Shy Charlotte’s Brand New Juju (Romantic Comedy)

by Bethany Bloom

  The publicist came to retrieve him. “It’s time for your reading,” she said. So Caleb disappeared for a moment and took the stage where he looked comfortable and happy, and he read from his work, but Charlotte hardly heard a word because she was too busy admiring the strength of his body, the piercing blue of his eyes.

  Afterward, they were dancing and his body pressed against hers and moved in a rhythm that she knew well, and she was reminded of the night they had danced around their living room, when Gracie was a newborn. They had spun in great arcs, holding their child between them.

  Flashes snapped in the crowd, and Caleb pushed his body tighter against hers.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Charlotte said, tilting her forehead toward his.

  “Good.”

  “It’s just kind of ironic. I was the one having the crisis all along. Not you. At all.”

  “Yeah. How about that?”

  “You knew that all along.”

  “It’s why I followed you. In the hopes that one day, you would look up at me and say, ‘Oh yeah, he’s my Dorito-dust-from-the-bottom-of-the-bag.’ I had faith in us, Charlotte.”

  She was quiet for a moment, and he continued, drawing back a little and searching her face as he spoke.

  “Sometimes,” Caleb said, “when I’m writing a scene, I feel like maybe there’s something that’s not quite right, and so I’ll rewrite it. And then I’ll look back on it, and, if it is right, I find that it’s nearly identical to the first scene I wrote.”

  Charlotte lifted her chin and breathed in Caleb’s scent. Wool. Warmth.

  “So I guess what I need to know is, ‘Would you write your life this way again?’”

  Charlotte felt a tightening in her throat and behind her eyes. “I’ve made so many mistakes. I’ve wasted so much time.”

  “But it landed you here, Jellybean.”

  “Yes,” she said then. “I think I would write this life again. For myself.” And then she smiled. “And most definitely this scene. Because you look astonishingly hot in a tux.”

  He sniffed. “These people…Fiona, Leopold, Tabitha, they all tried to convince you that there was something wrong with you.”

  “Oh, well, they didn’t have to try too hard. You know about the public peeing, right?”

  “All they did was show a part of your charm.”

  “You are the only one who thinks that’s part of my charm.”

  “It is, though. You aren’t perfect. You are sometimes a doofus. A complete dork.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But there’s nothing wrong with that. The up side of that is, you never walk around like you are better than everyone else. And that’s one of the many, many things I love about you.” He moved his face closer. “When you first came to my office, Charlotte, when I first met you, I liked you instantly. And it wasn’t because your hair was perfect or your body was perfect or you knew exactly what to say. I knew you were ‘the one,’ at first sight, and do you know how?”

  She shook her head.

  “Because you looked scared to death. But you were there anyway. So real. So adorable…Just like you are now.”

  She laughed. “Sorry, the girls and I spent too long at the bookstore and forgot to leave time to get ready for your shindig.”

  “Hallelujah. Charlotte’s back.”

  She swayed with him then for a time, tripping over his feet once and not bothering to apologize.

  “So,” she said, eventually. “Is there any way you can find a new assistant. A new editor/proofreader/manager, besides me?”

  “You aren’t coming back?”

  “No. I am. I’m coming back to be your wife. But I’ve decided to work toward a master’s degree in education, as well. So I’ll be a full-time student.”

  “Wonderful. Perfect. And what will you do with this degree, do you think?”

  “I will teach middle school art.”

  He ran his lips along her ear, and shivers buzzed along her spine. “Is this one of Fiona’s ideas for you?”

  “No.” She pulled away to look at him. “I want to help kids paint themselves in the right light. Especially those introverted ones who tend to hide in the art room, like I did.”

  He bent his head toward her. “Yes, buffeted from the world by brushes and easels and pastels. A respite from the world.”

  “A perfect respite. My classroom will have soft lighting, and gentle muted melodies, always playing, and I will speak kindly to my students and help them understand that it’s okay to be just the person they are. I will help them to see that art, like a good family, can help us to realize the joy – the necessity – of making mistakes. That when you fall or wander or mess up, you don’t need to start over with a clean canvas. You can just start painting again, You can layer more on.” She laughed. “You might have a train wreck. Or you might have a masterpiece. But you get to decide what to call it, and it’s never truly finished.”

  Caleb studied her face, and pulled her body tight.

  “And while I’m studying, at the college,” Charlotte continued, “I can come by your office, and we can do it, right there on your desk. Like old times.” She shrugged, “Or we can just have a cup of coffee.”

  And then his mouth was on hers.

  When he drew back, he looked at her steadily, and then he said, “So will you help me choose my new assistant?”

  “Of course.”

  “Would you like her to be four-hundred pounds with hairy moles and Funyun breath?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I trust you.”

  Charlotte rubbed her finger where she had pricked it earlier that day, on the airplane, as she and the girls sat huddled together. They had written out something on her napkin. A pact. A promise to be uncompromising in their approval of themselves. In their need for quiet time. In their need for one another. And to put blinders on to the ways that all the other people have chosen to live in this world, focusing, instead on the ways that they have chosen for themselves. It was a pact to accept herself unconditionally, the exact kind of person she was. For she was shy Charlotte. And she was ravishing.

  THE END

  Also by Bethany Bloom

  The One Who Got Away: A Novel

  Have you ever wondered about the one who got away? The person from your past whom you’ve never quite managed to stop thinking about? What would happen if that certain someone returned—today?

  Olivine Eriksson never needed a man until Henry Cooper tumbled into her path. And just as Olivine falls for him, Henry vanishes. Mysteriously and completely.

  Fast forward ten years. Olivine has given up, finally, on fairy tales of the re-emerging lover and, as the clock on her living legacy ticks away, she decides to move on and begin planning her wedding to Paul. A surgeon and humanitarian, Paul is helping her to lead the life they’ve dreamed of together. Loving him makes perfect sense. He needs her, and he has plans for her. Big, important plans. And Olivine wants nothing more than to live a big, important life.

  But a twist of fate and a mysterious intervention brings Henry back to Olivine's idyllic mountain village and in search of the only woman he has ever loved.

  His return triggers Olivine to remember the wide-eyed, wilder woman she once was and to recognize the ways she has distorted herself to fit into her perfect life with Paul. Now Olivine must choose between the man who will give her everything and the man who proves she needs nothing.

  A wise and deeply moving portrait of a woman rediscovering the power she once held, The One Who Got Away is a masterful love story that will remind readers how fate can change in the blink of an eye. Will Olivine decide what she truly wants before she loses it all? Download a free sample and start reading…

 

 

 
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