by Jerry Cole
He ducks into a small coffee shop along the street when the crowd on the sidewalk becomes thick enough to be stifling instead of comfortable, and the smell of cold air follows him in, coupling with the bright aroma of freshly ground coffee beans and cooling pastries. The dull hum of cafe chatter and the clink of cups and coffee machines is a welcome change to the bustle of people and cars, and Scott finds himself up at the counter before he realizes his feet are still moving. The girl behind the register has a marker in hand, and he orders a white mocha just to feel the familiar ache in his chest.
When the barista retreats to make his drink, Scott steps back to lean against the bar, tipping his head to the side as he looks over the cafe. It’s surprisingly empty for a weekday afternoon, but he supposes he can understand that. It’s a small shop, a hole in the wall with a nondescript storefront from what he saw as he walked in, and there’s only a few tables set up underneath the big industrial windows. It’s an in-and-out type of place, but for some reason that just makes Scott want to kick up his feet and stay for a bit. He’s always been a bit contrary, deep down.
The barista calls his name and he takes the drink from her with a vague thanks in her direction. She’s gone before she can hear it, taking the order of a group of high schoolers that filtered in as she was handing over his cup, and he doesn’t mind not being seen. It’s refreshing, really, being allowed to exist without feeling like he’s on display every time he’s within fifteen feet of another person, and it’s something he finds himself realizing over again at times now that he lives in the city.
People pass outside the window as Scott sinks into one of the few chairs, setting his drink down without taking a sip of it, and none of them notice him. Living here is like that, the ever-present crowd of people making tension flare up in his chest before dying away just as quickly at the realization that none of them really care much about him at all. There’s a heady sort of invulnerable feeling that comes with this lifestyle, with the knowledge that he can be surrounded by a hundred strangers that won’t remember him once he’s out of their direct line of sight.
The chocolate is sweet and heavy on his tongue when he takes a sip, and it tastes like home the whole way down.
He’s halfway through his drink when the bell on the door chimes, and a woman breezes through the door, long hair blown into a wild nest by the wind outside. She makes a beeline for the counter and Scott watches as the barista lights up with recognition, chattering animatedly about something he can’t make out over the distance. The woman is tall, tall enough that she has to bend at the waist when she slides her card through the card reader to pay for the drink, and the movement is graceful, practiced, like it’s a performance. He doesn’t realize he’s staring until she stands and turns, meeting his gaze for a fraction of a second through large, round glasses that cover nearly half of her face. She gives him a small, bemused smile and a little wave, sheepish in the way strangers are when they think they should recognize him but don’t, and he nods once and pulls his eyes away, staring down into the near-empty depths of his cup.
When he looks up, the woman is gone again, and the chilly draft from the open door sends goosebumps skittering over his forearms even under his layers of clothing.
Chapter Two
Scott shuffles back into his apartment at half past eight, and the heavy weight of being back home hits him like a stone. His kitchen is still exactly the way he left it, looking like a tornado hit while he was away, dirty dishes piled haphazardly in the sink and on the countertops. E.A.’s box is still sitting in the corner, the corner crumpled in a little where Scott had stepped on it by mistake. A bit of the tape is peeling away, and in the space behind it he can just barely make out a dark shape. He blinks, curiosity tugging at his fingers. He shouldn’t open it. He should take it down to the front desk, ask for the new address of whoever had lived in the apartment before him, send the box back to its owner, and put it out of his mind for good.
With a huff of determination and self-annoyance, he turns to the pile of plates in his sink, flipping up the water tap and scrubbing the grease off of them as if he could somehow scrub away the gnawing feeling of loneliness that creeps up his neck with every tick of the clock.
