Click, click.
“This one doesn’t really have a story behind it, but I liked this footstool. It was in an antique store and I wondered who carved it and painted the design on top and how it ended up in that forgotten shop. It’s stupid,” he says.
The whales are dissipating, replaced by the oddest turn of events. The photos are taking over my thought process, and the great N. E. Endsley has shrunk down to the size of a normal human boy, only a year older than me, a couple of inches taller, sitting on the floor of a room designed for his own fiction. The questioning in my brain is numbing to a quiet roar and I’m just trying to take in every moment of this encounter. I’m sure it will be the last, on account of my immediate, hallucinatory death.
I scoot the slightest bit closer to him, not brave enough to let my arm touch his, even though I suspect one or both of us is incorporeal.
He glances at me but says nothing, until another image pops up on the screen.
“This is Alex in Times Square. He came to visit me … when I lived there, in New York.”
Alex beams at us, bundled in a scarf and beanie, with comically large hipster glasses that look out of place on his round face. I almost comment on the glasses—he wasn’t wearing any tonight—but I haven’t found my voice yet. Endsley glances at my face and almost smiles.
“He bought those on the street,” he says. “To annoy me, mostly. He didn’t take them off the whole time he was there.”
He takes the phone back and begins to click buttons, presumably looking for another picture to show me. I’ve stopped crying.
I want to thank him, but instead I’m hastily putting together clues about his strange, authorial existence: the flip phone, the well-made jeans faintly stained with mud around the knees and hems, the litany of photos he deems worth keeping.
Part of me wonders if he is just distracting me from Jenna. Why doesn’t he want to talk about her?
I can feel myself spiraling, so I quickly say, “Thank you for showing me the pictures.”
He doesn’t look up from his phone. “It’s fine.”
An unspoken You’re welcome hangs in the air, but he doesn’t grab it and pull it down, so we sit in silence.
I let my head fall back as I try to take in the whole mural, but I only manage to see the tip of the lighthouse, a smudge of a lantern hanging from a bookcase.
If Jenna were here, she probably would have already put herself and Endsley at ease.
“Can I see you tomorrow?” I ask the lighthouse, too cowardly to watch his face as he rejects me. “When we’re both more awake?”
My eyes focus on the painted waves that crash fretfully at the bottom of the jagged hill the lighthouse sits upon. Somewhere, an entirely new pod of whales is born and dies before N. E. Endsley—author of beloved books and potential co-Jenna acknowledger—sighs again, and says, “Maybe.”
I straighten, surprised, and we look at each other for a long time, his eyes narrow and circumspect. If this looking could be personified, his blue would be the rough gray-blue of a terrible storm and mine would be the lighter blue of the ocean rising up to meet it.
I want to make concrete plans, pick a time and place and reality when we will meet tomorrow, but trying to pin N. E. Endsley to a plan would be fatal. Storms have no masters.
His stare is unrelenting. I wonder what worlds he sees behind my eyes.
I wonder if he knows that sometimes, in the quiet of my head, I imagine myself in the Orman forests. That I walk in the crushed-grass footprints of the girls, my own tread covering theirs completely, until their stories become my own. If he knows that, even though the books have stopped speaking to me, the world behind my eyes still looks very much like a living, breathing library.
Without a word he rises, his elbow accidentally bumping my knee. He is halfway down the hall, his muffled steps barely registering in the silence, when I find my voice.
“So, you’ll talk?” I ask as I find my own feet. “About Jenna? And,” I can’t resist asking, “maybe Orman?”
I haven’t left the room, but I hear him pause at the top of the stairs.
No answer. I can sense the storm gathering strength, so I amend.
“Okay,” I say. “No Orman. But … you’ll tell me what Jenna said?”
I’m in the hallway now and can just barely make out his silhouette on the stairs—his back straight, head bent as if scanning the floor for something he’s dropped, his left hand sprawled on the railing, fingers tapping a beat. He is a human computer calculating risk and reward. He hasn’t said anything, but he also hasn’t said no.
