Page 78 of Finders Keepers
“No.”
“Okay. Well. Thanks.”
He finally looks at me. “I’m sorry, Nina. I really am.” His voice is full of pain, and regret, and shame.
“I know,” I say softly, because I can tell how much he means it. There’s something to be said for this genuine apology. It’s much more than I got the last time things fell apart (and infinitely more than what I got from Cole when he lied to me). It doesn’t mean it will be enough to repair what’s broken, though. In this particular moment, my anger is outweighed by sorrow. That this is the conclusion of our treasure hunt, and probably of us—here, in Quentin’s mostly empty kitchen with his naked cat noisily cleaning herself atop one of my feet.
The absurdity hurts so much that tears well in my eyes. Quentin takes a hesitant step forward, then a more determined and certain one. His hand comes to my face, gently cupping my cheek and swiping away the moisture with his thumb. He leans forward and kisses me, so gently that his lips are only a whisper against mine. Not the beginning of something, but an ending. And not the happily-ever-after kind in the romances my mom reads with her book club. Once again, I managed to convincemyself this was a different kind of story than it actually was. To see things one way when the entire time they were really another.
Lesson finally learned.
Saying goodbye seems redundant since that’s clearly what that kiss was meant to be, so I turn around, clutching the box to my chest, take a deep breath, and leave.
•••
For a longtime, I sit on the steps of my parents’ porch, staring at the damn box as the Orioles game drifts across the street from Mr. Farina’s radio. I can’t muster up the curiosity to open it yet, although I am extremely close at one point to throwing it down on the walkway to crack it the hell open, just because I bet it would be cathartic. The only thing that stops me is that I’ve heard stories of tamper-proof puzzle boxes. Also the box is so beautiful that it really would be a shame to break it.
Quentin and I have already left enough broken things in our wake.
Man, how embarrassingly emo.
Eventually I take the box inside, barely acknowledge my mother when she calls a greeting from the kitchen, and go up to my room.
I consider calling Sabrina to tell her what happened, but I’m not ready to rehash it all yet. The pain after I broke up with Cole was delayed, and then when it hit it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d feared. This, on the other hand…This is a profound wound, a reopening of an old one that’s even deeper and wider, new damage and old damage mixed together in a way that’s turned a fading scar into a fresh one that I’m not sure will ever heal correctly. Even a best friend can’t do much for that, and I don’twant her digging around in there, thinking she’s helping but only making it worse.
Instead, I sit with my orange-and-pink comforter wrapped around me like it’s my own soft little cave and simply stare at the box where I’ve placed it on my nightstand.
With the drama of how I came to possess it, it still hasn’t really hit me that this is Fountain’s treasure. That it wasn’t a practical joke after all. (Or, at least, not completely; the contents could still prove to be ridiculous, I suppose.) I can’t believe it actually exists.
Right now, I kind of wish it didn’t.
Time doesn’t feel real, so I’m not sure how long it is before my mom calls up the stairs, telling me that dinner is ready. My stomach grumbles; Quentin and I didn’t eat lunch. I trudge down to the dining room to find my mother placing bowls of macaroni and cheese on the table. “A recipe Aunt Joan sent me,” she says, not yet looking up. “I haven’t tried it before, so I hope it’s good. More mustard powder than I—” The moment she sees me she stops talking and moves forward to wrap me in a hug. “Oh, sweet baby.”
I thought I was going to be okay, but my mother’s embrace is like the gentle version of a battering ram, slamming into the place storing all the hurt I’ve accumulated and stashed away. My sobs against her shoulder are ugly and violent. Nothing like the quiet, woe-is-me tears I shed after getting fired and breaking up with Cole and leaving Boston. Jon Bon Jovi himself could show up at our front door right now to call me delusional in person, and I wouldn’t even be able to manage a raised middle finger. The anger just isn’t there.
It turns out I was delusional after all, to think Quentin andI could be together. That I could find happiness in this place where I’d only ever felt disappointment. Disappointment that’s now crashing to the floor, taking me with it. Heavy, heavy, heavy. Duffle bags full of bowling balls and suitcases stuffed with bricks. A security envelope with its seams straining under the burden of twenty-six dollars in pennies and nickels, its single stamp guaranteeing it would never arrive at its destination, just thud and clang when it’s slipped back through the mail slot.
My tears do eventually dry up, and my stomach’s demands recapture my attention. Mom guides me to my dining chair as if I might not be able to find it on my own and whisks away the bowl of dried-out macaroni. She reappears a short time later with a fresh, steaming bowl in one hand and a bottle of wine and two glasses in the other.
I love this woman so much. I hate that it looks like I’m going to have to leave her and Dad again now that the life I wanted to build here has failed its permit inspection.
Turns out you can’t build on quicksand. And quicksand is pretty good at pretending to be regular sand. And also that it loves you.
Okay, I am in absolutely no emotional condition for good metaphors right now.
As we eat, I gradually fill Mom in on what happened in Richmond. First, I tell her about meeting the son and great-granddaughter of the man who interviewed Julius Fountain in the thirties, which she pretends she finds interesting even though I know it’s not the part of the story she cares about. Then I get to Quentin’s confession.
“So hedidgoblin you!” she declares. “I must’ve known all along somehow.”
“What does that even mean?” I ask, attempting to rub away my exasperation and sinus pressure with little circles of my fingertips on my forehead.
“He played a nasty trick. That’s what goblins do, right?”
“I honestly could not tell you,” I say.
“It’s what they do,” she says, bringing a self-satisfied forkful of noodles to her mouth. “I’m so sorry, though, Ninabean. I really thought he was better than that.”
“Me too.”
