Why I Love Singlehood: (37 page)

I looked at him, touched. “Really?”

“I guess I wanted some of that momentum in my life. Well, that and I just really like saying it.
Andiamo!
” He gestured like an Italian would. “It feels good to say. The guys thought it sounded worldly and lacked total geekness. Heck, it beat out Yoda Press and Bagel Books, so you should be flattered.”

“I’m honored,” I replied. “But I so would’ve voted for Yoda Press.”

James Banks, the author and one of the co-founders of the small press, was a friend of Kenny’s, and his novel was a Carolina-based commercial thriller. The reading and launch party was open to the public. I couldn’t help but watch Kenny standing tall and proud while James read the first chapter and took questions from the attendees, as if his child rather than his buddy was the center of attention.

After James finished the Q&A and signed books, I sidled up to Kenny as he was wrapping up an interview with one of the local papers.

“So, Mr. Kenneth Richard Rhodes.”

“Kenny, please. Only my mother calls me by my full name.”

I held up my plastic champagne goblet. “To new ventures,” I said.

He held up his own and clicked it against mine. “Here’s looking up your old address.”

Just as we drank, Scott exited the reading room, his autographed James Banks novel tucked under his arm. He bobbed his head in lieu of a greeting as he made and then broke eye contact with us, and I returned the gesture. “Hey, Scott,” I said in the amiable way I had always addressed him when he was nothing more than Norman’s best friend, one of the Originals.

Kenny raised his eyebrows after Scott was out of range. “Awkward. How are things between you two?”

“Every day gets a little easier for both of us, I think.”

“Norman told me that he reactivated his Lovematch-dotcom profile.”

I nearly spit out my drink. “Well OK, then. I guess everyone’s moving on.”

“So where does that leave us?”

Ahh, Kenny and all his cards on the table.

“Lord knows I’ve been thinking about you nonstop since our date,” I said. “And not just because I’m dying for an excuse to get back to the Potato Shack…” He chuckled. “It would be so easy to just get into this with you, and I want to—I mean, I really,
really
want to.”

“I do too.”

“But I really don’t want to get into another rebound situation.”

“What makes you think this is a rebound?”

“I don’t. I just…I don’t know. It just feels so soon after everything that’s happened; I think I just need a little time.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “I can respect that. You gotta do what you gotta do. Take all the time you need.”

Neither of us said anything, and after about ten seconds, Kenny looked at his watch.

“Done yet?”

I sighed, wishing I could laugh it off, throw my cares to the wind, and give in to Kenny, when Norman tapped me on the shoulder.

“Hey, can I talk to you for a second, Eva?”

“Sure, Norm-o. What’s up?”

“In the kitchen,” he said.

A look of concern spread across my face, and I left Kenny to resume mingling and networking with the other attendees as Norman and I headed for the deserted kitchen.

“Is everything OK?” I asked.

“This is probably the worst time to talk to you about this, but I just can’t wait anymore.”

“Oh my God, you’re leaving, aren’t you,” I said.

“No! Hell no, I would never quit on you like
this
.”

“Are you engaged?”

“No!”

“Are you wanted in a foreign country?”

“Geez, will you shut up with the twenty questions and let me tell you?”

I straightened my posture. “OK. I promise I’m listening. What’s up?”

“I want to buy half of your business, Eva.”

35

The Proposal

I DROPPED THE
plastic champagne goblet.

“Say that again?”

“I want to buy half of your business.”

I reached out for something to lean on and made contact with the kitchen island, listening to Norman’s voice as if he was speaking from a distance.

“I’ve been here since this baby opened. And even though it isn’t technically mine, I’ve always felt a part of it. More than just an employee. This is a special place. Mostly because you made it special, Eva. But I want a piece of it—” He quickly admonished himself. “That didn’t come out right. You’ve always treated me like a partner, and I want to make it official.”

After standing in a stupor for several pounding heartbeats, I finally opened my mouth. “Wow,” I said. “Talk about coming out of left field.”

