While You Were Reading

by Ali Berg

  ‘You might not realise this, but redheads are actually becoming extinct,’ he said.

  The buzzer went, signalling the next rotation. Before the boy left, he stuffed a glittery business card into Bea’s hand and mumbled, ‘Seb Mooney. We’re reclaiming the word “ginger”. Pass it on.’

  Bea bent down to put the card in her handbag, which sat under the table between her moon boot and sneaker. There was only one more round of book sharing to go before the night would draw to a close. Having been an almost booked-out event, Bea was thrilled. The sight of gleaming faces and sound of exuberant chatter – over the magic of books! – filled Bea with an immense feeling of satisfaction. And, aside from the short-lived commotion that broke out after one of Lizzie’s Bachie pals uploaded a photo to Instagram in which Lizzie had a double chin, everything seemed to have run smoothly. But of course, Bea couldn’t ignore the flash of disappointment at Dino not turning up. Even though she knew it had been a long shot, Next Chapter had been conceived with him, launched with him and nurtured with him. And not having him here felt like sacrilege.

  The final buzzer rang, and the room dissolved into frantic and excited talk as people began trading books and swapping numbers, promising more book chats to come. Bea stood to the side, absorbing the merriment.

  Slowly, the room started to empty. Bea waved each of the guests goodbye, reminding them to follow the Next Chapter on Facebook for updates on the next event. After each guest had left, she joined the clean-up crew, brushing away the last of the crumbs and returning the empty glasses to the bar.

  ‘You did good, girl,’ Lizzie said. ‘You even got me hooked on books! Look, I have acquired my very first psychological thriller.’ She proudly held up a battered copy of Call Me Evie. ‘I’m a changed woman!’

  Bea congratulated her on her bravery.

  ‘It’s going to be okay, you know,’ Lizzie said.

  ‘I know,’ Bea replied, sounding only slightly less sure of herself.

  ‘No, you will be. You’re wonderful, Bea, and wonderful things await you. You don’t need him or his lukewarm lattes. You’ll see.’

  ‘Hey! Leave the coffees out of it.’ Bea laughed, as she thought that maybe something wonderful had already happened.

  The next day Bea woke early to the sound of Lizzie’s less-than-ladylike snores. Groggy and disoriented, she turned to find her sister sprawled across the other side of her bed, tangled in the majority of the sheets and her own hair extensions. Vague memories of Lizzie storming into her bedroom in the middle of the night citing the injustice of having to sleep on the fold-out and jumping into bed with Bea, demanding that she spoon her, came to her mind.

  Bea eased herself out of bed, careful not to wake Sleeping Beauty, grabbed a pair of jeans and her favourite orange cashmere jumper and slipped into the hallway, closing the door behind her. She swapped her pyjamas for the clothes and went to wash her face and brush her teeth while ordering her coffee on Uber Eats.

  In the living room she spied the lonely copy of Meeting Oliver Bennett where she had left it the night before – sitting idly on her bookshelf between copies of Educated and The Sunday Girl. Retrieving it, she held it gently, running her thumb along its spine. This was it. Today she would finally give the book back to its rightful owner whether he wanted to see her or not. As soon as her coffee arrived, she would run downstairs, taste its caffeinated goodness, and then charge to The Nook, where she would leave Meeting Oliver Bennett for Dino to find. That was the plan, anyway.

  It’s time to move on.

  Right on schedule, her phone beeped: Amit had arrived with her latte. Slipping on a pair of sneakers, Bea thrust the book into her bag, and threw open her front door.

  The fresh morning air hit her cheeks and she inhaled, bracing herself for the journey to The Nook. She marched towards the front gate of her apartment block, where she always met her driver. Walking past the line of mailboxes, she rummaged through the various items in her bag – What would Marie Kondo think? – and then picked out her iPhone.

  Bea: Liz, I’m on my way to drop off Meeting Oliver Bennett for good. Feeling a bag of mixed emotions. Text me when you wake to make sure I’ve handed over the goods. I need you to keep me accountable.

  ‘Your coffee,’ Amit said as she reached the front gate.

