Between the Pages: A Novel (12 page)

*

Three hours later the sun begins to set, so I head downstairs to grab some dinner. My mind is still racing with the notes from his outline on chapter eight. The only thing I really want to know is
who
he dated for a year. I want to look this bitch up and analyze her.

But I can’t, because I don’t have Internet.

Emerson is gone—when I look out the window, the Civic is nowhere to be seen. I grind my teeth together when I realize he’s probably with Sylvanna. I told Hannah all about her, and Hannah is convinced it’s just sex—nothing more. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse. I think it’s worse. I was hoping that whole relationship would taper off, but then again, why would it? Because we got too drunk one night and shared a moment? I have no claim over him. I shouldn’t expect him to give up
anything
for me.

I sigh and pull out leftover roast chicken. As I’m plating it, I hear a weird sound from somewhere on the deck. I ignore it at first, heating my food and pouring a generous glass of wine, but just as I turn to go sit down in the dining room, I realize what it is.

A meow. A very high-pitched, feeble meow. Maybe more than one.

I quickly set my dinner down and rush to the back door. It’s not quite dark out yet, but I turn the deck light on anyway. The sound gets louder the closer I get to the edge of the deck. When I step down onto the sand, I gasp.

Sitting in an old, decrepit towel are two
very
young, very fluffy black kittens.

“Oh my goodness,” I coo, bending down and examining them. I reach out, and neither of them turn away. Instead, the fluffier of the two reaches its tiny head out and starts to suck on my finger. “Hey little guys.”

They’re young. I’ve never had a cat, so I’m not familiar with age, but they look way too young to be out here alone. Maybe ten weeks? Their matted hair and hoarse meows give me reason to believe they’ve been out here for a while.

“Where’s your momma?” I pick the first one up and examine it. A girl. Most kittens can’t be sexed until eight weeks, so I know they must be at least eight weeks old.
How do I even
know
that?

She meows loudly, and when I set her down in my lap, she begins to purr. The second one looks a little more skeptical, and when I reach down to pick it up, it hisses. “It’s okay,” I say soothingly. “I won’t hurt you.” I know it doesn’t understand me, but eventually it does let me pick it up. A boy. They both begin to purr. I love that. It makes me feel as if I am just what they needed. An alternate momma.

I stay with them for a few minutes. “Are you all alone?” I ask, petting them. I stand and carry them inside. They don’t stop squirming, so I decide to keep them in the downstairs bathroom for now. I remove the white rug from the floor—
that
could be a disaster—and run to the kitchen to get a bowl of water for them. “I’ll be back,” I tell them, closing the door. I chuckle at myself. Why am I talking to them like humans?

I go back to the porch and search all around it for the mother cat or more kittens. I even go to the next house and knock on their door, inquiring about the kittens. An older woman with brown hair just shakes her head.
No, she hasn’t seen any cats around.
I do one more sweep of the area.

Nothing.

I walk inside and close the sliding glass door. When I turn around, Emerson is standing against the kitchen island, glowering at me. The kittens are running around at his feet.

“Care to explain?” he asks, his tone cool.

I hold back a laugh. “I found them outside. I’ve been looking around for their mother, but I think she may have abandoned them.” I pause and look down at them. “I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t just leave them out there.”

Just at that moment, the girl kitten meows loudly and proceeds to poop on Emerson’s boot. His eyes flick down slowly, and then back up to me.

I can’t help but chuckle. I cover my mouth and shake my head. “Oh my God,” I say, cackling. “That’s unfortunate. Here, let me clean it up.”

Emerson smiles. “It’s fine. I’ll do it.” He reaches behind him and grabs a wad of paper towels. “But we have to figure out where they’re going,” he adds sternly. “They can’t stay here.”

I nod vigorously. “I know. I just didn’t want them out there by themselves.”

Once Emerson is done cleaning up, he checks his watch. “Okay, well we better go.” I stare at him. “To the pet store,” he says, shrugging. “They need food, and Petco closes in thirty minutes.”

