CHAPTER FOUR

BRANDON

 

Home, sweet, home.

The bags dropped to the marble floor of the foyer with a sound that echoed up to the vaulted ceilings. A pile of mail sat on a table next to the door, along with a Tupperware container full of my favorite double-fudge brownies, made specially for me by Nick’s one-and-only, Ashley. A quickly scribbled note welcomed me back to my less-than-humble abode. It also let me know that I was now low on cat food, and if I didn’t want Tolkien to feast upon my eyeballs while I slept, I better get to the store.

With an appreciation for my eyesight, I decided it would be wise to heed her warning. I took the opportunity to not face the rest of the house awaiting me just yet, fully aware that I wouldn’t want to leave once my head hit the pillow.

Clutching my keys in hand, I locked the door with the comfort of knowing I would be returning shortly to my bed, where I was determined to sleep for a week. The floorboards of the wrap-around porch creaked the tales of their vacation from me under my heavy boots as I walked towards the steps, and before making the descent, I looked out onto the lake not twenty feet from the edge of my front yard. A rippled landscape of diamonds glittered in the early autumn sun—a sight that had been the deciding factor when buying the house years before, but the intent had never been to enjoy the view alone.

I climbed into the Mercedes GLS SUV that had been unloved for far too long, and enjoyed the deep breath I took once behind the wheel. The sense of independence was always overwhelming after months of being surrounded by Nick, security, press, and fans. Freedom was a sweet thing often taken advantage of, and while I was guilty of that myself, I had planned on reveling in just simply being alone for at least the next twenty-four hours. After I got the cat food, of course.

Turning the corner onto Main Street, I caught a glimpse of my favorite local bookstore and felt its gravity begin to pull me in. It didn’t take much convincing to do my best job at parallel parking at the front of the store, and I headed in, greeted immediately by the familiar welcome of the jingling door.

Bill sat behind the counter with bifocals slid halfway down his nose. A cup of coffee seemed fused to his hand as he turned another page of the book nestled in his lap, never looking up even as I stood directly in front of him and leaned against the counter’s ledge.

“Hey Bill,” I said with a smile, attempting to pull him from whatever world he was currently living in. “Reading anything good?”

“Mm, the new Koontz. Just got it in. Not bad.” He spoke in the broken sentences one strings together when neck deep in an engrossing story—my favorite kind.

“Oh yeah? Maybe I’ll check it out. Haven’t read any of good old Dean’s work since he killed off Odd Thomas. Not sure I’ve forgiven him for that yet, though, so …” I drummed my fingertips against the counter, my eyes looking through the wide picturesque storefront windows, decorated festively for autumn. In fact, I noticed, the entire store looked like Mother Nature had exploded with shoddy kindergarten craft projects, and I knew instantly that Bill had been, once again, the head of the decorating committee.

I watched the Main Street, bustling with the lunchtime crowd on that Thursday. A small-town world where everybody knew everyone else. Shop owners and restaurant chefs greeted most by name, inquired about those they didn’t, and treated each other with the nosy respectful cattiness you would expect from your stereotypical American hamlet. Everybody had their part to play, even if that role was simply to be a customer at the new pizza place, and mine was Hometown Boy Turned Local Celebrity. Most everybody knew me, everybody of note took care of me, and everybody else respected my desire to be left alone.

The town was my security blanket, even down to the street fairs and corny decorations that littered the lamp posts for every important holiday, and it felt good to be back in its easy embrace.

I cleared my throat as I rested my gaze back at Bill, still sucked into his book. With a sudden realization that he was behaving poorly towards a potential customer, he shot upwards as he placed the book somewhere beneath the counter. He straightened the hem of his famed argyle sweater vest and looked up to face me. It took a few moments before he focused, and then he smiled in a way that felt like coming home—because that’s exactly what it was.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite author! You just get back today?”

