by Jill Orr
“Good to know,” he said, mocking my firm tone.
“I’m serious! I know that this is our third date and in some circles the third date is when…things happen. So I just wanted to be clear up front that this is not one of those circles.”
We were still sitting in his car, the engine off, top down, the warm breeze all around us. “Got it,” he said. “But there are things, and then there are things.…” His dark eyes locked onto mine and he leaned forward slowly—slowly enough for me to stop him, but I didn’t. The second before his lips met mine, he paused, like he was waiting for permission to come closer. Permission granted. His hand reached up for my face as he kissed me, softly but urgently. This was the way Ryan used to kiss me a long time ago. Over the course of our relationship, the kisses became lazy, and I’d almost forgotten what passion felt like. After a few seconds (minutes?), Ajay pulled back, a nice smile on his lips. “And in the interest of full disclosure, I’ve wanted to do that since the first second I saw you.”
My heart was beating at least twice the normal rate as we got out of the car and walked toward my front door. I fumbled in my purse for the house keys, but then I remembered I hadn’t locked up after he’d brought me home to change earlier. “Just come on in, and I’ll get that thing I wanted to show you,” I said as I turned the knob and pushed the glass-paned door open. I was going to show him my scrapbook filled with my favorite of Granddaddy’s obits. It was the best way I could think of to explain why I loved to read obituaries.
But before I could reach the light switch, Ajay took my hand and turned me around. “One more,” he said, his voice like molten lava. I threw my hands around his neck and kissed him like our plane was going down.
“Riley?”
I was still locked in Ajay’s arms and nearly fell over as I twisted around to see a man standing inside my house.
“Ryan?”
Ryan Sanford, the love of my life, the guy I thought I’d marry and have five children with, stood in my living room wearing a hurt expression and a Dos Equis T-shirt.
“Hi.” He ran a hand through his sandy blond hair. “I was just…I mean, I just got into town and thought I’d surprise you.”
Ajay let go and stood beside me, completely silent.
“Well, you did!” I squeaked. I was still winded from the kiss and the shock of seeing Ryan after all this time, at this particular moment.
Ajay leaned down and said into my ear, “Do you want me to go?”
I turned around and looked up at him. I could see he was confused. Maybe hurt? Maybe angry? And I didn’t blame him. “Um, I…” I ran a hand through my ponytail as I tried to think, “Ryan, this is Ajay. Ajay, this is Ryan.”
The two men shook hands, and I felt like I was trapped in an episode of The Bachelorette.
“I’m going to go,” Ajay said, putting a hand on my doorknob.
“No!” I said.
“No—I’ll go,” Ryan said, but he didn’t take a step toward the door.
“Stop,” I said forcefully. “Both of you just stay put while I think for a second.” But my thoughts buzzed around my head like fireflies trapped in a jar. “Wait. No, actually, Ajay, let me walk you to your car. Ryan, stay here.” I growled this instruction at him. I was furious with him for showing up unannounced and just letting himself into my house like he belonged here.
I took Ajay by the hand and walked him back out to the driveway. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “That’s my ex. I have no idea what he’s doing here.”
“I have one idea,” Ajay said, the twinge of sarcasm less than subtle.
“It’s not like that,” I said.
“Listen,” Ajay said, “I won’t tell you I’m not disappointed, full disclosure and all that.” He smiled. “But it’s fine. You figure out things on your end, and I hope you’ll call me after you do.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek. I held his wrist for an extra second to keep him close.
“I will,” I whispered into his neck, taking in his sexy-smelling cologne.
“I really hope so.”
I turned away and watched him climb into his car. Before he drove off, he waved and flashed me one more gorgeous smile. I smiled and waved back, but my thoughts were already back inside with Ryan. I was livid with him for ruining not only the past several months of my life, but the one good date I’d had since he left. I steeled myself for battle. Half a year’s worth of anger and frustration and regret boiled inside me. To hell with holding back. Ryan was going to be surprised if he thought he’d come home to find the same passive girl he’d left behind.
