Charlie snorts. Libby beams. “What else?” she says. “Old Man Whittaker and his dog!”
A literal statue to Once in a Lifetime.
I turn to Charlie, ready to taunt him, but he meets my gaze with a wicked smile. “Go ahead and try, Stephens; nothing is going to ruin my night.”
My adrenaline spikes at the challenge, but this is too dangerous a game for me to play with him, when my grip on self-control is already so tenuous. Instead I force a placid, professional smile and turn back to face the front of the room.
I spend the rest of the meeting stuck in a worse game with myself: Don’t think about touching Charlie’s hand. Don’t think about the lightning strikes in Charlie’s eyes. Don’t think about any of it. Focus.
17
TO MY SURPRISE, Dusty’s on board with the cuts. Within an hour of promising to get her formal notes soon, Charlie sends me a five-page document on Frigid’s first act.
I examine it in the café while Libby’s reorganizing the children’s book room and singing an off-key rendition of “My Favorite Things,” but replacing all of the listed things with her own preferences: Books with no dog ears and shiny new covers, cleaning and shelving and reading ’bout lovers!
I send Charlie’s document back with sixty-four tracked changes, and he replies within minutes, as if we aren’t twenty-five feet apart, with him at the register and me in the café.
You’re absolutely vicious, Stephens.
I write back, I have a reputation to uphold.
I hear the low laugh in the next room as clearly as if his lips were pressed to my stomach.
In the used and rare book room, Libby’s singing, Shop-cats in windows and full-caf iced coffee.
Isn’t this praise a little overboard? Charlie emails me. Perhaps referring to the forty-odd compliments I inserted into his document.
You love the pages, I reply. I just added details.
It just seems inefficient and condescending to spend so much time talking about things she doesn’t need to change.
If you tell Dusty to cut a bunch of stuff, but don’t make it clear what’s working, you risk losing the good stuff.
We volley the document back and forth until we’re satisfied, then send it off. I don’t expect to hear from Dusty for days. Her reply dings two hours later.
So many great ideas here. A lot to think about, and I’ll get to work on incorporating the changes. Only thing is, we need to keep the cat. In the meantime, I’ve finished cleaning the next hundred pages (attached).
She sends me a private email, its subject reading But seriously and the body reading can you just be my coeditor forever? I’m actually excited to get started. X
I feel like a lit-up light bulb, all hot and glowy with pride. Charlie sends me another message, and all that heat tightens, like one of those snakes-in-a-can gag gifts being reset for another go.
I think we might be good together, Stephens.
A very small star lodges itself in my diaphragm. I reply, yes, together we add up to one emotionally competent human, a real accomplishment, then listen for his gruff laugh.
But another sound draws my attention to the window—Libby’s voice, muffled by the glass but still half shouting, obviously frustrated. I follow the maze of shelves toward the front of the store, where I can see her through the window out on the sidewalk, her phone pressed to her ear and one hand shielding her eyes against the sun.
Her posture is defensive, her shoulders lifted, elbows tucked in against her sides. She gives a frustrated huff, says something else, and hangs up. I start toward the front door to meet her, but she hitches her purse up her shoulder and takes off across the street, turning to the right and briskly marching off.
I freeze midstep, my stomach bottoming out.
What just happened?
My phone chirps, and I jump at the sound. It’s a message from Libby. Had some errands to run! Should be home around eight.
I swallow a fist-sized glob of tension and write back, Anything I can help with? Not much work to do today after all. A blatant lie, but she’s not here to see that in my face.
Nope! she says. Enjoying the Me Time—no offense. See you later!
I walk back to my computer in a daze. It feels like a sort of betrayal, but I don’t know what else to do at this point, weeks into this trip and no closer to any answers. I text Brendan.
Hey, how are things back home? Did Libby ever get back to you?
He answers immediately. Things are good! Yep, we caught up! All good there?
I try fourteen different versions of What’s wrong with my sister before accepting she’d definitely be furious with me if she found out I’d asked him. The rules that govern family dynamics are nonsensical, but they’re also rigid. Mom knew exactly how to get us to open up, but I’m increasingly feeling like I’m in a booby-trapped cave, Libby’s heart on a dais in the center. Every step I take risks making things worse.
All good! I write back to Brendan and turn my focus to work. Or try to.
The rest of the afternoon, customers come and go, but for the most part Charlie and I are the only two people in the shop, and I’ve never been less productive.
After a while, he texts from the desk, Where’d Julie Andrews go?
Back to the nunnery, I write. She gave up. She couldn’t help you.
I have that effect, he says.
Not on Dusty, I write. She’s loving you.
She’s loving us, he corrects. Like I said, we’re good together.
I cast around for a response and find none. The only thing I can really think about is the strained look on my sister’s face and her sudden departure. Libby had some mysterious plans, I tell him.
He says, Must be the grand opening of the Dunkin’ Donuts two towns over.
A minute later, he adds, you okay? Like even from separate rooms, with multiple screens between us, he is reading my mood. The thought sends a strange hollow ache out through my limbs. Something like loneliness. Something like Ebenezer Scrooge watching his nephew Fred’s Christmas party through the frosty window. An outsideness made all the more stark by the revelation of insideness.
All I really want is to go perch on the edge of Charlie’s desk and tell him everything, make him laugh, let him make me laugh until nothing feels quite so pressing.
Fine, I write back. Afterward, I catch myself refreshing my email a couple of times and force myself to click back over to the manuscript. I’m so distracted by trying to distract myself, it’s eight minutes after five when I next look at the clock.
The shop is silent, and I pack with the care of one trying not to wake a pride of hungry lions. I sling my bag over my shoulder and run-walk from the café, still unsure whether Charlie is the lion in the scenario or if I am.