Ten minutes later Jill pulled into the last space available in the lot belonging to the Bookworm. “Looks like a full house tonight,” she commented.
“Here goes nothing,” Nell said under her breath, but not quietly enough to escape Jill’s notice.
“Ditch the negative attitude, Nell,” she advised. “It doesn’t go with your outfit.”
The moment Jill opened the door to the shop they were greeted with the loud and happy noise of a crowd that had come together for a common purpose. There was laughter and excited chatter as people greeted one another and vied for the few remaining seats. “Over here,” Jill shouted, and Nell followed her to the last two empty chairs. Nell realized gratefully that they would be partly hidden from the vantage point of the old wooden podium the Bookworm’s owner, Bruce Lewis, had purchased from the local library when it was being refurbished a few years back.
Jill turned to answer a question posed by the woman seated on her other side, and it was then that Nell saw Eric. He was talking to Bruce Lewis, his hands shoved into the front pockets of his dark jeans. An unbidden smile came to Nell’s lips, and she felt tenderness flood her heart. She remembered that habit. She tried to look at Eric objectively but knew that wasn’t possible. He was just five feet eight inches tall, still as slim and wiry as he had been in college. His cheekbones were sharp; his lips delicately curved; his eyes large and brown. His hair was still wild and loosely curly. Nell had always found his appearance to be highly Romantic. She had always thought that if he were an actor he would be perfect in the role of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Over his dark sweater Eric was wearing a well-worn leather jacket. A long scarf was looped twice around his neck. Eric had always been cold, Nell remembered. Even in the summer he had often worn a sweater, usually a ratty old thing.
Bruce Lewis stepped up to the podium now, and the crowd quieted. He announced Eric with little fanfare, and Eric took his place at the podium. He smiled at the crowd gathered to hear him read, and Nell found that her hands were clasped so tightly together that they hurt.
“You okay?” Jill whispered.
Nell nodded. In fact she was not okay. The moment Eric began to read from his latest novel, Nell found herself transported to her past. Instead of seeing Eric at the wooden podium she saw him on the campus quad, tossing a Frisbee with his friends. She felt his lips meeting hers fiercely, tenderly. She heard his easy and frequent laughter as they strolled around the campus arm in arm, talking about everything and nothing. She watched as her hand caressed his cheek. She—
A sudden burst of applause brought Nell abruptly out of the sort of memory trance into which she had fallen when Eric had begun to read. She realized that she had hardly heard a word, only the sound of his voice, so familiar and yet so sadly alien, as the backdrop of her memories.
“That was wonderful,” Jill said. “Wasn’t it?”
Again, Nell nodded but she felt emotionally drained, utterly depleted, and terribly, terribly sad. I can’t face him, she thought. I just can’t. “Come on,” she whispered to Jill as she rose from her seat. Jill rose, too, and they made their way to the central aisle.
“Nell!”
Nell froze for a second and then slowly turned, realizing that Jill was no longer by her side. She stood absolutely still as Eric approached through the throng. He stopped a few feet from her and smiled. “Imagine my surprise when I saw you in the audience,” he said.
Nell laughed nervously. It was better than bursting into tears. “Imagine my surprise when I saw you’d be here in Yorktide.”
“Mr. Manville!” A man came up to Eric and took his arm. “Could I ask you a question about your first book?”
Eric promised he would answer his question in a moment, and the man released him. He turned again to Nell. “Look,” he said, lowering his voice, “could we meet somewhere privately tomorrow for lunch? I’m staying at the Starfish in Ogunquit.”
“Of course,” Nell said, surprised by his suggestion and amazed at her ability to answer coherently. “The Golden Apple is nice. I’m sure the staff at the Starfish can give you directions. One o’clock?”
Eric smiled and reached into his pocket. “Great. Here’s my card with my contact information. Call me if something comes up and you have to reschedule.” He turned back to the group that had been gathering behind him, and immediately several people began to voice questions and comments.
