“Number sixteen!” Marian called, and Nora Clarke’s face fairly broke open with the force of her smile.
Fuck, Will thought, but he didn’t show it, because he wasn’t going to letpoetrysabotage him, for Christ’s sake. He raised a hand, though he didn’t so much know why it was even necessary, since he had a feeling every single piece of paper in that basket had been, since shortly after his arrival, marked with the number sixteen.
“Well!” said Marian, as Will made his way up. “Wouldn’t you know, it’s a brand-new guest who’ll be starting us off?” There was a ripple of snapping, a smattering of applause, and he waved a hand in casual, embarrassed greeting.
“This here is Dr. Sterling,” said Marian, who obviously had compiled a file on the way he would least like to be introduced, though it was frankly nothing compared to what she said next, right as he pulled up even with her and Nora. “He’s recently moved in to our beautiful building, after we said farewell to our beloved Donny, who was Dr. Sterling’s uncle. We welcome him.”
Will gritted his teeth, tipped his chin in a nod, a feigned gesture of gratitude to the murmur of sympathy that went through the crowd. He almost said “Pass,” or at least “I didn’t move in!” but when Marian moved past him toward her front-row seat, Nora waited half a beat, leaning in close enough that he could smell the crisp scent of flowers in her hair. The very edge of her braid touched lightly, briefly, against his forearm.
“I didn’t tell her to say that,” she whispered quickly.
He tipped his head down, putting his mouth closer to her ear, and he thought he could win the smile-off right then, if he let himself have his honest reaction to the way she shuddered, ever so slightly, at his proximity.
“But did you tell her to call my number first?” he whispered back before pulling away, turning toward the crowd like being at a poetry reading was the most natural thing in the world to him.
He waited until Nora was in her seat to take out his scroll again, could feel her eyes on him, but he wasn’t going to look back. He was going to work this crowd; he was going to do the best goddamn poetry reading they had ever seen.
He gently tugged at the ribbon keeping the scroll closed, said a silent prayer that Nora’s scheming hadn’t also involved making sure he got something extra-long or ultra-weird. It’d be trickier for him to sell that, though he’d do it if he had to.
Unrolling the scroll, he tried to temper his first genuine smile of the night as he read a name he recognized at the top. He let his eyes scan over the not-too-many lines, let the audience wait it out for a second or two longer than was comfortable. He hoped he had Nora on the edge of her seat.
Then he stepped up to the microphone and cleared his throat.
“I’m Will,” he said, and maybe then hedidsmile. “And funnily enough, I got Shakespeare.”
“Nice going, Beanpole,” said Jonah, coming to stand beside Will in the back-row spot he’d returned to after his reading. Side by side like this, it was a bit like standing somewhere with Dr. Abraham, and for a second Will wasn’t sure where to look.
“You got a good voice for poetry.”
Okay, he’d look. Only to see if Jonah was making fun of him.
But the man seemed serious, and Will decided to take the compliment, since it tracked with what he’d heard from most of the guests since he’d finished. He got a loud round of snaps, a few backslaps from the standing gallery, and in between the various other readings he’d even had the chance to chat up a few of the guests, dropping in a couple of mentions of his short-term rental plans, in case any of them had Marian’s ear and could put in a good word for him. Nora had been steering well clear of him, but he was counting that a victory. He knew she’d thought he would bolt during this, thought it would scare him off his plans.
“Thanks,” Will said. “You did pretty good up there, too.”
“I’m an old pro at these things. Pretty sad one you got stuck with.”
Will blinked, confused. “What’s sad about it?”
The truth was, he didn’t really give much thought towhathe’d been reading—he’d focused on getting through it, sounding calm and unbothered. He remembered stuff about spring and summer and the names of a whole bunch of flowers. Poetry shit: the usual.
Jonah made a noise of disapproval. “Doctors. Something wrong with the lot of you.”
Will shifted on his feet. Whatwasthat poem about? Oh well; it didn’t matter. He was pretty sure he’d put in enough of an appearance at this thing. Maybe he’d duck away soon, get back to work on Donny’s unit, definitely with the back door closed. He’d lost time, getting called in to the very short-staffed clinic today, but he planned on working at the apartment overnight tonight.
“Easy for you to say,” he countered to Jonah. “You got to read a poem about baseball.”
Jonah looked up at him. “You a fan?”
“Used to be.”Used to play, he thought, for the first time in ages. He hadn’t thought about baseball all that much since . . . well. Probably since the last time he stood for any length of time in this backyard.
It was really time to go inside.
“What’s that mean, ‘used to be’?”
“Don’t have much time to watch these days.”
“We put games on out here sometimes. Nora hangs a sheet over there between Donny’s balcony and Marian and Emily’s. She gets her computer and some projector thing out.”
