The Bookshop on Autumn Lane (11 page)

Suddenly Kit was beside me. His voice carried over the cool evening breeze. “I didn't get a chance to say hello, Ms. Sweeney.”

Reeba and her friends froze. “Oh—I didn't see you there, Dr. Darlington.”

“I figured as much,” said Kit. His voice held a different tone. Gone was the flirty British lilt. In its place was something stern, almost austere.

“You met my friend, Trudy Brown?”

“Yes. Of course. I let her into the store the first day she arrived.” Reeba sent me a brittle smile.

“We know all about her,” the fur coat said under her breath. She still sounded like she had a megaphone.

“Good. Then you'll know how wonderful she is. One of the kindest people I've met in the county.”

I felt a roaring in my ears and tried to shake off the feeling that I was fourteen years old again. Sitting in the school social worker's office while he made platitudes and clichés out of how my mother's death must have affected me.

Reeba nodded her head like a puppet. “Of course, we'll remember that.”

He put his arm around my shoulder and sent them a killer smile. “Good. Don't forget it.”

* * *

We pulled into the alley behind Books from Hell and I jumped out of the truck. Even though he didn't deserve it, I almost slammed the back door in Kit's face.

“You wouldn't talk the whole way home and now you try to smash my head. Are you mad about those inane women in the parking lot?”

Moby watched our argument from the stairs. Confused by Kit's loud voice, he barked and I walked over to the step and buried my face in his neck.

I wished I had beaten Kit to the back door. If only I could have put a barrier between us, I could make Dr. Darling go away. “I'm just tired.”

Kit reached out and patted Moby on the back. Moby licked Kit's hand. I turned and started up the stairs. “Good night.”

The sound of Kit's shoes brought me to a halt. “Would you stop following me?”

“I want to make sure you're all right.”

“Why? Because you're afraid someone like me will do something crazy?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I'm talking about. You don't have to pretend now. You heard what those gossips in the parking lot said about me.”

“You shouldn't care what they say. It doesn't matter.”

How could he act like he had no idea? “What? Not care that they called me dumb? Stupid. The fact that I belong in a row with—” I stopped myself. God forgive me, I was doing exactly what I had accused everyone of doing to me. Categorizing people in easy-to-define ways that had nothing to do with who they really were.

“Is that what this is about?”

At the top of the stairs, I gave up hope that he would leave anytime soon. I opened the door to the apartment and stomped inside.

“I know your aunt didn't exactly help you with her attitude about reading, but just because you don't like books doesn't mean you are stupid. Don't be so hard on—”

“Is that what you think my problem is?”

“You told me already. You didn't do very well in school. But it's obvious that you aren't stupid.”

I laughed and realized how close I was to losing it. I sounded like an inmate in an insane asylum. If they heard, the ladies would be falling all over themselves to hire me for their house of horrors.

“It was more than that.” I struggled to find the words and gave up.

Kit turned on a nearby lamp. I wished he had left me in the dark.

He waited for me to explain. The only sound in the room was Moby's heavy panting.

“I haven't known you that long, Trudy. But what I see is an intelligent woman standing in front of me.”

“Stop pat—patronizing me. I hate it when people do that. You sound like one of the psychologists my father's new wife made me see, trying to assure me that it wasn't my fault I was so illiterate.” I threw my sack on the couch and ran my hands through my long hair, yanking out the scarf and throwing it on the floor.

“I don't understand.” Kit stood with his palms up, gaping at me as if he thought I was a wild animal who might bolt.

“I can't read. Did you figure that out yet, Professor?”

“That is ridiculous. You were categorizing the books with me.”

“Sure I was. It was easy if it had a book cover. Anyone can tell a children's book from an adult book if you look at the cover and the size of the thing and the pictures. Unless the adult-book cover is in a cartoonlike print. Did you notice the trouble I had with Kurt V—whatever his name was?”

He pulled his glasses off and moved closer. “Why didn't you say anything?”

“Because I didn't want you to know. But it didn't matter. Reeba Sweeney made sure you knew all about me.”

“She said you had trouble learning and hated school. That your aunt was always complaining about you. That's it.”

“Well, now you can all have a good laugh. I can't read and I inherited a flippin' bookstore. Ha. Ha. Ha!”

I had used up the last of my energy. I sank onto the couch on the last “ha”. I suppose I should look at the bright side. If I scared Kit away with my craziness, he would leave and I could go back to throwing books away and selling this place.

Kit continued looking at me with an intensity that made me uneasy. He sat on the arm of the couch. Facing me.

“You have dyslexia?”

I let his question hang, surprised that he had figured it out so quickly and, at the same time, surprised that it took him so long.

“Yes. Thank you for the tip.”

“You realize that isn't your fault.”

“No. It isn't. Would you be a dear and explain that to Aunt Gertrude?”

“My God, you were never diagnosed, were you?”

“When I was twenty—a mere fifteen years too late.”

He paused. “Well, there are ways to overcome it now. Technology has done a lot for people who have trouble reading.”

I felt a familiar anger bubbling up inside me. Here it was again. If people rationalized it they could dismiss it. They could dismiss the pain I felt. And then I would be invisible again. I had a label stuck to me as permanently as a tattoo. No, it was more than that. It was embedded beneath the skin. Inside, where no matter how much I told myself it wasn't my fault, I knew I could never be like everyone else. Have a conversation with friends about my favorite book. Order from a menu without studying it for ten minutes. Even look up the players on a high school football program someone handed me.

“There are wonderful things like audiobooks and dictation applications. And I even heard there is a new font to help dyslexic people read.” Kit was trying to make me feel better and I was getting madder by the second.