Carefully Nell put Eric’s card in a small pocket inside her bag for safekeeping and scanned the shop for Jill. She spotted her by the entrance and made her way over.
“You okay?” Jill asked, looking searchingly at Nell.
“I think so.”
Jill smiled. “Well, he certainly didn’t forget you.”
“No,” Nell said. “He didn’t forget.”
“He’s awfully attractive. There’s something magnetic about him.”
“Yes,” Nell said. “Look, I’m ready to go if you are.”
Jill nodded, and the two women went out into the frosty December night. “He wants to see me tomorrow,” Nell blurted. “What do you think that means?”
Jill put her arm through Nell’s. “I think,” she said, “that it could mean anything. Come on. Let’s go home.”
Chapter 13
The sky was overcast, and for someone in Nell’s state of mind this lent the night a feeling of romantic moodiness. Nell stood at her bedroom window, her robe pulled tightly around her. She had been home for more than two hours and yet still felt wrapped in the state of stunned and pleased surprise that had come over her on the drive back.
“I love him,” she whispered to the winter night. It was true. What she felt was more than just the bittersweet pull of nostalgia. What she felt was love. It seemed impossible, even outrageous, but Nell knew what love felt like. She recognized it, even after all these years of it having lain dormant. No, her love for Eric hadn’t died. It had just gone into hiding.
Nell turned from the window. She so hoped that her feelings hadn’t shown on her face. The man was married, and Nell had always held the state of marriage in the highest regard. Besides, the last thing she wanted was to make a fool of herself in front of someone for whom she had always had the greatest respect. Maybe, she thought with a bit of a sinking feeling, it wasn’t a good idea to meet him the next day. She might not be able to hide her emotions, and that would only result in an awkward disaster.
Nell sat on the edge of her bed. She would cancel their lunch date; she would tell Eric something urgent had come up. But . . . but this might very well be the last time she would have the opportunity to see Eric face-to-face. The only man she had ever truly loved. Nell sighed. The need to speak with him one more time before she got on with her soon to be post-parental life was too great to ignore. For better or worse she would meet him the following day, and she would school her emotions into obedience.
They would have lunch. They would trade basic information and trivialities, nothing more. And then Eric would go back to his wife and to their life together in New York City and she would continue doing . . . whatever it was she did. It would be enough to be in Eric’s presence for an hour, to memorize his face at this moment in time, to commit to heart once again the sound of his voice and the shape of his hands and the color of his eyes, and then to say goodbye.
It would have to be enough.
Chapter 14
The moment Nell had taken a seat at her desk that morning Dr. Levy had stopped by to say that she had been at the reading the night before and had seen Nell in the audience. “It was wonderful, wasn’t it?” Dr. Levy said. “He reads so well.”
Nell agreed that Eric did indeed read well. Dr. Levy had then moved on to the lab; she had not said she had seen Nell speaking with Eric, and indeed, even if she had witnessed their brief conversation, she might well have assumed they had been discussing Eric’s work, not arranging a private assignation.
Nell found herself blushing. Assignation? Really? No sooner had Dr. Levy gone than the senior vet technician, a
gifted young woman named Heather, stopped at Nell’s desk to deliver a file. “You’re looking happy today, Nell,” she said. “Getting into the holiday spirit?”
“I guess I am looking forward to Christmas,” Nell admitted.
“It’s always been my favorite time of the year,” Heather said, “even if it has been overly commercialized. By the way, I saw Mick Williams on my way to work this morning. What a nice young man. You must be so pleased your daughter found such a gem.”
Nell smiled, though she was pretty sure the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “Mick is wonderful.”
He had come by the house that morning with his third gift, a heavy linen dishcloth printed with the image of a sprightly hen. Molly had barely glanced at the cloth before stuffing it back into its wrapping and giving Mick a quick and very sisterly peck on the cheek. Luckily, Felicity hadn’t been around to notice and comment on her sister’s less than enthusiastic response. She had gone off early to deliver a tin of her mother’s cookies to Yorktide’s firehouse.