  Bea, eyes still on her phone, grunted her thanks and grabbed the latte. The delivery man cleared his throat.

  She looked up.

  Dino.

  The cultivated confidence Bea had felt just moments before dissipated. There, standing opposite her, was pensive, broody, beautiful Dino. His stubble thick, his eyes lit with a sense of mischief. It was really him. After what had felt like a lifetime of pining after him, Bea couldn’t believe that he was actually here, in the flesh. The tension in her shoulders melted just a fraction.

  ‘Dino,’ she said.

  ‘Bea.’

  ‘You’re here.’ She felt foolish for dreaming of this moment, because seeing him made her insides hurt, breaking her heart all over again.

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I came to deliver your coffee,’ Dino said, his eye contact not faltering. A certain calmness seemed to have washed over him, making him almost unrecognisable to her.

  Bea looked down at the latte she was holding, only now realising it wasn’t in her usual paper cup, but instead in a plastic, reusable one. A KeepCup. Bea smiled.

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve been ordering them twice daily.’ Dino laughed awkwardly.

  Bea ignored the playful comment. ‘I have something for you too,’ she blurted, finding her words again, though not as eloquently as she would have liked. She extracted Meeting Oliver Bennett from her bag and held it in the space between them.

  Dino appraised the book, confusion spreading across his features. ‘Why are you giving this to me? Isn’t this your thing with Zach?’ he asked.

  ‘No, it’s my thing with you.’

  Dino looked at her quizzically. ‘Bea.’ He shook his head, his patience seeming to dwindle. ‘This isn’t funny. I came here because—’

  ‘Just take a look,’ Bea interrupted.

  Reluctantly, Dino took the book and opened it to a random page. Aside from the regular text, it was uncharacteristically lacking in scribbles. ‘What am I meant to be looking for exactly? I thought you put your hunt to bed.’

  ‘Try another page.’

  Without breaking eye contact, he thumbed to another page, then glanced down at the book. He ran his eyes over the paper, doing a double take. ‘The handwriting. Why does it look so familiar?’

  Bea hung back, feeling a sense of closure as she watched Dino flip through the book, exploring each little jotting. She smiled as she saw Dino’s stance visibly relax, his usually closed expression now exultant. She could see his mind ticking as he struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. Bea let him process, wanting him to come to the realisation on his own.

  ‘It couldn’t be,’ he said. ‘Oh my God, it’s her.’ He looked at Bea, his eyes damp. ‘She’s here. How did you – how on earth did you work this out? And how did I miss it?’

  ‘You didn’t know she did this sort of thing?’

  ‘God, no. Don’t you think I would have jumped at the chance to read these notes if I’d thought there could have been the smallest chance they were hers? I mean, I knew she was a reader, but this – this is a whole new level.’ He ran his fingers absently along the markings in the book as if he was trying to absorb his grandmother’s thoughts into his skin. ‘She was always up to something, my grandmother.’ He smiled fondly.

  Bea felt relief wash over her. Even if it was too late for them, at least she could give him this parting gift.

  ‘How the hell did you work it out?’ Dino asked. His neck was flushed pink, the colour creeping up to his cheeks.

  ‘It was no trip to Disneyland, I can tell you that!’ Bea said, giddy with this newfound honesty. ‘When I first found the book I fell in lo
ve with the beautiful, cursive words on the page.’ Bea looked down at her copy of Meeting Oliver Bennett, and touched it lightly with her fingertips. She gazed up at the man standing in front of her, and wanted to touch him too. She quickly wrapped her free hand around the coffee cup to stop herself.

  ‘I practically gallivanted around the whole of Melbourne on my search.’ She filled him in on the last few weeks of searching. About how she tried to piece each clue together, the posters, her calamitous visit to Fawkner Park, about the Astor Theatre and ARK cafe, Sassafras – where she found The Children Act.

  He shook his head. He looked relaxed, almost serene, a long way from the cool, collected, comfortably aloof man she so often saw.

  ‘And yet, the final piece of the puzzle was staring me right in the eyes all along.’ Bea paused, knowing that what she was about to say might push Dino over the edge, but also knowing she had no choice. ‘Your notebook.’

