to find even more words to scrawl for my readers. The smile seemed to flow easier onto my face and soon it drew people to the table and the rest of the evening passed much faster than the morning.
∞∞
Her armchair was empty and I checked my watch. I had not wanted to risk missing a moment with her so I had been checking every half hour. It was now almost noon. I wondered whether she came to this same spot every day, how long she spent here, in this oasis of calm, of words. I started to doubt. Maybe she had to wait for the girlfriend to leave. Maybe the girlfriend didn’t work on Tuesdays. I watched the clock on the wall, the black line of the second hand as it jogged around the white face.
She had a cup of coffee in each hand and her smile was even shyer than yesterday’s as she offered me one.
I took it with a smile of thanks and sipped. “How did you know how I took it?”
“You’d be surprised what your publicist puts up on your website.”
“Ah, I see. So you visited my website last night?”
She settled into her armchair and sighed. “Aren’t these chairs just so wonderfully comfortable? I would sleep here, if they’d let me.”
She wore a blue shirt today and it deepened the shade of her eyes. The sun through the glass roof highlighted the streaks in the auburn of her curls.
“Would your girlfriend not mind if you slept here? If they let you.” I lowered myself into my armchair.
“Well, she would certainly notice. And she would definitely mind.” Her voice was sad.
“Isn’t that a good thing? To have someone notice and care about your absence?”
She nodded but the movement was weak. “Is there anyone that waits for your return home?” She had her eyes fixed on her hands.
“No. I’m not that lucky. Besides, I have been throwing myself into book tours and basically travelling for what seems like a lifetime but it has only been a year. The hotel rooms make it feel like a long time.”
She looked up. “So, are you not writing? Or are hotel rooms conducive to writing?”
I shook my head. “They are not great places to write the kind of material I used to write about. Love and home and belonging. Funny that marketing those words takes time away from living them.”
She pulled her feet up under her and curled deeper into the cushions. I had wanted to ask her everything about her life, about the laughter lines that seemed to have lost their readiness, about the sadness that shaded the blue sun of her eyes. But we ended up talking about me and the day flew by until she noticed the clock on the wall and hurriedly uncurled herself.
“I really have to go. Goodness, it is late.” Her movements were awkward again, not full of the grace of her all afternoon.
She was gone in minutes, taking the scent of freshness with her.
∞∞
For most of Wednesday, Bella read and I sat and watched. Watched the play of light through her hair, the ascent and descent of her eyelashes, the ripple of her throat as she thought, the caress of her fingers as they turned over the pages.
The chatter of the shoppers faded under the rustle of pages, the tap of her cup against the wood, the sigh of the cushion as she eased further into its embrace.
She would look up every few minutes as if to check that I was still there. She seemed to sense that I did not want to talk that day but the silence was filled with words that danced between our eyes, taking their time, a slow waltz today.
She tried to clear my empty coffee cup as she left, a movement of habit, but I shook my head. She smiled and her steps were slow as she left our space. I watched her leave the bookstore from my perch on the second floor and I could see her pace quicken as she crossed the large circular foyer, her arms pushing against the rigid revolving doors.
∞∞
On Thursday, she talked. She told me about her life with Caren. The uncertainty she felt in her skin, in her trembling muscles. She knew Caren loved her but she felt like a possession, a trophy placed on the mantelpiece of their life. I could not ask the question that was much more important to me than whether Caren loved her. The question I wanted the answer to was whether she loved Caren. But I found the question sticking in the dark prison of my throat and it never emerged into the sun. So the topic changed to her past, to her. And I drank in every detail of this woman, clinging greedily to them, like I was storing them away to take out and examine in the tedium of my everyday because I knew that was what my life would be now. Now that I had found her and now that I would have to leave her.
∞∞
Friday dawned and noon arrived before I was ready. I was slightly later than I had been before. Her eyes widened when she saw me, and it looked like relief washed across them for a brief moment. Her eyes opened even wider when she saw the chocolate muffins I carried. Her smile and the careful pleasure she took in every bite was worth the harried search for the best bakery in a city I didn’t know.
