Marian widened her eyes, pursed her lips, and swept her hands out, palms up, in a gesture that began by encompassing the sofa, and then expanded to what was, Nora assumed, the whole entire apartment. This expression said, I hope I don’t have to waste any more of my time on this.
“I’m going to change the apartment,” she asserted, though she was in fact very surprised to hear Marian’s feelings about that wallpaper. “I am. Already I started working on the bathroom.”
“Great,” Marian said, though she didn’t really seem that impressed. “Of course you had help. From a very helpful person, who also did not want you living in a tomb for the rest of your life.”
Nora winced. Not so much at the tomb imagery (although that was very unpleasant!), but more at the thought of Will at the hospital—all day yesterday, when she wasn’t there. All last night, when she was. God, she had been such a jerk this morning.
She rubbed her hands over her face. The kettle started to rumble, and Marian stood, returning to the kitchen and making tea while Nora stared down at her lap and thought about calling Will.
When Marian returned, she looked over the lip of the mug and stared at Nora while she sipped. When she pulled it away from her mouth she said, “I didn’t say I was making it for you.”
Nora shook her head and laughed softly. “I love you, Marian,” she said, because she really, really did.
“I love you too, doll. But you were definitely wrong to send that man away.” She sipped her tea again. “I can’t really believe I said that, but here we are.”
She could have let it go there; she could have sat in the silence with Marian and contemplated her stubbornness until she got up the courage to call up Will and apologize for the way she’d acted. Marian was probably going to sit here until she did it, actually.
But telling Marian she loved her, and knowing Marian would say it right back—it reminded her of the bigger problem she didn’t quite know how to solve. She could get rid of this couch; she could clear out Nonna’s bedroom; she could leave her job. She could maybe even deal with Jonah having to go somewhere else. But could she deal with it if . . .
“He’s not really a sure thing,” she blurted. “Will, I mean.”
Marian raised her eyebrows. “What’s he been doing over here all night, then?”
Nora clapped her hands over her face, groaning. “I don’t mean that! My goodness, Marian!”
“Exactly like her,” Marian said, rolling her eyes. “Like what, then?”
Nora dropped her hands, sobering. “I’m in love with him. And he’s—I don’t know. He’s not sure about being serious with someone. That’s what he said, before.”
Marian clicked her tongue. “A person doesn’t do the things Will did over the last couple of days unless they’re serious, Nora.”
Nora nodded again, because of course part of her believed that, too. It’s what she’d clung to last night in the hospital, her desperation to believe that they’d settled things, even without words between them. But thinking of it now, thinking of Will’s determined, practical helpfulness, a little clumsier than usual, this morning—she wondered if they had both, in a way, still been hiding. Jonah’s accident like a towel rod or a sink faucet or a new can of paint. Some way for them to keep from having to risk themselves.
She thought about Will that day in Donny’s apartment—that photograph, that look in his eyes when he told her it was too much between them. She wouldn’t break her promise to him, wouldn’t tell Marian what she knew about his parents and what their relationship had done to him. But she couldn’t set it aside in her own mind, either.
She knew Will would forgive her for this morning if she said she was sorry for sending him away, for not talking to him the way she should have.
But would he forgive her for telling him how she really felt about him?
Or was it still too much?
Would it always be?
“But, Nora,” Marian said, cutting through her thoughts, her voice gentler this time. “What are you doing, looking for a sure thing?”
Nora looked over at Marian, and for the first time in her life, she didn’t even try to answer one of her neighbor’s questions. She simply begged with her eyes to have this one answered for her.
“Not every love you have is the kind like you had with your nonna. Or like the kind you have with me or Emily, or Jonah. Or anyone in this whole place, with the exception of that new man downstairs, I guess. Love can’t always be a sure thing from the start.”
She thought about that dark morning she’d first talked to Will—that electric, new feeling she’d had, that curiosity and intensity that had carried over even into their silly feuds about the apartment. She thought about his laugh and his way of making conversation with almost anyone; she thought about the secret, tender heart that hid behind his practicality, and she thought about how he pushed her, so gently, in the directions she always wanted to go herself. She thought about the way she wanted him, the way she could be a certain version of herself with him, someone different from who she was with anyone else in her life, ever.
“It’s scary,” whispered Nora, and Marian reached over and patted her leg.
“I sure know.”
Nora took another breath, gathering her courage. No more stubborn waiting and withholding; no more We’ll talk when I get back, or Not in a hospital, or I’ll call you later. She would tell him she loved him even if he thought Jonah should move, even if he hated the hallway wallpaper (had Marian said she didn’t like the wallpaper?!), even if he was as rattled and scared as she was. She’d tell him right now, over the phone, if he’d answer. She’d text it if she had to, which was an awful thought, but she wasn’t going to wait anymore. She was going to—
“Now what in the world,” Marian said, and that’s when Nora turned around to see a small cherry tomato splatter against her balcony door.
She heard his voice through the glass first, a muffled, single syllable that sounded like Hey!, though she wasn’t quite sure. For a second, she stood paralyzed, looking first at the leavings of a tomato sliding down the glass, and then toward Marian, who set down her tea onto the coffee table and said, “I had better get out of here.”
