“Look, if you give me your address”—I glanced at the snappy one too—“I’ll have her send you both signed copies. But if I don’t have this book in my possession when I see her in a few hours, she’s gonna think I’m not supportive and break up with me. But—”
“He’s lying,” Begging said, switching back to French.
“Maybe,” I said, still eyeing the one who actually had the book. “But you’re not out anything if you give me the book. You’re getting three hundred and seventy-four dollars for doing nothing.”
Begging girl looked like she might blow, so I quickly got out my business card and pen, then held it out for her. “Write down your address.”
She inhaled deeply. Eyed me. Then took the pen and card, wrote down her address, and dropped the pen in her purse. “She gets money, I get the pen.”
“Fine,” I said, leaning into the forgettable one. “You gonna take this deal or not?”
She snatched the cash from my hand, shoved the book into my chest, and then walked out of the bookstore without a second thought about that signed copy.
The begging one left too so I just paid for the book, walked out of the terminal, forgetting about my return flight to New York, got a rental car, and started driving south towards Vermont.
Now the GPS on my phone tells me to turn left in one mile and I begin to get nervous.
I read the inside cover of the book while I was waiting to cross the border into the US and felt an urge to vomit. But it’s not a good idea to look sick while you wait to cross the US border, so I swallowed down the past that was trying to come up, and just put the book back in the bag.
How could she fucking do this to us?
We made a pact. We promised to never speak of it again. So how could she do this?
That’s the question I ask myself over and over again during the two-hour drive down to Charlotte.
What the fuck was she thinking?
Does she need money? Is she sending us a message?
The roads are perilously icy after I pass through Burlington and by the time I arrive in Charlotte it’s clear there was a major snowstorm recently. Maybe as recently as this morning. Glancing up at the late afternoon sky, I wonder if it’s gonna snow again.
Snow plows are out in force, but when I finally find her house it’s clear no one has plowed her long, winding driveway. Not after this most recent storm and probably not the last one either. There’s no way my rental is gonna make it down to her cottage, so I just pull over as far as I can, hoping that the rental doesn’t get hit by a plow while I’m gone, and step out in the slushy street.
Only a small corner of the quaint white cottage is visible through the forest of bare trees from where I stand and the thought of trudging through two and a half feet of snow to get there just makes me want to get back in that rental, drive to Burlington, and take the next flight back to New York.
But that book.
I stare at the white paper bag in my hand and sigh, moving forward on the exhale. By the time I reach her porch I’m freezing, soaking wet all the way up to my knees, and wondering if she still lives here. Because she hasn’t shoveled her walk or the porch stairs either.
But that’s so typical of her, right, Connor? Kiera was the outsider back in college. The one who didn’t want to follow the rules. The kind of girl who never plows her driveway or shovels her walk. That’s why you liked her.
I like her a lot less now. And it’s not just the snow or the trek down the driveway.
If she wrote this book I’ll…
I’ll what? What can I possibly do?
I don’t know. Something to make her stop, I guess. Except I don’t have a clue what that might be. I hardly knew her back then and don’t know her at all right now.
Why didn’t I keep in touch with her?
I sorta kept track of everyone else after graduation. Kinda. I saw most of them occasionally and Bennett I see or talk to pretty much every day.
But last spring marked our tenth year out of undergrad. I figured it was over after graduation and Kiera was never really one of us, anyway. So I let Kiera go her own way.
Big mistake.
Because this book… this book is unconscionable.
I stand there looking up at the frosted windows of her cottage for a moment as the wind does its best to steal my breath away, wondering if she’ll be happy to see me or just tell me to get the fuck off her property and never come back.