Page 22 of Love in the Stacks
Nicole:
I know. Sorry [frowny face emoji]
But no explanation. I try to get it out of my head and focus on sifting through the dozens of emails, mostly junk, which came into my inbox during the time off.
True to her word, Nicole emails me that afternoon with an invite to meet on Wednesday in her office.
The next morning, I text her a meme of a woman sitting by the water reading a book. The image says:
“Oh yeah, I’m outdoorsy … if outdoorsy means I read outside.”
She marks it with the laughing reaction but doesn’t text back.
While I was in Naples during the break, my mom tried to get me out of the house more.
“Adam,” she scolded, “you can’t just sit around with an old lady your whole vacation. Why don’t you go do something fun?”
But I didn’t really have anywhere to go. Other than my high school best friend, Mark, who was busy with his own family, I don’t know anyone in Naples anymore. Mom and I watched Hallmark Christmas movies together, I went with her on her errands, and I played my computer games or read. I went on runs with Joan in the mornings or evenings when the air was cooler. My mom has an active social life, so a couple of times I found myself sitting at home alone on a weekend night while she was out with friends.
One day, in the week after Christmas, we decided to change things up and went to the beach. Regardless of the calendar, it was close to eighty degrees in south Florida, and while that is not warm enough in my mind to get in the water, it is a pleasant temperature for enjoying the sound of the waves crashing against the sand and watching seagulls dive bomb tourists with their picnic lunches.
“Your dad loved the beach,” Mom sighed as we sat side by side in our beach chairs.
I turned my head to see her face in profile. Her long, straight white hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail. Her brown eyes glistened, and her lips turned up in a soft smile. “I remember,” I said.
“He was a quiet man, didn’t like crowds, so in our younger days, we would often head to the beach after dinner. Most of the tourists and families and sunbathers had gone back to their hotels or homes by then, and we would sit together and talk as the sun went down.”
I smiled, picturing them on the beach together at sunset. “That sounds romantic.”
“Sometimes,” she began and then paused, “sometimes I wonder how life would have gone if circumstances were different.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I had passed before your father, I mean. What would his life have been like without me? I miss him every day, but my brain is just programmed to need people. I have my book club, and my committees at church, and the volunteering I do. I rarely feel lonely. Your father, though. Most of the time, I had to force him out of the house. He would go anywhere I asked him to but would never be the one to suggest it. He would have been terribly lonely, I think. I’m not sure he would have tried not to be.”
She turned to face me, then, her forehead creased together in between her eyebrows. “You remind me a lot of him,” she said.
And while it’s a comparison I loved to hear, I knew she didn’t mean her words as a compliment.
I sighed. “Iknow.”
“What do you know?”
I shrugged. “That I’m lonely. That as comfortable and orderly as my life is, I’m missing out.”
She nodded. “And what are you doing about it?”
Nicole’s face came to mind. “There’s a woman I’m interested in,” I admitted.
Mom’s eyebrows rose halfway up her forehead. “And?”
“And it’s complicated. She’s a coworker, and I don’t want to bother her.”
“Do you know that she would think your interest is a nuisance?”
“No. Honestly, she seems lonely, too. I’ve been trying to be a friend.”
Mom nodded. “Friends is a great place to start.” She grinned at me. “What’s her name?”
