Terabithia’s face was pressed up against the glass. “Want dat, want dat.” He kept looking over his shoulder to see if we were paying attention. “Nanas. Yehyo.” He pointed.
There on the middle shelf was a huge crystal bowl brimming with banana pudding. The creamy top was unbroken, and layers of cut bananas and crumbled gingersnaps bisected the pillows of pudding underneath.
“Of course! That’s my favorite too.” I squatted down and hugged him.
Coco was standing beside us. What did she expect, bringing him to a bakery? At least he picked something with fruit in it, I thought.
“I have, I have,” he pleaded with Coco, patting his belly.
She looked at me and shrugged. “At least he picked something with fruit in it.”
Ha! “Yeah, and there’s the . . . um . . . calcium,” I improvised.
Terabithia sat in my lap while I spooned pudding into his mouth. He got bored of it pretty quickly and made me dig out the banana and cookie pieces. “Down,” he commanded. “Dada put Bissia down.”
“What do you say?” Coco prompted.
“Peez.”
I set him on his feet. He had left plenty of pudding for us. As he began exploring, Coco took a spoonful, slurped it off the spoon, and said, “It’s good to see you smiling.”
I’d tried to put on a brave face.
“It’s pretty obvious you’ve been feeling profoundly miserable,” she continued.
“Really?”
“Yes. You haven’t looked like your normal fashion-plate self, dressed up for our video chats, in ages.”
I took the bait. “Sorry.”
“C’mon, Do, I’m only teasing. You always look great. How are you doing, really?”
I was tired of pretending to be fine when I wasn’t. What was the point of keeping it from my family and friends anyway? It wasn’t like they expected me to be happy all the time. I was the only one who had put that kind of impossible burden on myself. “Terrible.”
Admitting it made me feel lighter. Kind of.
She patted my knee. “I know. What can I do?”
“Move here with Mark and Terabithia?” I said, half joking—and obviously half not.
Coco gave Terabithia a long look. He was licking the side of a container of lilac-colored frosting, saying “Bissia purpuh.”
“I wish we could, but we’re getting him settled. I wouldn’t want to uproot him again . . .”
“Oh, of course.” I waved away the rest of her words. “I know. I was totally being selfish.”
“Well, I wholeheartedly encourage that. You haven’t done enough of that in the past thirty or so years. Remember when you used to give all your dessert to me and Maddie? And the front seat of the car? And your toys?” She shook her head fondly. “Why don’t you consider moving in with us and letting us spoil you for a while?”
I hadn’t even thought of that possibility.
No, I couldn’t move away from Chatsworth. Elmira, who was still grounded, needed me. So did . . . No, Dodie. I stopped myself. What do you want?
After Coco and Boo were asleep, I crept downstairs and turned on the light in the sunroom. I sat behind the circulation desk and felt my heart swell with excitement thinking of all the new books that waited on the shelves for me—and the patrons—to discover. I plopped down in the wing chair and remembered all the times I had seen Elmira sitting here looking peaceful or stifling a laugh. I shook the folded pieces of paper out of the request envelope.
More razberry bars please!!!
Could you get another copy of Llama Misses Mama? My son’s favorite and it’s always gone
Elmo books!
I love library please stay open forever thank you!
I sighed with relief. What I really wanted was to stay in Chatsworth. To be around these people that I loved. To make them happy as well as myself. I knew now how blurry the line sometimes became between the two. I wouldn’t figure it out right away. But I had learned that a lending library was something I needed as much as they did.
While Terabithia napped on his and Coco’s last day in Chatsworth, I stood under the shower long after washing off the Moroccan rose oil gel, feeling the cleansing heat pelt down on my head, breathing the steam in deeply, and feeling the tingling in all my cells.