CHAPTER 16
I woke up the next morning from the sunlight streaming through the blinds. I could tell from the way no clouds filtered the light that it was going to be another hot one. I looked over at a shirtless Ryan sound asleep next to me. He looked thinner than the last time I’d seen him. I studied his skin—it was smooth and tan—and I searched his chest for the familiar freckles and moles; they were all still there, right where I’d left them. I knew his body as well as a pirate knew his treasure map. His stomach was flat except for a few ripples of muscle visible through the skin. I noticed a new small pink scar to the right of his belly button and took the tip of my finger and traced along it. I wondered how he’d gotten it? He stirred but didn’t wake up, and I moved my hand away.
After Ajay left last night, I’d stormed inside determined to give Ryan a piece of my mind. But he was on me as soon as I got inside the door. He pushed me up against the wall and kissed me like he hadn’t in years. “Riley,” he said over and over again, like a prayer. “Riley.” He lifted my dress over my head in one swift movement, and when I saw the way he looked at me, like I was paradise found, any fight I had left in me was gone. I had spent months and months and months wanting this, and all of the sudden he was here and wanted it too. I pushed all thoughts of Ajay from my mind. It was like he never existed. Ryan was here now, here again.
We’d talked for a long time after, and he told me he’d decided to come back to Tuttle Corner for good and work for his dad. He was planning to make one last trip to Colorado after the Fourth of July and get his stuff, but then he’d be back to stay. It was exactly what I’d been hoping for since he left. He kissed me all over and told me he missed me like wildfire. He must have said “I love you” a thousand times that night, but I never got tired of hearing it. The entire night was like a dream.
By the time Ryan woke up, I’d already showered and gotten dressed. I was putting on my earrings when his croaky morning voice pleaded for me to come back to bed.
“I can’t,” I said, moving out of his reach. “I have to go. And you should too. Barb and Hank will be worried.”
“They’ll know where I am.”
I felt a bit sheepish at that, like the whole world just knew I’d be sitting waiting for Ryan to come back to me. But then again, I guess I was right to wait because here he was! I’ll admit it felt good to know I’d been right all along: Ryan still loved me.
“Last night was something else.” He looked very proud of himself.
“Sure was.” I giggled. “I guess that’s what waiting seven months will do for a girl.”
“I missed you, Riles. You don’t even know how much I missed you.”
I felt like the Grinch at the end of the book when his heart grows three sizes. I had cried a gallon of tears over this man because I always felt that we belonged together. And now I knew he did too. I could finally exhale. “Me too.” I looked at him through the mirror over my dresser and smiled.
My paisley sheets came halfway up on his belly, leaving his smooth chest exposed. His hair was longer than usual, and it looked sexy all rumpled from sleep. He held a long, muscular arm out to me. “Come back to bed.” It was 8:37. I had to leave by no later than 8:50 to get to work on time. I took a half-step toward him and let him pull me the rest of the way. “God, I missed your body, babe.” He nuzzled into my neck and kissed all the way up toward my ears. “The girls in Colorado are much harder. You�
��re sooooo soft.…”
Wait—what? I froze. Did he honestly just compare my body to “the girls in Colorado”? How many girls had there been? And what was he saying by calling me “soft”? Was that a euphemism for fat? I pulled away and shoved his chest back with both hands.
Ryan looked confused. “What?”
“The girls in Colorado?”
“Don’t be like that, I just meant—”
“I know what you meant.”
“Riley,” he whined, “c’mon. It’s been a long time since we broke up. And it’s not like you haven’t been with other people.”
“I haven’t!” Ryan was the only guy I’d ever been with. Period.
“I saw you last night with your tongue halfway down Mr. BMW’s throat!”
Oh. That. My cheeks burned. “That was just a kiss. My first kiss since you left, by the way. That was it, Ryan. The only one—the only anything since you’ve been gone.” I took a deep breath and turned away from him.
