Alice didn’t want to be his rebound, a fling, a diversion. The knots in her stomach intensified. So much for the calming powers of halotherapy. The massage hadn’t even begun yet, and already every tendon in her body clenched. Besides, she wasn’t even sure Duncan was attracted to her.
“Well, that’s easy enough to figure out,” Gabby said, sitting up and exposing her entire body, indifferent to her nudeness. Alice wondered what it was like, being that comfortable with your body. She was fine being naked in sexual situations. Otherwise, she’d made an art of taking off her clothes without showing an inch of skin, even on a massage table where she was conspicuously naked.
“Take a pen—” Gabby mimed bringing a pen to her lips, chewing on it slightly as she smiled and giggled. “Just flirt with it a little and see what he does.”
That was what the customers in his shop did, and Duncan found it inexplicably strange. Plus, knowing Alice, she’d probably bite on the pen too hard and end up with a face covered in blue ink.
“Or casually mention that you’re hungry. If he suggests grabbing a bite, then you know he wants to spend time with you.”
“He’s not going to leave his shop to have lunch with me.”
“Why not? Even sexy bookbinders have to eat.”
“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“That goes without saying. Or, Alice? Maybe you could just go with your intuition here. You’ve gotten good at understanding love. If you’re this nervous about it, there’s something there. For both of you.” Gabby lay back down, burrowing into the table. Before Alice could respond, the large wooden barn door slid open and two masseuses walked in, their feet crunching audibly on the salted floor.
During the massage, Alice was more relaxed than usual. She was too distracted by Gabby’s comments to pay attention to the digging into her flesh. Sure, Alice was learning about love, the relationships that grew out of it. Those relationships weren’t merely attraction or longing. They were about a mutual desire to be together. Alice knew, as certainly as she recognized the recoiling in her stomach, the acid in her throat, that neither she nor Duncan wanted what came with love.
When the massage was over, she leaned up from the table and said, “It’s not going to happen.”
Gabby opened and closed her mouth, wanting to argue but realizing when to stop. “Come on,” she said, standing up and finding a robe beside the table. “My body’s too depleted of toxins. Time to restock it with wine.”
Alice followed her friend out of the cave into the dank hall, the air heavy with minerals. She could sense disappointment emanating from Gabby, from herself too. It was terrible, feeling this way. Her desire for Duncan was out of her control, but it wasn’t something she could act on. She believed what she’d said. Duncan was too fragile. Even if she was ready, he wasn’t. She needed to protect both of them.
12
Meet, Protect, and Greet Each Other
Alice returned to Madeline’s a few days later with a newfound determination to figure out what Madeline needed in a story. The women spent the morning strolling among the trees. Madeline’s legs looked spindly beneath her hiking shorts. Alice was surprised they could hold her up let alone endure the long walk.
Upon returning to the house, they had a continental breakfast on the back porch, followed by an extended visit to the parlor downstairs, where their conversation faded as they settled into their respective books,Great Expectationsfor Madeline andThe Portable Dorothy Parkerfor Alice because Madeline could not believe, was borderline disgusted, that Alice had never read Dorothy Parker. At lunch Madeline swallowed a fistful of pills that made her nauseated. Alice helped a queasy and sleepy Madeline to her room for a nap before retreating to the guest room, where she tried in vain to write. Part of her still hoped that inspiration might strike before she knew why she was writing, but even if Madeline was different from her other clients, Alice’s gift was not. She could not trick or cajole it into submission. Without recognizing what Madeline needed, no image—and thus no story—would come to her.
When Madeline roused again, her hair was matted in some places, frizzed in others. She looked pale and was confused that she’d fallen asleep even though it was part of her daily routine. They took to the woods again, where the mountain air added color to Madeline’s complexion, energizing her enough to make it through the rest of the afternoon until dinner, a meal as resplendent and overabundant as the first one they’d shared, followed by Alice’s favorite jam cookies in the parlor until Madeline absolutely could not keep her eyes open a moment longer and Alice helped her upstairs and into bed. Again, as Alice lifted the old woman’s body, frailer after just a few days, she lingered over the ceramic bowl with the two gold bands and the antique key. Throughout the day, Madeline had said nothing about the library, so neither did Alice, although it was constantly on her mind. She could not understand why Madeline, who otherwise seemed eager to talk about Gregory and their love, would not divulge the title of the book that brought them together.
