by Megan Mulry
And that’s the moment Bronte thanked her lucky stars that her college boyfriend actually demanded that she read Dune, Shibumi, and Hyperion to have true insight into the male mind. Because, thanks to that college boyfriend, she would now be able to say something witty about Dan Simmons and how she preferred his earlier work to his later terror stuff.
That was all great in theory. In reality, she stood there totally tongue-tied and just sort of stared.
Idiotically.
“Do you need to get past?” he asked politely.
Was that a British accent? Please. Yes, please.
“Uh…” Bronte, come on, you can do this. He did not propose—he just asked if you needed to pass by to get down that part of the stacks.
Another smile. “You all right, then?”
Definitely British. Definitely all right. (And way more than a bit of it.)
Air, please.
“Yeah, thanks. I’ve been spending a lot of time alone lately, so when I go out on Saturdays, it’s kind of like I’m on parole.”
Spending a lot of time alone lately? On parole? From the psych ward most likely. Are you kidding me? Oh, Bronte, tell me you did not just say that desperate sentence!
“So, yeah… excuse me… thanks.” And with that, Bronte turned sideways (am I emaciated? she wondered again) and made her way toward contemporary fiction. She was going to need a heavy dose of Lionel Shriver or Ian McEwan to remind herself that there were absolutely no happy endings in this life. Leave your bliss at the door, you optimistic fool!
Okay, well maybe just a little Eloisa James thrown in for good measure. She tucked a couple of romances between the contemporary novels and headed for the exit.
Bronte ended up buying four books, gave the Goth teller a genuine smile for his troubles, and walked directly across the bright, busy avenue and into her favorite diner. A few minutes later, she was surprised to find herself to be nearly content, a huge mug of steaming coffee clutched firmly in her hands and an order of buckwheat banana pancakes on the way. The embarrassing loss of her powers of speech with Hyperion Man started to smack a little less. Spending time alone? Why not just wear a T-shirt that says I Am Lonely… or Pity Me.
The following Saturday, she returned to the bookstore around the same time.
Was she hoping to accidentally bump into Hyperion Man?
Duh.
She ignored the vampire at the cash register and made her way toward sci-fi and—la!—there he was, sitting cross-legged on the floor reading. It was like reverting to type, but in a good way. She did like readers.
He looked up then and smiled broadly. “I was hoping I might bump into you. Are you on parole again?”
“I am actually. Good behavior and all that. Especially on bright spring days like this, the warden thinks a bit of fresh air is good for the inmates.”
“What did you think of the Ian McEwan?”
“The what?”
“The one you got last weekend, On Chesil Beach.”
“How do you know what book I bought?”
“I asked the creep at the checkout counter.”
“Isn’t there some sort of attorney-client privilege at points of sale?”
“Not as far as the sales guy is concerned.”
“Hmmm. I feel mildly violated.”
His eyes sparked a happy flicker at the mention of Bronte’s ostensible violation.
“Okay. So maybe by next week I will have sorted out my command of the English language. Until then.” She smiled and moved past him, making a beeline for the romance section. No point in pretending her mind would be inclined to any other genre, what with that velvety British voice and those icy gray eyes to ponder.
And so it went for the next six weeks. Every Saturday at ten thirty, Bronte would make her way—casually, of course—into the science-fiction section, and every Saturday, the lovely young gentleman from England would ask about what she had read last week. By the third week, she realized he was buying the same books that she was and reading them over the course of the intervening week. Sort of an imaginary book club of two.
Without all those annoying discussions.
She liked the idea of him reading contemporary romance novels. One week, she chose a particularly erotic one and then felt compelled to offset it with a dismal dirge of a novel that had won all sorts of literary awards, just in case he thought she was merely depraved.
And then, every Saturday after her pass through the stacks, she would cross the street and sit at the same small table for two in the front window of the café with a clear view of the bookshop entrance. If he happened to walk out, and she happened to get another good look at him, then so be it.
Sometimes he waved.
