Well Met(86)

April’s SUV wasn’t in the driveway, and she’d left me a half pot of coffee, the burner still on. I was most of the way through my first cup when she got back. She tilted her head and looked at me, twirling her keys around her finger.

“You know what today is?”

Was this a trick question? “Saturday?”

“It’s the first Saturday you and I have had free. Completely free. Since . . . well, since you came here.”

I thought about that. “I think you’re right.”

“Come on.” She grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. “You’re not going to sit around and watch Netflix and eat ice cream all day. Get in the shower.”

“But I like ice cream . . .” My argument was ineffective as she manhandled me down the hall toward the bathroom.

“You’ll like brunch better.”

She was right. Brunch had mimosas. After we’d had our fill of waffles and orangey booze, our next stop was a salon for manicures, followed by pedicures. I could see what she was doing; the goal was to keep my mind off of everyone at Faire for the day, and for the most part she succeeded. It was nice to spend an afternoon picking out nail colors and wiggling my newly blue toes in my sandals instead of slumped on the couch while Netflix asked, How many episodes of reality television are you planning on watching?

Later, when April dropped me off at the house on her way to pick up Caitlin, my phone buzzed with a text. I smiled. Stacey. You alive?

I’m okay, I texted back. How was your date?

Three fire emojis popped up in response, followed by an eggplant and . . . were those water droplets? Oh, dear. I had no answer for that.

When April said she was going to take care of me, she meant it. She shuttled Caitlin back and forth from Faire all weekend so I wouldn’t have to go anywhere near it. She fed me wine in the evenings in the hopes I would get sleepy, but the alcohol only made me giggly, then morose. But I was so thankful she was there, and it would have been a much, much worse weekend without her.

I was almost glad to go back to the bookstore on Tuesday. Rip off the Band-Aid, stand on that same sidewalk where I’d told Simon I didn’t want to see him anymore. I took a deep breath and unlocked the door to the shop. This was my new life, after all. Just another Tuesday morning. It was an elaborate lie I told myself.

Chris was due in later that morning, and I couldn’t stand the wait. It had to be common knowledge by now that Simon and I had broken up; people had found out we’d gotten together quickly enough, after all. What was she going to say? I was still the newcomer. All my friends here had been Simon’s friends first. Had I lost not only my burgeoning relationship with Simon, but my new sense of community? Not to mention my new job?

I busied myself by hauling out the stepladder and dusting the tops of the bookshelves, and when the bell over the door chimed and Chris walked in, my heart climbed into my throat. Moment of truth time. I tossed down the dust rag and hopped to the floor. For a moment we looked at each other, then she stepped forward and enveloped me in a hug.

“Are you all right?”

I let my forehead fall on her shoulder as I hugged her back. “I think so.” I straightened up and swiped at the tears stinging my eyes. I must have stirred up a lot of dust. “I take it word got around?”

Her nod was almost a shrug. “It was an interesting weekend.” She didn’t elaborate. I didn’t ask her to. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.” I swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand. “I’m fine. It’s not like we were together very long.” My voice and my expression were light, casual even. I tried my best not to reveal that my heart was broken. “It was just a summer thing. A half-of-the-summer thing. We didn’t work out. That’s all.” The words hurt to say out loud, as though there was a fist around my heart and each sentence made it clench tighter and tighter.

Chris looked at me like she knew I was lying, but thankfully she didn’t call me on it. “You’re really not coming back to Faire?”

“No. I can’t . . .” I couldn’t face Simon in his Captain Blackthorne persona. I couldn’t pretend to be Emma, the wench in love with a pirate. I couldn’t cheer on a chess match or let him kiss my hand with promises in his eyes, especially now that I knew for certain those promises weren’t real. “I can’t,” I said again.

She gave my hand a squeeze. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.”

I tried to keep that in mind all week as I kept myself busy and tried not to think about Simon. He certainly did his part; he didn’t stop by the bookstore once, and my phone was silent when it came to his number. With no more Faire for me and Simon vanishing into thin air, it was like that part of the summer had never happened. I half expected to snap awake at any moment from a fever dream caused by binge-watching Shakespeare adaptations, back in my old apartment in Boston.

Chris was very kind and didn’t bring up the crash and burn of my love life after that first morning, and for the most part I followed along. But something in the back of my mind kept bothering me, and by Thursday morning it wouldn’t let me go. I had to say something.

“Are you still seeing Simon next week?” His name almost hurt to say out loud, but I pushed past it. “To talk about Faire next year?”