  ‘My notebook?’

  ‘I read …’ Bea began, before trailing off.

  ‘What was that?’ Dino said, eyebrow cocked.

  ‘Your notebook. I may have read it just a little bit.’

  Dino winced, holding his hands over his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to try and understand you more. You’re always so elusive. I needed to know what you were thinking,’ Bea said, embarrassed. ‘When I saw her dedication, her handwriting, I knew.’

  Dino stared at her blankly. He opened his mouth, as if about to speak, then closed it again tightly. Bea and Dino stepped to the side of the pavement as two young children were shepherded expertly by their parents across the pedestrian crossing. The little girl turned towards Bea and Dino and yelled, unprompted, ‘I love hummus!’ before scurrying after her family.

  Bea and Dino let out a strained laugh, the innocent moment thawing the ice.

  ‘Bea, I can’t quite believe all of this – how you managed to pull this off. I’m just so sorry I was so stubborn. I’m sorry I didn’t let you tell me sooner.’

  Bea was pleased. Not wanting to waste this opportunity, she powered on, needing Dino to see everything, to have a chance to communicate in some way with his beloved grandmother again. ‘I highlighted some things I thought you might like to read,’ she said, telling him to flip to the pages she had dogeared a week ago. He absorbed the notes on those pages one by one.

  ‘I hope that’s about me,’ he whispered almost to himself, touching a line with his finger.

  Bea leaned over to read the note.

  how can something so small fill my whole world?

  Bea urged him to keep reading, asking the questions to which she had so long desired an answer.

  ‘And maybe this is about my mum?’ he said, eyes red, pointing to the note that said, i heard you love me.

  ‘My mum would never answer Gran’s calls. She would always take it so personally. It was the only time Gran’s tenacity seemed to falter, when her frustration with her daughter became too much to hide. I remember as a young boy begging her to be okay, telling her that it was just Mum’s way, that she still loved us, in her own way.’

  That’s it! Bea thought.

  ‘Do you know whose phone number this is?’ She leaned over to grab the book and then flicked forward a few pages until she found it, the mobile number she had called so many times, written next to a single initial.

  Dino read the number. ‘E for Eva. My mum’s. Near the end Gran was always jotting down numbers and addresses in strange places.’

  ‘I called it so many times to get some answers, but she never picked up.’

  ‘She’s always going off the grid. It’s always been that way,’ he replied. Dino turned his attention back to the book and read the next page Bea had set aside for him.

  After repeating the ritual again, opening to a new annotation and hypothesising over its meaning, Dino finally closed the book. ‘In the last few years, she wasn’t as sharp as she used to be. She became more reserved, less talkative. But maybe she was just too busy saving all the memories for after. Documenting it all,’ Dino said. ‘I can’t tell you what this means to me, Bea.’

  Bea smiled, feeling immensely grateful for having played a small role in giving Dino this posthumous gift. ‘Well, I’ll let you two get better acquainted. I’m glad I ran into you. Saved me the walk to The Nook.’ She tried to sound lighthearted, even though the thought of the impending goodbye made her feet feel laden with bricks.

  ‘Wait.’ Dino held her wrist gently.

  Bea looked at his hapless expression, noticing again how perfectly lovely he was.

  ‘What is it?’ Bea asked.

  Dino’s face crumpled. ‘I guess, it’s just that – did you read my note?’

  Bea frowned. ‘What note?’ Then she remembered the KeepCup still in her hand. Tentatively, she took a closer look at it, turning it around in her hand. And, as she should have expected, there were words scrawled on it in black marker. I may be a grumpy, closed-off, old man with terrible fashion sense – but I’m willing to be open for this – and from here on out.

  ‘Dino, what is this?’

  ‘It’s 25 words. I took your advice. I sure hope I win!’

  Bea laughed. ‘You wrote this for me? But wait, what was the competition for?’

  Dino swallowed. ‘In 25 words or less, why do you deserve for Bea to give you a second chance?’

  Bea held her breath, sure she had misheard Dino.

