Forever Finley

by Holly Schindler

  Richard’s return revived in Jo all the emotions she had honestly assumed were gone for good. Raised them up from the grave where she’d buried them. He remembered her—and, okay, it wasn’t like they were some almost-couple who had flirted with each other a handful of times. So she wasn’t someone that Richard could ever forget in entirety. But he could replay the end over in his mind so many times that when her name popped up, all he would remember was her toting a well-used copy of Pride and Prejudice and eyeing him with contempt, her very own Richard the Drip. But the fact that he was coming back to the store meant that hadn’t happened at all—he remembered her fondly. Even still, she was important to him.

  Jo was too old for fancy outer covers. For liars who had insides that weren’t as pretty as the outside. But maybe, she thought, just maybe he had revised what was inside. Maybe he’d realized his paragraphs were clunky, full of purple prose that ended predictably. Maybe he’d be worth the read this time around.

  She kept running into him—at Cuppa, the diner, her store. He sent her a vodka tonic—her favorite cocktail—when she and the members of her latest reading group stopped in at the Twinkle Star Bar and Grill. He’d always leave, though, before they had a chance to really talk. But then, letters began to arrive, via Norma. Letters in which he was telling her things he never had, not even when they were dating. The one that really got to her was the one about her laugh. A whole page about how it made him feel. How he wanted to unwind it, fill his ears with the music of her happiness.

  She kept running into Mark, too—far more than usual. She started watching him, mostly in the same way that a cartoon character couldn’t take their eyes off a safe careening out of the sky toward their head. Because something seemed exceptionally weird about his stares. Weirder than normal.

  Finally, one day, when he showed back up again with his kite, she decided to go outside and confront him. Maybe, she thought, she could say something to him that would steer him away from her shop. She’d become quite good at knowing the just-right thing to say to teenagers on skateboards who were driving traffic away.

  She started out with a wave and a compliment. Just something bland about what a nice job he’d done with the kite. But before she could get around to something a little more biting, something that would shoo him away, his eyes widened and he starting talking, his voice banging like an entire kitchen of pots and pans, his hands gesturing wildly. It was as though Jo’s words were the March winds, and Mark was himself a kite. Like suddenly, her sliver of attention was sending him soaring. He rattled on to the point that Jo wondered if she’d ever untangle herself from him.

  Fortunately, Norma saved her, coming out of the antique store to shout something at the two of them about her signs. She’d bought a ton of them—same size and shape as real estate signs that showed up in the front yards of homes for sale. And everywhere she stuck them into the ground, they kept disappearing.

  “Must be Amos Hargrove,” Mark offered with a shrug.

  Turning back toward her store, though, Jo passed by Mark’s Jeep. And she saw them—the signs, Norma’s Relics. In the back, behind the seats.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” she muttered, frowning at him over her shoulder.

  She didn’t rat him out right then, though. She wanted to know what he was up to before she ran to Norma. Especially since he seemed so keen lately on hanging around her own shop. She wanted to know who Mark had become over the past few years. Was he really an eccentric? Or something more dangerous? Why had he taken Norma’s signs? Was he a thief? Was he targeting her store? She had never understood how he was able to make ends meet on his part-time work—even if he did have only himself to support and a silly tree house to keep running.

  She began to spy on him, staring at him over the top of her latest edition of The Finley Times when she breakfasted at the Corner Diner. She purposefully bumped into him on the sidewalks around the square. Strolled along the edges of the river running through the Finley park while keeping an eye on the Jeep parked beneath his tree house.

  When that Jeep puttered across the square early the next Friday morning—earlier even than the hours posted on Jo’s store window—she raced to her own car, following him. And wishing, for the first time, that she didn’t have her name (“Jo March Books”) painted on both the driver and passenger-side doors. It didn’t exactly help her stay incognito.

  She didn’t have to go far before seeing him jump from his Jeep, slam one of Norma’s store signs into the ground less than a foot from another: “Neighborhood Garage Sale.”

