“Are you okay?” Clemence asks him.
“Oh, yeah,” he says, but he’s wincing. “She just.” He pauses. “She caught me by surprise.”
“You should have seen me in my prime,” says Crampton. “Iwas a ladies boxing champion. Not that there was so much competition, but Ireally used to be able to throw a punch.”
“Looks like you still can,” says Roger Lathbury. This is the sort of thing that impresses him, and Clemence can’t help but wish it were her boyfriend meeting with her father’s approval instead of the elderly woman who’d just punched him.
“But Toby can take it,” says Crampton, nudging him, and he flinches, as though she’s about to punch him again. “No, don’t worry,” she tells him,sotto voce. “Just talk.”
“You worked hard on this,” he says to Clemence, locking eyes. “And everybody came.”
“And some of them aren’t even related to her,” Prudence adds.
“It’s the busiest sale we’ve ever had,” says Reverend Michelle, who’s just crossed the room like the answer to someone’s prayer. Hooking her arms through Bonnie and Roger’s both, leading them away. “Let me show you …”
“So you’re the one,” says Jillian, now free to speak her mind.
“Iguess,” Toby says. He’s looking around for Crampton—perhaps she’ll punch him again; a diversion. But Crampton has disappeared.
“You guess?” says Naomi. “Because you either are or you aren’t.”
“You guys—” Clemence begins, but Jillian holds up a hand to stop her.
“Iam the one,” exclaims Toby too loudly, a bit strangely. But then he puts his arm around her like a normal boyfriend might. “I’m here, aren’t I? Ishowed up at a church jumble sale?”
“Well, we all did,” says Jillian.
Toby says, “Exactly. We’re Clemence’s people.”
“And we’re her sisters,” says Grace, yanking Prudence into the circle, too. Toby is taken aback, Clemence sees, by these two more women, both with her face, or faces like hers, and one of them is very pregnant. If Toby can hold his own in this moment, there might be hope for him yet. Alternatively, this might be the last time she sees him. Would that be a bad thing? Clemence has decided that it would be.
But he is shaking their hands now, and he even laughs when Naomi mentions the caterpillar, how Toby, so squeamish, had been willing to brave it on his plate just to save Clemence from humiliation, and honestly, it’s possible that no man has ever shown up so consistently before to put himself between Clemence and trouble. While the last thing she wants, in theory, is to need someone to save her, it’s sure nice when he tries. Even now—he’s only here to legitimize her choices, to assure everybody that she hasn’t lost her mind. Which makes him almost suitable now, and Clemence considers how this might undermine her project.
But does it matter?
She pulls him away from the rest.
“You came,” she says. “Inever expected you would. Iam sorry you got assaulted in the process.” She rubs his arm where Crampton punched him.
“Your mom’s nice,” he says perfunctorily. “And this is actually pretty impressive. Busier than the bookstore even. Ibet you don’t have a box for Women’s Fiction.”
They’re standing before the second-hand books now, most of them donated from Crampton’s. The crate of paperbacks devoted to tarot and the occult is empty. Literary fiction is less picked over, and Clemence kneels down to sort through it, when she picks up a book that doesn’t belong.Minor Feelings. It’s not fiction. And maybe it’s a coincidence, she supposes. She hopes. Flipping open the cover, but no—there it is.C. Yeung. “No,” she says, a moan of despair. Like this is a tragedy. Because it is.
“What is it?” Toby asks.
“Mrs. Yeung,” says Clemence, getting up again, clutching the book. “Where is she?” It’s still crowded and impossible to see anyone, though she keeps getting glimpses of her nieces and nephews darting in and out of the hubbub. Clearly her family is still here, but where is her landlady? She had to be somewhere—this whole thing is her show. Turning over the empty occult crate to stand on it and get a better view, Clemence rises to her tiptoes, but she sees nothing. Min Jee has returned from a short break, starts playing, “Do You Hear What IHear?” and it’s all that Clemence can hear, because she’s standing too close to the speaker and she has to get away from it; her head is starting to pound. Clemence makes her way through the crowd and finds Mrs. Yeung in the kitchen, putting squares on a tray.
“What is this?” she demands of Mrs. Yeung, whose tongs are dealing out marshmallow squares with the precision of a card dealer, and she doesn’t stop for Clemence’s question.
Barely looking up. “Abook,” she says.
“It’s Charles’s book,” says Clemence. “You were supposed to give it back.”
“He didn’t want it,” says Mrs. Yeung, using her tongs to wave Clemence away.
“But he loves this book,” says Clemence, insisting. “Ipromised him that Iwould return it.”
“Charles has too many books already,” his mother says.