Usually, she started reading one of the books she had just purchased and missed his exit from the bookstore altogether.
Then one morning in early May, she was turning the page of her latest penny dreadful and shaking her head with a final, self-deprecating snort, momentarily reliving her tongue-tied foolishness, when that deep, sweet voice asked, “Is this seat taken?”
And Bronte could do nothing but sigh inwardly with a victorious, Yes! As in: Yes, there is a benevolent power in the force and I am not frigid or emaciated and I may make a new friend-who’s-a-boy today who even pursued me all the way across the street from the bookshop.
But of course it came out as, “Yes.” In answer to the question, “Is this seat taken?” So she started laughing and then blurted out, “No, the seat is not taken. Yes, I would like you to sit there.”
And so it began.
Bronte felt so rusty at being cheerful, much less flirty, that her halting speech and inept repartee actually made it easier for them to get to know each other. His name was Max Heyworth. He was finishing up his PhD in economics at the University of Chicago before heading back to England in July to be near his family and resume his career in mergers and acquisitions at one of the top firms in the British utilities industry.
“I finally finished my dissertation last week, the written part at least,” he said, “and I have been thinking all these weeks that following you into this coffee shop today would be my just reward.”
She liked the idea of being Max’s reward, then felt a touch of melancholy that he would be leaving so soon. Two months was not much time for them to be together, but it was better than none at all. And as her friend April would have pointed out: since Bronte had failed so stupendously with Mr. Texas, she was no longer in the market for a life partner. She was now in the market for the perfect TM.
“What are you smiling about?” Max asked through his own smile, as he brought his coffee cup to his lips. Strong, curving, kissable lips, thought Bronte.
“I’m not sure I should tell you, since it will make me sound like a pretty cold customer, but in the interest of my newfound code of brutal honesty, here goes. I was just thinking that my friend April, in New York, has been slinging her own brand of self-help-hash lately, telling me that what I really need to get over my disastrous former relationship is a TM…” Bronte paused and looked into Max’s mischievous gray-blue eyes. Killer eyes, she thought.
“And…” he prodded.
“And ‘TM’ stands for ‘Transitional Man,’” she added in a rush.
A year ago, Bronte probably would have blushed at her own forthrightness, but she had decided months ago that she no longer blushed. Mr. Texas had seen to that. No more speculative moments of potential romance in the eyes of that handsome passing stranger on the way into Water Tower; no more hopeful reveries while watching babies in strollers and children flying kites near the Lincoln Park Zoo; no more mooning over the pages of the eligible royal bachelors in the pages of Hello! magazine. No more dreaming.
She was all about the facts these days. After her colossal misunderstanding of the most basic tenets of her relationship with Mr. Texas, she vowed that from here on out, when it came to men, she would actually listen to the words coming out of their mouths (“Sure, if you want to m
ove to Chicago, you should.” = “You’re on your own, sister!”) rather than the dream dialogue she was hearing in her brain (“Blah blah move to Chicago!” = “I really want you to move to Chicago so we can live happily ever after. I love you!”).
She could do this. She could stand firm and cool. All it required was honesty. Brutal honesty. Even while he was looking at her with those dreamy, gray wolf eyes.
Steady girl.
“Yes,” he replied matter-of-factly.
That was clear enough, Bronte thought. Then, “What had I asked? Sorry I wasn’t listening.”
“I think you asked if I wanted to be your Transitional Man, and I answered yes. Still yes.” His eyes twinkled over the rim of his coffee mug as the reflecting sun caught the long window of a passing bus on Halsted Street and flashed across Max’s face.
Nice.
Before Bronte could come up with a good retort, her cell phone started ringing. She glanced down, seeing Carol Dieppe’s name on the caller ID.
“Do you mind if I take this, Max?”
“Go ahead. No worries.”
She smiled and flipped open her phone. “This is Bron.”