  Jo laughed watching him hop back into his Jeep and speed away. “That’s the reason for Norma’s traffic,” she muttered. Mark wasn’t doing anything nefarious at all. He was helping her, sending people interested in the used, collectible, and vintage toward Norma’s Relics. He’d maybe been helping her for a while—maybe even since Norma’d taped the open-with-new-management sign on her front door.

  But Jo’s surveillance didn’t stop there. She kept watching Mark—not with anticipation or dread at this point, but curiosity. She saw him coax a stray dog out of a bush with a piece of diner bacon only to spin the dog’s collar, stare at the tag. When he gathered the dog up in his arms, she began to trail him. She trailed him five full blocks, and watched from across the street as he placed the dog on a front porch, rang the doorbell, and jumped to the side to crouch near a bush. The door flew open; happy squeals erupted; the dog—who had apparently been missing for some time—was ushered back inside.

  She chuckled in amazement and amusement as Mark took off down the street, humming along the way.

  And still, Jo just kept watching. Mark made it a point to shut mailbox doors that had been forced open by the wind. He removed a flat tire from a bicycle parked outside the newspaper office and returned a few hours later with a new one. A jacket disappeared from a chair at Cuppa and returned the next day with its lining repaired.

  Slowly, Jo began to see Mark as—well—kind of handsome, actually. Not in the way of GQ models. Not in the way Richard was handsome. But she liked the wavy top of his hair and the shine in his green eyes. He told her, on one stop by her store, just how much he admired what she’d done with the place. And it hit her that maybe kindness—true kindness, the sort that needed no recognition, that asked for nothing in return—was something a person wore, too. Like a well-cut suit. Something that made them look far more attractive than those who had no kindness to speak of.

  The next time Mark showed up with his kite, Jo hurried outside, asked if she could fly it. He handed her the string, and she laughed like a little girl, the giggles pouring from her.

  “You sound—” Mark started.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Never mind. Keep the kite.”

  “No. I couldn’t,” she said, trying to pass it back to him.

  “Really. Gives me an excuse to make another,” he insisted, waved, and walked away.

  Jo began to seek Mark out. They shared coffee at Cuppa. They flew kites together. She found herself not even caring when he tracked mud from the community garden through her store.

  But the letters kept arriving, too. Beautiful letters, and when the door of her store flew open, and a gust of wind rattled her price stickers all over again, she was happy to see Richard was the one walking inside.

  “Dinner party,” he was saying. “If you could come…”

  Jo nodded; of course, she would be delighted. Regardless of all of the disappointments, there was still something so flattering about it—to be chosen by someone like Richard. Especially to be chosen twice. And to be told it had all been important to him. To be told it had mattered. Dearest March…Right?

  She bought a new dress. She had barely gotten her credit card back into her purse when she saw Mark walking by. She burst out of the clothing store calling out to him. She told him about Richard’s party and how crazy the whole thing was, but then again, maybe things that were crazy, that had no real explanation, that just happen
ed, maybe those were the things that made the world seem like a magical place.

  She thought Mark’s face fell. But he said something about having to give a lecture and backed away, hurrying across the square.

  “Wait!” she shouted. “You’re giving a lecture? Where?”

  But he was too far away—or maybe in too big of a hurry—to answer.

  It was no matter, though. Not with a party to dress up for. She piled her hair and got out her good lipstick and she showed up at Richard’s new address. He linked her arm in his and she became his plus-one. Had she agreed to that, too? Or just to show up? She couldn’t remember, but everything was spinning so quickly, and suddenly, he was introducing her to someone, and the old anger began kicking to life inside of her. She was angry because the chatter was just as brittle and superficial as she remembered it from so many other parties she’d attended with Richard. She was angry because when her eyes drifted toward a bookshelf where Richard was proudly displaying some obviously expensive art glass vases, she realized they were empty. And suddenly, she was wondering, Who in their right mind displays empty vases with nothing pretty inside? And she was thinking that maybe—no, no, surely—that summed Richard up perfectly. All over again. Pretty on the outside, empty on the inside. He wanted her to make him look honorable, trustworthy in front of this new bunch of admirers. After all, if even the ex-wife still comes around, he must be a great guy…

  She was furious. Mostly at herself, mostly for getting sucked into it again. Here she was, with a man whose internal story had gotten no better, no different. What’s wrong with me? she thought. Am I lonely? I got so busy with the store, I didn’t notice it? That’s why I’m trying to convince myself he’s something he isn’t?