“Okay. Let me grab some shoes.” I jog over to the stairs and once I get to my room, I slip on my beloved pair of flip-flops. I check my reflection quickly, smoothing my hair and rubbing my lips together. When I get back downstairs, I see Emerson closing the bathroom door slowly, murmuring to the kittens.

“We’ll be back.” My heart liquefies. His fussing is adorable. I clear my throat and raise my eyebrows. He turns around. “I don’t want them to be lonely,” he explains exasperatedly. I smirk knowingly as we walk to the car. Once inside Irma, who recently made a remarkable recovery, Emerson grimaces and turns to me. “We can’t keep them.” I realize he’s not trying to convince
me
. He’s trying to convince
himself.

“Whatever you say,” I say smiling. “But if you
were
to keep them, what would you name them?”

He starts the car and looks at me dubiously as he reverses onto the street. “Ralph and Waldo.”

I laugh. “How very original. Is the girl Ralph or Waldo?”

He smiles. “I kind of like Waldo as the name for the girl.” He pulls onto the main road. “My mom named me after Ralph Waldo Emerson.” I make a small noise of assent. I’ve officially delved deep into his life, and the things I’ve learned about his mother make her enemy number one right now. “Transcendentalism fascinated her. She quoted Emerson all the time. It’s too bad she’s wasted her life away. She was a very smart woman at one point.”

“Drugs don’t discriminate,” I add, thinking of Chloe. Emerson just looks at me sideways. I clear my throat and continue. “Chloe did a lot of drugs. She was kind of a party girl. When I . . .” I trail off and look out the window. “When I heard about her death, I automatically assumed it was an overdose. Turns out, she wanted to die.” I look down at my hands.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “What was she like?” He seems anxious. I ignore it—suicide makes a lot of people uncomfortable.

I smile when I think of her. “She was crazy, but in the best way possible. She loved vintage clothing, which drove my mother wild.” I look at Emerson. “Mary Matthews is a fashionista, you see. Couture is her main language. So when Chloe starting dressing like an Olsen twin, my mother wasn’t happy. Anyway, Chloe did everything to defy my parents. When she was a junior in college, she told them she wanted to drop out of her business program. They lost it, threatened to kick her out of the house and cut her off, and basically forced her to continue.” I frown. “They didn’t love the fact I was a writer, but since they had Chloe, they didn’t really push it.
She
was their chance at success—
she
was their golden child. Instead, she killed herself, and I estranged myself from them the day the last tuition check needed to be paid. So now they have no one.”

Emerson pulls up to a stop sign in town and turns to face me. “Have they ever tried to contact you?”

I shake my head. “No. Not that I know of.” I look over at him. His jaw is clenched and he’s gripping the steering wheel tightly.

“I’m sorry.” He creases his brow as if he’s in pain. “Someone should’ve been there for you.”

I nod curtly. “Hannah was. She was always there. She will always be there. And now . . . you,” I say carefully. Emerson looks as if he’s been gutted. “Before this job, I was really struggling. And now . . .” I pause. When I look up at him, his eyes are swimming with elation. “The financial incentive doesn’t hurt, but I think our friendship is what really helped me.”

A car honks twice behind us, and I jump. The moment is gone, and as Emerson continues to drive on, a small smile tugs at the corners of his lips. “Friends, eh? BFFs? Compadres?”

I shrug. “Yeah. I’d like to think so. I mean, I know all of your dirty, little secrets.”

He laughs. “Not all of them, Ms. Matthews. Definitely not all of them.”

“Well, I guess everything will be revealed eventually, right?” I’m picking at my nail polish as I say this, and when Emerson doesn’t answer, I tilt my head up to look at him. He’s scowling at the road with narrowed eyes. At first, I think it’s because something is in his line of vision, but there’s a wide, expansive, uninhibited chunk of road ahead of us. It’s not that. Is there something he doesn’t want me to know about him?