“I’m sorry to spring it on you like this—I guess I’m just caught up in the energy of Kenny’s new business and all the other change that’s been going on. Suddenly it felt like a brass ring that was about to pass me by if I didn’t seize hold of it.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” I said, dazed. A curl of something heavy—fear, maybe?—started to unfurl in my stomach.

“I’ve got enough for a down payment and have already secured a loan. And not for nothing, but I can tell this hasn’t been your favorite place to be lately. I’m not saying you don’t love it anymore—I know how you feel about this place—but I think you need a break from it. Think about it, will you, Eva? You can take some time off, write another novel, go back to teaching, the sky’s the limit. I’m not trying to push you out or anything. I just want you to see that you have options, possibilities that you may never have considered before.”

The more he spoke, the more I felt like I was being immersed in a tank of water while bound in chains, my head woozy. I could hear Norman’s voice echoing as he spoke, banging against my eardrums, and my heart rate sped up double-time.

“Eva?” I heard Norman asking from a distance. His firm hand grabbed my shoulder as he asked, “You OK?” My eyes moved from his hand to his arm and past the shoulder to the concern in his eyes.

“I can’t do this right now,” I said. “In fact, I need some air.”

I brushed past Norman and out the back door into the alley.
The nerve of him
, said my inner voice as I paced; I stopped and instructed myself to take a couple of deep breaths.
The Grounds is
my
place
.
Mine.
I resumed pacing, flickering in and out of a pool of a light from a lone streetlamp as my brain alternated between protecting my most treasured possession and trying to rationalize both Norman’s and my actions. Minutes later, Kenny appeared in the dank space between building and streetlamp.

“Geez, Eva, you look like you saw a ghost. What the hell happened?”

Before I had a chance to ask how he knew where I was, he said, “Norman told me you needed some air.”

My words came out a mile a minute. “Norman wants to buy in. He wants half The Grounds. Ready to sign today, just like that.”

Kenny sat on the curb, the same spot we’d sat when he’d brought me lunch months ago. “Well, I guess it was only a matter of time. Why are you so upset about it?”

I paused, trying to make sense of my reaction and find words to match. “I don’t know. It was as if someone told me he wanted to take away my child or something. I just freaked out.”

Kenny nodded without judgment. “I can understand that. But it wasn’t just anyone, it was
Norman
. And I’m willing to bet that most people think you’re already co-owners,” he continued. “Why not make it official?”

I studied the way that the light threw his features into sharp relief, exaggerating the planes of jaw, nose, and cheek, but didn’t answer him.

“Norman offered you a partnership, right? Not to buy you out completely. He still wants you around, and not that I blame him…” he said with a half grin. “He’s asking you to marry him, metaphorically speaking, and to be The Grounds’s adoptive father. That’s huge. It requires a lot of trust. And it’s been really easy for you to treat him like a partner all the while knowing he isn’t one, that he has no rights at all.”

I folded my arms as a breeze blew through the alleyway. And then it hit me: I knew what was bothering me.

“The Grounds is the only thing that was ever
mine
—no one told me to open a café, no one cosigned the loan or told me how to run a business. I navigated that path all my own, mistakes and all.”

“You mean it’s the only thing in your life that you’ve been able to control.”

“Exactly.”

“You’ve been on your own for a long time, and you built some pretty tall walls. And I understand why you did. But you don’t need them anymore, and you know it.”

He’d hit the nail on the head, and suddenly I didn’t want to be talking about it anymore. I stood up and stretched. “I do know it.”

He stood as well.

“Thanks for listening,” I said.

He hugged me. “You’re welcome.”

I wanted him to hold me and not let go, to kiss me and whisk me away in his Karmann Ghia. When he let go, he looked into my eyes for a moment, and I swore he was thinking the same thing. But then he broke into a half-crooked smile and told me he had to go, and I reluctantly let him.

I lingered in the alley for a minute or two, taking a couple of deep breaths and listening to the sound of traffic. I knew I’d overreacted and hurt one of my best friends and most-trusted coworkers. I also knew that his asking me to be a partner had changed everything, made me acutely aware of how much a part of The Grounds he already was, of what I’d known all along: Norman deserved to be my partner from day one.