April would have known what to do, he thinks, and his hands screech to a halt on the sponge and bowl he’s holding as he realizes what’s running through his head. Something awful and cold works its way up into his chest, taking the shape of long dark hair and cold metal behind his eyes. He drops the bowl and presses wet hands to his eyelids. April would have known what to do, and that’s the worst thing about it. She would have taken one look at the box and smiled that ridiculous, too-many-teeth smile that came out whenever she found an unopened bar of white chocolate in the back of Scott’s cupboards, and she would have declared it an adventure waiting to happen before taking off to find E.A. herself. With a grimace and a deliberate halt to his thoughts, Scott picks up the bowl again to run it under the tap, watching as the soap suds disappear in a swirl down the drain.
He feels marginally better when the sink is free of dishes, his stack of plates drying on a rack to the side as he wipes the stray crumbs and spill stains off the counter. His kitchen is beginning to look clean and lived-in again, even if it’s only the size of a postage stamp compared to the rest of the mess in his apartment. With sleep beginning to edge into the corners of his vision, he’s half tempted to leave it at that and collapse back into bed for the night, but a voice that sounds suspiciously like Gabriel’s nags at him.
He won’t be at ease living like this now that he’s gotten a bit of a handle on himself either, and he knows it.
It’s that thought that prompts him to shuffle out of his kitchen, biting back a wince as he sees the piles of stray clothes and papers scattered over every horizontal surface of his living room. Really, he might have gone on a bit of a programming bender, but he would have liked to think he could at least take better care of himself in between his vicious cycle of work-eat-sleep. Cleaning up is methodical, though, routine in the same way work is, and he finds himself half in a daze as he makes his rounds, piling his dirty laundry into the basket sitting in his bathroom and stacking his papers neatly on his desk. By the time he’s finished with the living room, it looks near-spotless and the weight pressing in on his chest is considerably lighter than it had been.
He’s nearly done gathering up the clothes in his bedroom when he finds it again. He’s picking up a jacket from the floor, one that had been hanging in his closet unworn for years, that had somehow fallen off the hanger at some point. He picks it up gingerly, grabbing at the first section of fabric his fingers brush, and when it dangles upside down as he straightens up, the little velvet box falls from the inside pocket.
It’s like being struck full-force across the face. He glances down, only half aware that anything had fallen at all, and the second he recognizes the box, a wave of nausea all but knocks him off his feet, threatening to claw its way up his throat. He drops the jacket violently, breathing easier once the box is out of sight and hidden again under the folds of fabric. The door slams behind him when he leaves the room.
He has the sense of mind, at least, to rifle through the hallway cabinets for the spare winter blankets he keeps in them, and wrapping himself in heavy down warmth on his couch helps to ease the pounding of his heart a little. He hadn’t even recognized the jacket when he picked it up. It had been hanging out of sight for a reason, unworn for so long that he forgot why he never took it down in the first place. It’s done now, though, the cavity in his chest opened again, and his lips pull taut in a thin line when he realizes that he feels worse now than he had before he started cleaning his apartment at all.
His phone chimes, and when he looks up to find the source of the sound, he sees it sitting on the counter, lying inconspicuously next to the untouched package.
The blanket trails along the floor behind him when he pads over to pick up his phone, answering Gabriel’s friendly how did it go? w
ith his own not bad, got coffee, checked out the river. His free hand rests on the counter, brushed up imperceptibly against the cool cardboard of the package, and in the space between sending out the message and waiting for Gabriel’s reply, he turns his head to peer into the little window left by the peeling tape.
It’s hard to make out the contents. The evening light is dim already and the only light in his apartment is coming from the lamp he had left on in the living room, but he can clearly make out the shape of something rectangular wrapped in a few layers of spare newspaper. Another glance at his phone shows no new messages, and the nagging curiosity comes back, sparking down his arms and through his fingers until he shuts his phone off with a heady sense of determination and carries the box over to the couch.