Max looked across the café table at the fabulous view of Bronte Talbott swearing like a sailor into her phone. Her long, straight, chestnut hair gleamed as she swung it carelessly over her shoulder to position the phone next to her ear. The curve of her jaw rested on the palm of her other hand. She started to twist a strand of her hair absentmindedly, and Max wondered how soon he would be able to do the same. His fingers were already itching to run endlessly through Bronte’s hair, to caress the back of her long neck, to—
“No fucking way… he did not… are you going apeshit? Are you spending the whole weekend at the office?… Bullshit, he’s just jealous… right… uh-huh… well, that’s a load of crap and you know it… okay, I’ll talk to you later. I’d love to run some of my ideas by you about a pitch I’m working on, no specifics…” Bronte was half-listening to Carol’s response as she glanced up at Max, thinking she would sneak a look. But instead of the quick peek she had intended, she met a penetrating gaze that seared right through her. His eyes went a darker shade of steel blue and contracted for a split second when they locked on hers.
“Uh, yeah, I’m still here, Carol, but let me hop. I’ll call you later this afternoon… okay… bye.” Bronte ended the call and double-checked that the line was dead before she started talking about the person she had just hung up on.
She looked back up at Max with a sheepish smile on her lips. “So, by the way, as you might have just gathered, I like to swear. A lot. And most of my friends call me Bron.”
“No problem on the colorful language. If you want, I can beef up your repertoire with some Cockney rhyming slang or the well-placed shite.”
Bronte laughed and, for the first time in months, it felt like she had really laughed, instead of feeling like a cracking piece of glass.
“I am definitely adding shite to my bag of tricks,” she said through her waning chuckle.
“So what’s your pitch next week?”
“The ad agency I work for is pretty secretive about the whole thing, so I shouldn’t really say, but it would be really great if we got the account. And that was my old boss from New York on the line, and it looks like she might have a spot for me back in New York, in a new boutique operation she’s putting together with a couple of venture capital guys, so, just maybe, I can put this whole, sordid Chicago chapter to bed once and for all… present company excluded, of course,” she added, still smiling.
“No need to make excuses. I love New York. I have enjoyed Chicago for other reasons.” (Cue slow smile… and… there it is.) “But my days here are numbered. I am trying not to be too pessimistic—I mean, I really do love England, especially come midsummer. The gentle rain in July is, well, you should see it some time. It’s beautiful.”
Forcing herself to set aside the dreamy implication of a future that involved her ever stepping foot in the gentle rain, she plowed ahead: “So what should we do between now and then?”
Max gave her a mocking half-smile in response that nearly knocked her off her chair. Clearly, he had some things in mind.
Bronte pressed on. “The thing is, I probably seem really crass and pushy, and American in the worst possible way, but I just spent the last year building up to and then crashing down from this imaginary—or at least far more meaningful in my imagination than it was in his reality—relationship. And I have made this promise to myself that from here on out, I will err on the side of brutal honesty—lest I get sucked into another morass of second-guessing, unspoken hints, gestures, sighs, what have you…”
Just then, Max placed his cool, calm hand over Bronte’s fidgeting one, and she couldn’t talk anymore. She felt all her chaotic, nervous energy sputter and then slowly abate. She looked up into those astonishing slate-gray eyes and felt it physically: her shoulders eased and the weight of her anxiety slid away.
Not good, some hard-hearted alter ego grumbled deep in the back of her psyche. Listen to what he’s really saying. Don’t be fooled! Run!
No! I don’t want to be his arm candy, she parried with her inner bitch. I don’t want to be rescued! He’s just nice and there’s a clear end in sight. I’m safe!
But he just smoothed every conflicting inner quip flush away. He stroked her like she was a nervous creature. A part of her once-burned-twice-shy conscience still bucked, but with a grudging capitulation: like an angry young horse that knows it is about to be saddled for the first time and concedes, haltingly, that it might not be all bad.
She brought her other hand over his and gently caressed the ridge of his knuckles as they rested over hers. She didn’t feel like talking anymore. Her thumb moved slowly over each knuckle, loving the feel of the soft skin between each finger and the contrast of the rough, masculine texture of the hair on the back of his hand.
