Page 117 of Why Cheese?
They’re gone.
Or maybe they never were.
“Men don’t turn into cheese. That’s science. Common sense. Whatever you want to call it. You can’t make a deal with the devil and have him turn you into gouda.”
They’re not real. They weren’t real. I’m mad. Grief or loneliness took whatever sanity I thought I had left and twisted my brain into imagining four men who doted on me. Who liked seeing me. Who wanted to be with me. Who maybe even loved me.
I made all of this up. I made them up.
“I’m so sorry,” I plead to the four cheeses—three covered in blotchy patches of green and white. The last is little more than crumbs. I placed all of them on tiny pillows below the remaining lights of the store. It was the best I could think of for their funeral. “I…I don’t know what to do with your remains. Roq’s from a village somewhere in France and Cam from Spain. Cheddy is vaguely from England, but Brie never told me. I think Scandinavia. Do you even want to go back there? I wish my uncle was here.”
Do I bury you? Cremate the cheese? Hide you away in the cellar and hope for a miracle? Maybe the next owner will get to meet you?
“I wanted to stay. Here.” I laugh, trying to shake away the tears clouding my eyes. “I was terrified of all of it. Owning a store, that’s so hard. Making cheese…I thought I’d be awful at it. I’d destroy every batch. Being around you… I expected you to hate me, or come to once you knew me. Instead you…”
Gasping, I bite down on my hand to keep from bawling while passersby watch me talk to cheese. “You took me in, you were excited to see me. No one’s ever…ever been happy with me the way you were. Even Roq, once in a while. I didn’t think I deserved to have this place, to have you.”
Just when I wanted to stay, I can’t. “This place is going up for sale tomorrow. With the money, I’m…I’ll travel. Take you back to your ancestral homes. Bury you where you…where you’ll be happiest to rest after such a long life. I hope that’s good enough.”
I hold my breath waiting for an answer. The universe is too cruel to grant me one. Trembling with barely suppressed tears, I place my finger to my lips and touch the rind of each cheese with a final kiss. “May you find peace wherever you are now.”
“Are you ready?”
I jerk at the voice and try to sponge away my tears. Mr. Walker pauses at the door and stares around the stripped and bare store. Everything’s gone—the shelves, the old signs, the paintings, the photos except for one of five men taken fifty years ago in front of this store.
“What are you doing?” he asks, staring at the moldy cheeses I’ve got on display.
“Just…some last-minute touches.” I gather the cheese into individual ziplock bags before gently placing them into my purse.
He can’t hide the judgment on his face even with the commission dollar signs dancing in his eyes. “Good. Tomorrow, I’ll arrive an hour before the open house. I’ve got a few clients who are interested in private tours. Have you cleared out of the apartment up above?”
I nod. It too has been picked clean of every remnant of my uncle, me, and four strange men who may have never existed. Despite the bed still having sheets on it, I’ll be sleeping down here as I have every night for the past two weeks.
“All right. So, you know the drill. Go to a coffee shop for a couple of hours of the open house.”
“I don’t like coffee,” I mutter.
“I’ll call you once it’s over, and we’ll discuss the offers. Any questions?”
A million, but you can’t answer a single one.I shake my head and stare down at my feet.
Mr. Walker pats my shoulder. “You’re going to be very well off, Ms. Reely.”
Was that why my uncle gave me this store? Or did he always hope I’d find those men and give them the life he never could? Did he regret putting them away? It didn’t matter in the end, those terrible rumors wouldn’t stop. And my mother would never let me go.
“Oh.” Mr. Walker slaps a hand to the door, causing the jaunty bell he added to ring. “The workers found a box downstairs. They said it looked like a family heirloom. You might want to move it out before tomorrow.”
I nod my thanks again as the realtor slips out the door and down the sidewalk. He whistles as he goes, all his cares drifting away. Standing before the nearly empty store, I close my eyes.
Despite all the landmarks ripped from their studs and hurled into the trash, I can still feel them. The shelves where I’d play freeze tag with my uncle. The signs challenging people to out-cheese the five-year-old girl. The counters where four men took turns kissing and caressing me before dawn stole them away.
“It was real,” I whisper to myself. “All of it.”
I reach for the lights before I remember the box. It might have been my uncle’s and I don’t want to leave without it. Climbing down the ladder, it hits me how empty this place is. My heartbeats echo for miles until they boomerang and strike my ears louder than a jet engine.
It’s nearly impossible to see down here. They had to leave the vats. No one has any idea how to remove them or even how they got down here. But everything else is gone. Every wheel of cheese, every table, every shelf, even the sinks. It’s all gone like it never happened.
I flick on one of the remaining lanterns and catch the box. Gold accents flicker like fire against the inlaid blue lacquer. It’s quite beautiful, and I’m honestly surprised they didn’t try to steal it. I wouldn’t have been in any state to notice.