Coco picked up lobster rolls for lunch. We brought them onto the deck and ate them with our faces toward the sun, washing the buttered grilled buns and sweet briny meat down with black cherry soda. Coco fed Terabithia english muffin pizzas. He seemed to feel his lunch was as indulgent as ours. Afterward, we took him into the backyard to run around. He pulled on my leg, and I knelt down over my stretched and satisfied stomach.
When we were at eye level, he pat-pat-patted me on the shoulder. “Hide-and-seek?” I checked.
“Yeah,” Terabithia agreed, then waited expectantly.
“Okay, if I find you”—I pretended to think hard—“then I’ll buy you an ice cream.”
With a huge grin he was off like a shot, crooning “Chocolate ’nilla ’stachio,” his little legs remarkably fast even though he ran akimbo. I counted to twenty—long enough to build the suspense, an eternity for a little boy—then headed for the honeysuckle patch.
As I stood there inhaling, the scent of the flowers was as thick and spicy as gingerbread baking, then as sweet and light as a sip of liquid sunshine. Behind a slip of flowers, the top of Terabithia’s hair peeked out, his curls—and no doubt his whole body—shaking with excitement. The slow rising within me grew until I felt double oxygen, double blood, double happiness. So much happiness that I couldn’t measure it—and for the first time in so long.
—TWENTY-TWO—
April 2009
I was on speaker with Maddie when Kendra arrived to keep me company one night. Kendra overheard my sister saying, “The only way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”
“She’s so right!” Kendra cried. Ever since meeting Maddie, Kendra had become the other number one member of the Maddie Fairisle Fan Club. Female member, at least. She thought Maddie’s idea was a fantastic one.
“A fling would be perfect for you right now!” She offered to set me up on dates or wing me at bars, but queasiness rolled over me whenever I thought of any lips touching mine besides . . . those lips . . . the ones I’d planned to be loyal to for the rest of my life. Maybe he had changed his mind about that promise . . . he obviously had changed his mind . . . and skipped town to no-one-knew-where . . . but when I tried to envision the spine-tingling pleasure of someone new, my body revolted. It was impossible.
More time, I reassured myself. That’s what you need.
One afternoon, when I was walking on a woodsy path about a mile from my house, I discovered a little pond I’d never seen before. I started to walk a lazy circle around it. The chilly air was still as soft as the underside of a rose petal, and the sky was almost the same color. It was later than I had thought, but I didn’t care. For the moment, I had nowhere to be. It was a delicious, forgotten feeling.
I had stopped looking for Shep around town. I’d never let myself count the weeks since he’d been gone; a haze of time was better than a certain amount of absence. Where was he? Still somewhere in South America? Back but keeping to himself in Chatsworth? Frequenting places where he knew I didn’t go? Doubtful. It seemed as though he was farther away, as if Mike—and the town—missed him too. I wondered if he would ever come back. The fact that I could consider the possibility he wouldn’t was a relief—it showed my denial was over even if my heartache wasn’t.
Facing my denial was the only way to move forward. I went directly upstairs to my room, knelt down beside the bed, reached underneath, and pulled out the toile-covered box. A skin of dust sat on top. May 2009, the final month of my supposed fertility window, which I had circled in red and starred in gold and drawn fireworks around in orange when I first bought the calendar, was next month.
I hadn’t looked at the calendar in many months. Thank heaven. This was one project
I was proud to have given up on. I ripped each page into confetti so small it was like snowflakes. That seemed fitting. No day, no week, no month out of all that time had been exactly alike. Not one of them had brought me a baby, but each and every one of them had been singularly beautiful and important anyway.
I uncreased the piece of paper where I’d figured out the math of it after the dinner with Maddie. I laughed as I looked at my confused scrawls, calculations, and recalculations. It all seemed so arbitrary to me now. Would my ovaries really obey such a silly-seeming rule? It could have been a coincidence about my mom and grandma. I ripped that page to shreds too. Either the math was right, or it wasn’t. Either I would be able to have a baby biologically, or I wouldn’t. I could probably do it alone, but I could now admit to myself that I didn’t really want to, and—what’s more—I didn’t really have to, at least not yet. I knew my mom was right: everything would work out the way it was supposed to. It didn’t matter if my child was conceived or adopted. Whatever child came into my life, however that child came into my life, I would be an amazing and loving mother just like I’d always wanted.