Alice watched the rise and fall of Madeline’s chest beneath the eyelet, listened to the gentle snoring that accompanied it. Was it her imagination that the orange poppies on the wallpaper were closed more tightly now than they were before, that they were all buds? The grandfather clock ticked away, reminding Alice that time was passing while everything around her remained still. Her eyes flitted to the key, so unassuming on Madeline’s bedside table. In the hour Alice sat with her, Madeline did not stir. Her sleep was heavy and deep. Absolute.
Alice stared between Madeline and the key. Before she could overthink or lose her nerve, she leaned over and lifted it out of the bowl.
She walked down the hall, hand extended with the key. In her brief perusal of antique locks, she learned that Madeline’s was a Victorian detector lock, designed to be impenetrable with a complex series of levers and trips that made it impossible to pick. The woman gracing its front was no mere decoration, her parasol pointing to a dial that was no mere marvel of Victorian technology. It was carefully calibrated so that each time the lock was turned, the dial shifted up one number, announcing that the door had been opened or closed. In short, if Madeline was keeping track of the number on the dial, she would know that Alice had been inside her library without permission.
Fortunately, strengths were also weaknesses. The counter that provided confidence that the door had been undisturbed could also lie—if it was reset. The dial went up to one hundred, then started again at one. All Alice had to do was flip the key one hundred times, and the parasol would return to the original number. Madeline would never realize that the door had been unlocked, the library infiltrated.
Alice pressed the button on the woman’s dress, slipped the key into the hole then hesitated. Could she really do this? The clock seemed to tick louder, as if urging her to be decisive. She took the key out of the door and pressed the button that kicked the leg shut. She could not betray Madeline, but as she walked toward Madeline’s bedroom to return the key, with each step it felt less like a betrayal than a necessity. To Alice, the true betrayal was promising to deliver a story and being unable to finish it in time. She simply had to find the book Madeline was hiding from her.
Standing before the library door once more, her heart pounded so forcefully she could feel it in her temples. Her hands were the wrong combination of clammy and shaky to unlock any door, particularly one with a finicky antique detector lock. On her first attempt, she didn’t even get the key into the lock before it fell to the floor with a clang. Alice froze. When the house remained quiet, she tried again, her entire arm wobbling as she aimed for the hole.
“Relax,” she chided. She shut her eyes and counted her inhalations and exhalations, encouraging herself that she was doing this for, not against, Madeline. The peachy darkness of her eyelids calmed her nerves in a way looking directly into the keyhole did not, so she kept her eyes shut as she slipped the key into the lock. Then the real journey began.
One, two, three... She locked and unlocked the door until the dial was ninety-nine rotations ahead, just short of the full one hundred it took to reset the device. That way she’d only need to turn the key once when she left. With the woman’s parasol pointing to seventy, she reached for the heart knob. Before pushing the door open, she scanned the Rilke quote inscribed on the brass plate.Two solitudes that meet, protect and greet each other.It was from one of his letters to Franz Xaver Kappus, the titular young poet. In the letter, Rilke spoke of love as Alice had never heard anyone speak of love before, as a product of solitude and work. He condemned young love as false, a surrendering of one’s loneliness. The point of love was not to meld into one but for both to maintain their solitude, and then to meet, protect and greet each other.
At first all Alice did was stand in the doorway, breathing in the intoxicating scent of paper and fire, which was blazing in the empty library. Alice wondered if there was a mechanism on the door that triggered an igniter to light the fire the moment it was opened. She would not put it past Madeline.
She braved a few steps into the room, stopping at its center, twirling her feet in tiny circles, and staring, awed at the presence of Madeline’s books. Part of her did not expect the library to exist without Madeline in it, yet here it was, all her books, all their lessons on love, including the ultimate love story, the one that connected Madeline and Gregory.
Alice did a lap, running her hands along each book until she was certain she’d touched every spine on the shelves. Then she sat down by the fire and waited. It happened almost instantly. A warm flood through her body. A homecoming.
Once the rush calmed, Alice investigated the books. When none of the editions ofJane Eyreset the house on fire, whenTheir Eyes Are Watching Goddid not call down a hurricane, Alice grew confident that she was meant to be here. She began to look for Madeline and Gregory’s book, certain that she would recognize it when she saw it.
