Page 31 of It's Me They Follow
Rose added, “‘She leaves behind her adoring son...’” But she couldn’t finish. Lil Charlie put his hand on her knee.
Her adoring son, ME, The Shopkeeper thought she heard the coughing man say.ME?
Ray sat back, speechless.
“I felt it,” said Rose. The Shopkeeper wished she could hug her friend.
She stared at the crinkled envelope that she had been carrying around for days and realized The Good Doctor was never coming back.Tomorrow is not promised, her grandmother used to say.Another person I’ll never touch. Another person who’ll never touch me, The Shopkeeper thought. Which made her think of ME. The one person she wanted to hold most in that moment. His mother had a mysteriousillness too. Was something going around? What if it was the same disease? She pictured his solemn face from the night before.What if ME’s mom was The Good Doctor?They did have the same cheekbones. The idea gripped her and refused to let go. She felt foolish for thinking it, then foolish for not thinking of it sooner. ME was The Good Doctor’s son. Had they been setting her up this whole time? Or was it a coincidence? She was still being challenged by The Good Doctor and intrigued by ME—she smiled to herself, connecting the dots from the date to the envelope, but then she hit the table. What if ME had known her all along? What if his mom gave him her work? This was The Good Doctor’s best activity yet—matchmaker. The Shopkeeper couldn’t decide whether to be thankful or pissed.
The room reeked of sweat and sadness.
The guy coughing in the corner couldn’t catch his breath.
“COVER YOUR MOUTH!” She didn’t mean to snap at him like that, but she did, considering the illness going around.
Everyone got silent. They stared at her a second too long and then went back to their phones.
The Shopkeeper finally understood ME and why he had to leave.
Let the dead bury the dead, her grandmother used to say.
It’s hard to stay when it’s best you leave. The classroom felt like a coffin. She’d never get healed sitting in a contaminated box. ME had broken free.Though there’s a difference between running to freedom and running away from it—either is better than drowning, she thought. The Shopkeeper couldn’t stand it. The room was unbearable without The Good Doctor. And she couldn’t get any sadder than she already was.
“She wasn’t a quack,” The Shopkeeper declared, as though someone had asked. She stood up from the table while the others sunk deeper into their phones. “Maybe a genius. But she was still just a human. And now she’s gone. So I am out.”
And because the room was a hundred degrees. And because they were covered in spittle. And because they needed a leader, they all got up one by one and followed her out the door.
“It’s ME they follow,” Ms. Harriett whispered in The Shopkeeper’s ear as she made her way down the hallway.
“It’s ME they follow,” The Shopkeeper agreed.
And she was going to find ME if it was the last thing she did.
t
Chapter 18
JANUARY 16, 2020
7:33 P.M.
The twelve wounded writers moped their way from the classroom to the elevator. They were breaking up. The Shopkeeper was the first to go. As usual, she walked everyone to the elevator but refused to ride with the others; instead, she waved goodbye and took the stairs. On the ride down, under the murmur of useless conversation, Rose invited Lil Charlie to her home for tea. “Mint, lavender, Earl Grey, rose hip...” They both laughed. He hesitated to say yes, but when they were about to go their separate ways for good, he decided that “tea would be nice.”
At Rose’s home, Lil Charlie was far from little. His head hit the doorframe as he crouched into the library of her 1942 Germantown Victorian. Big Charlie had had the same problem, Rose remembered. Too big for every room.
Lil Charlie looked around at her books as she boiled water in the kitchen. Opened a copy ofUnder a Soprano Skyand asked her about it. “I got that from a book talk in the eighties. That thing is probably older than you.” He put itback. He pulled a copy ofLove Poems. Big Charlie had gotten it for her. Inside, Sonia Sanchez had inscribed a note, but he couldn’t read it. It wasn’t meant for him. He put that one back as well.
While Rose was shuffling back and forth between the kitchen and the parlor, getting him a napkin and then a bigger spoon and then more rose hip tea, she couldn’t help but notice Lil Charlie’s resemblance to the army portrait of Big Charlie that hung on the wall behind him. “Oh, stop it,” she said to the photo, as if it were jealous. This was her and Big Charlie’s book room, two desks facing opposite sides and a velvet love seat under a bay window between them. It was a parlor they’d converted to a study. They’d hung every shelf and painted it together. She and Big Charlie had spent most of their time here and mostly studied each other. “I want to sit...” She was happy for company, especially someone from the writers’ group who wouldn’t ask her how she was holding up. “But I’m...” Her dress wore the day. The rose in her hair hung limp. “I need a shower... and a different”—she pointed at herself—“dress.” Plus, she’d never sat in the study with anyone besides Big Charlie before.
A shower sounds nice, Lil Charlie thought.
“I’ll make it quick.” She disappeared up the stairs.
Lil Charlie liked the way she walked around her home, barefoot and free. Different from her prim and proper perfection in class. Here, she was loose and airy.
He sat on Big Charlie’s side of the room in Big Charlie’schair. It was way too big and uncomfortable. He got up. He needed his own chair. He took the love seat for now. Pulled his notebook out of his book bag to sketch Rose when she came back, but he couldn’t find a pen. He checked the top drawer of Rose’s desk and found a barrage of photos. He could see his resemblance to her late husband: similar height, similar build, similar weight. Big Charlie was much younger in the photos; Rose had been much younger then too. Her smile wide as her hips. She wore high heels and looked light on her toes. He put the photos back and continued looking around until he found a pen. He started sketching the photo of the happy couple, starting with the lines of Big Charlie’s fingers on Rose’s waist. He wasn’t trying to take Big Charlie’s place, he explained to Big Charlie’s photo on the wall. He wanted his own place. He promised himself no more seasoned women after the incident with The Good Doctor. He hadn’t planned on getting this close to Rose. She was delicate and kept it all together, even when she did not—she lived in this big house alone. She was a woman worth worshipping. She wrote love letters; he wrote haikus. He felt drawn to her. It was probably how Big Charlie had felt too. He looked around at the happy couple’s life and wondered how he could ever fill such massive shoes.
“Charlie,” Rose called from upstairs.
