“I wasn’t in school anymore,” Oliver continues, “so I just applied at a local facility and started working. I had to take a course and pass a test—not much to it, really, when you consider the responsibility you end up with.”
The waitress brings our food, and we rearrange again.
“So, you decided to go into that field?” I ask, admiring the conviction. “Just like that?”
“Well, it was more that I couldn’t really decide what I wanted to do.” Oliver takes a taste of his sandwich and continues after swallowing. “I just like helping people. Sounds like some corny line, but it’s true.”
“Elm Village is lucky to have you, then,” I say. “I guess you found your calling.”
Oliver looks up at me and then shifts his gaze somewhere off to the side.
“Sometimes I feel a little like I’m in limbo,” Oliver says. “I don’t mean to, but I do.”
“Yeah,” I say and reach across the table to touch his arm.
The rest of our time is easy and passes by too quickly. We linger in the café after we’re done eating, but I really do have to work, so we head out onto the street. Outside, summer is coming into its own, and the tourist season has begun. We walk a few blocks and end up in front of my office building to say our good-byes.
“Limbo or not, I like this.” Oliver puts his arms around me. “I think I’ve made the right decision. This is good.”
He lingers over the word “think,” but I let it go.
I see someone approaching us and realize too late that it’s Jack. I pull away quickly, and Oliver seems confused.
“Nina.” Jack greets me, but he looks at Oliver.
I know Jack well enough to see his surprise, but he’s a good showman.
“Oliver,” I say and take hold of his hand, mad at myself for having pulled away. “This is Jack.”
Jack shoots his hand out for Oliver to shake, forcing him to release mine. Oliver does so and then puts his arm around me. A bubble seems to form around us, some bizarre snow globe effect of three people on the street, caught in an inescapable moment. I imagine us each miming our hands around the inside of the glass, feeling for a way out.
“Oliver,” Jack repeats. “Nina has mentioned you. You’ll have to forgive my surprise at being face-to-face with you.”
Jack has a way of being honest without seeming worse for the wear—as if it’s the other person who should feel awkward.
“Likewise,” Oliver says casually, and I love that Jack’s desired effect on him falls flat.
“What are you doing here, Jack?” I ask bluntly.
“Nice to see you, too,” Jack says with a curt little laugh. “I was just on my way to an appointment. What are you doing here?”
“I work here,” I say.
“Still?” He looks around like he’s found himself somewhere he didn’t mean to be.
“We were just coming back from lunch,” I say. “Nice running into you, but we really have to get going.”
“Recess over?” Jack says and tries to level Oliver with the jab.
“Good one,” Oliver says and gives Jack a playful slap on the arm. Then he pulls me to him and kisses me like Jack wasn’t even there. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Nina.” He turns back to Jack and offers a handshake again. “Nice to meet you, Jack. Take it easy.” Oliver winks at me and walks off.
Jack stands his ground, saying nothing until Oliver is out of earshot. Before Oliver disappears into the crowd on the street, I see him glance back at us.
“Are you kidding me, Nina?” Jack says with a condescension he can’t seem to control. “He’s a child. I hope Cassie isn’t with you to see this display.”
“You’re a jerk,” I say and turn to go into the safety of my office building. “And Cassie is at Mom’s.”
Jack catches me by the arm, stopping me. “I’m sorry,” he says. “That whole deal there. I was caught off guard. I actually came this way on purpose. I wanted to see you.”
“What about the whole ‘Oh, yeah, you work here’ bit?” I shake free from him.
“I just didn’t expect to see you with someone. I didn’t think you were serious when you said you were with some guy.”
“Oliver.”
“Whoever.”
“Oliver,” I say again.
The city is busy around us. Tourists, business people, and local hippie types walk the same paths. Smells waft from local eateries and the chime-chime of store doors opening and closing echoes around us.
“Can I take you to lunch?” Jack asks.
“We already ate.”
“Coffee?” Jack says, not giving in.
“It’s a little too late.”
“For coffee? It’s early afternoon. Get decaf.”
Jack smiles at me, and he’s smug and endearing at the same time. It’s a quality that piqued my interest when we first met, but became an expression that got on my nerves by the time it all came crashing down. Today it turns something on in my head again.
“It’s too late for this,” I say, taking my eyes off him. “The divorce is already processed. It’s done.”
“We’re not dead,” he says and then looks mock-concerned. “Are we?”
“You’re not funny,” I say, but really, he is. I miss this side of him. This side that seems to be emerging now that I’m out of the picture. Or perhaps, the side that I’m seeing once again now that I’m looking.
“Come on,” Jack says and tilts his head. “You can’t be serious about this guy. I get it. You’re sad, or mad. At me. The world. Your father passed. I wasn’t there for you. You’re searching for some new Nina and this kid fits your need for something new right now.”
“Don’t tell me why I do what I do, or feel what I feel,” I say, feeling angry and exposed. “Don’t pretend you’ve had a change of heart. I know you want out, and this is all just a slap to your ego.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty,” he says. “I’m just stating the truth here. Am I wrong?”