  ‘I’ve been stupid, Bea. I should’ve returned your calls. I definitely should’ve turned up to Next Chapter last night. And I shouldn’t have left you there, at The Nook, that day. I know I said it was too late, but it’s not, Bea. It’s still not too late. Not for me anyway.’ Dino’s eyes pierced her. ‘And, I hope, not for you either.’

  Bea shook her head, hardly able to process this change of heart. She thought of what Alena had written – little by little, you charge forward – and she wondered whether this was a motto they could live by. Whether they could be brave and open-minded enough to try. God, he was so lucky to have known her, Bea mused, wishing she could ask Alena what they should do.

  ‘Bea, it all happened so quickly, that night at the café with Zach. I was so not expecting you to say what you said. When you chose me after choosing Zach time and time again. I thought you said it because things weren’t going smoothly with him. And I didn’t want to play second fiddle to Zach, after everything he did. I didn’t know how you could …’ He let the thought trail off.

  ‘Dino, you were never second to Zach. I mean, what Zach and I had, it was fun and exciting. But there was something missing. He chose me, and like usual, I went along with it. But that’s not me anymore. I know what I want, and Dino – I do still choose you. I thought it was you who didn’t choose me,’ Bea said in a rush, her heart racing.

  ‘How could you think that, Bea? While you ordered your coffee – didn’t you see I chose you? While you were searching for that mystery writer, didn’t you see I chose you then? While you were reading, didn’t you know you were the one I chose? I chose you every day since the day I met you. I’m so sorry, Bea. Sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner.’

  ‘I’m sorry too, Dino. For making you ever think you weren’t enough.’

  Dino inched closer to Bea before letting his hand rest against her cheek. Bea practically melted into his palm. ‘We’re a couple of ships passing in the night, hey?’

  Bea nodded, unsure how to respond. The sound of a bird’s call and the hum of traffic flowed easily around them, the regular beat of the day powering on without regard for this moment.

  They looked down at the worn edges of Meeting Oliver Bennett, a book that traced the landscape of different journeys, of different relationships. A book that had brought them back to something, or someone; that made them feel whole again. As if the pages had, or could, fill the cracks in their world with words of vulnerability and hope.

  ‘I really do hope it’s not too late for us, after all?’ he said, taking her hands in
his.

  ‘I hope it isn’t either,’ Bea said.

  ‘In Search of Lost Time.’ Dino took a step forward.

  Bea smiled, understanding. ‘The Secret History.’ She pointed to her copy of Meeting Oliver Bennett.

  ‘You.’ Dino leaned forward, closer to Bea’s face.

  ‘An Absolutely Remarkable Thing.’ Bea laughed.

  ‘Do you remember my favourite collection of Roald Dahl’s short stories?’ Dino asked, eyebrow raised.

  ‘Kiss Kiss?’

  And they did.

  Helloisthisyourbook

  I know what you’re thinking. What is that scrunched-up scrawl and what have you done with our beautiful, smart, obsessively neat Mystery Writer? Well, you caught me, ballpoint-pen handed! I’ve taken to writing my own annotations, writing my own destiny, so to speak, because I found her, guys. I actually found our Mystery Writer! I’m sorry for not updating you sooner, but I was too busy being *in love*. (I haven’t said those three little words just yet, but I feel it. Plus, I know he wouldn’t dare set foot in the land of Instagram – so this is a safe space!)

  In other great news, Mystery Writer’s grandson (yep, what are the chances?) and I will be hosting an event together in a couple of weeks: Write Your Own Chapter. More details to come soon. Be there or be … forever out of reach of your next great read!

  Love you guys. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

  Bea x

  122 likes

  Comments (32):

  SillyMilly: You found Mystery Writer?!?!?!? Jesus! I’ve been waiting for this for months! Share a pic please!

  RyanHotling: I’LL BE THERE! Can’t wait to meet you in person!

  StephenPrince: @NoOffenceBut want to go to this event? Sounds cool.

  NoOffenceBut: @StephenPrince please stop asking me on dates via Instagram comments. It’s weird.

  NoOffenceBut: @StephenPrince PS I’ve been ‘accidentally’ showing off my new sparkly diamond all day

  CuppaDino: I love you too.