“I know your aunt didn’t exactly help you with her attitude about reading, but just because you don’t like books doesn’t mean you are stupid. Don’t be so hard on—”
“Is that what you think my problem is?”
“You told me already. You didn’t do very well in school. But it’s obvious that you aren’t stupid.”
I laughed and realized how close I was to losing it. I sounded like an inmate in an insane asylum. If they heard, the ladies would be falling all over themselves to hire me for their house of horrors.
“It was more than that.” I struggled to find the words and gave up.
Kit turned on a nearby lamp. I wished he had left me in the dark.
He waited for me to explain. The only sound in the room was Moby’s heavy panting.
“I haven’t known you that long, Trudy. But what I see is an intelligent woman standing in front of me.”
“Stop pat—patronizing me. I hate it when people do that. You sound like one of the psychologists my father’s new wife made me see, trying to assure me that it wasn’t my fault I was so illiterate.” I threw my sack on the couch and ran my hands through my long hair, yanking out the scarf and throwing it on the floor.
“I don’t understand.” Kit stood with his palms up, gaping at me as if he thought I was a wild animal who might bolt.
“I can’t read. Did you figure that out yet, Professor?”
“That is ridiculous. You were categorizing the books with me.”
“Sure I was. It was easy if it had a book cover. Anyone can tell a children’s book from an adult book if you look at the cover and the size of the thing and the pictures. Unless the adult-book cover is in a cartoonlike print. Did you notice the trouble I had with Kurt V—whatever his name was?”
He pulled his glasses off and moved closer. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I didn’t want you to know. But it didn’t matter. Reeba Sweeney made sure you knew all about me.”
“She said you had trouble learning and hated school. That your aunt was always complaining about you. That’s it.”
“Well, now you can all have a good laugh. I can’t read and I inherited a flippin’ bookstore. Ha. Ha. Ha!”
I had used up the last of my energy. I sank onto the couch on the last “ha”. I suppose I should look at the bright side. If I scared Kit away with my craziness, he would leave and I could go back to throwing books away and selling this place.
Kit continued looking at me with an intensity that made me uneasy. He sat on the arm of the couch. Facing me.
“You have dyslexia?”
I let his question hang, surprised that he had figured it out so quickly and, at the same time, surprised that it took him so long.
“Yes. Thank you for the tip.”
“You realize that isn’t your fault.”
“No. It isn’t. Would you be a dear and explain that to Aunt Gertrude?”
“My God, you were never diagnosed, were you?”
“When I was twenty—a mere fifteen years too late.”
He paused. “Well, there are ways to overcome it now. Technology has done a lot for people who have trouble reading.”
I felt a familiar anger bubbling up inside me. Here it was again. If people rationalized it they could dismiss it. They could dismiss the pain I felt. And then I would be invisible again. I had a label stuck to me as permanently as a tattoo. No, it was more than that. It was embedded beneath the skin. Inside, where no matter how much I told myself it wasn’t my fault, I knew I could never be like everyone else. Have a conversation with friends about my favorite book. Order from a menu without studying it for ten minutes. Even look up the players on a high school football program someone handed me.
“There are wonderful things like audiobooks and dictation applications. And I even heard there is a new font to help dyslexic people read.” Kit was trying to make me feel better and I was getting madder by the second.
“A new font! Wow, I’m cured.”
“People don’t necessarily have to read to get good jobs,” he said.
“Oh, yeah. I always put dyslexia at the top of my résumé.”
“And lots of successful people have dyslexia.”
“Give me a break.”
He was on a roll. “Books are overrated anyway, Trudy. Just like you were explaining to me. Plays and television and other forms of entertainment are—”
I was off the couch. “Don’t try to make me feel better, you ass! Do you have any idea how it feels to love stories but not be able to read them? I know the words are there and it kills me.”
“What about letting people help. I’ll be happy to—”
I launched myself at Kit’s chest. “It’s not the same!”
“Trudy.” He opened his arms and met my attack.
“I can hear them if I’m lucky. If someone reads them or I see Shakespeare or any other version of the story that some hack hasn’t screwed with.”
He rubbed his hands along my back. “There are good recordings.”
“But a new book can take years for the words to be recorded. And even then, it’s someone else reading them. A voice that isn’t mine. A shitty substitute!”
“I’m sorry—”
“When I was younger I wanted to read Harry Potter in the worst way! I watched my friends laugh and read and joke and I even once waited until midnight just to hold the next book. A book I couldn’t read.”
I just wanted to be like everyone else. I buried my hands in his sweater. “It doesn’t help when people tell me how I can overcome it!”
“Then, I won’t,” Kit said softly in my hair.
His sweater smelled like a football game and the cool September air. It reminded me of growing up, for some reason. Not just the painful times inside these walls. But other times when there was someone to lean on.