Scott takes a second to look over the box after sitting down. There’s no return address written, just that cryptic E.A. and his apartment number. For half a second, he reconsiders just taking it down to the lobby and letting whoever he finds at the desk deal with it. That tug of curiosity is still there, though, and somewhere in the back of his head he knows he won’t be able to shake it until he sees the contents for himself. He pulls the top flap open before the nerves can get the better of him, tucking his fingers into the small space left by the crumpled corner of the box and the peeled off tape and prying the flap up to look at the contents. The parcel inside is vaguely book-shaped, hastily wrapped over with newspaper that does little to actually protect it. There’s no note on it aside from a messily scrawled one found on a downtown subway ad, which he can barely make out over the faded newspaper print.
He peels off the layers of newspaper carefully, setting them in a pile on the other end of the couch until he’s holding the item in his hands.
It’s a leather bound book, unassuming except for the deep scratch on the bottom left corner of the front cover, and it looks well-handled, loved. There’s a clear pocket on the front with a note tucked behind the standard white placeholder card, and Scott feels a little bit like he’s trespassing when he pulls it out. It’s just as shabby as the rest of the book, crumpled in parallel lines like it’s been unfolded and refolded too many times to count, with holes worn through the places where the creases overlap. The writing on the front is done in vibrant purple ink smudged with time and repeated handling, but it’s clear enough to make out the letters F.R.G. done up in looping, elegant penmanship.
The sheet of paper trembles as Scott unfolds it, and it takes him a moment to realize that his hands are shaking. He lays the note flat against the countertop and stuffs his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. The writing inside is done in the same graceful hand, violet ink a little brighter, a little cleaner for being shielded by the layers of paper. Scott lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, and reads:
I know you said you don’t like posing for pictures, and I get that. I hate it too. Something about the smile is too forced, and you always have to put your arm around someone you don’t want to, and the sun is in your eyes for way too long because people think direct sunlight is good lighting for some reason. It sucks, I get it. But putting that aside, I had to show you how you look to me somehow. Not when you’re fake smiling for the Christmas card, but when you’re real smiling like you don’t think anyone’s looking at you. Happy birthday. E.A.
Scott reads the note, rereads it three, four times, smoothing out the creases in the paper with each look over. The period after happy birthday is large, scribbled, like it had been a comma and the writer had wanted to add more before deciding against it. Either way, one thing is painfully clear. The book must have been important to somebody, and now it’s sitting in the middle of Scott’s dingy living room with no way of getting back to E.A., or F.R.G., or whoever owns it. With a guilty glance around his empty apartment, he hastily refolds the note and tucks it back into the cover pocket.
The inside front cover is neater, less worn simply by virtue of being inside the book itself. The same violet handwriting sits in the top corner, the same initials, E.A., scrawled across the very top, followed by Scott’s address. A puzzle piece slots into place, and he realizes his hunch must have been right - whoever had owned this book had probably lived in this apartment before him. With how old it looks, he can hardly tell just how long ago they shared his walls. He turns the page, slowly and as gracefully as he can manage, and sucks a deep breath in through his teeth when he sees the first photograph.
Pasted over the page, peeling up at the corners, is an image of the woman he had seen in the coffee shop earlier, staring doe-eyed at him and holding a half-melted ice cream cone in her hands. The smile on her face is surprised, open-mouthed and wide as if she had been caught off guard by the photographer, and the golden light plays over her face like harp strings. It’s the kind of photograph that he would gloss over, that he would have paid no notice to had he not recognized her face, but something about it sticks, makes that spark of curiosity flare into admiration for the woman, for the book, for the photographer unseen behind the camera. The letter makes sense now. Scott isn’t seeing the woman through his eyes like he had at the coffee shop, he’s seeing her through E.A.’s camera lens, and the view is so much more personal than he thought it could be.
Violet pen marks are scribbled at the bottom of the page, nestled underneath the photograph, and Scott traces them with his finger.
