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At half past noon, Morty returned from Cavelli’s Deli with two brown paper sacks. Blobs of grease smeared the bottom of one bag, looking as though someone with hands coated in oil had carried the bag for him. He plopped the splotched bag on the circulation desk, and Emma closed her notebook.
“Lunch is served,” Morty said, walking around the desk.
A smile of surprise pulled at Emma’s lips. “Thanks. You didn’t have to buy me lunch.”
Morty’s bushy eyebrows rose. He pulled a folded handkerchief from his back pocket and swiped it across his forehead. “Oh, did you bring something today?”
Emma hesitated. Her rations of food were pathetic at best, but she hadn’t starved yet. She figured she could keep eating like she had when she was in college for at least a few more years, surviving on cheese crackers, kids cereals, and microwavable meals. Maybe one of these days she’d mature into cooking more adult meals that required the stove or an oven, but then maybe she wouldn’t. “Well, no. But I have a box of Lucky Charms in the kitchenette.”
Morty made a dismissive noise in his throat. “Your diet is atrocious.”
Emma shrugged. “Everyone my age eats garbage. It’s what we do.”
Morty opened his paper sack. “I’m not sure you’re a poster girl for what kids your age do.”
Probably not. Emma pointed toward the other bag. “What’s with the overabundance of grease? Did you ask them to empty out the fryer’s goodness into my bag? I sure hope so,” she teased.
Morty’s smile emerged, causing the glasses on this bridge of his nose to rise on his cheekbones. “Based on your current eating habits, I bought the worst thing for you on the menu. Philly cheesesteak with extra goo.”
The scents of melted cheese, cooked steak, and toasted bread wafted out of the bag as soon as she opened it. “Morty, you’re my hero.”
“Don’t you know it,” he said. “Take a break. I’ll cover the desk while you eat.”
The front door of the library opened, and a young man walked in, bringing in rays of light with him like a cape of sunshine attached to his shoulders. He scanned the high ceilings in the lobby as though he’d never been inside the building before. When his gaze lowered, his eyes found Emma’s. He strode toward her with purpose, keeping his dark eyes on her. She took in his features as quickly as possible: average height and a toned, athletic body. He moved effortlessly like he was used to being in constant motion, like he enjoyed exercising. His sun-bleached blonde hair and friendly face with Cupid’s bow lips made him look like a model for polo shirts or Nike gear. As he neared, his mouth lifted at the corners. Words slipped out of his jeans pockets. Possibility. Welcome. Summer wind.
Emma grabbed her lunch bag and moved it across the counter, leaving grease tracks along the desktop. Morty pulled a tissue from its box and wiped it across the desk.
“Good afternoon,” Emma said to the young man after clearing her throat, aware that Morty was lingering just over her shoulder. “Can we help you find anything?”
His smile widened, and he nodded. “I’m looking for information on soccer plays for kids and how to coach them. I’ve recklessly signed up to help lead a bunch of young soccer boys, and I’ve never been a coach.” He laughed, sounding unsure but excited, and his breath fluttered the pages in Emma’s notebook. “I know how to play, but I’m not sure how to teach what I know to kids. Make sense?”
Emma pursed her lips in thought. “Why would you sign up for something you don’t know how to do?” Her question slipped out before she could stop it. Emma would never agree to do something she wasn’t sure she had the skills for.
The young man’s smile lifted higher in one corner, and he leaned forward over the desk. “Sometimes you have to take the chance, right? It’s a new adventure.”
Emma felt his intense gaze pulling her in like a tractor beam, so she leaned away. Words skittered out from beneath his hands on the desk. Come on. Give it a try. Take a chance.
“No,” Emma blurted, and the young man’s expression changed to one of confusion. She whirled around to Morty. “I mean, Morty here is your guy. He knows exactly what you need, don’t you? He knows where all the soccer books are kept.”
Morty tilted his head, and his eyebrows crawled toward the center of his brow. “As do you.”
