by Naomi Niles
“So many choices here,” murmured Lori, drawing me out of my thoughts. “I’m surprised you even know who Robert Johnson is.”
“Hey, I’m not an idiot!” I said with a laugh—but I meant it.
“Oh, I know,” she said quickly. “It’s just that I don’t know very many people who have even heard of him. His death was really tragic. I wonder if the guy who murdered him had any inkling that he was silencing one of the great voices of twentieth-century music.”
“I doubt it. Murderers never seem to care about stuff like that.”
“I think we’ll have to play this,” said Lori, and she put on “Moondance” by Van Morrison.
Silence fell between us as we turned onto the main freeway leading toward La Hacienda Mexican Restaurant. When I looked over and saw Lori with her nose pressed against the window, I asked her what she was thinking.
“Oh,” she said, blushing faintly. “I’ve just always thought cities were so romantic—even the smallest and ugliest cities that no one else wants to live in with their boarded-up strip centers and skeletal street lamps over the freeways. It’s all so grimy and ordinary-looking, and I think it’s glamorous, don’t you?”
I couldn’t honestly say I had ever thought that, though I was charmed by her poetic way of looking at things. “You sound like my best friend Sean.”
“Is he the one I always see you with?”
“Probably. He’s always waxing poetic about the dilapidated industrial cities of Jersey and Pennsylvania that everyone else is trying to get out of. I think it comes from spending his whole youth rocking out to Springsteen and playing Springsteen on his guitar and wanting to be Springsteen.” I laughed. “He has a very romantic way of looking at things. I bet the two of you would get along.”
“You should’ve invited him on our date!” said Lori. I couldn’t tell whether she was joking or not.
“Have you listened to much Springsteen?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “Not enough to know whether I like him or not. When I was little, my mom had a boyfriend who had a literal shrine to Springsteen in his apartment, and after they broke up, she wouldn’t allow him to be played in our house. You know how sometimes your parents make a rule and you keep following it into your twenties without really thinking about it? Every now and then somebody will mention Springsteen, and I’ll want to say, ‘I’m not allowed to listen to him,’ but then I’ll remember that I don’t live with my mom anymore and it’s not a sin.”
“Well here, let me introduce you.” I pressed play and the mournful horns of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” uttered their lonely cry. She sat there listening, I thought, politely but without much interest until near the middle of the song.
“Oh, that’s perfect,” she said at the end. “What was it he kept saying? ‘I’m so alone?’”
“‘I’m on my own, I’m all alone.’ I love that because for about half the song you’re jamming to this funky dance number, and then he hits you with all the loneliness and misery in the world. Listening to it, you can feel in your bones the biting cold of a bleak December night.”
“It’s lovely,” said Lori. “I didn’t think I was a Springsteen fan, but that might have just turned me into one.”
***
The rest of the date didn’t go nearly as awkwardly as I had been expecting. Over a dinner of warm tortilla soup, spicy chicken enchiladas, and sopapillas, we talked about our families and the mystery, as she put it, of how you can be related to people with whom you have seemingly nothing in common. When I offered to pay for the meal, she smiled and thanked me for being a gentleman, which led into a long discussion about my mom and the values she had instilled in me as a young man: love of country, love of family, and respect for women.
We talked animatedly for some time about music and movies, and Lori seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself. But near the end of the meal, she got quiet, and a far-away look came into her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, worried that I was boring her with talking about my four brothers. “Did you eat too much, or not enough?”
Lori shook her head as though coming out of a daze. “No, it isn’t that. There are just some things I’m scared to talk about because I’m afraid I would bore you.”
“Like what?”
She thought about it for a moment. “Most things, actually. Before I left the store tonight, my sister warned me not to mention books or I’d scare you away. But that’s silly, isn’t it? If something were to develop between us, you’d find out eventually. It’s like my Aunt Trish says, ‘Be yourself around him because one day you’re going to be yourself anyway.’”
I found it oddly flattering that she would even suggest something might develop between us. Up until now, I had been trying to resign myself to the fact that this was probably the last date we would ever have—which was a hard thing to accept because I had been enjoying it so much.
Leaning forward so that my head was level with hers, I said, “I want you to feel comfortable talking about whatever you want to talk about.” Remembering my argument with Sean from the day before, I added, “If you want to talk about Proust for an hour, I don’t have a problem with that.”
A sudden glow illuminated Lori’s soft features, and she beamed through the rest of the meal.
“Would you like to come inside the store before you drop me off?” she asked as we finished dessert. She held up her phone. “My sister just texted me. She’s on her way home, but she just finished putting our new bookcase together, and I’d like to have a look at it. Judging from the pictures she sent me, it looks great.”
“Sure, we can go in.” I smiled at her enthusiasm. “It’s whatever you want to do.”
We went on listening to Springsteen as we returned to the bakery. I risked an occasional glance over at Lori, who sat quietly with her face pressed against the window, wondering what she was thinking. At the very least, I didn’t think she would dismiss me summarily from her life once the date was over. Even if we didn’t go out again, we would still see each other. I would stop by the bakery once or twice a week. And maybe in time, there would be more dates.