I folded my leather-clad arms over the counter’s wooden surface, surveying the small displays of locally made bookmarks and candles, and nodded wearily. “Yeah, just a little while ago. I figured I’d stop in and say hi before falling into a coma.” The very mention of sleep brought forth a body-consuming yawn, and I apologized for my lack of composure.

Bill waved a hand, dismissing the apology. His face suddenly lit up, his eyebrows raising with his apparent stroke of brilliance. “Hey, Jessie just finished up with Story Time if you want to crash on a pile of bean bag chairs. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind the company.”

“Tempting, but I’d need a better reason to fold myself into one of those things.” I laughed at my own expense, vaguely remembering a time when it was a piece of cake to crouch that low to the ground without hitting myself in the chin with a knee.

“Then can I interest you in a cup of our new Tahitian Vanilla Roast? I’m sure Scott wouldn’t mind taking care of that for you,” Bill said with a tantalizing smile.

“Oh, come on, Bill.” I groaned, tossing my headful of hair back to look at the ceiling. “Don’t tell me you’re in on Mission: Kill Brandon with Sleep Deprivation, too.”

“We have decaf.”

“Well,” I said as I straightened my back, “now you’re talking my language.”

I walked through the maze of shelving units and mismatched chairs, laid out haphazardly over a canvas of various rugs. The store was relatively small and whimsical, taking up two storefronts on the main street, but the amount that was squeezed into the space made it feel so much bigger, albeit confusing. Bill’s wife Jessie was putting away her books from Story Time in the children’s corner—affectionately titled The Book Nook—when she spotted me. Her face lit up and dropped the book she held before hurrying over to me, her long colorful skirt billowing behind her.

“Oh, Brandon, I’ve missed you!” Her arms stretched to wrap around my neck, hugging me as though I had been gone for much longer than three months.

I reciprocated as I bent to wrap my own arms around her waist. “I missed you too, Jess.”

The bottle-red-headed woman backed away, her hands pressed to the sides of my neck. “Get yourself a cup of coffee and come sit down, hon. I have to tell you what happened with that Taco Bell that’s going in next to the funeral home. I’m telling you, that Debbie Jefferson is going to get it from me one of these days, if she doesn’t learn to keep her big fat mouth shut. She thinks she has her hands in everything around here, but ohh, did I prove her wrong when it was my vote that put that darn Taco Bell through.” She grinned with enough sinister malice to leave me feeling momentarily disturbed. “Come—sit and I’ll tell you the rest.”

My hand flew to my hair, raking through the strands. “I’d really love to, Jess, but I am pretty sure I’m actively dying of exhaustion.”

“Oh, but B., you just got here,” she protested with a pout.

“Let the man leave, Jessica!” Bill’s voice bellowed from the front of the store, and I coughed on a laugh.

Jessie nodded through the hurt, and I assured her I’d be back soon—I always was, even if only to write outside of my own office—and I would hear all about her plot to take down Debbie Jefferson. Satisfied, she left me with another hug before returning to her work in the Book Nook, and I continued my walk through the bookstore’s labyrinth to the café, managed by Bill and Jessie’s son Scott.

I found him sorting through cups and lids of varying sizes, singing along a little too loudly with something playing through the headphones he wore over his grey slouchy beanie. The stringy strands of his long hair stuck out from underneath the hat, giving him the appearance of a misplaced scarecrow.

He caught a glimpse of me out of the corner of his eye, startled for only a moment before excitement took over, just like his mother. Pulling the headphones off, he exclaimed a “hey dude” before rounding the counter to shake my hand, finishing with a hearty clap on my back.

Scott wasted no time getting a cup of their latest blend brewing for me, and I reached for my wallet. “Come on, dude. You know we don’t accept your money.”

“Doesn’t mean I won’t try,” I grumbled, and slipped a few dollars into the tip cup on the counter when his back was turned.