“So, I’ll see you tomorrow?” I prod.
I’ve pushed too far. He doesn’t answer, doesn’t look my way as he glides down the staircase with familiar ease, even though I’m almost to the stairs myself.
I watch as he opens the front door to leave, can’t help but torture myself with what I suspect is the last time I will see N. E. Endsley in the flesh. I let my mind run circles around his meeting with Jenna, his books, the pictures on his phone. I’m so lost in my own head that I almost don’t hear his voice intermingled with the jingling bells of the front door.
“Maybe.”
chapter eight
The morning greets me with the scent of coffee seeping through the guest room floor from the café below. Yesterday’s sandwich forgotten, my stomach forces me from my nest of pillows and tangled sheets to hunt down food. I’ve slept in my clothes, the sweatpants and bookish shirt, so I’m even more wrinkly and unkempt than usual, but somebody has brought my duffle bag in from my car, the keys set neatly on top. I rush over and check that my precious 101st copy is still inside, wrapped in a dish towel and zipped into a huge protective baggie. I let out a sigh of relief when I see it, and I continue to stare at it while I change into jeans and a clean T-shirt.
When I reach the café, there is a small group of women sitting around one of the tables, strollers nestled at their sides, and a lone man reading a paper in the corner, but no sign of a familiar face. I had half hoped Endsley would be waiting for me, coffee and breakfast burrito in hand, ready to talk about Jenna.
“Amelia?”
A head appears above the marble counter, next to a glass case stuffed to the brim with breakfast pastries. It’s an older man, gruff and unshaven, crinkles upon crinkles on his sun-weathered face. He cocks his head to the side.
“Val said you’d be down,” he says when I near. His voice sounds like an old car on a gravel road, rough and meandering. “She also said to tell you that she came into your bedroom while you were sleeping to take your car keys and fetch your overnight bag. Well, she may have told me to omit the bit about coming into your bedroom while you were sleeping, but I figured you would ask.”
“That’s fine,” I say, too hungry to think of anything but the pastry case. “How much are the Danishes?”
“I’m Larson,” he continues as if I haven’t spoken. “Most young folk call me Mr. Larson, but you can call me whatever you want so long as you don’t complain about the coffee being too strong. Your generation doesn’t know what coffee is supposed to taste like, with all the sugar and creamers and that artificial sweetener you dump in by the handful.”
I am definitely not awake enough to follow this conversation. If Jenna were here, she would already be poking her credit card across the counter in a borderline unfriendly fashion, asking to be served now and chitchatted at later.
“Mr. Larson, may I just have a Danish and some water?” I ask.
“Since when is coffee supposed to taste like ice cream? And who on God’s green earth decided that pumpkin, a gourd of all things, ought to be a coffee flavor?” There is no end to his chatter in sight, but he blessedly moves toward the pastry case with tongs and wrestles with a Danish, unable to open the tongs wide enough to grasp it.
“It’s cereal, you know,” he continues. “All that sugar and those marshmallows. It’s ruined you. Your whole generation thinks breakfast food and coffee—and life, for that ma
tter—is supposed to be sweet enough to crack a tooth. But sometimes life is bitter, and you might as well get used to it.”
He gives up on the tongs with a bahhh and roughly manhandles the offending Danish onto a white ceramic plate.
“It’s the government that’s doing it. All that sugar. If they can keep you fat and lazy and dependent on the health care system, it keeps you pliant. Like religion. Or Netflix.”
Now he’s pouring me a mug of coffee, and it’d be useless to even try and tell him I didn’t ask for it.
He plunks the mug next to the Danish and gives me a hard look over the case.
“You’re awfully short,” he says decidedly. “It’s the sugar. No charge, missy. Val’s orders. She said your tab for the remainder of your stay is to be on the house.”
“Thanks,” I say, reaching into the pocket of my jeans for cash. “But I can pay.”
“Did you hear what I said, missy? These are Valerie’s orders, not mine. Have you met Val?”
“Yes, sir,” I say. “We met last night.”
