The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry(37)

“No, wait. Stay a bit.” A.J. feels for the jewelry box in his pocket. He doesn’t want the summer to end without having asked her, come what may. He is about to miss his moment. He plucks the box from his pocket and throws it at her. “Think quick,” he says.

“What?” she says as she turns. The jewelry box hits her smack in the middle of the forehead. “Ow. What the f*ck, A.J.?”

“I was trying to get you not to leave. I thought you’d catch it. I’m sorry.” He goes over to her and kisses her on the head.

“You threw a little high.”

“You’re taller than me. I sometimes overestimate by how much.”

She picks up the box from the floor and opens it.

“It’s for you,” A.J. says. “It’s . . .” He gets down on one knee, clasps her hand between his, and tries not to feel phony, like an actor in a play. “Let’s get married,” he says with an almost pained expression. “I know I’m stuck on this island, that I’m poor, a single father, and in a business with somewhat diminishing returns. I know that your mother hates me, that I’m quite obviously crap when it comes to hosting author events.”

“This is an odd proposal,” she says. “Lead with your strong stuff, A.J.”

“All I can say is . . . All I can say is we’ll figure it out, I swear. When I read a book, I want you to be reading it at the same time. I want to know what would Amelia think of it. I want you to be mine. I can promise you books and conversation and all my heart, Amy.”

She knows that what he says is true. He is, for the reasons he’s said, a terrible match for her or anybody else for that matter. The travel is going to be murder. This man, this A.J., is prickly and argumentative. He thinks he is never wrong. Maybe he never is wrong.

But he had been wrong. Infallible A.J. had not sniffed out Leon Friedman as a fraud. She’s not sure why this matters at this moment, but it does. Maybe it is evidence of some boyish, delusional part of him. She cocks her head. I will keep this secret because I love you. As Leon Friedman (Leonora Ferris?) once wrote, “A good marriage is, at least, one part conspiracy.”

She furrows her brow, and A.J. thinks she is going to say no. “A good man is hard to find,” she says finally.

“Do you mean the O’Connor story? The one on your desk. It’s an awfully dark thing to bring up at a time like this.”

“No, I mean you. I’ve been looking forever. It was only two trains and a boat away.”

“You can skip some of the trains if you drive,” A.J. tells her.

“And what would you know about driving?” Amelia asks.

THE NEXT FALL, just after the leaves have turned, Amelia and A.J. get married.

Lambiase’s mother, who has come as his date, says to her son, “I like all weddings, but isn’t it particularly lovely when two grown-ups decide to get married?” Lambiase’s mother would like to see her son remarry some day.

“I know what you mean, Ma. Doesn’t seem like they’re going in with their eyes closed,” Lambiase says. “He knows she isn’t perfect. She knows he definitely isn’t perfect. They know there’s no such thing as perfect.”

Maya has chosen to be ring bearer because the job has more responsibility than flower girl. “If you lose a flower, you get another flower,” Maya reasons. “If you lose the ring, everyone is sad forever. The ring bearer has much more power.”

“You sound like Gollum,” A.J. says.

“Who’s Gollum?” Maya wants to know.

“Someone very nerdy that your father likes,” Amelia says.

Before the service, Amelia gives Maya a present: a small box of bookplates that read this book belongs to maya tamerlane fikry. At this stage in her life, Maya is fond of things with her name on them.

“I’m glad we’re going to be related,” Amelia says. “I really like you, Maya.”

Maya is occupied with pasting her first bookplate into the book she’s currently reading, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing. “Yeah,” she says. “Oh, wait.” She takes a bottle of orange nail polish from her pocket. “For you.”

“I don’t have any orange,” Amelia says. “Thank you.”

“I know. That’s why I picked it.”

Amy turns the bottle over and reads the bottom: A Good Man-darin Is Hard to Find.

A.J. had suggested inviting Leon Friedman to the wedding, an idea Amelia rejects. They do agree on a passage from The Late Bloomer to be read at the service by one of Amelia’s college friends.

“It is the secret fear that we are unlovable that isolates us,” the passage goes, “but it is only because we are isolated that we think we are unlovable. Someday, you do not know when, you will be driving down a road. And someday, you do not know when, he, or indeed she, will be there. You will be loved because for the first time in your life, you will truly not be alone. You will have chosen to not be alone.”

None of Amelia’s other college friends recognize the woman who is reading the passage, but none of them find this particularly odd either. Vassar is a small college, though certainly not the kind of place where everyone can know everyone, and Amelia has always had a knack for making friends with people from a variety of social circles.

The Girls in Their Summer Dresses