Page 11 of A Novel Love Story

I motioned after the girl. “So, what happened to her book?”

“Read it so much it fell apart,” he said, giving one last look of betrayal to his cat, before he went over to the old Compaq to wake it up. The computer hummed to life like an ancient being crawling out of its crypt a century too soon. “I knew it would, eventually.”

“That’s heartbreaking. I remember when my favorite book fell apart.”

“And what did you do?”

I’d run into the kitchen where my mom was making chili, sobbing, the cover ofInkheartin one hand, the pages in the other, like I’d just killed my favorite pet by playing with it too hard. My mom tried to console me, but I was absolutely beside myself, and we really didn’t have the money for a new book back then. She was good at looking on the bright side of everything—sunshine and rainbows even when you were in the seat of a volcano and it was filling with molten lava. She sat me up on the counter, and told me that we could fix it instead. She was a librarian, after all, so even the most mangled picture book she could cut, glue, and sew back together. Maybe it wouldn’t looknew, but well loved, and those always looked better, anyway.

I found myself grinning at the memory. “Well, we actuallydiduse a little duct tape—no, wait, packing tape.”

“And it looked … ?”

“Perfect,” I replied. “I mean, not really, but I could still use it. A book doesn’t have to be pretty for you to read it.”

“I have seen some god-awful covers in my time,” he agreed. “Well, Lily won’t go for packing tape, either. I’ll have to think of something else for her.” He chewed on the inside of his cheek, and wrote a note down on the far side of the cash register,on a yellowed notepad that already had a list going for the day. He scrolled through some accounts on the computer—a library of titles, it seemed. “Maybe I can find something here. Something close enough.”

“Would you settle for anything less than your favorite book?” I shook my head. “It’s not the same.”

“Hmm,” he muttered, and I had the feeling that was as close to an agreement as I’d get.

He and the bookshop were more similar the longer I looked at them. They were both tidy in that cluttered way—you weren’t sure where to look, but everywhere you did, you found something surprising. There wasn’t a book out of place, and there wasn’t a hair out of place. His shirt was wrinkle-free, his trousers knife-pleated. The smattering of freckles on his cheeks carried across the rest of his skin, too, including the back of his neck, hidden just beneath his orderly collar. “Is there something you need?”

I leaned over the counter to look at his screen. “You wouldn’t happen to have internet, would you?”

He looked at me over his oval-shaped glasses. I’d never seen eyes that green or bright before. This close, I could tell that the green was mixed with a light gray, making the strange minty color. They were very pretty.

I caught myself before I stared too long.

I dug my phone out of my back pocket. “Because I don’t have cell service here. Do you have Wi-Fi? I need to figure out how to get out of here.”

“The storm knocked out the internet last night,” he said, brushing off a speck of invisible dirt from the counter, not meeting my gaze.

I wilted. “Oh …”

I must’ve looked quite forlorn, because he sighed and plucked a map from a kiosk beside the register.“Here. This should help. Obviously you’ll want to head out the way you came, across Charm Bridge—”

“‘There was only one road in, and one road out of Eloraton, New York, and most people never took it,’” I quoted, taking the map, and unfolded it on the counter.

His eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

“It’s the first line in a book,Daffodil Daydreams—”

“You memorized the first line?”

I hesitated. “I mean, you’re a book person, too. Don’t you memorize your favorite lines?”

He started to reply, and then frowned, stumped by my question. “No. I can’t say I do. But I’m sure I’ll remember our little meeting for years to come. Safe travels, Eileen. It was … an experience to meet you.”

“You too, Anderson,” I replied with a fake smile, resisting the urge to roll my eyes with every fiber of my being. I gave the cat lounging in the window a final scratch on the head, and left the bookstore behind me.

The late morning sun was so bright, I shielded my eyes and realized—with a wince—that I’d forgotten the map on the counter. And I certainly wasn’t going back for it. It couldn’t be that hard to find the main highway again and just … retrace my steps until I found something familiar. Or ran into Poughkeepsie.

Preferably not Poughkeepsie.

I slung my duffel bag into the passenger seat, dug my key out of my pocket, jammed it into the ignition, and cranked it up.

The car gave a sputter, yowling like a dying animal.

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