  She needed to get away. She bolted from the party and raced to the square. She needed to talk to Norma, her friend. Who was a good six or seven chapters ahead of her in life, and would understand this, too.

  Only, when she got to the square, Norma’s door was closed. Locked. She rang the bell to Norma’s own above-store apartment, but no one answered.

  Jo sighed, disappointed, and slipped into her shop, where her eyes fell on that beautiful bluebird kite. And she instantly wanted to see him—Mark. More than she’d even wanted to see Norma.

  Suddenly, she was heading to the one place in town she never thought she’d actually step inside. Hadn’t she believed that, not so long ago? That the tree house was childish and ridiculous? When she arrived, though—getting a closer look than she ever had before—she quickly realized the house wasn’t ridiculous at all. It was charming, actually, with a spiral staircase winding up through the limbs—leaded glass in the windows—flower boxes—a wraparound porch.

  March winds tugged strands from her updo as she knocked on the door. Mark answered, hair wet from a shower and combed back from his temples. A book in one hand and a look of total confusion smeared across his face.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at Richard’s?” he asked, pointing at her black jersey dress.

  “I wanted—” Jo sighed. “I’d rather be with Amos.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  For once, Mark was rendered mute. She’d found him out. How? It was going to all come crashing down around him now—wasn’t it? Why? What good would it do her to tell everyone who he was?

  Maybe the whole Amos bit wasn’t supposed to ever be used selfishly. Tell her it’s from Amos, he’d instructed Norma. How ludicrous. Now, Jo was angry. That was it, wasn’t it? She’d found him out, and she didn’t like knowing that he’d grown so fond for her. Jo loved her husband. She was never going to grow into love for him. But couldn’t they agree that he would leave her alone? And in return, she’d keep his secret? She didn’t have to destroy his Amos Hargrove adventures, did she? He enjoyed it so much—and so did the town. His mind was spinning.

  “You can’t—you can’t tell. Please. I just—”

  But his words ground to a stop. Because Jo was putting her kite down on his futon. And that meant she was seeing it, sitting there on the small coffee table: the old typewriter that he had purchased from Norma. With the sheet of paper he’d wound around the roller just the day before because he had still been planning on a new letter. “Dearest March…” he’d typed, still trying to figure out how to say he knew he was up against someone that Jo had history with. A long and winding story. And here he was, a blank page. Only, he wasn’t. There was more to him. If she’d only look…

  “It was you,” Jo said softly. “You sent me those letters. You gave me that book.” Was she shocked? Was that a piece of the puzzle that she was just now putting into place?

  “Guilty as charged,” Mark sighed. It was exactly how he felt—guilty. For misusing Amos. For reaching out to Jo in a way that wasn’t welcome. For blowing everything.

  Jo’s face softened. Her eyes began to sparkle. If Mark hadn’t known better, he would have said her face was filled with pure joy—the kind of unfiltered elation that a person usually grew out of, left behind in childhood.

  But that couldn’t be true. Jo had come to confront him, tell him to back off. Hadn’t she? Why would seeing his unfinished letter make her the slightest bit happy?

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have—”

  “Stop,” she whispered. “You’re not just Amos. You’re my kind, complicated Mr. Darcy.”

  She took a step forward. Before he could figure out what was happening, she kissed him.

  Her mouth was strong—just as strong as her personality, her namesake. But her jersey dress was soft against his hands.

  The thought came to Mark suddenly, even while their eyes were still closed and her lips against his: this in no way felt like a first kiss. It felt like something that had been alive for a long time, that had been planted and had been wiggling and growing unseen through the soil.