“A new font! Wow, I'm cured.”

“People don't necessarily have to read to get good jobs,” he said.

“Oh, yeah. I always put dyslexia at the top of my résumé.”

“And lots of successful people have dyslexia.”

“Give me a break.”

He was on a roll. “Books are overrated anyway, Trudy. Just like you were explaining to me. Plays and television and other forms of entertainment are—”

I was off the couch. “Don't try to make me feel better, you ass! Do you have any idea how it feels to love stories but not be able to read them? I know the words are there and it kills me.”

“What about letting people help. I'll be happy to—”

I launched myself at Kit's chest. “It's not the same!”

“Trudy.” He opened his arms and met my attack.

“I can hear them if I'm lucky. If someone reads them or I see Shakespeare or any other version of the story that some hack hasn't screwed with.”

He rubbed his hands along my back. “There are good recordings.”

“But a new book can take years for the words to be recorded. And even then, it's someone else reading them. A voice that isn't mine. A shitty substitute!”

“I'm sorry—”

“When I was younger I wanted to read
Harry Potter
in the worst way! I watched my friends laugh and read and joke and I even once waited until midnight just to hold the next book. A book I couldn't read.”

I just wanted to be like everyone else. I buried my hands in his sweater. “It doesn't help when people tell me how I can overcome it!”

“Then, I won't,” Kit said softly in my hair.

His sweater smelled like a football game and the cool September air. It reminded me of growing up, for some reason. Not just the painful times inside these walls. But other times when there was someone to lean on.

There were so many classrooms where I learned to cover up for the fact that I couldn't read. Usually the teachers dismissed me as being behind after moving. I used to work hard to remember other people's book reports so I could recite those same book reports the following year on another army base. My mother would help me type my homework sometimes. If she knew I couldn't write she never said a word. She told me I was smart and helped me get through each grade level. But when she was gone there was no more covering up. Aunt Gertrude made it crystal clear that I was illiterate.

“I don't know why I'm telling you all this now. Lots of people have problems that are much worse. It's just this place. This town and all the memories brings out the worst in me.”

“Your aunt doesn't sound like the most patient of women.”

“She wasn't.”

“Were you close to your dad at all?”

I rested my head on his shoulder. “My dad didn't know what to do after my mom died. He was still deployed overseas, and there was no one to be with us. So he dumped my brother and me on her doorstep. In some ways, it wasn't her fault. What did she know about raising teenagers?”

“I'd like to think she might have figured out that there was a reason you couldn't read.”

“I kind of made her life difficult.”

“You? I can't imagine.” The sarcasm in his voice made me laugh. And I swiped away a tear that rolled down my face and pushed out of Kit's arms.

“Your brother? Was he at all helpful?”

“He was a wonderful big brother. Really, he was. But he was hardly ever around.” And then he enlisted.

“When did you realize it wasn't your fault?”

I wanted to say “never,” but there was a moment when I discovered that there was a reason behind my failure. One of my teachers at Harrison County High School had recommended a tutor who had been successful in helping people overcome their reading problems. At first Mrs. Blodget had scared me to death with her polished black hair and her gravelly cigarette voice. But she turned out to be kind-hearted and perceptive. It didn't take her long to realize that I had a reading disability.

I moved to the window and put my hand on the cool glass. “I was in tenth grade, but reading at a second-grade level. A tutor tried to explain her suspicions to Aunt Gertrude. Aunt Gertrude thought if I worked harder I could overcome it. She nixed any future tutoring. She made me sit and read aloud each night. Do you have any idea how painful that is to a fifteen-year-old?”

“It must have been mortifying.”

“She just didn't understand it. I know that now.” Our relationship might have been different if I had been formally diagnosed when I was younger.

Kit came over and leaned against the wall beside me. “What happened to you? You left here, right?”

I nodded. “Technically, I couldn't leave until I was sixteen. But I packed up and went to live with a friend in Texas months before my birthday. Her parents were always good to me and my dad didn't contest it.” Aunt Gertrude had been hurt by that. Looking back, I think she thought she could somehow pull me out of the abyss of ignorance and fix me.

“Did you get the help you needed?”

“In California. When I was twenty. That's when a reading specialist worked with me. But that was expensive.”

“Did it help?”

“I still have some of the tools she used. I take them out every once in a while and practice reading. But it's slow. And it's embarrassing to do when people watch me. I get uptight when I feel rushed. I still stumble over my words too. Have you noticed how I mix up my syllables and sounds?”

“Maybe if you explain—”

I halted him with my hand. “I know. Yes. That is the easy way to handle it. And sometimes I can. And sometimes it's just too complicated. Dyslexia is kind of a spectrum thing. Not everyone who suffers from it is the same. Mine seems worse than most.” People had a way of asking all sorts of questions about my problem. They had this mistaken perception that I saw words backwards. But it was more like someone had tossed a deck of cards in the air and told me to read them before they dropped.

Moby gave a muffled bark from downstairs. “He needs to go out,” I said.

“I'll come with you.”

We followed Moby into the brisk night. Kit was quiet. He seemed to be thinking about something important. My anger was spent. The cool air felt good on my skin now. Like my mother's washcloth on my face after I cried.

Music and laughter came from a bonfire at the public beach. We veered away from it and stopped on an empty spit of land that bordered the lake. A mist hung over the water. The sound of crickets mixed with cicadas interrupted the sound of the post-football revelers.

“I'm sorry I exploded.”

“Don't be sorry.”

“I'll be better as soon as I get out of this town.”

As we watched Moby search through the underbrush near the shore, Kit took my hand. “So Trudy. Tell me more about your plans after you sell the store?”