For now, I would be a good mother to the library. I had a lot of catching up to do.
—TWENTY-THREE—
“This may be the most delicious thing you could ever make,” Chloë pronounced. “My grandmère used to do a dacquoise for special occasions, but this one puts hers to shame.” As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Chloë looked back and forth over both shoulders as if her offended grandmother might materialize.
“Aw, you don’t have to say that,” Sam replied with a delighted smile. At our first Foodie Book Club, she had made inedible hardtack. Now she was responsible for the almond-hazelnut meringue confection with mocha buttercream that all of us were snarfing down from a recipe in Ruth Reichl’s Comfort Me with Apples.
Kendra licked her fingers. “I love her honesty in this book. The story of how she tried to adopt Gavi and then Gavi’s parents took her back was one of the most heart-wrenching things I’ve read in a long time.” She glanced over at me.
I swallowed. That part of the book had definitely struck a chord. There was Sianeh. And Terabithia.
Melissa looked at her watch. “I’ve gotta go pick Deandra up at ballet, and then we’re going to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Eagle Ridge with Trey.” A glow suffused her face as she said it. Apparently, she had read Far from the Madding Crowd and had gotten the message. Or maybe getting to know the boneheaded, arrogant Channing Robison had soon made her realize that Trey was a much bigger catch and a man who would actually respect and be kind to her and her daughter. “Trey calls this ‘Food and Feelings Book Club.’” We all laughed.
Geraldine burst through the front door. “You’re done, right?” she asked unceremoniously.
“Yep,” I said. “We were finishing up.”
“Good. Dodie, I need to talk to you stat.”
“All right. Bye, everyone. Amazing dacquoise, Sam, really.”
As soon as we were alone, Geraldine said, “Sit down.”
“What’s going on? You’re freaking me out.”
“Okay, so you know how I missed Foodie Book Club today because I got called in for an update on the progress at the Chatsworth Library?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, guess what?”
“It’s almost done?” I had driven by the library dozens of times, and while I didn’t know how long the inside stuff would take, it had a welcoming air again instead of a deserted one. It seemed like it was almost . . . ready. Geraldine had told me that they were expecting to finish sometime this spring or summer. But after more than two years of waiting, I wasn’t about to believe it until the news became official.
“Yes. And guess why?”
“I have no idea.”
“Shep has been assigned as the foreman for the rest of the project.”
So Shep was back. I felt like all the wind had been knocked out of me. “Oh?”
“Yes. And not only that, but he secured the funding from the investors of the mall he worked on and got an architect on board for the last details for some crazy-low price because she is a major bibliophile. He cut through the last of the red tape, and now it’s really happening.”
I was stunned silent. Shep was back. Part of me wanted to throw up. Shep was going to get the Chatsworth Library finished. The other part of me thought that might have been the most romantic thing I’d ever heard.
“He practically pounced on me to ask about you,” Geraldine continued.
“You spoke with him?”
“Yeah. Sort of. I didn’t say much because I wasn’t sure what to say.”
“So what did you say?”
“I told him you were doing great, that things are going really well for Terabithia with Coco and Mark.”
“Okay.”
“Dodie, how do we feel about him? Are we . . . angry? Or are we . . . friendly? Because I wasn’t sure how to act.”
“Can I get back to you?” My voice was shaking.
“Sure, honey.”
Kendra was next. Then Mackie and Jeff. Everyone I knew was running into Shep, and I hadn’t seen him once. Heck, he was probably having tea with Elmira’s mother by now. Then the first postcard came.
