Page 102 of The Lookback

“Mandy.” Someone grabs my elbow.

I’m pretty sure it’s Tommy.

I shouldn’t be so desperately hopeful, but I can’t help it. My heart swells with it as I turn and confirm that it is him.

“Yeah?” My voice is embarrassingly breathy, like I’m auditioning for the role of Scarlett inGone with the Wind.

“I’m not angry at you as much as I am at myself. Instead of pushing you to tell Jed how you felt. . .” He releases me and steps back, his head down, focused on his now empty plastic basket.

That’s when I understand. If he had told me how he felt, instead of writing to threaten me, we wouldn’t have wasted all this time. “I’m embarrassed,” I admit. “The whole thing is embarrassing.”

“It shouldn’t be. Your family taught you to lie,” he says.

My jaw drops.

“Your dad was kind of famous for it.”

That stings, but it’s not untrue. He never stole, but he’d boast about unbelievable things with the best of them. And when he got drunk, it was even worse. “That’s no excuse.”

“I ruined our lives, not you.” He steps closer, shaking his head. “I messed this up, and it’s hard for me to live with that.”

I look up at him, the stupid burgeoning hope soaring. “You—I told you I traveled.”

“I knew that part wasn’t true, at least not after you got married.” His lip’s twitching. “Jed wouldn’t even go on the field trip to San Francisco, and his mom kept offering to pay for half the class if he’d go.”

I forgot about that.

“He never went to see his brother, either. At least, not when his parents went out to visit Clyde at school. I asked him why once, and he said, ‘if it can’t be reached within one tank of gas of here, I don’t want to see it.’”

His impression of Jed issospot on, I can barely handle it. Once I start laughing, Tommy does, too.

“If you can forgive me for being an idiot, I can try to forgive myself,” he says.

“I’m the idiot.”

“You overheard me trying to be a good friend to you,” he says. “If I could convince Jed I didn’t like you, I thought you had a chance of getting what I thought you wanted. And also, if I told him I liked you, when you did get together, he’d make you stay away from me. At the time, that felt like the worst of all possible options.”

“But you were never in the way of him and me.”

“Everyone in town thought you and Jed were star-crossed lovers. If you had any idea how many people told me your tragic story.” His hand’s clutched so tightly around the handle of the basket that I’m worried he’ll break the flimsy plastic.

“I’m sorry about that,” I say. “But we weren’t reallystar-crossed. We were just cross.”

His lip twitches with suppressed mirth.

“I don’t want us to be cross,” I whisper. “I was too happy the one day we were straight.”

He drops the basket then, and he yanks me away from mine, pulling me tightly against his body. I’m sure everyone in the store is covering their eyes or making puking sounds, but I’m giddy as a lamb in a field in springtime when he drops his head toward mine. “I love you, Mandy Saddler, and I don’t want to waste any more time eating television dinners alone. I want to spend the rest of my time right here.”

“In the grocery store?” I grimace. “Because that could be awkward.”

He’s smiling when he kisses me.

And it’s just exactly the kiss I’ve always dreamed about. I forget about the world around me, about where we’re standing, about why I’m here. Nothing matters except his arms around me, and his breath on my face. Until he finally releases me, and I realize that my top denture has come loose and is now falling down on top of my bottom teeth.

“I better go check out,” I manage to mumble. “Why don’t you pick up some food and meet me at my place.”

Ours may be the strangest romance ever told, but I like my romance with a side of laughter. So when he gets to my house with two burgers, one patty made with disgusting black beans he insists are heart healthy, I tell him thanks, and then I confess why I shot out of the store like a calf from its first hoof trim.

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