March 24, On the Sound. I told you a joke about fish
Scott flips the page again, met with two more photographs. On the left, a picture of the woman half-turned with a wide-brimmed sun hat shadowing her smile. On the right, a shot of her leaning out over the wrong side of a pier railing, holding herself in place with both hands gripped tightly to the bars as she leans her body out over the open waves. The composition of both shots is stunning, the light and shadows flitting over her face in a way that makes the picture almost come alive. It makes Scott feel like he could reach through and feel the sea spray on his hands if he tried hard enough. There’s no message on these pages, just the same date—March 24—and blank space.
The photographs become more cluttered as he goes through the book, taking up more space on the page, five or six photos pasted down onto the same page so closely that they overlap. It’s the woman, always the woman, sometimes with her wild hair down and billowing around her face like a dark cloud, sometimes with her curls pinned up and her glasses perched on the top of her head, always with the same bright, happy smile that E.A. seems so fixated on. A handful of the pictures have notes and dates written underneath, little logs of whatever E.A. had said or done to make her smile, catalogues of where they had gone. They had been all over, apparently. Some of the photographs were taken locally, outside of a movie theater that Scott recognized or the park in the center of the city that Gabriel was always telling him to go to. One photograph showed the woman in front of the coffee shop he had met her in earlier that day, standing off to the side and giving E.A.’s camera a cheeky thumbs up as a girl in a white dress cut a grand opening ribbon behind her.
Others, though, other photographs show her in a different light, in different places. Scott finds himself poring over the violet notes under unfamiliar settings, grinning openly as he traces his finger over a scribbled “Edinburgh, October” and the tacked on, “I fell out of a tree beneath it.”
One photograph is pasted on a sheet of paper alone, a jarring difference after the pages and pages before it that had been so covered in pictures that there was hardly any space left for words. Scott finds himself fixated on it, coming back to it even after flipping ahead a few more pages just to take it in. It’s his favorite from the second he lays eyes on it, a strange feeling flaring up in his chest at the image.
It’s the only photograph in the whole book that doesn’t feature her alone. Everything before had put her in focus, regardless of whether or not figures had been caught in the background. This picture, though, has two faces in it, pressed close together to fit in frame. The woman is on the left, her hair down and her glasses in plac
e. A smudge of what might be whipped cream sits on the tip of her nose, and her cheeks are flushed bright red as she grins into the camera lens. An arm sits around her shoulder, hand draped over her collarbone in a way so casual and familiar it makes Scott’s chest tighten, and if he follows the arm past the woman’s smiling face, he can make out the place it connects to another body behind the curtain of her hair.
The other figure isn’t looking into the camera, though. The arm not around the girl’s shoulder is extended forward, as if holding the camera out in front of the two of them, and behind the straight nose and wide, thick-rimmed glasses, his eyes are fixed squarely on the woman next to him. A shock of sandy brown hair curls messily around his face, trimmed down just enough to not be unruly, tousled in a way that screams artificial nonchalance. Across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose sits a dusting of freckles, standing out against the flush of his cheeks, and his eyes are wide and green, bright in a way that makes him seem too alive for the stillness of the photograph. A smile stretches at the corner of his mouth, imperceptible compared to the woman’s wide grin, but it makes the curves of his face light up with emotion.
This must be E.A., Scott realizes, with a jolt of some unrecognizable feeling curling heavy and visceral in his chest. This is the face behind the camera, the hand behind the violet ink scribbled messily through the entire book.
“Home, Christmas” is written beneath the photograph, in neater writing than anything before it. Scott turns the page again and takes a deep breath, focusing his thoughts on the way his lungs expand with the cold night air.
***
When Scott wakes up, the clock on his stovetop reads 5:03 AM, and his cheek is sore from where the corner of the book had pressed into it while he slept. His body is sore and stiff, uncomfortable when he realizes he had fallen asleep on the couch in his jeans. The sky outside his window is still dark, gloomy and impenetrable in the way it is just before dawn, and the early morning chill sinks into his bones when he shifts enough to let the cold air into his little cocoon of warmth.