I was in the library after a rousing story circle that somehow devolved into a recounting of the craziest things that had happened at the bachelor and bachelorette parties we’d been to.
When everyone cleared out, I pulled Remembrance of Things Past off the shelf. Swann’s Way, the first of the seven books in Proust’s masterpiece, was as far as I’d gotten. I’d dipped into the other volumes but was always happiest to return to Marcel’s childhood with him even though it was fraught with the loneliness of nighttime.
In my mind’s eye, the gorgeously vibrating, unfurling sentences in the book had swept me outside, onto the Guermantes Way, under bowers and among bushes of hawthorn blossoms as pink and ruffled as little bloomers for a baby girl. Like Marcel in all his wide-eyed wonder, I imagined soaking up the smells of freshness from the grass and the wet soil and, most of all, those divine trees. They left us both—Marcel and me—literally gasping for breath.
As if the universe was determined to make me faint dead away, Anoop arrived at that moment with the mail, and he handed me a large envelope that smelled like the kind of earthy, irregular Irish soap that’s handmade. It was filled with postcards from Shep. The dates written on them went as far back as September, but the postmark on the envelope was from the day before in Chatsworth. I read them in order.
Dear Do,
It’s only been twenty-four hours since our breakup, but so much has changed already. I took the first flight I could get this morning, and now I am on a different continent. I am so tired that I feel like I could fall asleep for a hundred years, but I know that I’ll be lucky even to get one hour of rest. I really do think this is best for us, though.
All my love, Shep
Ouch. Way to send a message. It was amazing how much a wound that had healed could still hurt.
By the time I finished reading the postcards, I felt intruded upon.
Because of the sadness that filled them, proving how hard it had been for Shep, I also felt more hopeful than I wanted to admit.
I made a decision.
“Hi,” I said when he answered his cell.
“Hi.”
“Shep, this has got to stop.”
“I’m sorry?” His voice rang with curiosity.
“I don’t think we have a choice but to talk about this situation,” I announced. “I’m coming over to your place tonight at eight.”
“Oh, um, okay. Do you want me to come to yours?”
“No. I’ll see you at eight.” I hung up quickly.
Going to Shep’s apartment meant I had more control over when I left. I could escape as soon as I needed to, if I needed to. Since moving to Chatsworth, he had been living in a furnished long-term rental apartment that was perfectly fine but pretty impe
rsonal. He’d been more than happy to spend all his time at my cozy house, so his apartment was a much less fraught place for us to meet now.
I stood outside his door for three full minutes. I breathed very slowly through my nose. It would suck if I hyperventilated and passed out on his doorstep. Finally, I summoned the courage to knock.
The door opened so fast it was as if he’d been standing behind it waiting for me.
With effort I lifted my eyes from the doorknob.
Shep was the tannest I’d ever seen him.
He looked taller than I remembered.
His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows.
And his hair was wet.
I took little sips of air through my mouth. That didn’t do much good. I felt like I might black out, and his scent was as strong as if my face had been pressed against his neck, his chin tucked over the crown of my head.
“Are you moving out?” I asked, embarrassed at the obvious alarm in my voice as I spotted the boxes all over the apartment.
“No,” Shep laughed. “It does look like that, though, doesn’t it? I guess I got carried away buying souvenirs for the Chatsworth crew.”
“How nice,” I said.
“There’s one for . . . well, let’s have a drink first, okay? I mean, I could certainly use one. Only if you want a drink. Otherwise—”
“Sure, Shep,” I said as brightly as I could. “A drink”—(or five)—“would be perfect.”
The white wine was cooling on the back of my throat. A few sips later, I began to relax. It had been eight minutes, and I hadn’t burst into tears or yelled at him. Shep was drinking his beer more quickly. I forced myself not to follow him with my eyes as he got up from the couch to grab another from the fridge and then sat back down.
“Where have you been?” I asked as lightly as I could, running my finger over the nubby fabric of the cushion.
The Lending Library Page 24