his house and stood back, inviting me in. “If you have a few minutes, I have a story to tell you.”
Who could resist a story? I sent a quick text to my aunt (At Otto’s—be home soon) and followed him inside.
Chapter 16
In short order, Otto settled me into a small room that was closer to being a parlor than any room I’d ever set foot in. A pint-sized fireplace sent out a cozy glow over the two wingback chairs that faced it. Occasional tables, small bookcases, and scenic paintings decorated the space in a way that was elegant without being uptight, and I was still admiring it all when Otto came back into the room with two glasses of wine.
He’d shed his coat and was wearing crisp jeans and a smooth buttoned shirt. “I hope you like this,” he said, and cited the year and varietal.
When he started to talk about the vintner, I put up my hand. “Sorry, but I wouldn’t know a smooth finish from sandpaper. My best friend, Kristen, owns a restaurant here in town, and she’s picked all my wines for me since the day she caught me drinking white zinfandel.” Which I still liked, every once in a while, but I would unhesitatingly say I never touched the stuff if she ever asked.
Otto gave me a pained look but said, “You have a cat, so I hope you don’t mind a little cat hair. Though I try to keep this room free of the stuff, it’s a difficult task.”
I laughed and picked an errant Eddie hair from my pant leg. “Here,” I said, handing it over to him. “We’ll call it a draw.”
We exchanged cat names and cat antics for a bit, and when that conversation started to lag, he said with a sigh, “But I lured you in with the promise of a story.”
“You did,” I agreed. “I recommend starting at the beginning.”
“Always a good idea.” Otto sipped his wine. “And I suppose the beginning of this particular story starts last summer with Leo.”
I sat up straight and almost spilled my glass. Which would have been a shame, because the wine was extremely good. Maybe Kristen’s lessons were finally rubbing off. “Leo Kinsler?”
“The very one. Leo and I have been friends since high school.”
Leo had also been one of my aunt’s boarders last summer. He’d driven off into the metaphorical sunset with another of her boarders and, every so often, we’d get e-mails or Facebook posts from the pair.
“Late last spring,” Otto was saying, “Leo told me he was coming up here for the summer, to stay in a boardinghouse, of all places. Now, don’t look at me like that. My images of a boardinghouse were based on my great-uncle’s Depression-era stories. I tried to convince Leo to stay home where he belonged, where we could golf all summer like always, but he was intent on coming north.”
I blinked. “Leo golfs?”
“He’s a seven handicap.”
“Is that good?”
Otto looked at me over the rim of his wineglass. “I take it you’re not a golfer.”
While I was excellent at miniature golf, I suspected that wasn’t what he was talking about. “So, Leo came up here in June, against your advice?”
“Stubborn bugger,” Otto said, nodding. “But he loved it up here. Every time we talked or e-mailed, he’d paint this picture of a northern Michigan Shangri-la. He talked about Chilson, about how it sits on the edge of Janay Lake and next to Lake Michigan, about how the people are open and welcoming. He described the countryside, with its hills and lakes and winding roads. He told me about the boardinghouse, about the maps thumbtacked to the knotty pine walls, about the bell someone always rings before meals. He talked about the other boarders.” Otto studied his glass. “He talked about you, about Eddie, about the bookmobile. And . . . and he talked about Frances.”
With a blinding flash of the obvious, I saw all. Leo had spun Otto a fantasy so vivid that he’d fallen in love with my aunt without ever meeting her. Good job, Leo, I thought sourly.
“I drove up in early September,” Otto said, “and Chilson was everything Leo said it was.”
“Really?” I found that hard to believe. I loved my adopted town dearly, but it was in no way a fairy-tale place. Real people—with real problems and real personalities—lived in it, and real life was often messy.
Otto smiled. “I gave up wearing rose-colored glasses decades ago, Minnie. Too many of my clients were elected officials. I knew Leo’s description glossed over some bumps. But overall, I’ve found that he was right. The second week I was here, this house went up for sale. I told Leo, and he said it was fate.”
I made a rude noise in the back of my throat, and Otto laughed. “That’s more or less what I told Leo, but I bought the house anyway. I’ve been enjoying myself immensely, settling in and getting to know people around town.”
“But not my aunt Frances.”
He slid down in his chair a little, diminishing himself. “No,” he said quietly. “Not her. I’d been working up the courage to knock on her door and I was almost there, but then the other night you told me about her woodworking skills, about her teaching. What does a woman that interesting and accomplished need with a man like me? What can I offer her? I’m a retired accountant. It’s hard to get more boring than that.” His shoulders sagged, and his wineglass came dangerously close to tipping over.
I eyed him. He seemed sincere, but I barely knew the man. What guarantee did I have that he wasn’t some crazed stalker who would make my aunt’s life miserable?