The curtains that hung over the store’s windows glowed with an amber light as we pulled into the parking lot.
I brought the car to a halt and shut it off, resisting the urge to ask her whether she was having a good time.
“You ready?” she asked, gathering up the folds of her skirt and beginning to climb out of the car. I opened the door and climbed out, thinking how fortunate I was to have met a girl who was beautiful and funny and also fiercely intelligent. But all through the night, the memory of our deal had been hanging over us unmentioned. I knew very well that we were only together because of my trick, that she’d never have consented to go out with me otherwise. Soon, she would be going home, and it was anyone’s guess whether we would go out again, but in the meantime, I was determined to savor every remaining moment we had together.
“Please don’t hesitate to let me know if I really do start to bore you,” said Lori as she unlocked the front door. “I just get really excited about IKEA trips and bookshelves and giving away free books to kids who might not have any books in their homes. I remember reading a story about a kid whose dad was a janitor in one of the New York City public libraries, and they actually lived in a small apartment inside the library. And at night when the library was closed, he would venture out of his room and explore the thousands upon thousands of books. And he says he had never been much of a reader, but that experience made him fall in love with books and inspired him to get an education. I just think that’s the most beautiful story, don’t you?”
She had said it all so eagerly and so quickly, as though fearing that I might interrupt before she had finished. “You get so passionate when you talk about literacy and education,” I said, smiling. “It’s kind of adorable.”
Lori’s normally pale face turned a deep red. “I guess it is something I’m really passionate about—educating kids and enc
ouraging a love of reading. I never really thought about it.”
“It’s just so obvious to me. I’ve never seen you more excited than when you’re talking about placing a book in the hands of some kid.”
“Well, it’s important. Kids need to read.”
“They do. That was one thing my mother was always very adamant about. And I admit I haven’t been the best at it—Zack is really the one who takes after my mom. But you inspire me. I think we all need someone in our lives who will remind us that reading is important.”
“Thank you; I needed to hear that. Sometimes I feel like such a nerd.” She laughed, but I could tell that she meant it.
She glided off toward the bookcase, and I followed, with a growing sense that I had stumbled on someone rare and special.
“It took us at least a couple hours to put this together.” She reached out a hand and caressed the bare, black shelves. “It would’ve taken me all day if Sam hadn’t been here to help me. Imagine not being able to build your own shelf because you never learned any practical skills because you were too busy reading.”
“Sounds tragic.” She was standing about an inch away from me, and we were close—so close.
“Yeah, which is why we work best as a pair. I feed her imagination, and she helps me pay the bills—and occasionally reminds me that they need to be paid. I need someone like her: someone strong and practical and worldly wise.”
Her voice drifted off as she said this, and I could tell she was talking to herself as much as she was to me. There was a note of melancholy in her voice that faded a moment later when she added, “Would you like to see my shelves at home?”
For a single surreal moment, I thought she was inviting me back to her place. But then I realized she was pulling her phone out of her skirt pocket and pulling up the Instagram app.
It was a measure of how much we had progressed since dinner that she didn’t think this would scare me away. And she was right: I looked on with interest as she scrolled through her pictures, leaning her head against my chest until I could almost put my arm around her.
“It’s strange,” she said quietly, slipping her phone into her shirt pocket and wrapping her arms tight around me. “I don’t think I realized how much I was enjoying myself until just this moment. Is it true what they say, about how the moment you realize you’re enjoying yourself, the moment ends?”
“Of course not.” I’d been holding myself back for most of the last twenty minutes, but I decided now was the time to risk it. I stooped low until my lips grazed the top of her head. Her hair smelt like cinnamon and lavender. “God, why do I find you so fascinating?”
“I don’t know,” she moaned into my chest. “Is it weird that I find you fascinating, too?”
There was no use trying to fight it back anymore. After taking a quick look around to make sure all the windows were covered, I raised my hands to her face and drew her into a kiss.
Chapter Sixteen
Lori
It was true what I had said to Sam earlier: sex wasn’t a subject I thought much about. There’s an old black-and-white movie from the forties in which Ingrid Bergman plays a shy, bookish woman who’s never slept with a man. One of her colleagues describes the experience of hugging her as “rather like embracing a textbook.” The first time we watched that movie together, Sam, who was sitting behind me, kneed me in the back. “It’s you!” she whispered.
But it was different with Marshall. I didn’t like how my body reacted whenever we were in the same room. When he came striding into the coffee shop in the mornings, I had to resist the urge to leave Sam in charge of the counter and dart off toward the back office until he was gone—not because he had done anything remotely creepy or unsettling, but because I couldn’t understand why I wanted him so badly. He could leave me shivering in a warm room. I hadn’t experienced these feelings for anyone in years, let alone a complete stranger.
And I hated myself for it.
“This isn’t right,” I had moaned to Sam. “I’m not supposed to fall for guys like this.”
“Guys like what?” asked Sam, who was evidently enjoying my humiliation.