There were so many classrooms where I learned to cover up for the fact that I couldn’t read. Usually the teachers dismissed me as being behind after moving. I used to work hard to remember other people’s book reports so I could recite those same book reports the following year on another army base. My mother would help me type my homework sometimes. If she knew I couldn’t write she never said a word. She told me I was smart and helped me get through each grade level. But when she was gone there was no more covering up. Aunt Gertrude made it crystal clear that I was illiterate.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this now. Lots of people have problems that are much worse. It’s just this place. This town and all the memories brings out the worst in me.”
“Your aunt doesn’t sound like the most patient of women.”
“She wasn’t.”
“Were you close to your dad at all?”
I rested my head on his shoulder. “My dad didn’t know what to do after my mom died. He was still deployed overseas, and there was no one to be with us. So he dumped my brother and me on her doorstep. In some ways, it wasn’t her fault. What did she know about raising teenagers?”
“I’d like to think she might have figured out that there was a reason you couldn’t read.”
“I kind of made her life difficult.”
“You? I can’t imagine.” The sarcasm in his voice made me laugh. And I swiped away a tear that rolled down my face and pushed out of Kit’s arms.
“Your brother? Was he at all helpful?”
“He was a wonderful big brother. Really, he was. But he was hardly ever around.” And then he enlisted.
“When did you realize it wasn’t your fault?”
I wanted to say “never,” but there was a moment when I discovered that there was a reason behind my failure. One of my teachers at Harrison County High School had recommended a tutor who had been successful in helping people overcome their reading problems. At first Mrs. Blodget had scared me to death with her polished black hair and her gravelly cigarette voice. But she turned out to be kind-hearted and perceptive. It didn’t take her long to realize that I had a readin
g disability.
I moved to the window and put my hand on the cool glass. “I was in tenth grade, but reading at a second-grade level. A tutor tried to explain her suspicions to Aunt Gertrude. Aunt Gertrude thought if I worked harder I could overcome it. She nixed any future tutoring. She made me sit and read aloud each night. Do you have any idea how painful that is to a fifteen-year-old?”
“It must have been mortifying.”
“She just didn’t understand it. I know that now.” Our relationship might have been different if I had been formally diagnosed when I was younger.
Kit came over and leaned against the wall beside me. “What happened to you? You left here, right?”
I nodded. “Technically, I couldn’t leave until I was sixteen. But I packed up and went to live with a friend in Texas months before my birthday. Her parents were always good to me and my dad didn’t contest it.” Aunt Gertrude had been hurt by that. Looking back, I think she thought she could somehow pull me out of the abyss of ignorance and fix me.
“Did you get the help you needed?”
“In California. When I was twenty. That’s when a reading specialist worked with me. But that was expensive.”
“Did it help?”
“I still have some of the tools she used. I take them out every once in a while and practice reading. But it’s slow. And it’s embarrassing to do when people watch me. I get uptight when I feel rushed. I still stumble over my words too. Have you noticed how I mix up my syllables and sounds?”
“Maybe if you explain—”
I halted him with my hand. “I know. Yes. That is the easy way to handle it. And sometimes I can. And sometimes it’s just too complicated. Dyslexia is kind of a spectrum thing. Not everyone who suffers from it is the same. Mine seems worse than most.” People had a way of asking all sorts of questions about my problem. They had this mistaken perception that I saw words backwards. But it was more like someone had tossed a deck of cards in the air and told me to read them before they dropped.
Moby gave a muffled bark from downstairs. “He needs to go out,” I said.
“I’ll come with you.”
We followed Moby into the brisk night. Kit was quiet. He seemed to be thinking about something important. My anger was spent. The cool air felt good on my skin now. Like my mother’s washcloth on my face after I cried.
Music and laughter came from a bonfire at the public beach. We veered away from it and stopped on an empty spit of land that bordered the lake. A mist hung over the water. The sound of crickets mixed with cicadas interrupted the sound of the post-football revelers.
“I’m sorry I exploded.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
“I’ll be better as soon as I get out of this town.”
As we watched Moby search through the underbrush near the shore, Kit took my hand. “So Trudy. Tell me more about your plans after you sell the store?”
“Travel.”
“Don’t military children usually want the opposite?”
“Oh, you mean like a home they’ll never leave?”
“Hmm.”
“What is a home? Just a piece of land with a house.”
“I think of it as a place you belong.”
“I’ve felt more at home traveling in a car than I ever have under a roof.”
“Lulu? Isn’t she the same thing as a home, then? A place you belong.”
“It’s not the same. She has wheels and no mortgage.”
He reached out and grabbed my hand. “Sure it is.”
The breeze whipped my hair in front of my face. I couldn’t bring myself to disturb the moment. I kept my hand in his and let my hair fly. “So, what about the little village you mentioned. The place where the Darlingtons are from? If it’s so great to be home, why are you here?”
He let go of my hand and reached down and picked up a stick. He pulled back his arm and threw it. “I’m often gone for long periods of time. Even so, I love to know there is a home that still exists for me when I am ready to return.”
“I wouldn’t have a clue what that feels like.” I shrugged and picked up a rock. I threw it as hard as I could. It didn’t travel as far as Kit’s stick and landed just a few yards past the shore.
“Having a home is kind of like this beach,” Kit said.
