“Of course, although not as much as I would like.” He motioned around the store. “Hence the stationery.” He wiped his ink-stained hands on a canvas apron tied around his waist and held the right one out for Alice to shake. “Duncan.”
“Alice,” she said, extending her arm. He had a firm grip that seemed trustworthy, but appearances lied all the time. She understood that all too well; she was either dressed as the consummate professional she did not feel herself to be, the consummate waitress with crisp white shirts that would be stained by the end of the shift, or the consummate writer in her dad’s old sweatshirt. Today, here in Willow Bindery, was a rare day where Alice was dressed like herself, in worn jeans and a striped T-shirt that Gabby would say made her look like a teenager in the nineties. In all fairness, it was an apt description of her style, even if Gabby would not have meant it as a compliment.
Alice continued to study Duncan, feeling hesitant about entrusting her stories to him. “Before we talk about the project, you should know my writing is very personal. I need to make sure, I need your word, that you won’t read it.”
A bruised expression materialized on Duncan’s face before he could hide it. “I bind hundreds of books a year. I don’t have the time to read them, let alone the interest.”
“I didn’t mean anything by my comment,” Alice said, realizing she’d offended him. “It’s just really important to me that my work remain private.” She was belaboring her point, drawing more attention to it instead of less.
He held up his right hand. “Consider it my binder’s oath. I solemnly swear that I will not read your book.”
Alice pressed on with an unprecedented need to explain herself. “You see, the stories I write, they’re a bit unconventional. People hire me to write them personalized narratives that help them fall in love.” Duncan laughed, then quieted when he realized that she wasn’t joking. “They aren’t romances or for entertainment. They’re more like fables, precisely calibrated to each of my clients’ needs. After they read them, they immediately meet the love of their life. The stories are theirs alone, and they pay good money for them. It would be a betrayal of their trust if anyone else read them. I can’t—” Alice interrupted herself. Why was she telling him all this?
Surprisingly, he laughed again, more heartily than before. “Well then, you definitely don’t have to worry about me reading them. I want nothing to do with love.”
Alice startled. She’d never met anyone else who so immediately and wholeheartedly denounced love.
“I’m divorced. We separated about a year ago. That’s when I moved here, opened this store. I was working for my father-in-law at his bindery in Portland—Maine, not Oregon. I never needed to make that distinction until I moved to the West Coast. Once she cheated, once it was over, I couldn’t exactly work for him anymore, so I packed up and headed west.” He tried to tell this like an upbeat story—westward expansion, manifest destiny—but his pain punctuated every syllable, making his words consonant and bitter.
Alice wondered if coming here was a mistake. Did she want someone heartbroken to bind her stories?
Before she could respond, Duncan added, “Sorry, I don’t usually share that much. It’s been hard, being so far from home. And I don’t know many people here. Plus, I’m not the joining type. One of the many things my ex-wife couldn’t stand about me.” He blinked and inhaled deeply. “Anyway, that was a long way of saying you can rest assured. I have no interest in reading your love stories.”
Duncan picked at the skin around his thumbnail, not meeting Alice’s eye. She wanted to say that he had no reason to be embarrassed for sharing his past. She sensed that would make him more uncomfortable, though, so she shrugged as if it happened all the time. It did happen all the time. She’d made a profession out of it.
And like all the other backstories she’d heard from clients, it gave her an idea. Not for a story but for a test to prove he wouldn’t read her tales, that he could be trusted to leave love alone.
“What if we start with one book and see how it goes?” she asked.
“That sounds reasonable,” he agreed.
“Great,” she said a little too enthusiastically. “I’ll print it out and bring it to you later today so you can get started right away.”
“Do you have any preferences on grain or color?” he asked. Alice hadn’t considered the color or different finishes. She glanced over at the table and grabbed the first journal that caught her eye. It was a burnt sienna that did not remotely make her think of love. “How about like this one? I’ll come back with the pages.”
“It should take a week,” he said. “I’m going to need an electronic file though. This may be a bookbindery, but it’s still the twenty-first century.”
Alice sped home and headed straight to her computer, a familiar energy buzzing through her that was akin to her usual ping of inspiration.
For 127 pages, she wroteDUNCAN, I LOVE YOU. DUNCAN, I LOVE YOU. DUNCAN, I LOVE YOU. DUNCAN, I LOVE YOU. DUNCAN, I LOVE YOU. DUNCAN, I LOVE YOU. DUNCAN, I LOVE YOU. DUNCAN, I LOVE YOU. DUNCAN, I LOVE YOU. All caps in Times New Roman boldface. She tried underlining it, but that made it harder rather than easier to read. She typed those four words repeatedly until they lost their meaning. It was the opposite of the stories she wrote for her clients, steeped in imagery and deeper meaning. Alice added a title and a copyright page, a dedication as well as an epigraph and an author’s note at the end of the file to hide the message. Then she saved the document and sent it to Duncan. The rest was up to him.
A week later, Alice got a call that her book was ready.
When she returned to the bindery that afternoon, it was empty again. It held a staticky silence like no one was ever there. Not lonely, exactly. More like undiscovered.
When Duncan presented the book to her, his expression remained neutral. He did not even comment on that slightly pornographicOh, Aliceshe’d asked him to deboss on the spine. The book itself was as elegant as the journals for sale, textured leather pulled taut across the cover, that lovely little tree on the back.
“Is there a problem?” Duncan said, sounding more offended than concerned. Alice had been standing at his desk for too long, inspecting the book.
“Of course not,” she said. He watched her, waiting for her to explain why she was lingering, and she realized that he was expecting praise. “It’s perfect. Really, the artistry is just...perfect.” It was indeed a work of art, so much so that Alice felt guilty it harbored meaningless professions of love.
Duncan nodded, smiling for the first time. Certainly pride in craftsmanship was important, but Alice now realized how strange it was that he hadn’t smiled at all during their first meeting. He was truly guarded. Or perhaps just cold. Either way, she wondered again if he was the right person to bind her stories.
“What?” Duncan asked, brushing his chest with his ink-stained hands. “Do I have ketchup on my shirt or something?”
“Well, now you have ink.”
“Never trust a printer with clean shirts.”