It was almost noon and the bright sun was streaking through the plate-glass windows to her left that fronted the café. Another bus sped by, shooting another flash of brilliant light across Max’s eyes.
Heaven.
Bronte was going to hold on to this bit for as long as he’d let her. An involuntary hum must have escaped her because at that moment, Max looked at her with a questioning gleam in his eye. When Bronte continued to smile benignly, Max slowly turned her hand palm up on the table and began to trace slow circles there and occasionally up to her wrist and back. It was such a welcome novelty, just to be touched, to open herself to this; her eyes fell half-closed in a pleasant stupor.
It was just physical. Totally fine.
Another little hum of pleasure escaped through her slightly parted lips and Max let out a wonderfully deep, low chuckle.
“My younger sister always hums when she’s happy. It’s a nice habit. Letting people know you’re content.”
He slowly brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the center of Bronte’s palm, then the pulse point of her wrist. She would have never believed that something so seemingly innocent could be downright erotic.
The waitress came over then and smiled conspiratorially at the two of them. They had finished their food and, before Bronte could grab her wallet, Max had already handed his Coutts Visa card to the waitress and preemptively launched into his don’t-even-think-about-trying-to-pay-for-breakfast lecture, ending his diatribe with one eyebrow raised.
“I hate that you can do that, by the way.”
“What? Pay for breakfast?”
“No. That.” She tipped her head toward his. “The one-eyebrow thing. I tried for forever to do it… it’s one of those you-either-can-do-it-or-you-can’t type of talents.”
“I suspect you have other talents.”
They were making their way out of the restaurant then, and out onto the sidewalk, when Bronte looked up at Max. She had not realized how tall he was until this moment. In the bookstore, he had always been crouching or sitting down there near that bottom shelf, and at the restaura
nt, he had been sitting across from her, at eye level. She was nearly six feet tall and he was a good four inches taller.
“Well, that’s a relief,” she thought, then realized she had said it aloud.
“What? That you have other talents?”
“No. That you are taller than I am. I mean, it wouldn’t have been a deal breaker, but April informs me that when looking for the ideal, er, Transitional Man, physical compatibility is near the top of the list of necessary prerequisites. Since soul-mate compatibility is irrelevant, the corporeal sort takes on, shall we say, greater importance.”
Max laughed: a deep, rolling, joyful sound that coursed right through Bronte and settled somewhere deep in her belly.
“I say, Miss Talbott. I think you are planning on using me.”
Good God. When he reverted to that faux-formal Brit-speak it was sexier than the naughtiest, most graphic pickup line she had ever heard. His arm settled easily across her back and around her waist, his hand coming to rest on her hip as they moved in tandem down Halsted Street.
Her head leaned on his shoulder momentarily and she marveled at how terrifically natural it all felt. No false hope. No empty promises. No more sawdust for food.
“I lost some weight recently, due to the, uh, recent unpleasantness, so you’ll have to pardon the slightly protruding hip bone. Buckwheat banana pancakes are a very good sign that I’ll be back up to my fighting weight in no time.”
“I think I can make do with things as they are.”
“That’s good to know.”
With the hand resting on her hip, Max’s thumb found its way up under Bronte’s T-shirt and traced the upper ridge of said hip, leisurely caressing the indentation, then sliding back up around, meandering under the waistband of her jeans.
She was toast.
Whether it was the hiatus in her sex life or the hot, English, 100-percent-male specimen currently taking his time mapping a few mere inches of her body, she was a goner.
After walking around Wicker Park and Bucktown for the rest of the afternoon, pretending to pay attention to the shops and parks and noisy teenagers and arguing parents and street musicians, and laughing more than she had in months, they stopped for a coffee at the sidewalk café that had just opened on Division Street. Bronte was overcome with the sense of promise that pervaded the universe. She was, as Carol would say, totally blissed out.