“Has Molly set a date for the wedding?” Heather asked. “I know they’re not officially engaged yet, but I can’t tell you how many people are looking forward to seeing those two get married.”
“Not yet,” Nell said, her smile faltering.
“Well—”
Just then the front door of the clinic opened and in rushed a man and woman, carrying between them a large dog wrapped in a blanket. “He was hit by a car!” the man cried, tears streaming down his face. Within seconds, Nell and Heather were helping the couple and their dog into one of the examination rooms. Dr. Levy and another technician came running from the lab, and all thoughts of anything but helping in what ways she could vanished from Nell’s mind.
* * *
Nell sat behind the wheel of her car outside the tiny café on a rarely traveled road just beyond the large property owned by the Gascoyne family. She didn’t know what sort of vehicle Eric might be driving; one of the two cars parked alongside her own might belong to him. Or he might not yet have arrived. Or he might not be coming at all. And if that proved to be the case, then only Jill would know her shame. Nell had told no one else about her lunch date.
Gathering her courage, Nell got out of the car and made her way into the Golden Apple. A quick glimpse told her that Eric was not there. It was five minutes past one. Nell was shown to a table for two. She sat and glanced again at her watch.
A few minutes later the door to the café opened with a rush of cold air. Nell looked up eagerly, but the man who had entered was not Eric. Another few minutes later and Nell was beginning to feel a bit pathetic. Just when self-pity was morphing into downright social embarrassment, the door opened again, and this time Eric Manville was indeed the person scanning the café. When he saw her he smiled and came hurrying over.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said. “I got a bit lost. Reception gave me directions, but they went in one ear and out the other, and my GPS thing doesn’t seem to be working. After going in circles for a while I finally stopped at a little grocery store and asked for directions. Turns out I was just down the road.”
So much for the cliché of men never stopping to ask for directions, Nell thought. Then again, Eric always had been out of the ordinary. “It’s all right,” she said. “Finding your way around this part of the world takes some getting used to.”
When Eric took off his coat, a bulky puffer that made him look like the Michelin man, Nell saw that he was wearing the same clothes he had worn the night before. She was not surprised that fame and money hadn’t made him a diva.
“I’m starved,” Eric announced. “What’s good here?”
“Everything,” Nell told him. “It’s a family-run business so there’s great quality control. Mom handles the financial end of things, Dad rules the kitchen, and the kids do the rest. That said, the fish chowder here is amazing.”
The waitress, the daughter of the owner as Nell had mentioned, took their order—two bowls of fish chowder—and went off to the kitchen.
“Thanks for meeting me today,” Eric said. He leaned forward and folded his hands on the table.
Nell nodded. She felt a bit disconcerted under his direct and penetrating gaze. “Sure,” she said. “I mean it’s my pleasure. It’s good to see you. I thought . . .” Nell laughed nervously. “I suppose I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Life is full of surprises.” Eric smiled. “I won’t say you haven’t changed in twenty years because you have. You’re lovelier than ever.”
Nell shook her head. “Eric, please. I’m . . . I’m not.”
“No, I mean it.” His tone was earnest. “Experience has given you a certain patina. It’s like you buy a shiny gold ring and it’s lovely and you wear it through thick and thin, through good times and bad, and then you realize that now the ring glows in a softer, richer, deeper way.”
Before Nell could frame a response to that observation—if there was a response to be found—the waitress brought their chowder.
“Are you still married?” Eric asked the moment she had gone off. “I heard about your marriage, of course. And yes, I know. I’m as blunt as I used to be back in college.”
Blunt, Nell thought, and entirely without pretense. “No,” she told him. “Joel and I have been divorced for some time. Our daughters live with me. Molly is a senior in college and Felicity is a senior in high school.”
