Page 60 of Stony Point Summer
“I wonder if you can help me, miss,” Neil says to her.
At the very sound of his voice, without even looking over at him, she freezes. Stops right there—three rungs up from the bottom.
Neil steps closer. “I’m looking for something,” he says.
Now the woman cautiously eyes him. He stands there in his hoodie sweatshirt over a black tee and cuffed dungarees. “Neil,” she whispers. “What are you doing here?”
“Hi, beautiful.” He steps closer. Reaching up a hand, he takes her free hand and helps her step down. “I wanted to see you, Lauren.”
“But I’m working.”
“I know. I won’t be long.” He slides his fingers along the frayed ends of that scarved headband falling over her shoulder.
Lauren steps back and clears her throat. “What can I help you find?” she asks Neil then, her voice loud enough to carry to the woman on the phone in the front of the store.
Anyone can see it’s all an act, though. Both are putting up some front to disguise their familiarity with one another. And oh yes, thereisa familiarity. That much is clear in the way Neil watches her. And randomly touches her arm, and that silky headband.
“Journals,” he loudly tells her, touching one of those glimmering chandelier earrings now. “I need a journal.”
She looks long at him, then hitches her head for him to follow. They walk down a half-aisle of nonfiction hardcovers, then cut over to the next aisle, passing an arrangement of two upholstered chairs at a round table. A coffee carafe sits on the table, alongside a stack of paper cups. Lauren takes his hand then and leads him toward the back of the store. When she’s finally out of anyone’s view, Neil quickly raises his hands to her face and steals a kiss, his hands tangling in her hair.
“Neil! If I get caught—”
“You won’t.” He touches her face. “I wanted to see you before I went to work. Just for a minute. My brother’s waiting outside.”
“Jasonknowsabout us?” she instantly asks.
“No. He’s clueless. Thinks I’m picking up a journal or something. Which I am.”
So Lauren turns to a nearby shelf. It’s stacked with journals of all sizes. Her fingers slide over the canvas covers, spiral-bounds. Finally she plucks out a brown journal and gives it to him. The leather cover is distressed and tied shut with a string of rawhide; the pages inside, cream-colored.
Neil looks from her to the journal in his hands now. He unties the rawhide, opens the cover and flips the blank pages. Inside the back cover, there is an attached envelope with a string closure. It’s the type of envelope to hold mementoes: ticket stubs, or seagull feathers, or a photograph.
“Do you like it?” Lauren asks him.
“It’s perfect.” He loops his hand around the closed journal before glancing back toward the front of the store. Then to Lauren again. When he does, he slightly shakes his head.
Lauren reaches to his neck and straightens his sweatshirt hood. “What’s the matter?” she whispers, tugging a sweatshirt string.
He folds his hand over hers and moves her against a shelf of books. “You are.”
“I am?”
He nods and drops his voice low. “There’s something I’m really sorry about.”
“Sorry about? Like what?”
“That I didn’t know earlier.”
“Knowwhat, Neil?”
“About you,” he says. “Beforeyou got tangled up with Kyle.Shit,” Neil whispers, then shoves up his sweatshirt sleeve for a look at a big wristwatch there.
“Neil. You’ve known me foryears.”
“Not like this.”
“Like this?” she whispers, her eyes suddenly moist.