“But, you know where the best ones are. I’ll just take a quick lunch break while you help out Mr. Soccer Coach here.” Emma turned back toward the young man and was surprised to see disappointment on his face. “Good luck,” she said, and then she grabbed her lunch bag and scurried back toward the library’s kitchenette.
When she glanced over her shoulder, words followed behind her like a condensation trail of an airplane. Adventure. Carefree. Risk. Emma glared at the words before taking one last look at Morty speaking with the young man, and then she disappeared around the corner.
Fifteen minutes later, as Emma folded the sandwich paper around the other half of her cheesesteak, Morty stepped into the doorway of the kitchenette. She stood, opened the older-than-dirt, 70s gold refrigerator door, and shoved her sandwich inside.
“Hey, kiddo,” Morty said. “How’re you feeling?”
Emma stared at the contents of the refrigerator for a long pause before closing the door. “Lingering headache, but now my stomach is full, thanks to you.”
Morty stepped into the kitchenette. “Want to tell me what that was about?”
Emma turned her body toward him, stared at the aging black and white tile floor, and processed two choices: play dumb or admit the truth. Play dumb it is. She brought her eyes up to meet his. “To what are you referencing?” she asked innocently.
Morty’s exasperation was evident in his knowing stare. Emma heaved a sigh that could have lifted kites into the sky. She dropped back into one of the vintage, chrome and red vinyl chairs that had been donated years ago by Fred’s Diner when he remodeled. When she leaned back, air whooshed out of a crack in the vinyl.
Emma laced her fingers together in her lap. “You know I’m no good with guys.”
Morty walked to a cabinet and pulled down a tall, decorative tin full of loose leaf green tea. “Certainly not if you scurry away like a mouse every time one of them shows any interest.”
Emma fought the urge to roll her eyes. “He wasn’t showing interest. He was looking for a book.”
Morty filled the electric kettle with hot water and plugged it in. Then he sat down at the diner table across from her. He folded his hands together on the black laminate tabletop. “I saw the way he was looking at you, all googly eyed and drawn in to you. I believe he would have taken a book and you out to dinner. I think he’d prefer the latter more than the book, but you snuffed him out without giving him a chance.”
Emma’s stomach tightened at the idea of going out with a man again. The image of the blonde young man, all sunshine and ease, coasted through her mind. Then she saw an image of herself beating those thoughts of him with a fly swatter until they were scattered pieces blowing away. “I don’t want to give him a chance.”
“Or anyone. You can’t keep people out forever.”
The backs of Emma’s eyes started to ache, and she clenched her jaw. Her temples throbbed. “Yes, I can,” she said, knowing she sounded like a brat. She stood abruptly from the table, wanting to end the conversation before it became sentimental and hopeful—two feelings she strived to avoid.
When she tried to walk past Morty, he reached out and grabbed her arm in a relaxed grip. “Hey.” His voice was gentle enough to cause her throat to close up. “Not every man will be like Thomas. Not every person you love will leave you.”
Emma shook her head and refused to meet Morty’s gaze. Words could barely squeeze up her throat. “Sure seems that way.”
“I’m still here,” Morty said. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
Emma closed her eyes and inhaled slowly. “I know, but as for anyone else…it’s a risk I’m not willing to take again. The cost is too high.”
<
br /> The kettle whistled, sounding like a voice of dissension. Morty’s sigh followed her out of the kitchenette, pushing against her back like a rush of disappointment.
Emma was shelving returned books on the first floor when Dana Duncan, a high school history teacher, walked through the front doors. She wore gardening khakis and a lightweight, button-up aqua shirt that enhanced her startling, light eyes. Her black, wavy hair—streaked with silver that reflected light like tinsel on a Christmas tree—was tucked behind her ears. Emma placed the books in her arms back onto the cart and walked toward Dana, but Morty stepped into view, seemingly caught off guard by Dana’s presence in the library.
Dana smiled, and Morty stood stock-still as though he’d completely forgotten which way he had been heading. Emma watched, puzzled by his behavior.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Wallach,” Dana said. “I was hoping to find you here today.”
