The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry(30)

“Lambiase,” Maya says, “you are missing the point.”

After an overpriced lunch at a mansion, they drive to Providence to check into their hotel.

“You go visit Amelia,” Lambiase tells A.J. “I was thinking me and the kid would go to the Children’s Museum in town. I’d like to show her the many reasons it would be impractical to hide out in a museum. In a post – September eleventh universe at least.”

“You don’t have to do that.” A.J. had planned to take Maya with him so that the visit to Amelia’s would seem more casual. (Yes, he was not above using his beloved daughter as a prop.)

“Stop looking guilty,” Lambiase says. “That’s what godfathers are for. Backup.”

A.J. gets to Amelia’s house just before five. He has brought her an Island Books tote filled with Charlaine Harris novels, a good bottle of Malbec, and a bouquet of sunflowers. After he rings the doorbell, he decides the flowers are too obvious and he stows them under the cushions of the porch swing.

When she answers the door, her knee is supported by a wheelie cart. Her cast is pink and has been signed as much as the most popular kid in school’s yearbook. She is wearing a navy blue minidress with a red patterned scarf tied jauntily around her neck. She looks like an airline stewardess.

“Where’s Maya?” Amelia asks.

“My friend Lambiase took her to the Providence Children’s Museum.”

Amelia cocks her head. “This isn’t a date, is it?”

A.J. tries to explain about the topiary garden having been closed. The story sounds incredibly unconvincing—halfway through telling it, he almost decides to drop the tote and run.

“I’m teasing,” she says. “Come in.”

Amelia’s house is cluttered but clean. She has a purple velvet couch, a smallish grand piano, a dining-room table that seats twelve, many framed pictures of her friends and family, several houseplants in various states of health, a one-eyed tabby cat named Puddleglum, and of course, books everywhere. Her house smells like what she’s cooking, which turns out to be lasagna and garlic bread. He takes off his boots so as not to track mud into her house. “Your place is just like you,” he says.

“Cluttered, mismatched,” she says.

“Eclectic, charming.” He clears his throat and tries not to feel unbearably corny.

They are through with dinner and into their second bottle of wine when A.J. finally gets up the nerve to ask her what had happened with Brett Brewer.

Amelia smiles a little. “If I tell you the truth, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

She finishes the dregs of her wine. “Last fall, when we were corresponding all the time . . . Listen, I don’t want you to think I broke up with him for you because I didn’t. I broke up with him because talking to you made me remember how important it is to share a sensibility with someone, to share passions. I probably sound silly.”

“No,” A.J. says.

She narrows her pretty brown eyes. “You were so mean to me the first time we met. I still haven’t forgiven you, you know.”

“I’d hoped you’d forgotten that.”

“I haven’t. My memory is very long, A.J.”

“I was awful,” A.J. says. “In my defense, I was going through a bad time.” He leans across the table and brushes a blond curl off of her face. “The first time I saw you, I thought you looked like a dandelion.”

She pats her hair self-consciously. “My hair’s such a pain.”

“It’s my favorite flower.”

“I think it’s actually a weed,” she says.

“You’re rather stunning, you know.”

“They used to call me Big Bird in school.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There are worse names,” she says. “I told my mother about you. She said that you didn’t sound like good boyfriend material, A.J.”

“I know. I’m sorry for that. Because I like you enormously.”

Amelia sighs and moves to clear the table.

A.J. rises. “No, please. Let me. You should sit.” He stacks the dishes and moves them into the dishwasher.

“Do you want to see what that book is?” she says.

“What book?” A.J. asks as he fills the lasagna dish with water.

“The one in my office that you asked about. Isn’t that what you came to see?” She rises to her feet, swapping out her rolling device for crutches. “My office is through my bedroom, by the way.”

A.J. nods. He walks briskly through the bedroom so as not to seem presumptuous. He is almost to the office door when Amelia sits on her bed and says, “Wait. I’ll show you the book tomorrow.” She pats the place on the bed next to her. “My ankle hurts, so apologies if my seduction lacks some of the subtlety it might usually have.”

He tries to be cool as he walks back across the room to Amelia’s bed, but A.J. has never been cool.

AFTER AMELIA HAS fallen asleep, A.J. tiptoes into the office.

The book leans against the lamp, unmoved since the day they talked over the computer. Even in person, the cover is too faded to be made out. He opens to the title page: A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O’Connor.