“Alice, stop. What’s going on?”
“You tell me.” Her voice was steadier than her heart, which was beating violently.
Duncan laughed. “What, that bridesmaid? That was nothing. Just got caught up in the moment. I know, bad form for a date, even if we aren’t on a date.” He slapped his hand in mock chastisement.
She’d been the one to insist this was not a date. Still it stung, how easily he dismissed the possibility. She’d been lying to herself, she now recognized, about not wanting more from him.
“I don’t give a shit about thatbridesmaid,” she said, masking her hurt in anger. He flinched. Who was he to feel injured? Alice’s eyes stung and she searched for another reason to be hurt by him. “You read it.”
“Read what?”
“My story. For Coco. About the love potion and the sea glass.”
He pulled on his ponytail, collecting his thoughts. “Not on purpose,” he finally said. “It’s not like I sat down with a cup of coffee and flipped through the pages. I didn’t even realize I was reading them.”
“You read all the stories, didn’t you?”
His face was conflicted, and she saw that their whole relationship had been misaligned. Here she was, believing they were friends, when he’d been overcompensating for his betrayal with friendliness. “I’m not sure I read them exactly. It was more like I was breathing them. Like they were airborne.”
“So it’s my fault? You just couldn’t help yourself?”
“I’m just saying I didn’t mean to break your trust.” He braved a step toward her. Across his face a film of sweat glinted in the light from the streetlamps. “It felt like the stories found me. They knew I needed them.”
Alice’s throat had gone dry, and she was suddenly dizzy, like there was no oxygen even though they were outside. She had nothing else to say to Duncan, so she shoved past him and continued to walk toward her home. The gritty pavement felt good under her feet. To her surprise, Duncan watched her go. She wouldn’t have wanted him to chase after her, but she grew angrier that he’d given up so easily.
By the time she reached her driveway, the bottoms of her feet were black. They left prints on her doormat. She brushed them on the coarse fibers until they burned. When she inspected her left heel it was still filthy.
Inside, Agatha was tearing at the pages of one of her red books.
“Stop that!” She rushed over and picked the cat up. Several red books had been knocked off the shelf, the distinct odor of cat urine emanating from the pile. As she was about to scold Agatha, she noticed that the book Agatha had been clawing was Carrie’s. She never reread her stories once they were bound. She kept copies as records, physical objects that reminded her how much love she’d brought into the world.
After sixty-two stories, Alice did not remember most of them in detail. She had no recollection of Carrie’s story. The imagery was evocative and foreign to her. The prose had a gentle cadence that seemed the pattern of someone else’s mind. It did not sound like Alice’s voice. It wasn’t Alice’s voice. She was merely the channel through which the story had poured. In every syllable she could see that the story was effective, yet it hadn’t worked. Carrie was not with Emiliano but another man entirely. The fact that she had met Cal through Emiliano was happenstance. It was not a result of Alice’s story. Carrie was happy, she reminded herself. That was the important part.
Alice sank to the floor, leaning against her front door, holding the clawed book. Her mind kept returning to Duncan on the dance floor, his lips locked with the bridesmaid’s, the expression on his face when he saw Alice, as if he’d been caught. He didn’t owe her anything. They weren’t dating. They were hardly friends, really. Just work acquaintances, and they weren’t even that anymore. Duncan had bound fifty-five of her stories and he’d read them all. She felt foolish for trusting him. One thing was certain. She would have to find someone else to bind them, someone truer to their word, the binder’s oath, which like any oath was irreparable once broken.
22
The Impossibly Tall Cake
Alice drove to the mountains, eager for the distraction only Madeline could provide. While she’d seen so much hope in Ingrid’s breakup, Alice realized that Madeline was right, at least where the fate of their stories was concerned. They were designed to do a very specific thing, to bring the reader an instant and lasting love. Any other relationships or contentment their clients ultimately found was not a product of Madeline and Alice’s stories. Of this, Alice was certain.
Alice was not convinced, however, that she must immediately stop writing her stories. She’d yet to see evidence that, when the stories failed, it had a negative effect on people’s lives. And she still had 1,458 books left to explore, 1,458 books to persuade Madeline that even if some romances faded, they should continue being love scribes.
To Alice’s surprise, Madeline was more determined than ever to continue. Their quest had invigorated her once more. The color had returned to her cheeks. Her shoulders had unfurled. This time, however, Alice strongly suspected, Madeline was motivated to win their bet.
“Shall we move on to the next color?” Without waiting for an answer, Madeline scurried upstairs and initiated the ritual of opening the library door. As Alice watched the dial turn, she realized that the counter was not for detecting whether someone had tampered with the door but for enabling Madeline to keep track of her own visits. It marked the passage of time in a house devoid of time, with only a defective grandfather clock.
Again Madeline allowed Alice to decide which color they would explore next. The purple books continued to moan their terrible low-pitched cry. The sheer number of blue books was too daunting despite the calmness of their hue.
“Green,” Alice decided. Green was the color of rebirth. It was also the color of envy. Still, it seemed more approachable than either blue or purple.
Madeline’s fingers danced across the green shelves until she reached for a book that to Alice’s eye looked like all the other green books that surrounded it.
“If I told you this was a true story, you would not believe me,”Madeline read,“so we will treat it as a fiction although each moment that follows is precisely as I experienced it.”She had a mesmerizing reading voice.
Alice scanned the ledger to locate the story. She loved identifying stories this way. A first line was like a first kiss. It embodied the promise of everything that could follow.
“Lulu Jones,” she read.
