Page 73 of A Novel Love Story

“Terribly so,” he replied. “It’s autumn that’s perfect. Imagine your favorite watercolor painting, and then imagine it in hues of pumpkins and sunsets. All of the trees in Central Park turn orange and brown and yellow, and the leaves crunch under your feet, and the air smells cool and crisp. It feels like a Nora Ephron movie. I always used to get a dirty chai at this hole-in-the-wall coffee shop and walk from Union Square all the way down to Washington Square Park, and if I was lucky, there would be a really good food truck there selling fajitas.” His eyebrows furrowed in vexation. “I miss it a lot, actually.”

“I’ve never had a dirty chai before.”

“I always get one on the first cloudy day of the season. They taste better when it’s overcast.”

“Maybe you can take me someday,” I said before I realized how impossible that was, but once I’d said it I knew.

And he did, too, and we fell into an awkward silence.

He said, “Maybe someday you can take a vacation. I can give you a list of all the places you have to see.”

“Are they tourist traps?”

“I’d never lead you astray.”

“Hmm.” I imagined going to New York and getting lost like the tourist that I inevitably would be. I’d take the subway too far, and I’d get on the express train instead of the local, and I’d have my nose buried in my maps app the entire time, forgetting that the most perfect part of the city was when you looked up—

And saw sky.

“Maybe someday,” I replied. “You know, I almost took a teaching job in New York.” It was after Liam broke up with me, when Pru had finally pried me out of my apartment, and introduced me to the world again. I had just wanted to leave, to go somewhere else. I guessed running was just instinct, at that point.

He asked, “Why didn’t you?”

I shrugged, fishing another taffy out of the bag. Pru had asked the same thing, and I didn’t really have a good answer. “What if I didn’t like it? Besides, where I’m at now is just fine. Pru’s close, and most of my colleagues like me. I teach English at a university,” I added, realizing that I’d never told him. “The students are great. Not every day do you get to have a heated discussion about whether Dionysus and Apollo were in love in Ovid’sMetamorphoses.”

He nodded. “That does seem very invigorating. Is that your dream job?”

I snorted a laugh. “No. I wish it was, but it’s just where I ended up, I think. I didn’t want to be a librarian, and I didn’t want to go to law school, so …” I shrugged. “I decided to teach.”

He turned himself toward me in interest. His knee knocked against mine, and he didn’t pull away. “What would you do, if you could do anything?”

“Anything?”

“Anything at all.”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged again. He waited for me to answer, taking a taffy out of my bag. I was sure he’d win in a game of waiting. The truth was, I didn’tknowwhat I’d do. I hadn’t really thought much about it. Because my mom had been a librarian, I’d gone into English thinking I’d get to a master’s in library science, but as soon as I got into the grad program, I knew I didn’t want to do that. My classics professor said I’d be good at teaching. So, I simply did that.”

“Okay,” he said slowly, popping the taffy into his mouth. “Where are you happiest?”

I thought about the nights Pru and I read quietly in our chairs in the dorm room our freshman year, and the years we’d start a new book at midnight and read until dawn. I thought about the book events we went to together, the uncomfortable seats and the stilted small talk with other nerdy bookish people who also didn’t know the fine art of weather-related topics. How happy I was just to sit between aisles of books, breathing in the smell of newly printed pages and dusty old ones, binder’s glue and cardboard and dust.

And I thought about Ineffable Books, and the way the sunlight streamed through the windows, making the motes of dust between the stacks sparkle. The way the spines of books felt as I ran my fingers across them, like a xylophone of words.

“A bookstore, I guess.”

He said, “You couldn’t leave it unattended, you know.”

I winced. “Yeah, I would probably be very bad at it.”

“I didn’t say that,” he replied, studying me with those bright mint eyes. At night, they almost looked like they glowed. “I think you can do whatever you put your mind to, Eileen. You’re terrifying that way.”

“That’s nice of you to say, but it’s not true. I’m not very good at anything.”

He hummed. “You fixed Lily’s book.”

“Because my mom taught me how,” I pointed out. “She’s much better at it.”

“You stayed an entire night at the Daffodil.”

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