“My poem?”
“Yeah. Everyone reads a poem, unless they’ve written their own. I’m guessing you didn’t write your own! Though a few people here will improvise, probably.”
“Everyone. Reads. A Poem.”
She beamed out at the crowd. This was going to takeforever.
“Yep.”
“Is this . . . always how many people come?”
She didn’t look over at him to answer. She kept her eyes focused on her neighbors, on the five to ten extra guests each she’d asked them to call.
“In the spring and summer months, yeah. Now in the colder months, it’s in Marian and Emily’s apartment, so it’s smaller, but notthatmuch smaller.” She looked back toward him. “Sometimes it kind of—you know. Spills out into the hallway. I’m sure that won’t be a problem for you.” She paused meaningfully, adding a smile. “Or your tenants.”
For a second, she felt fully like she’d already won the evening—her smile, her snark, her surprise poetry reading. No fish-hiding necessary. He’d been caught completely off guard, and Deepa had been exactly right—she hadn’t needed totellhim what this building was all about in the day-to-day. She’d needed toshowhim. This wasn’t the kind of place some weekender could find peace in. This wasn’t the kind of place where people came and went.
But then he lifted the scroll of paper he held in one hand and slowly—meaningfully,teasingly, she thought—tapped the edge of it against the palm of his other hand. His dark gaze locked on to her, the corner of his mouth crooking up to match the tilt of his laurel wreath.
She wanted to snatch the poem back. She wanted to cut her own hand off, for all she could feel it vibrating with the memory of touching his.
He took a step back, the curve of his smile widening. Like he knew exactly what she’d been thinking—about his poem, about his palm and hers.
“I’d better get over there and see it for myself, then,” he said.
And when he turned to walk away, to weave his way into the crowd, she had the strangest feeling.
She had the feeling that Nonna’s plans for this night weren’t so simple after all.
Chapter 6
Maybe she thought he wouldn’t be good in a crowd.
But he wasgreatin a crowd.
Under the lights of colorful paper lanterns he kept having to duck beneath, Will stood with his poem tucked into his back pocket and a beer in his hand, nodding along to a story one of Marian Goodnight’s former students (heknewshe was a teacher; no one could fake a voice like that) was telling him about the time he’d gotten caught sticking gum underneath his desk in her classroom. Will laughed at all the funny parts, asked all the right follow-up questions, same as he had through what by now felt like dozens of similar stories—not only about Marian, but about everyone at this party. Who they knew, where they worked, what neighborhood they grew up in, why they were at a backyard poetry reading on a Saturday night.
This was how Will worked a crowd—be pleasant, interested, self-effacing. Shake hands, laugh easily, stay curious. In life, this kept him where he was comfortable: a place where he was unlikely to have to answer questions about himself, a place where he could keep people at a safe distance. And in his profession, in the hospitals and clinics where he’d trained and worked, it had always served him well as a bedside style, too. As best as he could, he tried to help people feel better about being in a place that had the wordemergencyin the title, even when he was talking to them about their chest pains or the bone sticking out of their shin. Tonight, he put his mind in the manner of work. This building was the bay, and to Nora and her neighbors, his plan for Donny’s apartment might as well be a heart attack or a compound fracture.
But out here at this backyard party, with his calm, ready smile and his willingness to listen—nobody, for the moment, seemed to feel all that bad about it.
Not even Nora.
Even from all the way across the yard, it was like he could feel her—like his body knew where hers was at all times. When gum-beneath-the-desk guy stopped talking, shaking Will’s hand a final time and telling him he was going to take a seat, Will only had to raise his eyes to find her, his gaze tracking automatically to where she stood. Up near the microphone, she and Marian and a smaller woman Will was almost certain was Emily Goodnight bent their heads together over a sheet of paper Marian held, Nora pointing down at it and nodding. When Emily leaned in and pointed at something else, Nora stood straighter and tipped her head back to laugh, one hand coming up to hold on to the flowers in her hair, and suddenly, Will remembered his own sporadic, Nora-specific chest pains. In that dress, with the smooth, somewhat-freckled skin of her shoulders showing, her ponytail foregone in favor of a thick, loosely woven braid . . .
Don’t, he told himself, remembering the smug way she’d greeted him, her smiling show about this big crowd and these ridiculous flower crowns. Maybe these people did hold a monthly poetry reading, but if it was this involved every time he’d eat this laurel wreath that kept tugging irritatingly on his hair. If Nora thought he was spooked, scared off his plans—well, she had another think coming. They were out here tonight in anI’m Enjoying Myselfsmile-off, and he was determined to win.
Right then, she looked his way. There was no point in pretending he hadn’t been watching her, so he simply raised his cup toward her, tipping it in what he thought was a toast to this not-so-friendly competition. She didn’t have a drink, so she couldn’t return the gesture, but he thought she might’ve raised her chin in acknowledgment.
Everyone was going the way of gum-guy, finding seats in the rows of folding chairs lined up in front of the microphone or standing around the perimeter, so Will did the same, taking a spot behind the back line of chairs near a group of younger guests he figured had been Marian Goodnight’s students in more recent years. Up toward the front, Nora and her neighbors sat together, all except for Marian herself, who stood behind the microphone in a bright yellow dress, a matching patterned scarf woven high on her head.
“Welcome,” she said, her voice oddly less teacher-y when projected through a microphone. She spoke without notes, a brief introduction to the night’s schedule: first up, readings—chosen randomly—from anyone who picked a poem from the box (“Picked”?he thought, remembering the way Nora had handed one to him like it was a ticket for admission), followed by anyone who wanted to read an original composition. Marian had rules, too—you could get more food or drink, but not in the middle of anyone’s reading. You could clap, but she preferred snaps. You could use the restroom, but only the one in Marian and Emily’s apartment, and only if you had the good sense to wash your hands after.
When Marian finished speaking, Nora joined her at the mic, holding another basket. Will could tell by the anticipatory energy in the crowd that whatever was coming next was something familiar to most everyone here, or at least they’d been given a better primer upon arrival. He saw people taking out their small scrolls of paper, so he did the same.
“Now remember,” Marian said, “you’ll find your number right at the top edge of your paper. You can saypass, but I sure don’t know why you’d want to.”
Will looked down, then held up his scroll to get it closer to one of the lantern lights. Number sixteen, fine. He tucked it back into his pocket and took a sip of his beer, hoping they’d decide to move on to the original compositions before his number got called. But when he looked up back toward the mic, his gaze tangled with Nora’s again, right as Marian reached into the basket, and he could tell by the look on her face; heknewshe must’ve checked his—
