Now, he waved me to sit in the guest chair and I did. I took a deep breath and tried to articulate the thoughts and conclusions I’d come to.
“This needs to be said. And it’s not that I’m trying to get you back. Because, what the hell, you’re going to be gone in a few weeks anyway. But…I need you to hear me. I’dlikeyou to understand me, but I need you to at least hear me.”
“Okay,” he said. He came from behind his desk to stand in front of me, leaning against the front of his desk, his legs crossed at the ankles, his arms behind him. A casual look, but I could tell by the grey of his eyes that he was nervous.
He wasn’t the only one.
But, I channeled my inner Celtic goddess of strength and got off my chest what had been weighing me down for the past six weeks. For the past four months, really.
“Yes, I fell in love with you…the writer, before I ever met you. But you must have had some feelings for me because of the papers I’d written for your class. You told me yourself that those papers were part of the reason you hired me.”
“Yes, hired you. I had no preconceived notion of you…as a woman. As someone I would come to—” He stopped, ran his hand across his chin. His voice was lower, softer when he finished, “be involved with.”
The words stung, mostly because I knew they weren’t completely true. But what stung most was the word unsaid, the thought unfinished, changed.
Remembering those early days on the phone, even before we started FaceTiming, I challenged him, like he used to enjoy then. “Oh, come on. You probably had a hundred students last semester. You’re telling me it was onlymypapers that showed you I could put five sentences together? I’ll bet I didn’t even get the highest grade in your class.”
From the look of chagrin on his face, I knew I’d made a hit. “Grades don’t matter with something like writing, you know that.”
I tilted my head. “Says the man who has hidden for five years out of fear of being judged.”
He waved a hand and his face turned hard, his cheekbones, usually so touchable, became edgy and sharp, and the grey of his eyes turned dark, as if they were storm clouds about to burst. “It was the combination of your writing and the fact that you referenced a lot of good literature. It was obvious you were very well read.” His voice was low, controlled. His tone said he was done talking about this.
But I wasn’t through. “Well, the same could be said about everyone with an office in this building, and the administrative staff to go along with them. I would just bet that Corrine Patterson would haveloveddoing this for you.”
He glanced away and I knew I’d made another hit. Shit, a couple more and I’d probably sink his battleship.
“Christ, she would have done it for you, wouldn’t she?” He looked back to me for a second, then down at his feet. Hit. “She’s the one who even gave you the idea to have someone help you. She asked to help you, didn’t she?” He continued to stare down at his feet. I stood up and put a hand to his chest, still so warm and solid like the first time he’d held me, right here in this small office, in this exact spot. God, how I’d loved how solid, how real, how…mine it had felt all those times. And now, today… It was still the same chest, his body heat seeping through his shirt and sports coat. But it wasn’t mine any longer.
And I wasn’t going to let him forget that it once was…and because he’d wanted me as much as I’d wanted him. That I was no Folly Dolly. (I’d Googled it. Wasn’t impressed.)
“Didn’t she?” I said more loudly, giving his chest a push, but keeping my hand on him, unwilling—unable—to pull it away.
“Yes,” he said, still not meeting my gaze.
Hit. I visualized the smoke rising from the ship as it went down, Titanic style.
“So don’t give me any crap about only lo—wanting you because of your book, or how you write. Or being a damned Folly Dolly. There’s more to it than that, and you know it. Therewasmore to it.” I gave his chest another tiny push, and then it was as if the weight of my arm, the weight of my feelings for Montrose, the depth of complications we had, were just too much to bear, and I started to drop my hand.
Which was quickly stopped by Montrose slapping his hand on top of mine, holding it to his heart. “Yes, okay? Yes to all of it. I read your stuff and it, I don’t know, it moved me in some way. Little by little, paper by paper. And there you would be, in the front row, three times a week.” He squeezed my hand and—finally!—looked up, his grey eyes still turbulent, his face still stony. He didn’t like this confession, not one bit.
And I loved every word he would offer.
“And there you were, sitting with Jane and Lily.” He swept his free hand in front of me, as if encompassing me. “Looking like…looking like…you,” he whispered the last.
“I Googled you at the library the day after I finishedFollyfor the first time, when I was fourteen.” It was probably the wrong thing to say. I was just feeding into his issues with me having been a crazy fangirl before we ever met. But it needed to be said, the point needed to be made. “I even got the librarian to print out your picture for me, even though I didn’t have any money to pay for the copy.” A tiny rising at the corner of his mouth, but nowhere near a smile, and certainly not the full grin he gave me months ago. “I didn’t have many girlfriends, but those I did had their walls plastered with posters of hip-hop singers and movie stars, even some Justin Bieber.”
“Jesus, no wonder you didn’t want too many friends,” he said, the corner of his mouth inching a fraction higher.
I didn’t mention that it wasn’t becauseIdidn’t want more friends. Friends who would ask questions about my home life. That would throw him back into my past, and I didn’t want to go there again, except to tell him…“I didn’t have posters on my wall. I had that one picture of you, from the interview you did withThe New Yorker, propped up next to my lamp, held in place by my copy ofGangster’s Folly.”
“Syd,” he said, caution in his voice, afraid of what he assumed was Folly Dolly possibly emerging.
But there was so much more to me—more to us—than some Dolly.
“I readFollyover and over, I told you that. And I would look at your picture after I’d finish, and think that I…knewyou somehow.” He seemed to get uncomfortable and I quickly went on. “And yet, I didn’t know you, not really. And you did the same thing with me.”
He quirked a brow at me and I tried to tug my hand out from under his, but he held on fast. That gave me the courage to go on. “Okay, so not for five years, and not as…”
