Twice Shy, Sarah Hogle [100 books to read in a lifetime .txt] 📗

course through the electricity, too, popping breakers. “Oh, yes. It’s inevitable, isn’t it?”

I kneel (or collapse) to clean up the mess of glass and coffee, but it dawns on me that I don’t have a broom and dustpan here. I glance sadly at my 5,840 days without an accident sign as the number switches to 0. What is going on around here lately?

He leans across the counter, surveying me on the floor. I wish it would open up and swallow me. “You all right down there?”

“Fine,” I reply faintly. “It’s fine, I’m only dead.” It was the dimple. It killed me.

RIP, me.

“Did you fall asleep like that? Odd place for a nap.”

The fireworks shape-shift into a chandelier, and as he extends a hand to help me to my feet I’m zapped out of the café. This is IRL Wesley, gripping my hand in his (oh, his hand is strong) and standing me upright in the real world. He hands me my glasses, then holds up a white paper bag. Gives it a shake. “I finished early for the day. Brought home some—”

“Ahhhhhhh-ahh,” I interrupt. He cannot finish that sentence. If that bag has pastries in it, I’ll swoon. Resist! Resist!

I stare into his eyes, which are sparkling like fire agate. Do ordinary eyes sparkle like these? These are chocolate and hazelnut. Smoky earth. They would make angels weep and they’re boring into mine, calmly oblivious to the truth that I’m spiraling, demanding no answers as to why I was lying on the floor with my glasses off.

“You look feverish,” he murmurs, gaze dropping from my eyes to my lips.

My default recording plays itself, lacking air. “I had red hair . . .” I wheeze. “When I was born.”

“Oh, really?” He should be stepping away, but he doesn’t know it. He keeps getting closer, filling in the distance as I shuffle backward step by step. There’s nowhere safe for my eyes to rest. I look at his hair and words like gilded and Apollo explode in my mind as I imagine plunging my fingers into the wavy strands. I look at his eyes and hunger. Forget his mouth.

His mouth. It’s too late, I’m looking.

“I have to use the bathroom,” I blurt. “It’s going to be a while. Don’t wait up.”

Wesley smiles confusedly, eyebrows knitted, as I dash away. “O-kaay?”

I throw myself into the bathroom and give up on life. This is bad. It’s so, so bad. All it took for me to flush my sense down the toilet was an attractive man cutting a star out of aluminum foil. Surely I am not this weak.

I check my reflection in the mirror. The Maybell I find opposite me is a damn disappointment: chest heaving, red and blotchy all over, hairline damp. I’m a certified mess. I check the window, that threatening horizon looming closer—a stone’s throw away. I’ll be fine. I only need some space. Until Saturday, I need to avoid all interaction with Wesley, and thinking about him. We’re talking zero-tolerance policy. Total ban.

Or else I’m screwed.

•  •  •  •  •  •  •

I SUCCESSFULLY EVADE WESLEY for the rest of the day, citing an upset stomach. The next morning I’ve got a new bottle of Pepto Bismol outside my bedroom door. He doesn’t initiate any more contact, thankfully. And sadly. Maybe he hates me now? Maybe he was just about to like me, but I ruined it, which I should be grateful for, because IT WOULDN’T WORK ANYWAY, MAYBELL. Maybell Parrishes don’t cycle through the five stages of grief. We burrow into the denial leg of the journey like tourists overstaying our welcome and live there forever and ever. We also chug peppermint hot cocoa whenever we’re drowning in dramatic passions (I’m on my third pint of the day) and mythologize ourselves in the plural.

But on Wednesday, Wesley texts me. It’s a serve I didn’t expect.

He’s snapped a picture of my recent addition to the ballroom mural: the tiny My May Belle chugging along near his pirate ship. I didn’t consult wind patterns before painting it and the two boats are on track to smash into each other.

He adds this question, sans punctuation: Why did you add an e

I look up the Wikipedia page for My May Belle, a showboat that cruises the Tennessee River in Knoxville, and send him the link.

A young Julie Parrish had dreams of sailing away on that riverboat, I type. When she was pregnant with me she tried to run away from home, but the sheriff found her and brought her back. My name was supposed to be May Belle, but Mom was loopy on pain meds when she signed the birth certificate.

Growing up, she built up this boat in my head until it was larger than life, the pinnacle of Southern charm, telling me we’d go there someday to have lunch in big Kentucky Derby hats and white dresses. We finally went for my thirteenth birthday, but her boyfriend at the time’s daughter came along and I got jealous of the attention Mom gave her, then subsequently moody. Mom tended to be extra-specially nice to the kids of her boyfriends, trying to win them over. I ruined the day for everyone.

I like Maybell without an e, he types back.

I went once, I tell him. I told the staff what my name was and they gave me free dessert.

The occasion had been so talked up, so looked forward to, but ultimately I remember regular old Happy Meal dinners with more fondness. I think my mom was trying to re-create a pale image of her own childhood nostalgia.

Is there a story behind the name Wesley? I ask.

He replies: I was the fifth son. They ran out of names.

A minute later, he tacks on: My mom had a dream while pregnant that she was putting wooden letters above the crib. They spelled out Wesley.

Aww, I like that story.

Better than my brother Humphrey’s. He was named after the paramedic who delivered him in a Walgreens parking lot. Then he sends another photo of the mural, playing