Morty’s lips parted. “Really?” He rubbed one hand down the back of his head.
Dana nodded and pulled a folded sheet of paper from her front pocket. “I had a specific question about Red River Hill and its connection to the Civil War, and I hoped to find a book on the subject. Next month my students are preparing reports on both the Civil War and the happenings in Mystic Water during the same time. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories of the hauntings and other nonsense. But I’m looking for authentic information, the facts. Roger Jackson said you were something of an expert—”
“Morty,” he interrupted.
Dana looked up from her paper, blinking her light eyes in the silence. “Pardon me?”
“Call me Morty.”
Emma leaned against the archway and grinned. Was Morty nervous? As if in answer to her question, the words magical, blue eyes, yes yes yes, slipped out from beneath Morty’s shiny shoes.
“Morty,” Dana said. She handed him the piece of paper. “I’ve made some preliminary notes about all the information I could find on the Internet, but the facts are seriously lacking, and stories meant to scare children can’t be considered reliable sources either, regardless of what the town swears to be the truth. Do you think you can give me a place to start here?”
Morty stared at the sheet of paper as though she’d handed him a love note. Then he looked up and caught Emma’s gaze. His eyes pleaded with her, but she didn’t understand his expression. He held out the paper for Emma, so she walked toward him.
“Emma, Mrs. Duncan needs—”
“Dana,” she said. Pale sunlight stretched down from the windows and pooled around her feet.
Morty’s gaze strayed to Dana’s face and lingered there. “Dana,” he said in a voice that had gone all soft and comfortable around the edges like a naptime blanket.
Emma cleared her throat. “How can I help?”
Morty shoved the yellow, legal pad paper into Emma’s hands, and she struggled not to crumple the page.
Then he said, “I have a book I was supposed to order for Yancey Stevens this morning, and it’s somewhat of an emergency book. You can handle this.” Then he hurried off, his dress shoes clacking against the tiles in rapid beats. Emma and Dana stared at his back as he scrambled up the main staircase.
Emma’s eyebrows were high on her forehead. That was uncharacteristic of Morty. “I think I can lead you to the proper section. Morty is more of the expert on the subject of Red River Hill, but if you have any questions later, I’m sure he’d be willing to help out…once he orders that emergency book, of course.”
“Of course,” Dana repeated. Her eyes still lingered on where Morty had disappeared up the staircase.
After Emma helped Dana locate at least two books that contained the most information about Red River Hill, she went looking for Morty. She found him standing in the poetry section, tapping his fingers in a repeating rhythm against the spines. Emma recognized the pattern as Morse Code. SOS.
“Sending a distress signal? Do you want to be the pot or the kettle?” Emma asked.
Morty stilled his fingers and then pulled a book from the shelf before returning it almost as quickly. He turned toward her. His gray hair was ruffled around the edges, and his gaze seemed to reach out into some far, unseen distance.
When he spoke, his speech was slow and thoughtful. “Sometimes you meet people, and you know you can handle yourself with them. You know you’ll never lose control or give too much of yourself away. There is an amount of comfort in that feeling. Your heart is safe in that not-all-of-me space.
“Other times you meet someone and everything stops and brings that person into complete focus. Colors and sounds are muted as though that person is in a spotlight. And all you want to do is stay right there.” Morty sighed. “I can’t think when Dana is around. At all. Complete doofus. I’m terrified I’m going to babble or blubber or both. It’s better if I make myself scarce.”
Although Emma had never been cautious enough with her heart, and she had lost control of her emotions too many times, she had never felt what Morty described—the dreamy feeling when time slowed as it intensified your connection to someone else. Morty was one of the most capable, independent people Emma had ever known. He possessed equal amounts of composure and finesse. She couldn’t imagine anyone making him feel tongue-tied or clumsy.
“Morty, have you ever thought about asking Dana out? Start small, like, taking her out for coffee or tea?”
His face paled, and then he laughed—a deep, belly laugh that rippled out and pressed against the library windows. “Can you imagine? I’d be all thumbs and left feet with her.”