“Hey,” he called again, louder this time, and oh, goodness. The whole neighborhood would hear this. She finally gathered her senses enough to go to the door, and she slid it open just in time for a cherry tomato to hit her squarely (and painlessly) in the face.
“Nora!” he called, because he obviously did not know he’d just struck her with a small fruit. She touched at her cheek, making sure nothing had splattered, and stepped out onto the balcony, avoiding other scattered tomato projectiles as she went to the railing and peeked over.
And there, in the middle of her backyard, stood Will Sterling, squinting up at her through his glasses, one hand poised for another throw, and one holding a small, half-empty plastic container of tomatoes.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
Down below, Will lowered his raised arm and smiled, big and boyish, and Nora felt every single cell of her body get in courageous formation, a little army of I love yous lining up for launch. But before she could speak, Will called up to her again.
“I stood here,” he said, and for the first time she realized he was standing beside something, a spindly, bright-green-leafed tree that came to his shoulders, still packed with a burlap wrap around its unplanted base. “The tree was bigger, obviously.”
She put a hand over her mouth, muffling her wet laugh. “Like that,” he said. “You laughed, but it was bigger. You didn’t know I was down here. You said Hey, and then you laughed, and my heart never beat the same after that. I never forgot the sound of it.”
Her hand fell away, her laughter fading as her own heart took off into what felt like a full, forever gallop.
“I thought you were yelling at me, at first—I thought you’d seen me. But really you were yelling at those squirrels, and I”—he took a few steps forward, away from the t
ree—“I was thinking of something to say, anything, really. I was all locked up with nerves.”
Anything, she thought. You could have said anything, and I would have loved it. I would have listened and listened.
“I was almost ready, but then you started tossing tomatoes off your balcony. The first one hit me here.” He reached up, touched his hand to the front of his thick, wavy mass of hair. “You can throw some of those ones back down, if you want to get me again.”
She shook her head, unable to speak, caught between more laughter and tears, locked up with nerves now like he’d been all those years ago.
He nodded, shifting the hand he’d put in his hair to shield his eyes for a few seconds, and even from here she could see: whatever story he was telling, it was about to change. He looked at her like he was gathering his own courage for it, and she set both her hands over her heart because that was the place she was listening from; that was the place where all her locked-up words lived for now.
She thought he might have taken a breath, a big one, and then he said, “I picked them up, all the ones you’d thrown.” He brought his half-full container in front of him, held it cupped in his hands.
“Like this,” he said, and then he crossed the yard, moved to stand right by Donny’s—his—balcony.
Nora moved, too, peeking over from a different spot.
“I stood right here, so I’d be closer, so I could try to see you better. I was going to say, Hey, did you drop something?”
Below, she heard the distinct sound of a door sliding open, and then an unfamiliar voice said, “Listen, could you keep it down?”
Will’s head turned to his own balcony and he said, “In a minute,” with a flat, inarguable seriousness that was nearly as heart-thumping as this entire scene.
“I sleep during the day, so . . .”
“I’m your landlord,” said Will, and Nora thought she might’ve heard Benny’s laugh from somewhere beneath her.
Will looked back at Nora. “Funny he should interrupt,” he called up, the smile on his lips carrying a hint of sadness, and she knew it wasn’t going to be funny at all.
“So I was going to say, Hey, did you drop something? And I know I didn’t tell you this part before, Nora, but I think I ought to tell you now.”
“Okay,” she said, and she hoped he could hear her, hoped the softness in her voice wasn’t too soft.
“And I could hear my mom and Donny talking, and that’s how I found out my dad was sick. It’s how I found out that my mom wanted to leave me here—”
“Will,” she called down, shocked into speech by this admission—out here in public, with everyone home. “You don’t have to—”
“I don’t mind if they know.” He paused, lowered his head to look toward Marian and Emily’s balcony. “Nora told me last night how you all ended up here. I know why this place matters to all of you, so you might as well know why it matters to me, too.”
Nora thought she could hear Mrs. Salas’s voice from somewhere, too, though the words were indistinct. Still, Will must’ve caught it, because he smiled before he looked back up at Nora.
“It’s also how I found out what Donny thought of my mom, and my dad, and me, really. Rash, reckless, selfish. That’s what he said about us. Like we were all of a piece.”
“Will,” she said again, tears dripping from her chin now. She wiped them away hastily. “Let me come down. Just wait, and I’ll come down.”
“Not yet.”
She nodded, but she had to grip the balcony railing to stop herself.
“I think the thing is, Donny was probably right about that. I think I probably was kind of a reckless kid, back then. After all, I fell in love with a girl on a balcony just from hearing her laugh.”
That was definitely Mrs. Salas. A big, swoony sigh.
“And I think if I would’ve gotten left here with Donny that day, I probably would have been so selfish with you. I probably would’ve messed up your life in all kinds of ways.”
