“That’s why you’re mad at me?” Paige asked. Her tone wasn’t accusatory. It was contemplative. “You told my intern to tell me to leave you alone because you think I’m doing this for money?”
“Why’d you think I said it?”
Paige chuckled. “Could have been anything, honestly. I thought maybe I was taking too long in my office and you thought I was choosing work over you again.” Paige leaned over and gave Lara a light shoulder bump, but Lara refused to be moved by the momentum. “That was kind of a joke,” Paige said. She swallowed hard and replicated Lara’s stony composure. “I didn’t know why. I thought maybe you were just upset over Betty and broke down. I didn’t take it personally. Are you really mad at me?”
She was mad at Paige. She was mad at herself. She was mad at the world.
She felt nothing.
“Is it true?”
A noisy group of college kids passed by on the walkway behind them. Their laughter stung. Paige waited for them to pass before taking a deep breath and scooting an inch closer to Lara. The newspaper wrinkled between them. “It’s true. If we don’t win this, the paper will be in trouble. Bransom blames the industry, but I blame myself. If I lose this, I failed, and that hurts.”
“Don’t you think I deserved to know about this?” Lara asked. “I get why you didn’t tell me at first. I really do. If you had, I probably wouldn’t have agreed to do the contest just out of spite. But things aren’t like that anymore, Paige. I’ve told you everything these last few weeks. I’ve opened up to you like I haven’t done with anyone in years. You made me feel safe. You made me feel loved. I told you personal stuff, and you didn’t even feel comfortable telling me about your problems at work? If you had told me, I would have tried to help you, you know. Why keep it a secret? Why couldn’t you trust me?”
“I’m sorry,” Paige said, and the guilt in her voice made Lara believe the apology. “I do trust you, Lara. I wasn’t trying to keep secrets from you. I didn’t tell you because it doesn’t matter. It’s on me to write the article and win, not you, not anybody else. The contest is about highlighting Perry, and that’s what I wanted you and Betty and everybody else to focus on. That’s what I wanted to write about. I thought if you guys didn’t know, I could get better material out of you and it wouldn’t feel so staged.
“But then I didn’t mention it because I’ve barely been thinking about this damn contest.” Paige took a deep breath. She picked up a loose leaf and tossed it into the water. “I don’t care anymore. If we lose, then so be it. I didn’t want to admit it, but I’m not cut out for this job. I hate it. I’m overworked. I thought this was what I wanted, but I was wrong. You were right when you left me. My priorities are all fucked up. I should have asked for help. I should have talked to you more. I should have realized that you were more important than some job or some city. That’s why I followed you this time.”
Lara didn’t know how to process this. She’d expected Paige to argue and cover her ass and defend what she’d done. Lara knew how to fight, but she didn’t know how to accept victory over someone willing to throw in the towel.
Paige picked up another leaf. She shucked the dead foliage and rolled the stem between her fingers. “While I’m at it, I may as well come clean. That wasn’t the only lie I told you about the contest.” Paige let the leaf drop to her feet and reached into her bag. The binder she pulled out was brand new, black, sleek. It was nothing like her usual messy notebooks. She weighed it carefully in her hands, keeping it steady in her palms as if the slightest movement might damage it the way she damaged everything. She handed it to Lara reverently. “The votes have been in for a few days now.”
Lara peeled the cover back slowly. The headline was nothing fancy. The format wasn’t breathtaking. It was normal, professional. The center photo was black and white, ancient.
The Heart of Perry: Beatrice and Lara Spellmeyer.
Betty’s face stared up at her, and for a moment it was like she was alive again. Lara remembered that smile so fondly. Her grandmother was so young in the photograph. So full of life. And cradled in her arms was a baby Lara, swathed, smiling, innocent and protected from the world.
“What is this?” Lara asked. Her fingers shook as she caressed the photo. It was smooth and glossy against her fingertips.
“When we tallied the votes, your grandmother was way ahead of everyone, and I told her she won. She would only accept if the article was also about you. She never stopped talking about you. Even when I asked her questions about herself, she always circled back to her granddaughter. It was pretty obvious that Perry had more than one Hometown Hero, and there’s nothing in the contest rules that say I can’t write about a hero and her sidekick. You came in a close second.”
Lara skimmed through the article. It was the perfect way to highlight everything her grandmother had done for herself and everyone around her. It was the perfect memoriam, even better than the obituary.
Now she understood why Paige had handled the folder so carefully. Lara couldn’t be gentle enough with it herself. She wanted to protect it with everything she had.
“You really think I deserve this?” Lara asked. She felt selfish. It didn’t feel right to take any of the spotlight away from Betty now that she was gone.
“You’ve seen the videos and the comments and the support. You and your grandmother both mean something special to Perry. Of course you deserve it.”
“You deserve this too,” Lara said. “You can’t give up. You love that paper. It’s the only one in town, and it’s the only one doing what you’re doing. You were right. This small-town journalism is important, and you need to keep doing it. Someone has to.” Betty smiled up at Lara from the page, and Lara clutched the binder to her chest again.