It took a lot of resolve not to cross the few feet between our armchairs and stroke the chocolate off her chin. Instead, I pointed at my chin.
She laughed and said, “Can’t take you anywhere, you’ve got chocolate all over your chin.”
She got up and took a napkin from the little pile I’d left on the table in front of her chair. She walked over to me and I felt my heart thud in time with each step. She knelt in front of my chair, her eyes level with mine, her hands betraying the slightest of tremors as she wiped the chocolate from my chin. Her eyes wore the glaze of the sun on the sea and I could see the black circles swell as she murmured, “Your eyes are the same colour as the chocolate.”
My eyes dropped to her lips as she spoke and all I could think of was cherries. Cherries and chocolate. Did they go together? They seemed to. The smear of chocolate lay just beside her lips and before I could think I felt my face brush by her hand with the napkin mid-stroke and I felt my lips touch the velvet of chocolate on skin and I felt my lips move over hers and I felt the breath she released in a moan that came to rest gently against mine.
The kiss was sweet and slow and long yet too short before she yanked her head back. The dazed look in her eyes changed to panic.
“Bella. Don’t go.” The words escaped my bruised lips.
She shook her head and rested her hands on the arms of the chair as she pushed herself upright.
“Bella, I leave tonight. Come with me.” I spoke as she gathered her things, her eyes not looking at me.
She was gone before I saw that her copy of my book lay on the cushion of her empty armchair.
I waited until I could wait no more or I would miss my flight. I sat in my armchair and willed her back but her chair remained empty, my book forlorn.
I picked up the book and turned to the front page. I found my pen and wrote what I could through the gap tearing its way through me. She would have a signed copy to take home for her mantelpiece when she came in tomorrow. If she came in, I thought probably not, Caren did not work weekends.
∞∞
I packed my bag saying goodbye to yet another hotel room. The ride to the airport was longer than I could have imagined, longer than I remembered, lonelier than even the lonely ride into an unknown city a few days before.
The airport was thronged with holidaymakers. I kept my head down as I pushed my way through the gaiety. I checked in for my flight checking what city I was leaving, this time I needed to know its name, it seemed like the most important place on earth and the place to which I would never return.
I stared through the glass, out onto the tarmac, and blamed the glare of the sun for the wetness in my eyes. I could feel the hardness of disbelief crawl back into view and stake its claim again on my heart.
“Has anyone told you that you shouldn’t believe in love at first sight?” Her voice was soft beside my ear. I closed my eyes. She added, leaning closer, “Unless the other person falls as well.”
I opened my eyes and looked at Bella. The sun shone off her smile and I felt the disbelief scream in anger as it stalked off to find
a new heart to stake out.
She said, “You can’t leave this lying around in a bookstore with your address written on it. Someone could have found it and arrived at your door.”
She opened the book and read my handwritten words out loud. “I now believe in love at first sight. Come with me and let us prove love can make us forget the tedium of our every day.”
She smiled tenderly, “Somehow I don’t think there will ever be any tedium in my every day with you.”
THE END
About the Author
R J Samuel
Site: https://www.rjsamuel.com
Email:
[email protected] Twitter: @R_J_Samuel
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R J Samuel was born in Nigeria, to Indian parents from Kerala. She grew up in different parts of Nigeria with a brief stint in boarding school in the Nilgiri Hills in India and occasional summers in Kerala, London, and New York. In 1984, she moved to Ireland to complete her medical studies and vividly remembers the shock of arriving at Galway Train Station on an icy October night. Despite that traumatic first meeting, she fell in love with Galway and has remained there since, apart from a 3-year episode in the southwest of France. She is an Irish citizen and now considers herself almost Irish as well as almost Indian. Her first novel, ‘Heart Stopper,’ was published in February 2012 and her second novel, ‘Falling Colours - The Misadventures of a Vision Painter,’ in June 2012. Her third novel, ‘Casting Shadows - The Further Misadventures of