I’m in.
Over many a family dinner, his mother and I tried to convince Max to read more. Henry does a bit, but prefers watching sports, so he’d simply smile, understanding both perspectives.
Alice and I came here often in the beginning. When his parents still owned the cabin, Max and I would drive up to New Paltz for a weekend. We slept in the storage room under the official first floor, in a bed long since gone and replaced with dusty boxes. They collected things, Henry and Alice, and when they left didn’t take any of them, including their books.
“It’ll be nice to start fresh!” she’d said.
However, we’ve been to their beach property and it’s conspicuously lacking in knick knacks. Even the novels are few. Perhaps because she writes so many and he prefers sports.
“Sneaky move,” Max said, around the fourth or fifth time we visited. “Leaving all your crap with us.”
They denied it, lying their butts off, so we never let them live it down. It became the family joke.
Henry would offhandedly ask, “How’s the cabin?”
“Cluttered,” Max would answer.
Henry would reply with mock surprise, “Really?”
Alice would ask me, “Have you gone away recently? Out of the city?”
I’d shoot back, “To that small shack?”
“It’s not small.”
“With all the antiques it is.”
“Oh you!”
And we’ve been calling it a small shack ever since.
Can’t wait to tell her he finally came to the bookstore she and I love so much.
Oh wait.
I can’t.
“You ever think about getting a dog?”
Distracted I ask, “Why would I get a dog?”
“To keep you company.”
“I have company.” I spin around at the end of an aisle to point at my husband. “I have you.”
He laughs that doubled-over laugh I love, and hurries around the bookshelf to volley, “Yeah but I can't lick your face. Sleep in your lap. Shed all over the couch.”
I roll my eyes, “Oooh, you're making it more appetizing by the second,” as I slide happy fingers over book spines.
He laughs again, and drops it. Thank God.
Passing a velvet armchair of dusky-rose, we pass shelves made from pale pine offering graphic novels and YA novels I merely glance to. On my left are tables stacked in artistic ways with batched genre suggestions, colorful penmanship explaining why they’re special.
My mind is on the fiction section, just ahead, and I absently twist my ring, but find instead a naked finger. “Oh!” I whisper, “I forgot my wedding ring by the sink.”
“You wanna wear mine?”
I glance back, his joke evaporating my frown, as he hoped it would.
This is the cozy alcove I’ve spent the most time in, where new and used books share shelves built like a bay window with a better view. My gaze travels down the spines of novels on a freestanding bookcase in the middle, many of which might just be lucky enough to come home with me. And they won’t even have to buy me dinner first.
I spot a worn copy with a familiar title. “Oh Look! An old copy of Little Women!”
Max leans against the bookcase, “Yay,” drier than this paperback.
Flipping through the used pages, I smirk, “I’m going to read it to you cover to cover.”
He looks at me. “Don't you dare.”
A voice to my left asks, “Excuse me?”
Surprised to hear someone else’s voice, I lock eyes with a dark beard in his twenties staring like I just came onto him.
“Oh…I wasn't talking to you.”
Suspicious brown eyes avert from 'the horny lady.’
“She was talking to me!” Max flies around me and gets in the guy’s face. “Hey! You got a problem? You wanna take it outside?”
He is, of course, being ridiculous. And hilarious, because nobody can see him but me.
Under my breath I laugh, “Oh my God,” and keep my eyes on the book.
“Seriously, sir. I need to know. What is the appeal of books when you can just watch the movie?”
The prick of an old battle makes me argue, “Because the movie is never as good as the book, which you would know if you ever read a book.”
Beard demands, “What? I read books all the time. Why do you think I'm here?”
I blink at him. “I’m sorry. I wasn't talking to you.” He sets down his book, and backs away as I call after him, “I was having one of those old arguments in my head. Don't you ever play out those old arguments from your…”
I sigh.
He’s gone.
Great.
Behind me comes a new voice. “I do that. All the time.”
I turn my head to discover a beast of a man in a flannel shirt, dusty blue jeans and a baseball hat shading warm brown eyes and a stubbled jaw — the kind of man you’d imagine could chop down the biggest tree in the forest while maintaining a joking conversation without a bead of sweat.
Seated in one of the bookstores antique armchairs, he was reading a novel. Now he’s smiling at me with caution. Hoping I’ll be receptive.
“Hi,” slips from my confusion.
He repeats, “Hi,” and rises from the chair, dwarfing me and the bookcase. “Sorry, I just thought I'd come to your defense instead of leaving you hanging out there in the cold. That's Mike. He's like that with everyone. I wouldn't take offense.”
I don’t know what to say, for some reason, and I’m very aware Max, behind me, is watching. I feel his jealousy ignite.
The man thrusts out a hand the size of my torso. “I’m Jack. I heard you're new in town.”
My lips part to speak because when introduced you’re supposed to shake their extended hand. Something inside me says, run!
I back away.
With my book.
And leave the nice stranger hanging in the cold.
Chapter 22
Max
Abby sits long-ways across the couch, with me beside her on the floor enduring her reading aloud the umpteenth chapter of — how did this happen to me — Little Women.
Truth is, I’m enjoying it.
Didn’t suspect it was possible. But she brings the characters to life. And it’s a good read.
Can’t let her know I’m digging it, though.
Too fun to hide that fact.
As she finishes a passage, and pauses to see what I think, I fall over, faking passing out from boredom.
She laughs, onto me, “You're enjoying it, stop it,” but then her voice becomes serious. “Do you want me to stop?”
I shrug, “No,” like she could keep going or not and it wouldn’t bug me either way.
“I’ll stop.”
I sigh, “No, don't stop.”
She closes the book. “No, it's done.”
I’m thwarted, forced to admit I want to learn what happens next in this girly book about…sisters. What do I know about sisters? Which is why it’s entertaining, a whole new world as Abby used to always insist. Dammit.
“Come on. One more chapter.”
Abby opens the book, a happy smile in her voice as she says, “Now I have to find the spot again.” I wait until she’s located it, and as soon as she says, “Okay…” and takes a breath to begin, I snore and fall to the floor.