I had grown up with Scott. Both of us lacked siblings and being three years his senior, I played the part as an older brother to him during the years when our families were inseparable. The bond had remained solid well into our teens, and then I had gone off to college, fell in love and settled into my own life, separate from the one I had at home. Our parents had remained close, but Scott and I let the tethers holding our bond together disintegrate with the changing of our lives. More specifically, he had developed a taste for marijuana, and I was busy being in love with a judgmental woman who didn’t care for his choice of habits.

It wasn’t until I was single once again that our friendship reignited, no longer under the control of the woman who claimed my heart for too long, but eleven years was a long time, and I had to settle for the unfortunate fact that it would unlikely ever be the way it had been when we were kids. The painful proof was in the way I stood there, without a clue of what to say.

“So …” I began, as I rifled through the small-talk-topics at my disposal, coming up empty while my fingers traced the outline of the cash register.

And as though the universe could sense the awkwardness hovering around the barista bar, I felt myself struck in the side of the leg by a moving object. The edge of my kneecap pulsed with pain as my assailant crashed to the floor with a wail, and I looked down to find myself staring at a little girl; blonde and frantic with hands clutched to her face, a stuffed giraffe laying at her side.

Instinctively I knelt down, preparing to assess the situation.

“I-is she okay?” Scott asked, suddenly standing over me, his hands nervously working inside the sleeves of his oversized sweater.

I glanced up at him incredulously. Of all the stupid questions.

“Sweetheart, are you hurt?” I asked in a gentle voice, hovering my hands over her with caution, undecided on what I should do with them.

She continued to cry in hysterics, and I noticed a trickle of blood coming from underneath her hands. Although my mind raced with the possible lawsuits I knew absolutely nothing about, I asked without panic, “Can you move your hands, and let me take a look?” When she refused, I took a chance and gently pried her hands away from her face to reveal a bloody nose and a fat lip.

Scott rushed to grab a few napkins, handed them down to me, and went to fetch some ice for her lip. Perhaps feeling a little too at ease with the little girl, I pulled her up into a seated position and wiped up the blood that ran over her lips. Gently tilting her head back, I pinched the bridge of her nose. Her hysterics had subsided into controlled sobs, and her wide brown eyes watched me with caution. Evidently, the Stranger Danger had settled in.

I lifted my head to quickly look around the store for any sign of a person missing a child. “Honey, where is your mommy or …”

“Anna! Oh, my God!”

I was startled by the sudden voice of a disheveled woman. She fell to her knees beside me, more of her dark brown hair falling out of her already messy ponytail. Her hands immediately went to the pudgy cheeks, turning her face unintentionally out of my fingers’ grasp, and the little nose went un-pinched. A slow drop of blood appeared at the entrance of her nostril, and I reached over to hold her nose shut again, not bothering to wonder if I should keep my hands off this woman’s daughter.

Scott returned with the icepack and handed it to the woman. Through her frazzled panic, she looked at it curiously in her hands. Understanding the worry she must have gone through, only to find her child bloodied and screaming on the floor, I spoke to her gently and instructed her to use it for the girl’s lip. That’s when she finally acknowledged my presence, turning to face me. If there was ever a moment to strike me breathless, it was that one, and it did.

She was a pale beacon of effortless beauty, without a mask of makeup to enhance or disguise. The delicate plains of her high cheekbones radiated with the natural flush of excitement from losing her child, while a set of full lips appeared red and bitten, and in the center of it all was a slender nose that came to a perfect point. I caught myself gazing into the melted chocolate pools of her eyes, clouded by a sadness I was all too familiar with, and I realized, had I believed in love at first sight, I had just fallen face first into it.

But I didn’t believe in love at first sight.

“U-uh,” I stammered, catching myself staring at her, and diverted my gaze to the child, desperately trying to pull myself together as I found my voice. “She ran right into me. Hit my knee pretty hard. I don’t think her nose is broken, but I’m also not a doctor.”

Surely she was aware that I was a writer, and yet, despite my lack of a PhD, the woman seemed to emit a sigh of relief, placing a hand on my arm before applying the icepack on Anna’s lip.

