Alice looked down at the massacred remains of her sandwich, and she nodded. He scooped it up to discard it. As he started walking toward the bindery, Alice trotted to keep up.
She didn’t know what he was thinking, what she wanted him to be thinking. “I’ve never been in love,” she admitted. “Not really. At least I don’t think I have.”
“It’s kind of one of those things you know,” Duncan said.
“I’m not good at relationships. I prefer to be alone.”
Duncan looked pensive. “Those who can’t do, teach. Or in your case, write.”
It was such a perfect response that she wanted to hug him. Instead she nudged him with her shoulder.
When they arrived at Duncan’s shop, there were a few people waiting outside. They looked up from their phones optimistically when they saw that he had returned before their eyes shifted to Alice with a mix of suspicion and derision.
“Well,” Duncan said, “same time next week?”
Alice nodded and gestured goodbye. Before she could get very far, he called to her. “It’s nice to have made a friend here.”
Alice forced a smile. Even though this was all she could handle from him, having him declare it so definitively—it made her realize that all her angst over the last six weeks was in her head.
“Friends,” she said, committing it to memory and to heart.
As she biked back to her apartment, she waited for her body to relax the way it did when she extricated herself from a relationship. The knots in her stomach, the poker in her chest, persisted. It wasn’t fear she was feeling, it was disappointment.
18
The Divorcees
Together, Alice and Madeline tackled Madeline’s books, finding the couples, determining their fate as best they could. They continued with the red books, which Alice had already been parsing her way through. Red seemed the safest place to begin. These were the stories that hadn’t changed color, the ones they suspected were still full of love, the ones that could convince Madeline of all the happiness she’d brought into this world.
The two women investigated one book at a time, locating the client in Madeline’s ledger based on the first line of the story, then finding out what they could from social media profiles, newspaper and website articles, public records. They were unable to reach the top rows of books, including Madeline’s earliest stories, so they let those shelves be. Alice would have liked to peruse those earliest works, but since Madeilne did not begin to catalogue her stories until several shelves lower, when Gregory had gifted her the ledger, they had no way to cross-reference those clients anyway.
Among the red books Madeline was relieved to see her magnum opus. If a magnum opus could fail, there was no hope for any other story.
Madeline had loved the man for whom she’d written the story almost as much as she loved the story itself. Walter was a muralist, which meant he painted houses for money. He specialized in Victorians, their trim like lace that needed to be detailed by a careful hand. Most house painters did not dare touch Victorians. They were too complicated, too time-consuming, not worth the money, the clientele as fickle as the houses themselves. Walter had the focus. It was part of his problem when it came to love.
As a lover, Walter attended to women like he did to those delicate old houses, lavishing attention on their every aspect. It was too intense for most of the women he met, who did not want every inch of themselves explored, every comment they made dwelled upon. “Can’t you just relax?” Walter was often told. He didn’t want to relax. He didn’t want a relaxed love. He wanted one that was complex and detailed. He wanted someone who needed care and maintenance, like the houses he painted. Unlike most people unlucky in love, Walter knew what he wanted. He just couldn’t find it. That was where Madeline came in.
“Working with him was the closest I ever came to being unprofessional. I always fell a little in love with my clients, even the ones I didn’t particularly like. You have to, to write them stories. Walter was different, though. The feelings were more real. It shouldn’t surprise you that I would relish being explored.” Madeline unconsciously petted Walter’s red book while she recounted his story. “But I was already in love with Gregory. Since I couldn’t have Walter, I was even more determined than usual to find him the exact right match.”
It was fitting that he would meet that kind of woman on a job. At a house he walked by daily, one that caused him physical pain. The taupe paint along the fish scale shingles was chipping, the blues and purples of the stick work and garlands were so faded they retained nothing more than the suggestion of color. It was heartbreaking, seeing that kind of neglect, especially on a house so deserving of love.
When the call came in, Walter recognized the address. He happily accepted the job despite the owner’s numerous specifications, which were not limited to the hues of paint he wanted for each balustrade and gable, the columns along the turret. Walter was to speak to no one in the house. If anyone should try to speak to him, he should ignore them. “We’re a private family,” the owner explained. So private that he would not give Walter his name, just wired him the money in advance from an untraceable account.
“I just have to ask,”Walter said. “Why now?”
“Because the house deserves to be beautiful again,”the man said. That, and the complaints the neighbors had filed with the city.
The job was as challenging as promised, requiring thin paintbrushes usually reserved for canvases. The wood needed to be sanded by hand before the paint would adhere to each beam, each stick. Every shingle required its own love.
At first it was easy to honor the owner’s request not to speak to anyone, for no one ever appeared inside the house. As the days stretched into weeks, he felt the presence of someone within, saw shadows but never the person who cast them. Then, at the window along the turret, he caught a glimpse of blue-black hair just as it whirled out of view. Walter realized he was being watched. He liked the feeling that he was performing for the woman with the shiny black hair.
He left messages for her across the house, painted words onto the panels below the eaves. When at last he saw her, she was even more beautiful than he’d imagined with her opaline eyes offset by that straight jet-black hair. Each day she watched him from the turret. When he waved, she disappeared. The next day, she was back again. Slowly she grew bolder, unabashedly monitoring him first from the turret, then the bay window, then the front porch. She never spoke, and he said nothing in return, obeying the owner’s rules.
When she finally did speak, her voice was bolder than he anticipated. He expected it to be willowy, that she would ask for help, that she needed a savior. Instead she was the one to rescue him.
“Her father found out that they were interacting and was furious.” Madeline hugged the red book to her chest. “He was not a man to make furious. He had connections, if you catch my meaning. He devised a plan—one day when Walter showed up at the house, his henchmen would be waiting—but Esther got wind of it. She intercepted Walter a block from the house and they ran off together. As far as I know, they’re still running.”
“Only one way to find out,” Alice said as she whipped out her phone and began typing with her thumbs. She stared at the screen, confused.