“How’s that?”
“You can throw yourself as far as you want, like the rock and the stick. But you’ll catch the wind and the current and find your way back to land.”
“Very deep, Professor.” As if on cue, Moby pulled a stick out of the water and brought it back to our feet.
Kit chuckled and put his arm around me. “You know, Trudy, I think you are a bit afraid.”
“What?” I pushed away from him.
“You heard me.” He turned me around until our faces were inches apart. I could feel the heat of his breath and my heart sped up. I didn’t know if this new intimacy was a good thing or a bad thing. And it was so unlike me to even think about my actions. I was definitely off my game. Before I could figure out why I was hesitating, he lowered his head to mine.
* * *
Our lips met with an explosion that chased away the lingering coolness in the air, making it feel like a scorching night in July. He tasted salty and sweet, and I felt like I had been starving until now. I buried my fingers in his hair. His hands wandered underneath my shirt, making paths across my back that left a trail of fire. His hair was thicker than I thought. Like corn silk crossed with cashmere. I ran my thumb across the nape of his neck and tried to follow with my tongue. He was just tall enough that I could reach the side of his neck while his own lips moved lower.
In the distance, Moby barked.
Kit kissed the area right beneath my ear. Heat and uber-sensitivity rippled across my breasts and below. I was ready to jump his bones right there and then. And based on the way he felt against me, he would have no objections. I reached down to his belt and he stopped.
“This is . . .” His hands had stalled on my back and he pulled away from me with a shudder.
Moby barked again.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do this.”
I tried to kiss him again. “I’m not like most girls. I don’t need cotton sheets and a roaring fire.”
He turned away. “We aren’t a couple of teenagers.”
Why did I have to fall for a proper Englishman?
Moby barked louder now. An angrier bark. I looked past Kit to see Moby running through the darker scrub nearby.
“Moby!”
But he ignored me and the white fur on his tail disappeared in the brush. A darker shadow nearby sent a shiver up my spine. “There’s something there.”
“Where?” Kit’s hands dropped to his sides. He walked toward the area Moby had disappeared.
“Do you think he’s all right?”
“Hopefully. The last thing you want is him discovering a skunk.”
A shaggy collie and a skunk were not something I wanted to even consider. “Moby. Get back here!”
Before we reached him, something separated itself from a larger shadow and leaped out into the moonlight. For a moment I thought it was a skunk. But the white stripe was missing. The black cat.
Moby wasn’t far behind it. He stopped a few feet from the cat, who faced him with an arched back and a straight tail. The cat erupted in a hiss. Moby didn’t stick around long enough to find out what the cat planned to do with him. He ran straight for us.
“Scared of a little cat, boy?” He wove himself between my legs and back to Kit, seeking reassurance that we were there for him.
“Your dog is a bit timid.”
“I told you. He’s not my dog. But he’s not the only one acting scared.”
Kit stopped petting Moby and stood up straight. “Are you referring to me?”
“I don’t see anyone else around here.” I turned and started walking toward Main Street.
“Excuse me. But in what manner is what we were just doing timid?�
�
It was so unfair. I picked up my pace and Moby stuck to my side. I was doomed to be surrounded by men who slipped away from me like waves on a beach. Which was why I should have remembered that I was in my self-induced dry phase.
“Hello? Are you listening?” Kit was in front of me now, walking backwards while he waited for me to respond.
“It’s not what you were doing. It’s the fact that you stopped.”
He slowed and I passed him. I heard him sputtering behind me. “You—well . . . Wait a minute, there, Trudy.”
“It’s all right, Kit. I get it. I was having a good time. You, on the other hand, must have felt differently.”
“You don’t understand.” He caught up to me and reached for my hand.
“Our incredibly romantic discussion about owning a home and dyslexia dampened the mood, anyway.”
“Hey. Just stop and let me explain.”
We were almost at the store. I turned and faced him.
He adjusted his glasses. “It’s just that I’m here for only a short time.”
“So am I.”
“You don’t really know me. And I don’t think it would be in our best interests to have any complications that would make me—”
He paused. What was he going to say? I stomped my foot. “Our best interests? Complications? What kind of complications?”
“It’s just, you know, we just met and you’re trying to clean up the store.”
“I get it. You’re a professor. You live for schedules and houses and order. I live in a broken-down bug.”
“That isn’t what I was thinking at all.”
“Oh really?”
“Really.” He reached out with both hands and cupped my chin. “I respect you. That’s why I stopped.”
I stood speechless, trying to figure out what he meant. No one ever used the word respect around me. Then he kissed me soundly. Not a breathless, drawn-out kiss like we had shared on the beach. But a firm, single kiss that held a promise. I felt it long after his lips left mine. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his car key. “I will see you tomorrow.”
I watched him climb into the truck and pull away and tried to shake off a nagging suspicion. And an overwhelming sense of longing.
I touched the tip of my tongue to my upper lip. Something unique and pleasing tingled in my mouth. A new sensation awakened my body and rocked my insides.
The Bookshop on Autumn Lane Page 11