“Thank you so much. She just ran off. God, she never does that.” She squeezed her eyes shut, letting out a long sigh. “It’s just been one of those years, you know?”

The dark circles under her eyes suggested she was in dire need of a stiff drink and a long, uninterrupted nap. I suppose I could have asked her out for a drink, or at the very least bought her a cup of coffee. But I bit my tongue, telling myself that it would never end well, and instead nodded.

“I’ve had those before,” I said with a smile.

She smiled at me warmly, pushing the sadness aside for just a few moments, and touched my arm once again. “Thank you,” she repeated.

She turned her attention to Anna. I removed my fingers from her nose, and took the ice pack from her lip. It appeared that she would survive the ordeal when she immediately reached for the raggedy giraffe and hugged the floppy body to her chest.

“You ready to go home, Anna Banana?”

Anna nodded eagerly, and I couldn’t say I blamed her after all the excitement. She climbed into the arms of her mother, nuzzling her battered face into the hollow of her neck. Ignoring the shameful jealousy I immediately felt, I stood then, extending a hand to help pull the woman to her feet with the little girl in tow. As she laid her small hand in mine, I imagined that a current of electricity passed from her body into mine, bringing me instantly to life, as though I had been dead for too long.

A moment passed with us standing awkwardly. I realized that maybe fate had granted me another chance to throw myself out there and ask her out for a drink, but it dawned on me that she was more than likely married. Rejection seemed like a horrible way to start my time back home.

Another me, another life.

“Thank you again,” she finally said, for a third time. She looked up at me, at least a foot from where she stood. “Say thank you to the nice man, Anna.”

Nice man. I basked in that brief moment of anonymity, of being just an ordinary person in an ordinary store—of being a nice man. Maybe, I realized, she really didn’t know who I was, and how arrogant it was to assume that she had in the first place.

“Sank yew,” Anna said softly, as she looked out for a second from her hiding spot against the skin of her mother’s neck.

“You’re very welcome,” I said with a smile, and then my eyes settled once again in a spot within hers—the woman I was dying to know the name of, but wouldn’t dare to ask. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”

With a quickened smile and a turn of her heel, she was gone. I turned to Scott, who handed me the coffee I had since forgotten about, and he asked why I hadn’t just asked her out. I was embarrassed that he could sense the stirring of emotion I felt for the woman I had just met, and maybe some time ago I would have gone into an explanation on why I hadn’t. But all I could do was shrug and tell him I must have just been too tired to think, and began to walk away with coffee in hand, leaving Scott with his headphones and music.

“Actually, I have a question,” I said, turning around as a thought entered my mind. “Have you seen her before?”

As he lowered the headphones again, Scott raised his brows with knowing eyes. “Yeah, she comes in a couple times a week for Story Time. Moved here from the city a few months ago.”

“Hmm.” That explained why I hadn’t seen her before. And although I wasn’t a fan of hanging around a corner full of strange little kids, that was subject to change. “Thanks, man.”

“Uh-huh,” Scott teased, his mouth curling into a taunting smile beneath his ratty beard, and he pulled the headphones back up.

I went through the rest of my day as normal as my normal got. I went to the grocery store and bought the cat food I initially left the house for. I picked up a turkey club sandwich from the diner, bumping into my favorite waitress Birdy in the process and received yet another hug, and headed home.

I sat on the bed I missed so much, sharing the sandwich with my four-legged friend with a rerun of Frasier. Afterwards I took the longest, hottest shower I had taken in two months, without Nick’s rushed words telling me I needed to be somewhere to sign some things for some people. With my hair soaking wet, too physically and mentally beat to bother squeezing the water out of its length, I flopped down on my pillow, wrapping myself in the blankets at an hour that would’ve made an old man proud. I closed my eyes, breathing in the comfortable scent of my own bed clothes, and drifted into a deep sleep as I wondered what name could possibly be worthy of the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.