I don’t answer, and I know Jack is taking that as proof of his point. He reaches out to me again, and I step back from him. He likes this. This is what he’s good at. I know any response will be met with a biting remark, and I’m suddenly much too unhinged to try to win.
“I didn’t want out,” he says, surprising me. “I wanted things to be different. That’s not the same thing.”
Jack holds my gaze, and I know he wants me to say something. I touch my bare ring finger and shake my head.
“Think about it,” he says. “Think about me. About us.”
He turns around and walks away, leaving me alone on the busy sidewalk.
The next evening, while Cassie is still over at Mom’s, I hide away at Oliver’s and try not to think about Jack. I sit in Oliver’s living room listening to music and try not to let Jack’s words saturate everything like that annoyingly smooth, movie-trailer voice that makes everything seem much more profound that it actually is. Just when Nina thought it was safe to love, life suddenly makes no sense, and senseless love may be more dangerous than she expected, and a partridge in a pear tree and isn’t the sound of my voice getting on your nerves, Nina?
I shake my head and wiggle around in my seat.
“Are you all right?” Oliver asks from the chair across the room. “You seem somewhere else tonight.”
“Just thinking of Cassie,” I say, which isn’t at all a lie.
“Nina,” Oliver says, his voice laced with concern. “Please don’t think you can’t tell me no if you’d rather be with your daughter.”
“That’s the thing,” I say, hating what I feel coming out next. “I’m not sure I would rather be with her. Not with the way things are right now. All I seem to do is make things worse between us. I feel like it’s better left alone. Jack’s taking her this time.” I try to snuggle into the co
uch, but I think I’m really trying to disappear into the cushions.
Oliver closes the thick book he’s been reading and puts it face down on the end table beside him. He scoots to the edge of the chair.
“So, that was Jack,” Oliver says, and I wonder how long he’s been wanting to bring this up.
“Yes,” I say, trying to let my lack of elaboration speak to my lack of desire for either Jack or conversation about him.
I look at the pottery vase that still holds my wedding rings.
“He didn’t seem to care for me too much,” Oliver says.
“I think you had more of an effect on him than he liked,” I say. “I think he thought I was lying about you.”
“I didn’t expect him to be so . . .” Oliver doesn’t finish the sentence.
I want to know what Oliver is thinking, but then if I did, I’d probably wish I didn’t. I don’t pursue the rest of the thought. I should say something to ease Oliver’s worry, but I don’t know how. I look at the vase again, and I could swear I see smoke spilling out from the top. I look at Oliver and he’s following my gaze.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m obviously preoccupied, and I don’t want you to think I’m thinking about Jack.”
“Aren’t you?” Oliver asks. “What did the two of you talk about after I left?”
I hesitate and he makes a face.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “That’s probably none of my business.” He slides back into the chair.
“You,” I say and try to gauge how he takes this. I can’t. “We talked about you.”
“Let me guess—he went on about me being younger than you. Made you feel like you were doing something stupid. Am I close at all?”
“You’re spot-on.” I breathe out heavily.
Now I feel silly for not giving Oliver the credit he deserves.
I want so badly for Jack to be wrong about my relationship with Oliver, but I fear that he’s not. Sure, Oliver is younger, but age is just a number, right?
The movie-trailer voice demands my attention. What was the difference between a boy and a man? Nina couldn’t be sure. Was it education? Was it age? Was it the way he looked in a suit? How old was this guy anyway? Did he have to shave every day? Did he wear a clip-on tie?
“Shut up,” I hiss under my breath.
“Excuse me?” Oliver says, and I think at first that he’s heard me. “Did you say something?”
“No,” I say. “Just clearing my throat.”
Oliver seems to know that I’m thinking. He gets up from the chair and goes to sit on the piano bench. “I think Nate would approve of us.”
Hearing him refer to Dad as Nate in the present tense reminds me that Dad is gone. It feels like hands slipped suddenly around my heart, squeezing tight like they are trying to keep it from beating.
“What are you afraid of?” Oliver asks, his voice faltering like he’s trying for humor, but failing.
Everything. I need to change the subject. My eye falls on the wooden cross hanging above the piano. “I didn’t know you were religious,” I say.
Oliver turns around on the piano bench. “Would it bother you if I was?”
“No,” I say. Now it feels like Oliver is the one who wants to the subject to change, so I ask, “Is your family around here?”
Oliver turns back to the keys and picks out a tune. “They all live in Tennessee.”
There’s so much about him I still don’t know. “What brought you here?”
“School—well, that brought me to North Carolina,” he says, his back to me. He repeats the same set of notes, having found the sequence he seemed to be looking for. “I got my bachelors in philosophy back in Tennessee, then I came out to Charlotte to get my master’s degree.”
“Philosophy,” I say, impressed.
“I would have loved to major in music,” he says, “but undergrad was just step one of the bigger plan.”
I nod even though he can’t see. I watch him from the perspective of walking away—his back to me and his thoughts elsewhere. His shoulders and arms move, keeping up with his hands as they slide across the keys. I don’t recognize what he plays, but the melancholy of it hurts my throat.