I heard him rustle out of the sheets, and then I felt his hands around my waist. “I’m sorry.” He kissed the curve of my neck from behind. “I had no idea.”
It was impossible to tell what I was feeling at that moment. I was both proud and ashamed that I’d kept myself on a shelf all this time waiting for him to come home. And I was angry that he hadn’t, even though I knew it wasn’t realistic to expect him not to have been with other women. We were broken up, after all. But still. Having it thrown in my face like that hurt more than I cared to admit.
“Riles,” he said again, twisting my shoulders so I was facing him. I kept my eyes cast down. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I love that you waited for me. I love it so much.” He kissed my forehead, then added, “I don’t deserve you.”
“Obituaries are absolutely about life. In many ways it’s not about what’s gone but what remains, and the lessons left behind. One of my favorite questions to ask is “What did you learn from the person who died?” In many ways, that’s what I want to know as a reader. What can I learn from this life that will impact my own life? In a way, many of the other questions I ask are leading up to that one.”
—JIM SHEELER, in an interview on Poynter.org
CHAPTER 17
I stepped outside into the morning air already thick with late-June heat. The temperature was in the upper eighties and the relative humidity above ninety percent. These were the days that sweat stuck to you like a second skin. Back in high school, Ryan called these “three-shower days” because no matter how many times you rinsed off, the minute you stepped outside again that clammy, spongy feeling came back.
I walked to work slowly in an effort to prevent the inevitable full body sweat that even the smallest amount of physical effort would initiate. This also gave me time to process the insanity that was the last twenty-four hours of my life. I passed Memorial Park, where just last night Ajay and I had walked, talking, laughing, and sharing small bits of ourselves. It seemed like a lifetime ago. I’d felt a genuine connection with Ajay, my mind (and other parts of my body) contemplating possibilities I hadn’t ever considered with anyone but Ryan. And then Ryan appeared. It was as if he somehow knew I was on the verge of moving on. I honestly don’t know what would have happened with Ajay had Ryan not been standing inside my house. There was no denying we had real chemistry. And he was interesting and smart and cute and he smelled so good.…
I neared the path that led to the library and wrenched my thoughts back into place. Ryan was back now. As much as I liked Ajay, he was not Ryan. He was not the man I’d spent my entire adult life loving. He was not the man I’d been waiting to come back to me for almost a year. I’d just have to tell Ajay257 goodbye. I’d call him later and tell him that I was sorry, but I was getting back together with the love of my life. Okay, maybe I’d leave out the “love of my life” verbiage, but the sentiment would be the same. It wouldn’t be an easy conversation, especially after that kiss, but it was wrong to let it go any further.
That kiss. My belly flipped when I thought about it. His touch was gentle and sweet—but also confident and fiery. The scruff of his five o’clock shadow against my cheek, the way he put his hand up under my ear around the side of my neck…no. I stopped myself again. One kiss, no matter how delicious, was not going to derail my life now that I finally had it back on track. With a confidence born of knowing I was doing the right thing, I texted Ajay that I’d be available later that day and asked if he could meet for coffee. I said we needed to talk.
“Morning, Dr. H!” I called through the once-again closed door.
“Riley?” His voice sounded strained.
“Yeah, sorry I’m a few minutes late.”
“No problem. Um, I’m a little…indisposed at the moment.” He sounded weird.
“Is everything all right?” I heard a whooshing sound and then a clatter. “Do you need something?”
“Well, yes, dear. Actually, a little help would be nice.”
I opened the door to his office. Dr. H stood in the corner of the room on top of his desk chair with both hands handcuffed to the sprinkler-system pipe above his head.
“Oh good night!” I rushed over to him. “Are you okay? What happened?”
Dr. H’s face was a little red, and he was breathing faster than usual, but other than that he seemed all right. “I’m fine. I had a little visit from some gentlemen who wanted a favor,” he said. “They were disappointed when I wouldn’t grant it.”