“Like him, like Marshall.” I ran my fingers through my hair in agitation. “Tall cowboys from Texas who probably haven’t picked up a book since the second grade. I wanted to marry a nerd, somebody I could sit down and have a conversation about Bergman with.”
“Ingrid or Ingmar?”
“Preferably both.”
But as the week wore on and the night of our date approached, I could sense catastrophe pending.
“This is a crisis,” I told her on Thursday night. “If I’m not careful, I could end up dating this man.”
“And what would be wrong with that?”
“I’m not like you: I can’t just date a guy casually. If I go out with him, there’s a good chance that we’ll end up married.”
Sam nodded and repeated her first question. “And what would be wrong with that?”
I leaned back against the counter and hugged myself tightly. “This just isn’t the future I had planned for myself. Since I was in the sixth grade, I’ve had a very clear image in my head of the man I was going to marry. We’re both college professors, and at night we come home and watch Lord of the Rings and make out on the sofa. Then in our free time, we write books.”
“Well, you’re not a college professor,” said Sam. “Maybe it’s time to accept that your life turned out differently than you planned, and that’s okay. If you had grown up to be that woman, then maybe you could have married that guy. But you grew up to be somebody you never expected, and the future won’t be like anything you expect.”
“Perhaps. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life thinking he was the best I could do.”
I was still mulling this over on Saturday night when I found myself kissing Marshall in the dining room.
He began at my lips and moved down until he was nuzzling the side of my neck with his fuzzy face. After doing this for about a minute, he pulled back looking apologetic. “Sorry if that was too much for you on the first date.”
I shook my head shyly and said in a quiet voice, “No, it was perfect.” Sensing his relief, I was quick to add, “You can continue if you’d like.”
He asked me what I felt comfortable doing and where we should draw the line. It was a dangerous question because at that moment there weren’t many things I wouldn’t have been willing to do with him. (“This is so unlike me!” I had complained to Sam, to which Sam had replied, “And yet, what if it’s just like you?”).
“I don’t care what you do to me,” I said honestly, surprised to hear the words coming out of my own mouth. “I just want you so badly, and I don’t get it, and it doesn’t make any sense, but there it is.”
Marshall placed his hands on my waist and tucked me under his chin. “You make it sound like the most horrible thing, that you could want me.”
“No, it isn’t that,” I explained. “It’s just not what I was expecting. I won’t pretend I wasn’t a little relieved when you drew the king out of that deck. I wanted to go on this date; I’ve been looking forward to it all week. Secretly I sort of hoped there would be romance and making out and… well, maybe even a little more. But see, my idea of a wild night is a warm cup of tea and a couple episodes of Grantchester on PBS. This is a whole new realm for me.”
“Have you ever done it with a man before?”
I shook my head, not sure whether I should be embarrassed to admit this or not. “No, never. I’ve never even been on a formal date until tonight.”
Marshall smiled in that sly, seductive, thrilling way of his. “Then this is going to be a night of firsts, isn’t it?”
I slid out of my cardigan and let it fall to the ground, kicking it over toward the new coffee table. With surprising speed, Marshall began unbuttoning my bodice, exposing my lace white bra. I had to fight back an instinctive urge to throw my hands over my breasts, both out of modesty and a fear that he would hate m
y body as much as I did. I was good at choosing clothes that made me look smaller than I really was; I had been doing it for a long time.
Grabbing his hands in mine, I said urgently, “Promise you won’t be grossed out when you see me naked for the first time?”
“Why would I be grossed out?” he asked with that same enigmatic smile.
“Because I’m not as skinny as I look. My legs are like trees, and I’ve got kind of a belly. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” I could tell he didn’t believe me. He leaned forward and planted a kiss in the center of my forehead. “I’m sure you’re perfect.”
“Well, don’t assume until you’ve seen it,” I said nervously, feeling a sudden fierce urge to cancel the date and send him home before we could go any further. “I just want you to know what you’re getting into.”
“I’ll be the judge.” He came around behind me and slid his body behind mine, cupping both hands over my breasts. I liked how it felt, the warmth of his breath on my hair, the way he seemed to be inhaling my scent like it was oxygen. “You really do like to hide yourself, don’t you? From the way you dress, I always assumed you were flat.”
“Sorry to disappoint. I hope you don’t mind boobs.”
“Not even a little.” He kneaded them firmly, and I shut my eyes tight, yielding myself to the rhythm of our bodies. With every motion of his hands, I could feel myself falling deeper and deeper under his spell, and a single thought hovered on slender wings at the back of my mind: This is really happening, and I’m not doing anything to stop it. I reached out a hand, struggling to hold onto that thought; but then it vanished, swallowed up by want and a hunger that grew more acute with each passing moment.
Marshall brushed his lips against my shoulder, and I shivered, though not from displeasure. “God, you’re just about the most perfect person I’ve ever seen,” he whispered.
“Wait until you see all of me.”
I meant it as a warning, but I don’t think he took it as such. Grabbing my already loose straps on both sides, he pulled my dress down to my feet. Now I was standing before him in nothing but my underwear. Even though I was turned around, I could feel his eyes on me, could sense him surveying me with what I fervently hoped was approval rather than disgust.