“And you stayed here because of your landlord’s father?” I ask, unsure if he can hear me.
“I came here, from there, because of him, yes,” Oliver says. “My landlord is out in Charlotte.”
“You moved here to take care of her father?” I ask, piecing his earlier story together a bit better. “That’s a sacrifice.”
“It was an escape, actually,” he says, his fingers stopping on top of the keys, hovering, then playing once again.
“How long have you been here?” I ask, trying to piece together his timeline—his rather elusive timeline.
“I’ve been here a little over a year now.”
“How close were you to getting your masters?”
“Had about a year to go. I would have graduated last month.”
“But you stayed here,” I say, eking the story out of him bit by bit. “You didn’t go back to school even after your landlord’s father went into a nursing home?”
“Right,” he says, then pauses in his playing. He reaches up from the keys and straightens a picture on the piano that I’ve never taken the time to look at closely.
The Parkinson’s patient. I begin to put two and two together.
“You became a nurse’s aide so you could still work with him,” I say, letting him know that I understand.
“Couldn’t bring myself to leave.” Oliver plays a few more notes in the melody. “Didn’t want to, and I didn’t have anywhere else to go anyway.”
I look around at the house and it finally strikes me why this place seems so out of the ordinary for a young man in his late-twenties.
“This is his place?” I ask.
Oliver nods, still facing away from me.
“You stay here to take care of the house?” I ask, although there’s no question.
“It’s a nice arrangement,” Oliver says, his voice growing distant. “While it lasts, I guess.”
“You miss him.”
“Not yet,” Oliver says oddly. “But I will.”
I get up and go over to the piano. He must feel my approach because he moves over and I sit beside him. He stops playing and looks forward. I follow his line of sight to the photo on the piano. It’s a picture of Oliver and Cricket in this living room. It’s obvious that the Cricket in this photo is in an earlier stage of his decline than the one in the nursing home. Oliver looks the same, but his hair is shorter.
“Mr. Cole?” I question and answer myself at the same time.
Oliver nods. He pecks out a couple of sad notes and then just lets his hands rest, unmoving, on the keys.
I can’t believe that all this time I haven’t noticed that photo. It sits right beside that vase with my rings in it and I’ve never looked at it. I’m always focused on the wrong thing.
“It must be hard to watch him worsen,” I say, speaking the words I’m sure Oliver wants to say but can’t.
“It’s not advisable to get attached.”
“It never is,” I say. “It’s likely to hurt in the end.”
Oliver looks over at me and attempts to smile, but his eyes are glazed with tears. “It’s worth the risk, though, isn’t it?” he says, his fingers resting on whatever notes come next.
“Yes,” I say.
He looks back to the keys and resumes playing. I see his mouth tighten and his lips press and release against the emotion they try to conceal. One tear drops suddenly from his eyes onto his hand as it moves along the keys. I lift that hand from the midst of its music and kiss the salty spot on his skin.
“Thank you,” he whispers. “I think I’m going to head to bed. Stay?”
“I better go,” I s
ay, although I don’t want to.
I draw him up from the piano and pull him into an embrace that he lingers in.
“Nina,” he says, his breath tangling up in my hair. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”
“Later,” I say. “Get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I pull away from him, and he sighs.
“You’re welcome to stay,” he says. “Finish your book. I’m going to crash—I’m suddenly really exhausted.”
He kisses my forehead, says good night, and disappears down the hallway.
I look again at the photo of Oliver and Cricket. I pick up the vase that holds my wedding rings. I shake them around and set the vase back down. I slip outside and pull the door closed behind me.
12
I skip out of work after a meeting that includes the term “restructuring” a few too many times, and I find myself at Lola’s front door. I seem determined to avoid all aspects of reality and Lola’s house, filled with art and music, is the best place I can think of to hide from Jack, Oliver—everything.
The door, as usual, is open and I let myself in. I hear music from her studio in the sunroom at the end of the hall. Her own artwork and that of other locals whom she admires fills the walls. Vases of fresh flowers—roses and daisies from her yard—brighten the kitchen counter.
She loves flowers. She says that they remind you on their own if they need something so she doesn’t have to remember to water or weed. It’s evident and that appeals to a person like her.
She’s listening to a recording of a soft and somewhat sullen-sounding young man playing the guitar and singing. I don’t recognize it, but something about the slow cadence of his voice makes me think of Oliver. I close my eyes and see his hair—the color of wet sand, thick and perpetually mussed up. I see his lashes, long and dark, blinking closed over that indiscernible blue-green of his eyes. I shake him from my vision and search out Lola.
I love to watch her when she doesn’t know I’m there. I did it even when we were kids. She has always fascinated me. I envied, and still do, the life she created around herself—the one no one else could see. I used to watch her from the doorway to our room, careful not to breathe too loudly, not to creak the floor and disrupt the magic. She would sit by the window and talk to herself—or to someone else, maybe, I don’t know. Sometimes she would play each side of a two-person game, letting the invisible her win most of the time.
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