“Don’t say that,” she said, but it was hard not to think of how it really would have been—Will, angry and alone and intense; Nora, timid and immature and inexperienced. It probably would have been a mess.
“I left here that day and I tried to become someone else, someone more focused and in control, someone more responsible. And I thought I’d done fine out there in the world on my own, but I know now a part of me was missing you the whole time. I know it because sixteen years later I came back here and saw you up on that balcony and I was terrified I hadn’t changed at all.”
“Nora!” Mrs. Salas called from somewhere below. Will lowered his head and smiled, and Nora realized Mrs. Salas must be on Emily and Marian’s balcony, too. “This is so good! I’m sorry; I had to say it!”
Nora nodded even though Mrs. Salas couldn’t see her. She kept her eyes on Will.
“I’m almost there, Mrs. Salas,” he said, and then he looked back up.
“Nora Clarke, I loved you from the first time I didn’t see you, but I don’t think that matters half as much as the fact that I love you now. I don’t think it matters as much as the way I know I’m going to love you forever.”
“Oh my,” said Mrs. Salas.
“I know it’s hard for you to trust new people, Nora, and I know you’re afraid of everything that’s been changing, and I know there might be hard days ahead. But I came here with this tree and these tomatoes because I want you to remember I’m not as new as you think I am. I want you to remember I’ve been waiting to come back to this place—to you—for sixteen years. It just took me awhile to figure it out.”
She had her hands over her heart again, and her eyes on his when she finally was able to speak. “Will,” she said. “Now can I come down?”
He nodded, and her neighbors whooped, and she ran.
Will caught her up in a hug so tight it lifted her feet from the ground, a hug so forceful that he had to spin to take all of her momentum. She’d set free her army of I love yous before she’d even reached his waiting arms, but once they were wrapped around each other she whispered them against his neck, into his ear, along his cheek. She said it against his lips, I love you, I love you, before he kissed her, before he took her words inside him and gave a soft groan of relief that she could feel rumble between them where their chests pressed together. Behind her, she could hear the continued commentary of her neighbors, a goofy smattering of applause that made her smile against his lips until they had to break their kiss.
“Will,” she said, now that she had use of her lips again, “I’m so sorry about this morning. I was—”
“Baby,” he said, smiling down at her, smoothing his thumbs over her wet cheeks, “it’s okay. I shouldn’t have brought up the third-floor thing, or the staircase landings. And I don’t know why I said unit. Jesus. You hate that word.”
She laughed softly and shook her head. “No, you were trying to help. I was on my way to call you. I completely overreacted; I know I did.”
“You didn’t. It’s scary, what’s going on with Jonah, and you didn’t need me doctoring my way through that meeting this morning. But I—look, fixing things for you, I thought that was the best way I could be with you. The safest way, for the both of us.”
She nodded, putting her hands over his and moving them so they could press their palms together and lock their fingers together at their sides. Some of the noise behind them had quieted, so either her neighbors had turned silent in their spectating, or they’d given them some backyard privacy.
“Keeping things the same,” she said. “Obviously, I’ve—that’s how I try to show people how I love them. Nonna, even though she’s gone. Everyone here. And even with us, when I thought you might not feel the same way back . . . I was just trying to keep myself safe, too. To go back to the things I know are a sure thing. I bolted this morning, and I’m sorry.”
“We’ll work on it,” he said. “Both of us. We’ll figure this out.”
She nodded and pressed up to kiss him ag
ain.
“I love you,” he said again, when they finally parted. “I should’ve told you the first night we were together. It feels so good to tell you, I can’t believe it.”
“I know,” she said, and then, because she could, and because she was so full to bursting with feeling, she repeated it. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
He brought her close again, kissed the words from her mouth like he was hungry for them, then bent to put his lips beside her ear, speaking quietly this time, like he wanted to make sure this was only for them. “You’re the first, you know.”
She shuddered at the feeling of his breath against her neck, at the memory of that first night they’d had together, when he’d told her that their physical connection had felt like a first for him, too. But something about his hold on her hands, something about the way he held his body, signaled her that he was saying something new. She leaned back so she could see him, searched his eyes and found them more serious than she expected.
“The first person you’ve been in love with?” She’d assumed that’s part of what he meant, when he’d told her he’d fallen for her sixteen years ago, but—
He shook his head, and then corrected. “Yes, you’re that, but . . .” He lowered his head, loosening a hand from hers so he could reach up and straighten his glasses in a move that made Nora’s whole body ache with longing for him.
He came close again, and whispered in her ear. “You’re the first person to ever say that to me.”
God, she was going to be so dehydrated at the end of this day; she felt like she could cry for hours over this one precious, painful revelation. She didn’t need to ask if he meant it, because she knew it was true. She knew that the people in Will’s life who should have told him first had somehow thought they needed to save all their love for each other, and she felt sorry that they hadn’t given themselves the chance to say it to their son, too.
She wrapped her arms around him again, hugging him close. “I’m going to tell you all the time, all over the place,” she said. “Every morning, first thing. At night. In bed, at the dinner table, in the grocery store. I’ll blow up your phone with texts.”
Love at First Page 29