I mean, obviously. I slept in her guest room.
“Well, if you think it would be productive to argue with her, the sugar epidemic is worse than I thought.” With that, he grumbles away to the small back room attached to the café.
I take a seat far from the strollers and eye the coffee. One sip raises the hair on my arms and makes my eyes water, and I stuff a piece of Danish into my mouth, hoping to quell the sudden urge to leap out of my skin. I let out a short, desperate cough, trying to rid myself of the acidic landslide in my throat, and am answered by a low woof from the mouth of the stairs.
“No,” I say. “Absolutely not.” Wally’s tail is already wagging, and he’s prancing in place with excitement. “No,” I repeat firmly. “Wally, don’t you dare.”
His long legs tear across the carpet to my corner table, immediately launch up to my shoulders, damp paws eagerly scraping at my clean shirt, tongue joyously reshaping my eyebrows.
“Wally, stop it. Stop it! Get down.”
The stroller brigade has stopped talking, its members holding their coffee mugs prettily with both hands and staring at Wally and me with slightly open mouths.
After I finally manage to bribe Wally with a piece of Danish to sit at my feet, his tail still thumping happily against the leg of my chair, Mr. Larson comes to my table with another cup of coffee.
“Thanks, Mr. Larson, but I have plenty of coffee.” And I don’t want to smell like burnt tar.
“It’s not for you. This is Wally’s daily brew. Here you go, boy.” He sets the mug down in front of Wally, who stops licking my pant leg long enough to let his huge tongue plop into the cup.
“I thought caffeine was bad for dogs,” I say.
“My coffee is good for anyone and everyone,” Mr. Larson says, and I can’t tell whether his tone is proud or defensive. “Walter here has been drinking this coffee every morning and he’s had no side effects, except for maybe a little extra pep in his step.”
As if to prove a point, Wally’s ears perk upward, the tips of his scraggly ear hairs rising from the nearly empty mug of coffee in answer to some unseen call. He stays completely still for about a second before bolting to the stairs, a streak of murky gray lightning that no photographer in the world has a prayer of capturing.
A moment later, there’s an awful lot of barking and shouting downstairs. I recognize Valerie’s voice straightaway, rising above the hubbub in swooping tones of disapproval, and Alex’s, exasperated but laughing. I hurriedly stuff the rest of the pastry in my mouth and make my way downstairs, eager to see Endsley.
“Amelia, dear, you’re awake. I hope you slept well.”
“Thank you,” I say. I let my eyes run across the store, but he’s not here.
Alex’s forced smile slips down his face when he sees my search.
“He’s usually pretty busy during the week,” he says. Nobody needs clarification on who he is. “He doesn’t like much company, to be honest. I am sorry about his behavior last night, though.”
So. Endsley didn’t bother to talk to Alex about our Orman room discussion.
“But when I talked to him again last night, he said we—”
“Again?” Valerie interrupts. “You mean you spoke last night? Beyond your introduction, in which he was abominably rude?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I went to get some water and I may have wandered. He said we could meet today…”
Maybe, my brain interrupts. He said maybe.
Valerie turns toward Alex in astonishment. “Alexander, did you know about this?”
Alex looks between us doubtfully as he rearranges a weighty messenger bag on his shoulder.
“I didn’t know they spoke last night, if that’s what you mean.”
“Well, of course that’s what I mean. Where is he today?”
Alex runs a hand through his curls, eyes closed. “I don’t know.” It’s almost a whine. “There’s not enough time left for me to get everything ready for the summer bazaar as it—”
“Alexander, it is important for that boy to be encouraged in the social arena at every opportunity. Now, where is he?”
Another odd look is exchanged and I’m once again a living set piece, something that will participate when needed but is otherwise ignored.
I watch the silent conversation unfold. Valerie tilts her head the slightest bit and turns her palm upward by her side. This is unusual. Alex shrugs with an almost imperceptible lift of his shoulders and blinks twice. Yes, but you’re the one who says he should be encouraged. A not-so-subtle head swing in my direction. But do we trust her?