“I’m sorry about the divorce,” Eric said feelingly. “So, why aren’t you showing me pictures of your girls?”
Nell smiled and pulled her cell phone from her bag. “Molly is on the left,” she said, handing the phone to Eric. “This was taken at Thanksgiving.”
“I can see you in both of them,” Eric noted. “In Molly the similarity is mostly around the eyes. In Felicity, there’s something about her posture.”
“You always were a keen observer of people,” Nell noted as Eric returned the phone. “It must help with your writing.”
“It does. What work do you do, Nell?”
Nell hesitated. She was proud of her job, but it wasn’t what she had once dreamed of doing, and she worried that Eric might be disappointed in her. Then again, why would he care enough to feel anything other than polite interest in what she had become? “I’m the office manager at a veterinary clinic called Mutts and Meows,” she said. “The team does amazing work. Just this morning Doctor Levy performed an emergency surgery that saved a dog’s life. And we also help place animals in forever homes.”
“And how do you fit into the team as office manager?” Eric asked.
“Well, I design and manage the website. I handle billing and help with staffing matters and keep track of office and medical supplies.” Nell shrugged. “I’m just generally there. When that poor dog came in this morning Doctor Levy asked me to stay with his owners while he was in surgery and offer what comfort I could. That’s the best part of the job by far, though it’s definitely the most difficult.”
“I’m impressed,” Eric said. “Not only by the care-giving component of your work but by the business stuff as well. Technology and I aren’t friends, and organization has never been a strong point.” Eric grinned. “You probably know that.”
Nell couldn’t help but laugh. “I remember the time you lost ten pages of a twenty-page paper between one corner and the next. We searched every inch of that street for those missing pages, only to realize that somehow they had migrated from your hand to your backpack.”
“Yeah, well, an irresponsible college kid is amusing but an irresponsible adult, not so much. I worked on getting my act together. I’m not entirely changed, but then I wouldn’t want to be.”
“I wonder if anyone can entirely change,” Nell mused, “should he or she want to.”
Eric shrugged. “Doubtful, but I’ll leave that question to philosophers, theologians, and psychiatrists.”
“Excuse me. Eric Manville?”
A nicely dressed middle-aged woman was standing by their table,
her hands clasped in front of her in a gesture of supplication.
“Yes,” Eric said with a smile. “That’s me.”
The woman leaned forward, and when she spoke her voice was almost a whisper. “I’m so sorry to bother you,” she said. “But I wonder if I might have an autograph. I just love your books.”
“Sure,” Eric said, patting his pockets. “I’d be delighted. If I can find a pen . . .”
Nell held out the pen she always kept in her bag, and Eric reached for a napkin. “What’s your name?” he asked the woman. “And will this napkin do?”
“Carol,” she said. “Thank you so very much, anything will be fine.”
Nell watched as Eric penned a note and signed his name. Then he handed the napkin to the woman, who thanked him again, practically curtsying in her gratitude.
“I’m sorry,” Nell said when the woman had gone off. “I thought this place would be out of the way enough so you wouldn’t be bothered.”
“I don’t mind,” Eric assured her. “Meeting a reader makes my day.”
“Just part of the glamorous life of a famous novelist?”
Eric laughed. “There’s nothing glamorous about living under a microscope. One time I was buying toilet paper in the local bodega and this man took a picture of me on his cell phone. I mean, who could possibly be interested in what brand of toilet paper I buy?”
“Did you say anything to him?” Nell asked.
“What could I say? I just paid for the toilet paper and left. I did look over my shoulder once or twice on the way back to my loft to see if he was following me, but he wasn’t.”
“Have you ever been really frightened by a fan?” Nell asked.
“Not at all,” Eric said. “What scares me is failing to live up to the standards to which my readership holds me. People see my name on the cover of a book and they expect a certain level of quality. It’s hard always trying to improve on what you’ve already accomplished. But at the same time it’s a challenge, and without a challenge to keep you moving forward, well, where would you be?”
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