“Ah, they got you, too.”
“I can never resist artisanal soaps.”
They were small-talking, bantering—why? What was different here, in this public space, away from the comforts of his living room?
“Oh,” Whit said, trying to discuss something real, “I’m enjoying your manuscript.”
Merritt’s eyes widened in immediate dread.
“Oh God.”
“No, seriously. It is, as the book blurbs say,compulsively readable.”
He had been sitting up late, reading from his laptop and making notes. He had seen many first drafts in his time, and he was serious when he said hers was a good one.
“I’m sweating.”
“And,” he added, ignoring her, “you’re great at world-building, which I find to besodifficult. I feel like all my stories take place in empty towns and blank rooms.”
“That’s absurd, you have the nunnery and the church and there’s that scene in Venice.”
“Yes, but those are all things people can imagine for themselves. You’re creating an entire magical kingdom—”
“Seriously, Whit,” Merritt urged, stepping toward him, “could you lower your voice? I know you’re a real-life professional novelist and this all comes easily to you, but talking about this in public makes me want to throw up.”
Whit laughed.
“I mean, to be fair,” he said, “talking aboutyourwork is easy, but never, ever my own.”
“Well, let’s go easy on ourselves then,” Merritt said, smiling and looking around as if someone might have overheard the word “manuscript.” But beneath that embarrassment, he could also make out a layer of pride. He was learning to read her.
“For instance,” she said, “I could talk about how I finished your second Sister Marguerite book and am hurtling through the third, but I wouldn’t do that to you here, in front of your family.”
“Oh, you’re so merciful.”
“I am. I really am.”
They were standing close now, their faux-clandestine conversation having unconsciously drawn them nearer and nearer to each other. After Merritt spoke, they seemed to take this fact in together, but neither one moved away. Whit could smell the scents he now associated with her: the unparsable blend of things that made up her shampoo; gardenia, which he could only name from having seen the label on the lotion she used; Ivory soap; and amber oil. He found himself looking from her light brown eyes to her lips and back, feeling her nearness with his mind and some previously dormant sixth sense.
He felt compelled to speak—to say something funny or cute or disarming, but instead he heard the words, “Oh, that is so sweet.”
The thing between him and Merritt broke, and the two of them turned swiftly toward Kathleen’s voice. Whit was mortified that she might be talking about whatever she thought she was watching happen to her daughter, but Kathleen’s eyes were trained on Evie with her hand clutching the younger woman’s.
“Merritt, what do you think?”
Merritt took a step back, and Whit felt like a quilt had slipped from his bed in the night.
“About what? Sorry, I didn’t hear...”
“Evie has invited us to do Thanksgiving—”
“Has she?” Whit asked.
“—with the Longacres and, I’m sorry, who else did you say, dear?”
“The Barrett-Linds.”
“That’s Albie and Willa and Adrienne,” Annie filled in.