“It’s Wednesday. Fort day, isn’t that right?” Valerie says, to me, I think, though she is still looking at Alex. “Alexander will take you.”
“Bazaar business,” Alex argues. His tone suggests that he has his own answer to the question of my integrity, and that it isn’t good.
“You’re confirming the booth rentals today with Mr. Sampson, correct?” Valerie asks.
“Mom, no. I’m supposed to—” Alex begins, but he is quickly cut off. I’m beginning to wonder if anyone ever finishes a complete sentence around here.
“I will call Mr. Sampson and check on the rentals,” Valerie says. “And I will hear nothing more on the subject. Don’t make me put you on my bad list alongside Mr. Endsley.”
“But I’ve just been taken off the bad list,” Alex mutters, and I watch as his face transforms from handsome college student to chagrined five-year-old.
Against my will, I am dreadfully amused.
“Come on,” Alex says. “I’ll take you to Nolan. Wally! Come!”
Wally is busy surreptitiously licking a wooden box of matches that sits on the fireplace seat.
“Walter,” Alex shouts. “Come on!”
And this is the story of how I ended up in a rusted brown pickup truck with the best friend of N. E. Endsley and N. E. Endsley’s stupid, no good, very bad dog.
* * *
We don’t talk much during the drive. The diesel engine is so loud that even the shortest of conversations would strain the vocal cords. Wally is supposed to be sitting in the truck bed, but after he pushes his huge head through the open rear window to lick my hair once or twice, he decides he might as well come all the way in and make himself comfortable. He sits between Alex and me on the bench, panting with delight, his front paws atop my left knee.
“Nolan’s fault,” Alex yells over the engine. “He never bothered to train him.”
He sounds at once chastening and indulgent of Endsley, reminding me with a sharp pang of Jenna.
She’s not here. It’s like a sneaking fog, the sudden jolting realization that, a few days ago, would have greeted me right when I woke. But today is different. Today I woke up in a bookstore after meeting N. E. Endsley and ate breakfast in the same bookstore and am being shuttled to his presence by none other than his best friend and keeper, and I have only just now remembered why I ran away from home in the first plac
e.
Have I really forgotten her this easily? I spend the rest of the ride staring out the window, trying to make sense of all the green. I imagine whales swimming in the air between the trees, the forests of Orman rising up with their dark branches to mingle into the Michigan landscape. I pretend I am not real; Wally and Alex are not real. The world is one giant story and I’m only a figment of some author’s imagination, a discarded character that never made it onto a page. Strangely, it makes me feel a bit better.
Alex maneuvers the truck through an iron gate that’s been propped open on each side with stones. There’s a sign saying the beach is private, but the rocks are deeply embedded in the soil and I get the feeling that the gate never closes.
Lake Michigan is back in full glory, stretching out toward the horizon in leisurely strokes of blue. Alex stops the truck near a narrow dirt path that leads to the water’s lapping edges. When he shuts off the engine, Wally squeezes himself back through the window and out of the truck bed, his sprint only slightly slower than his coffee-fueled efforts as he rounds a clump of trees and disappears from view.
My ears are still adjusting to the relative quiet when Alex sighs. I think he’s about to tell me where to find Endsley, but instead he closes his eyes, leans his head back, and breathes, “He’s my best friend.”
I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing.
“He’s my best friend and I don’t want anything to hurt him.”
I watch as the world of Alex comes into focus. Alex is everything kind and good and naive without being stupid. His insides are a carnival full of possibility and wonder and intelligent machines that do not detract from the quaintness of his old-fashioned bizarre. Everyone is welcome here, everyone given first and second and third chances to enjoy the bounty of cotton candy. Nobody is too poor or too odd or too anything to be excluded. Alex is whimsy and hope, but he is not ignorant. Encircling the carnival are tall walls decorated with murals of smiling children and hot air balloons—bright and joyous, but walls nonetheless. They are meant to keep the bad things out.
Amelia Unabridged Page 9