  “A hero,” Jo murmured. “A real life hero.” Just before tugging him closer and kissing him again.

  Her words made Mark shudder; Jo’s sudden affection was too powerful to simply be the result of a few letters, jonquils. Perhaps it was because she’d seen his Amos work? But no—that couldn’t be, either. For the first time in his life, Mark felt as though something bigger than himself—bigger even than the laws of nature—was at play here. “Magic,” he whispered. With his arms around Jo—and the traces of her lipstick on his own lips—it didn’t feel like an empty, foolish word. Not at all.

  April’s Promise

  Sometimes, the “distance” in long-distance relationships refers not to the miles that stretch between you, but the miles you’ve traveled together.

  Patricia and her husband Timothy have participated in the April’s Promise Couples Race every year of their three-decades-long marriage. This year, though, they find themselves facing a slew of new challenges that steal their second winds and force them to question whether they’ll make it past the finish line together.

  Springtime perturbed Patricia—for the first time in her fifty-three years. Yes, spring had officially cracked its delicate flower-petal eyelid, finally exhaled its first warm sigh. Sunshine-yellow daffodils mingled with a rainbow of tulips. Dogwoods and redbuds stretched their graceful arms, covered in frilly white and purple blooms, toward the robin’s-egg-colored sky. The entirety of the tiny town of Finley looked dewy and fresh; it smelled of earth, of new beginnings. These days, though, the mere sight of swollen buds, the simple fragrance of a freshly tilled garden tugged a gag from the back of Patricia’s throat. Just a couple of days ago, she’d uncharacteristically interrupted a heated debate on the fertilization capabilities of fish bones versus coffee grounds at the front counter of the Corner Diner, waving her empty cup, impatiently asking for a refill with cream.

  Selfishly, she didn’t want to hear about tilling techniques and heirloom seeds. Because it was the kind of conversation she’d tried desperately to enjoy over the past several months, especially at the Master Gardeners club meetings she’d attempted to attend—and had fallen asleep in. (Twice.) And if
the men at the counter—clad in overalls and faded caps advertising brands of animal feed or lawn mowers—just kept stealing the waitress’s attention, insisting her coffee grounds were inferior…if that waitress took too long with that refill, and they all had a chance to realize who it was waving that cup around, they’d all start giving her well-intended grief. Oh, Patricia Steele, she had the blackest thumb in the entire Midwest. She could kill anything, from flowering cactus to creeping phlox to philodendron. Her own husband Timothy, seated at a nearby table, would get in on it, laughing and adding his own zingers; he had himself roared with laughter as she’d tossed her fifth potted disaster in the trash. “It’s been scientifically proven that comatose patients can successfully maintain philodendron, you know,” he’d teased, kissing her left earlobe. Patricia had only glared—yes, she could kill anything green. Even the most low-maintenance office plant, the kind that could thrive on flat Coke leftover from lunch and fluorescent lighting.

  Patricia had never been one for entering rose bloom competitions at the fair—she was more the kind of woman who’d preferred to strap herself into the most daring high-speed rides or (better yet) plunk herself into the front row of the grandstand for the after-dark concert—the perfect spot to get showered with a few pyrotechnic sparks. Only, Patricia was now retired, and gardening was what retired women (especially retired Finley women) were supposed to be into; they were supposed to grow so many tomatoes they wound up stocking local food banks. That, and knit winter hats for their local charity of choice, one after another. But Patricia couldn’t figure out how to make her stitches go around in a circle, and had wound up knitting Timothy the longest muffler in the history of all mufflers—“Fit for the Jolly Green Giant!” he’d announced, giggling as he’d wound it around his throat—and around and around and around…

  Patricia didn’t have the patience for gardening; she alternated between drowning her tiny green shoots or forgetting them completely, allowing them to crumble to bits in the sun. And actually, knitting made her feel oddly childish—as if she’d suddenly reverted back to the days of macaroni art crafting projects. Neither hobby fit. Rather than soothe her, they made her feel anxious, like someone had just slipped a test paper under her nose that she had not studied for.