“What?”
“Where are these going?” He picks up the box again, because they’ve arrived at the church, whose haphazard architecture features at least a dozen entrances.
They head inside the closest one, near where the church office is located, and they’re directed to a room where jumble is being collected, already packed with bric-a-brac, sets of dead people’s china, and plastic grocery bags exploding with costume jewellery. Clemence and Charles add the boxes of books to the collection, and she takes a minute to look through the rest of the stuff, Clemence explaining, as she riffles through a pile of earnest cross-stitch hangings, that she’s not actuallyattending the church, just facilitating this donation.
“She’s got you in the door, though,” says Charles. “It’s the first step. Aslippery slope.”
“Idon’t know,” says Clemence. “Somehow you’ve been able to resist the draw.” Charles was as disoriented by the labyrinthine church hallways as she was, so hardly a regular attendee.
“Only because Imoved out of the city,” he tells her. “And even then, she used to insist Icome down, but she also insisted on giving me gas money, and then she decided it was too expensive. She assumes Igo to a church out in the suburbs, though. Ilet her think that.”
“You’re like the opposite of me,” Clemence says, as they weave their way back out of the building. “Igrew up in the burbs, and then Imoved downtown.”
“Alittle bit of distance,” says Charles, “is healthy for any family relationship.”
They emerge back into the daylight and begin the rest of the walk toward home.
“You’re around a lot, though,” says Clemence. “Helping out.”
Charles says, “Of course. The church part doesn’t matter to me, but Idon’t want to leave my mom all alone. My brother lives in Florida. We’re all she’s got. She set everything up so we’d both do well, but one of us has to stick around.”
“To do the heavy lifting,” says Clemence.
“Not exactly,” says Charles. “You ever seen my mom lift? She’s small, but mighty. It’s why Igenerally don’t like to cross her.”
“So what do you do?” asks Clemence, “when you’re not carrying other people’s burdens, Imean?” They’ve arrived back at the house and she sits on the step. Charles sits down beside her.
“What do you think Ido?” he answers, a smile on his face. Does he know she’s staring at his body, at his pecs? Is that why his left biceps is flexing now, just so slightly, almost indiscernible?
She says, “Idon’t know. Maybe … you’re a mover? Or a builder?” He’d known a thing or two about wiring, but not enough to avoid blowing the fuse, so he likely wasn’t an electrician. Clemence was having a hard time understanding him outside of the context of this house, what kind of person he might be beyond it. But maybe he only had the build because of a spectacular home gym. Perhaps he worked a desk job, in computers or accounting, and worked out in the evenings.
But when she dares to voice these further ideas, he accuses her of drawing on racial stereotypes.
“I’m not,” she says, indignant. “Ihave absolutely no idea. What have you given me to go on?”
He rolls his eyes. “I’ve told you in little ways so many times.”
She tries to think back to the conversations they’d had, but all she’d been doing was fixating on his body. “Are you … a weightlifter?” she asks, feeling like this was something out of “Rumpelstiltskin.” Although she already knew his name—this was Charles Yeung, and she really liked him. An unsuitable attachment indeed, but only because such an attachment would lead her to trouble.
And Charles tells her, as though he wants to make that trouble inevitable, “I’m an English teacher. High school.” The last thing she would have expected. He tells her that he loves it, that his whole world is books and reading, and he gets to do it for a living. The students, sometimes, he could take or leave, depending on the day, but he lives for literature. Spelling out every single syllable, softening the consonants like a song. His favourite book is Toni Morrison’sSong of Solomon, the best novel he’d read lately wasOn Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong, and he had a copy ofMinor Feelings, by Cathy Park Hong, in his car that he wanted to lend to her. As long as she promised to give it back. “I’m kind of possessive about my books,” he says.
She swears that she’ll take good care of it, and they walk down to where his car is parked on the street. Charles’s car is a mess and he has to dig through several layers of papers and fast food wrappers to find the book, and though she doubts he will, she’s proven wrong when he pulls it out of the pile, exactly where he’d said it would be.
“My filing system is unorthodox,” he explains, “but it works.” He places the book in her hands like it’s something precious, and she knows it will be. And then he reaches for her face, to stroke her hair, she thinks—but it’s only to pull out a dust bunny stuck behind her ear.
“It’s from the bookstore,” she tries to explain. She doesn’t want Charles to think that she’s coated in filth on the regular, although with a car like that, he’d have to be a real jerk to judge her.
He lets the dust bunny fall to the sidewalk, where itrolls into the gutter, and Clemence thinks again about the tumbleweed. She thinks,Out of the fire and into another fire.She thinks,No.
Charles Yeung is not going to move in to kiss her. Because you don’t do that to someone from whose head you’ve just picked a ball of ancient dust, evenliterarydust.
But he does say, “You know, Iwastrying to impress you. Dropping hints. It’s not every day a writer moves into my mother’s attic. Iwanted to let you know that Ihad some literary cred. I’ve taughtRomeo and Julieta thousand times.”
“Like, you’ve read a book or two.”
He says, “Ihave.”
“Thank you for lending me this one,” she says, clutching the paperback to her bosom. “I’ll care for it well. You’ll find not a single page dog-eared upon its return.”