I wasn’t having any luck freeing him from the cuffs. “I’m gonna have to call the police,” I said. I grabbed the desk phone and dialed 911 without waiting for his permission.
He started to argue but then stopped. “I don’t suppose I can just say it was an accident?”
“Not if you expect them to believe you.”
“Fiddlesticks,” he muttered under his breath. Dr. H is the only person I know who would say fiddlesticks after being strung up by his wrists to a pipe on the ceiling.
“Who did this to you?” I said once I’d hung up with the dispatcher.
“They didn’t leave their cards.”
“Don’t be cute.”
We heard the sirens in the background. It was another advantage of living in a small town; the police were never far away.
“I’ll tell you after I get down, dear. I promise.” He winked at me. “But just so you know, I’m not going to tell the sheriff a thing.”
It took about eleven seconds for Carl Haight to unlock the cuffs and get Dr. H down. But it took another half an hour for the paramedics to check him out and grudgingly allow him to skip going to the hospital.
After the medics left, Carl took the report. “You were doing a magic trick?”
“Yes.”
“A magic trick where you cuffed yourself to a metal pipe above your own head?”
“That’s right.”
“And why were you doing this?”
He chuckled in his cheery-old-man way. “Well, I used to be something of a magician, and I wanted to see if I still had it. It was silly of me, looking back.” Dr. H pulled a hangdog face.
“So how is the trick supposed to work?” Carl asked. The subtext: Not buying it, old man.
“You’re too young to remember Houdini, but he was famous for these sorts of tricks. Ideally, one dislocates one’s shoulder, and then you twist a little this way and that and…presto!” Dr. H clapped his hands together loudly. “You’re free!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Carl?” I interrupted. “I mean, Deputy Haight?”
“Yes, Miss Ellison?”
“Since this was clearly, um, just a magic trick gone wrong, would it be okay for me to open the library now?”
There was a small crowd peering in the front windows. I could see Meryl Gradinger standing outside with Betsy North, both on their cell phones burning up the Tuttle Corner gossip network. I wasn’t so much anxious to let them in as I was to get Dr. H off the hook. Whatever had happened, he wasn’t about to fess up.
“Yes, ma’am,” Carl said. He turned back to Dr. H. “So this is really the story you want me to go with, Doc?”
He nodded firmly. “Yes. And do say hello to your lovely grandmother for me, Carl. Tell her she still owes me a pecan pie.”
CHAPTER 18
It was a while before things slowed down enough for Dr. H to talk to me without the gossip-hungry ears of Tuttle’s library patrons listening in. Having sirens and flashing lights at our little library had brought in people in droves. We told everyone the magician story. I doubted anyone much believed it.
Dr. H called me into his office just before eleven. “Thank you for your help earlier, Riley.” His eyes crinkled with warmth. “And for backing me up. I didn’t want to involve the sheriff’s office in this matter. I think things will work out better for me—and for the library—if I don’t.”
I nodded like I understood, even though I had no clue what he was talking about.
Dr. H settled into his desk chair and absently rubbed his shoulder. He motioned for me to take the chair opposite him.
“A while back, I was approached by a man calling himself Twain. Mark Twain. Given that this man spoke with a thick Spanish accent, I figured this was an alias.” He winked. “Twain told me his boss, a man who wished to remain anonymous, would like to partner with our library to develop a bookmobile program to reach underserved communities around the area. As you can imagine, I was delighted. A bookmobile has long been on the Friends of Tuttle Corner Library’s wish list.”
Dr. H spoke slowly, his thick Virginia accent stretching one-syllable words to two and two-syllable words to three, sometimes four. “Mark Twain” had five. “Mah-ark Ta-way-in.”
“In my sixty-some years on this planet, I’ve learned to listen to the little voice inside my head. And on that day my little voice was shouting at me that this was a bad idea. There was something fishy about Twain and his unnamed boss. So I politely declined the gentleman’s offer, and that was that.”