“I don’t know. You really think I can pull this off?”
“Of course you can. If you got me to agree to all of this after how much I hated you…” Lara paused, staring out over the water as her thoughts cleared. “If you got me to love you again after how much I hated you, then you can do anything. Just stop trying to do it alone.”
A ferry passed by. The young lovers on board tucked themselves into each other’s sides, the boy’s hands mindlessly reaching out to grasp his lover’s fingers in her lap. They smiled. The ferryman rowed on.
“You were right the other night,” Paige said. “I am selfish, and I do want to keep you to myself. I wanted an excuse to spend time with you. A way to be your friend again. A way to be more than that. I want you back, Lara. I have since the day you left. But what is it that you want?” Paige asked. “And don’t say to run away, because that’s not what you want. What are you looking for that you think you can only find outside of Perry?”
Lara looked at the couple again. The boy wrapped his arm around the girl’s back, and the small gesture of affection made Lara feel even emptier inside.
“I want to be happy,” she said.
“Well, what makes you happy?”
“My grandmother. She always has.” And now that happiness was gone. Nothing would bring it back, not running away or staying in Perry.
“What else?” Paige asked.
Lara had to think, but not as hard as she’d expected to. “My knitting. At first. Back when it was just something I did for fun and no one judged me on it.”
Paige hummed along.
“Tight Knit,” Lara continued. “I know I told you it wasn’t my idea, but it was, and I love everything about it. I’ll miss it if I leave.”
“What else would you miss?”
“My parents. April.” Lara paused. “You.”
Paige’s eyes mirrored the river, a wave of blue with gentle ripples. She hesitated. She thought before she spoke. It was so un-Paige-like. “Me?”
Lara nodded, finally sure of adding Paige to the list. “Yes. You make me happy too. Sometimes,” Lara was quick to add. “The obituary. This contest entry.” Lara placed a palm over the pages in her lap like she was putting her hands over a Bible in court. �
��The other night when you took care of me and let me cry on your shoulder. That was nice. That made me happy. But when we broke up, that did not make me happy.”
“Do you know why I cared so much about The Daily Page?” Paige asked. “Why I spent so much time working nights and sucking up to Bransom and trying to get you to stay in Perry with me?”
“Because you’re neurotically ambitious and desperate to prove you’re successful and better than everyone else?”
Paige acquiesced with a half shrug, half nod. “Okay, that, yes, partially.” Her tone softened and shifted to something more serious. “But every time I get overly ambitious like that, I always have a goal. It’s never only about success or showing someone up. I wanted to do this contest and save the paper so Perry still has something local to cling to. I wanted to take over the paper because I believed in Bransom’s vision, and I wanted to make sure his legacy lived on. I was so anal in school because I wanted to make sure I graduated and got a good job to support us. And I picked up all those extra hours and took those promotions at the paper because I was saving up for something important.”
“Saving up for what?” Lara asked. They’d been far from rich back then, but they weren’t struggling. The newspaper was a good job. The library was a good job. It was more than enough to support the both of them. They were supposed to use that savings to move to OKC. That had always been the plan, and Lara had followed through with it, even if Paige hadn’t.
“A ring.”
The words hit Lara like a punch in the gut. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Paige’s hand crept across her lap and settled into Lara’s palm. It was a perfect fit, the same as Lara remembered it being. Paige’s thumb brushed across her ring finger, and Lara could all too easily imagine the weight of a diamond there in place of the pressure of Paige’s skin.
When Lara moved to lace their fingers, the warmth disappeared. Paige stood up.
“Where are you going?” Lara asked.
“Home.”
“You’re not going to try to convince me to come back with you?” Lara asked. “You’re not going to give me another speech about how I’m running away from my problems instead of facing them head-on?”
Paige shook her head. “I already gave you that speech. You heard me the first time, and you know where I stand. I want you to come back to Perry, but this is your life and your decision. If this is what you want, I’m not going to stop you.”
For the first time, Lara felt free. Finally, this felt like her decision, and no one was dragging her down and telling her what she should or shouldn’t do. Paige was the first person who was trusting Lara to make the choice for herself. She was the first person offering support. It was the first time Lara didn’t feel quite so alone.
“I’m gonna go, Lara.” Paige gathered herself. She stood from the steps and brushed the dirt off her pants. Her palms were speckled with indents from the concrete. “I’m gonna go, and if you ever decide to come back, I’ll be there waiting for you. We all will.”
EPILOGUE
The entire point of owning an alarm was to utilize the snooze function. Paige did not get the memo.
“Babe, come back to bed.” Lara’s voice was groggy. She could barely hear herself as her mind sorted through the fog of what was real and what was left over from her dreams. Her eyes were closed, but the empty bed beside her radiated a loneliness too overbearing to be ignored. She was so used to sleeping with Paige by now that the absence was impossible to miss.
“It’s Tuesday!” Those two words had never been uttered with such enthusiasm.
Lara groaned. “It’s your day off. Why are you up earlier than me?”