“I’m no expert on Mordecai Wallach, but I’ve never seen you go all dewy-eyed for a woman before. I’m not sure missing out on this is worth your fear about being a doofus.”
Morty walked toward Emma and slipped his arm around her thin shoulders, guiding her toward the staircase. “Let’s circle back. Do you want to be the pot or the kettle?”
At the end of the day, Emma told Morty good-bye and headed toward her apartment. The late-afternoon sun filled the inside of her car with stifling summer heat. She rolled down the windows, but she found little relief from the outside air as it circulated inside the car, turning the interior into a convection oven, making her feel like a loaf of bread baking.
Jordan Pond shriveled from its banks in the intense heat, and teenagers sunbathed in the shade rather than on the shore. Kids stood in line at the shaved-ice stand, ordering a rainbow of colors and racing to shovel down their treats before they melted.
The asphalt shimmered like a desert mirage as Emma drove to the pharmacy. She scrounged up enough crumpled dollar bills from the bottom of her purse to buy another bottle of Aspirin and a Pepsi from Mr. Walker, Mystic Water’s pharmacist for the past forty-five years.
“Where are your helpers?” Emma asked him as he rang up her purchases.
“Sent them home an hour ago. The air conditioning is having a time keeping up with this heat, and the girls were sweating like sinners in church, and, boy, were they complaining. Another hour of that, and I would have lost my cool. Figuratively, of course, since this place has already literally lost its cool.”
Emma nodded. “Air conditioners should know better than to give out during the summer here. How’s a person supposed to survive?”
As soon as she sat down in her car, sweating through her clothes and sticking to the cracked leather, she opened the bottle, popped two pills into her mouth, and chased them with the Pepsi as it burned a dark pathway down her throat. Then she drove to her apartment, anticipating relaxing in the cool, small space with her notebook and pen.
When Emma put her key into the lock, she noticed words skitter out from beneath the weather stripping on the sides of the door. Heat. Stale. Heavy. Emma frowned as she pushed open the door once she unlocked it. A wave of hot air billowed out and shoved her backward into the breezeway.
She stepped inside her apartment and pulled in lungsful of sticky, dense air. She crossed the room to check the thermostat, which read eighty-five degrees. Emma
pulled out her cell phone and called the apartment’s leasing center. After sitting on hold for nearly ten minutes, she was told by an employee that the HVAC for her apartment building was having issues. Having issues? That’s an understatement.
“It feels like Death Valley in here,” Emma complained, thinking about the girls who had been working in the pharmacy today. At least that place was cooler than hers right now.
The bubbly voice on the other end of the line apologized, but Emma could hear the faint whir of cool air being pumped into the leasing office and the sound of ice cubes being swirled around in a glass. The young woman’s concern only stretched so far because she wasn’t sweating pools onto her apartment floor.
“It should be working just like new by tomorrow afternoon,” the woman said.
“Tomorrow? I could sweat to death by then.” Emma ended the call, frustrated that HVACs would be so inconsiderate as to “have issues” during the summer. She repeated her earlier question to herself, How’s a person supposed to survive like this?
Emma walked through her apartment and opened both the sliding door to the balcony and the one window in her bedroom. Her optimism for a breeze dissipated within an hour, and her hopes that when the sun set, it would cool down were laughable when she realized the interior temperature didn’t drop a single degree as the sun plunged behind the trees.
When she walked into her bedroom and opened the closet door to find something cooler to wear—perhaps a swimming suit—her gaze landed on boxes filled with Bobby’s belongings. Closed inside were his most prized possessions: shoeboxes full of his collection of baseball cards, including a mint condition 1984 Fleer Roger Clemens rookie card that he knew was going to be worth something someday; his mud-stained baseball cleats and worn-out glove; and clothes she hadn’t been able to give away yet. Stacked on top of the boxes was his old navy blue sleeping bag with the plaid flannel liner that still smelled like campfire smoke. A sense of loss, familiar and profound, crept into her chest, nearly as overpowering as the heat.
The Legend of James Grey Page 3