Steeling myself, I took one last deep breath and opened the back door; there was no preventing the inevitable.

He was in the office, his navy blue pea coat over one arm, keys in hand.

“Hey,” I said. “You leaving?”

“I was going to leave you a note,” he said, his voice perfectly even, firm, businesslike. He kept his eyes focused just past my head. “The espresso maker’s acting up again, and a guy asked about hosting a poetry slam. Told him I’d have to talk to you.”

“Look,” I started. “I know I shouldn’t have run out on you like that, and I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve it.”

“Apology accepted,” he said. I could tell he was still wounded.

“I don’t think you’re plotting some hostile takeover. You just took me by surprise, that’s all. It’s a big deal.”

“Yes, it is. And my timing was bad, I know. So I’m sorry for that.”

“I just need time to think about it, OK? This is my life, ya know.”

“Mine too.”

Those two words pierced me—not once had I ever considered The Grounds as something so personal to anyone but myself.

“I’ll think about it, Norman. I really will.”

“That’s all I ask, Eva.”

And yet, I already knew what my answer was going to be.

36

Nothing to Lose

WITH THE SEMESTER
officially over, I met Jenna Jaffe at her house to consult about each student and show her the final drafts of their short stories. I also delivered a care package of homemade peanut butter cups, her favorite. Sitting cross-legged opposite Jenna, propped up against a stack of pillows, I felt more like girlfriends having a sleepover than colleagues having a meeting. Still, it was nice to talk so collegially about something other than coffee vendors and payroll projections. I hadn’t missed much when I’d left teaching, but the conversations about the writing (more specifically, the
language
) had always stimulated me, and I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed Jenna as a friend, much less a mentor.

When we finished and I got ready to leave, she looked at me inquisitively.

“Eva, are you sure you don’t want to teach part-time on a regular basis?”

I shrugged. “The Grounds keeps me pretty busy.”

“I know how much you love it there, but it’s just…you’re good at this, too. And writing. I’d thought for sure you’d be on your third novel by now.”

“It never felt right to me. But with all that’s been happening lately, who knows.” I paused for a moment. “Are you afraid?”

“That something’s going to go wrong with the baby? The doctor says the odds are way in my favor, and I’m doing everything right. But I think the minute you find out you’re pregnant, the fear never really goes away. It’s part of parenthood.”

“How do you live with it day in and day out?”

She smiled. “I’ll let you know when the baby is born. But my guess is that you have two choices: either let it control you, or channel it into the everyday things you do. The dorm fire was unsettling, to say the least. You do the best you can to prevent another fire, but you don’t give up lighting candles forever, right?”

With that, I leaned over and hugged her, then smoothed my hand over her belly. She expressed her gratitude one more time for my helping her out, said it was one less thing she needed to worry about, and bit into another peanut butter cup as I exited her room and let myself out.

The next day I went to Jenna’s NCLA office to enter the final grades into the college’s computer network. Just as I pumped my fists in the air and congratulated myself on a job well done, a forceful knock on the open door nearly startled me out of my seat.

“Final grades done?”

“Geez, Shaun! You scared the hell out of me! I didn’t even see you there.”

“Sorry,” he said, and smiled. “You look good behind that desk. Just like old times.”

“Anyone would look good behind this desk,” I said, caressing the smooth finish of Jenna’s mahogany desk, handcrafted especially for her by her father.

I hadn’t seen Shaun since the night of the fire, and the memory of the kiss sent shivers from my toes straight up to my crown all over again. He plopped into the chair to the side of the desk facing me, holding his faded leather jacket, and slouched just like a student. And yet, seeing him there, dressed in a snug T-shirt and faded Levi’s blue jeans (my preferred outfit of choice for Shaun—it perfectly displayed his pectorals), I felt no tingling in my chest, no pangs of longing, no sighs of regret.

“So,” I said, “are you done, too?”