“I’m too excited. I want to unpack.” Another string of words that did not make sense to Lara at seven in the morning.
When Lara begrudgingly lifted her heavy eyelids, only the bedside lamp was turned on, and she silently thanked Paige for sparing her vision. In the half darkness, Lara could make out Paige’s figure crouched over a box in front of the dresser. Lara admired the curve of her spine and the wings of her shoulder blades across the bare expanse of her back. Not a horrible first sight of the day.
“Which one of these sweaters should I wear?”
More absolute nonsense. “Why do you have to put on clothes?”
Paige turned around to give Lara a chastising glare before standing and flipping on the lights. Lara winced as bright spots swarmed her vision. A few blinks showed Paige back at the dresser stuffing some of her clothes into the empty drawers and reserving a few sweaters by laying them out on the bed.
“I love these new patterns,” Paige said, as if Lara hadn’t heard the compliment a million times in the last few weeks.
“Tell that to my grandma, not me. I didn’t design them, just knitted them.”
“I’m just glad you’re making sweaters for people now. I’ll never spend money on shopping again.”
She’d better. Lara was not about to start knitting an underwear line just to make her girlfriend happy. She wasn’t about to start knitting anything to make anybody happy anymore. Except for herself. She only took orders on projects she really liked when she really wanted to. She just happened to really like knitting sweaters for Paige. “Thank the market. Turns out you’re not the only crazy cat lady that wants to buy a set of matching sweaters for them and their pet.”
Paige put a few more tops away until she was down to two. Lara was just happy Paige finally turned around to give her the full frontal view. She held up both sweaters for Lara to see. “Okay, which one should I wear? I like this one more, but I feel like the pattern looks better on Cosmo than it does on me.”
“Actually it looks better on Rocket than both of you.”
Paige pouted. “You can’t play favorites with our children while they’re in the room.”
Lara glanced over the edge of the bed. Both cats were still asleep where they had lain down the night before. Cosmo was getting reacquainted with her old cat bed, and Rocket was happy to share it, letting his sister take the middle while he draped himself over the edge at an impossibly awkward angle.
“I still vote no sweater,” Lara said. “I also vote you come back to bed. You don’t have to unpack now. You have all the time in the world. You live here now.”
“It’ll feel more like I live here when all my stuff is put away.”
“It’ll feel more like you live here when you come back to this bed and never leave it.”
Paige chuckled. She laid the sweaters back down on the bed, and Lara hoped her body would soon follow. “You make a compelling argument, Ms. Spellmeyer, but…” Paige leaned over Lara, inching closer but staying much too far away. “We can’t stay in bed all day or you’re going to be late for work.”
“Who cares?” Lara asked. “Genie’s late every day. She’ll never know.”
Paige climbed on top of the mattress, then on top of Lara. Lara wished there wasn’t a blanket between them. “You’re bad,” Paige whispered. Her breath was warm against Lara’s lips, and Lara struggled not to lean forward and claim Paige’s mouth right there and then. “Somewhere outside the library, there’s a little kid waiting for someone to open the building so he can borrow a book about trains.”
“I can assure you that that doesn’t happen on a Tuesday morning in the middle of the school year in the middle of winter.”
Appeased, Paige pressed into the kiss, and Lara melted into the sheets, victorious. Keeping their lips melded together, Paige swung a leg around to straddle Lara. Lara welcomed the pressure of Paige’s body atop hers until a knee jammed into her side.
“Ow, careful. I’m still sore from last night.”
Paige raised an eyebrow and lowered her voice. “Me too.”
Lara rolled her eyes and pushed Paige’s leg away from her hip. “Not from that. Although I’m sure that didn’t help.” Paige’s smirk intensified. “I meant from moving all your boxes.”
“Please.” Paige scoffed. “You’re weak. Yest
erday was nothing. I dropped off twice as many boxes at Goodwill the other day.”
Lara ran her hands up Paige’s biceps, letting the heat melt into her palms. The muscles were far more toned than they had been four years ago. Quitting smoking and cutting back on pancakes had done wonders for Paige’s body. Lara wasn’t complaining. “How about you show me how strong you are, then?”
Lara knew Paige couldn’t resist the challenge. She moved the blanket, lifted Lara by the back of her thighs, and dragged her closer, putting less pressure on her side this time. Her kiss was less careful, more forceful, and Lara parted her lips to accept Paige’s tongue.
A phone chirped from the nightstand, and Lara hoped she was imagining the ring. When the phone chimed again, Paige was much too quick to reach for it. “I have to get that. It’s Lorraine.”
Lara threw her head back onto the sheets, out of breath. “I thought the whole point of promoting Lorraine was that you wouldn’t have to worry so much about work.”
“Who says this is about work? I have her on a special project.” Paige’s eyes scanned the screen. The small smile on her face grew larger.
“Special project? Isn’t that the same thing as work?”
“I told her to text me as soon as it came out. Guess whose new Trend Bender article is live?”
Paige shoved the phone in Lara’s face, and Lara swatted it away like a fly. “No! I am not about to get cock-blocked by Roger Feldman.”
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