“Yeah,” he says, his voice short. “All will be revealed.” He looks at me with a pained expression. “Don’t run too far when it is. Okay?” His voice breaks, and he looks away. He must be joking—that was a joke, right? I watch him for a beat. He doesn’t continue to speak, and he doesn’t clarify. A cold shiver runs down my spine.

“Well,
that’s
ominous,” I say under my breath.

Emerson doesn’t reply.

When we get to Petco, we only have about ten minutes before they close, so we rush in and grab a cart.

“Okay, we’ll probably need food, a litter box, litter, and some toys,” I say, walking towards the CATS sign in the back. Emerson follows wordlessly behind me. I peruse the kitten food, quickly deciding on some of the organic kind. Emerson is an organic guy, so this makes sense. Then I grab a medium-sized litter box and some natural pine litter. “Want to pick out some toys?” I elbow Emerson in the arm. The contact seems to wake him up out of his moody stupor.

“Yeah, sure.” He eyes the contents of the cart skeptically. “That’s a lot of stuff for kittens we don’t plan on keeping,” he says slowly. His eyes burn into mine. Even under the harsh, fluorescent lighting, I’m in awe of how alluring and handsome he is.
No one
looks good in this lighting, yet he somehow manages it. His casual
The Clash
T-shirt, ripped jeans, and loafers do something funny to my insides. Now that I’m getting to know his brain, his good looks only add to his magnetism.

“Just in case.” I shrug.

Emerson chuckles as we walk to the checkout line. Of course he insists on paying, and he won’t let me carry the bulky bags to the car. I study him as he loads the trunk, thinking about the conversation we had in the car ride over.

“Okay,” I say skeptically. “I have to know. Did you murder your student? The one who died? Is that your secret? The one you think is going to scare me away?” It comes out jokingly, but the way his back stiffens, and the way he pauses, tells me I crossed a line by asking. He slowly backs out and faces me with crossed arms and a cloudy expression on his face.

“Who told you I murdered someone?” He begins to bite the inside of his lip, and he watches me with an expression of anger. I take a step back. One, because he’s acting very menacing right now, and I’m actually not sure he
didn’t
murder someone. Also, we’re in a dark, almost empty parking lot. This probably isn’t the time and place to dig around his past homicidal tendencies.

“There are rumors online. I was just wondering if that was your big, bad secret. You know, since we’re BFFs now.” I hope my joke will ease the tension.

It doesn’t.

“I didn’t murder her,” Emerson says slowly. He takes a step closer to me, and I back up against the wall of the building. “But maybe I murdered
someone else
.”

My eyes go wide. “R-really?”

He lunges forward, and I yelp. The next second, he’s doubled over with laughter. “My God, Finley,” he says between wheezes. I glare at him. “You’re so fucking gullible.”

I make an exasperated noise and stomp my feet. “That wasn’t funny. It’s dark out here.” I look around nervously. I’ve never liked the dark.

“Come on. Don’t you trust me?” Once again, he takes a step closer to me. Now he’s only a foot away. I feel my body begin to shake. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s nighttime, and unusually chilly for August, or if it’s because of the way he’s looking at me right now.

“I trust you,” I say defiantly. I lift my chin and watch him as his eyes flick over my body. As he inches closer, I can’t help but say the first thing that’s on my mind.

“While we’re confessing,” I start, looking down, “I saw you with that woman. Sylvanna. Is she your girlfriend?” I can’t look up at him, not because I don’t want to know the truth, but because I’m embarrassed I actually asked about Sylvanna. I don’t want him to see how red my cheeks are. I’m also not sure if I can handle seeing his face soften at the sound of her name if she is his girlfriend . . .

“When did you see me with Sylvanna?”

I look up and he’s squinting. “A few weeks ago. You two were, um . . . anyway. I was just wondering.”

“Why are you blushing?” he asks, a smile growing on his face. “Did you catch me in a compromising position?” Now he’s full on grinning.

I place my hands on his firm chest and push him away teasingly. “No. Maybe. You should invite her over sometime. I’d like to meet her.” I don’t remove my hands, and Emerson looks from me to them twice before nodding.