Page 10 of Drawn Together

Nine

Word of the day: accismus

Definition: feigning disinterest in something while actually desiring it

Random number: Hello.

Flora: Hello?

Random number: Flora?

Flora: Stranger?

Random number: Fletcher.

Flora: Ahh.

Fletcher: Can we graduate beyond using one-word sentences? I know what I want you to read.

Flora: Yes.

Fletcher: Is that a joke?

Flora: Depends.

Flora: Did you laugh?

Fletcher: No.

Flora: Alright, Mr. Moody, lay the book on me!!

Fletcher: Coraline, Neil Gaiman.

Flora: Mmmm, I don’t know about that, the movie scared me.

Fletcher: I don’t think this will work.

I am twenty minutes late to my first ever book club.

Which is hilarious, considering I left my place almost an hour earlier than needed this morning.

Fletcher and I assigned each other our reads: Me, Coraline. Him, Jane Eyre. An easy start for us both, I think.

It took me the full week, but I surprisingly made it through the book with somewhat minimal nightmares.

I woke up in the middle of the night a handful of times, grabbing my face and testing to make sure I didn’t have buttons for eyes.

But ultimately, it was a solid read. Not my taste—I kept finding myself searching for a YA romcom feeling in there somewhere—but not the worst assigned read I’ve had.

Believe it or not, I was very excited to meet with Fletcher this morning. Only problem is, he texted last night saying we should meet at the coffee shop where we first met.

I didn’t want to seem like a complete tourist, so I responded sure with at least three exclamation marks.

Two things wrong with this: I have a horrible sense of direction—one of the very few things I got from my mom’s side—and two, I did not know the name of that coffee shop.

I woke up that morning running on pure adrenaline and had plans of just going over to the diner on the corner for a to-go coffee, but they were closed, so I kept walking and eventually a coffee shop manifested right in front of me.

When I left, I hadn’t exactly bothered to stop and look at the sign, or the logo on my cup, because I was mostly just focused on tracking down the stranger with my breakfast.

This being said, I had little to no idea where I was.

When a familiar street I distinctly remember running down appears, I spot a small cafe at the very end and blow out a long breath.

Outside is steeped in full autumn—brownstones wrapped in ivy turning ember-red, sidewalks cloaked in crisp leaves that crunch under boots and stroller wheels around me.

There are vendors with handmade bracelets, and up the block, someone is selling tiny pumpkins from a folding table with a hand-painted sign that says Venmo okay.

Inside the cafe, warmth wraps around me like a throw blanket.

The windows are fogged at the edges. A small candle flickers on each table—spiced pumpkin, maybe, or clove?

It smells like it did that morning, a tiny hint of magic and mystique in the air.

The place is packed again, but quietly so—a dad in a wool beanie reads a picture book to his daughter while their hot chocolates steam between them, and two grad students debate something about memory and myth over cinnamon lattes.

Near the window, a woman in a quilted jacket knits something, her fingers flicking like sparrows through the yarn.

And past them all is Fletcher, sitting at one of those tall barstools, long legs stretched out and ankles crossed, his gaze locked on the paperback lying in front of him.

The tips of his fingers rest lightly on the edge of the page, not turning it, just holding space.

The light from the window slides across his cheekbone showcasing the tiny tinge of red in his beard that I never noticed.

His hair is so dark brown that it’s nearly the color of mine, but his beard—also dark—has an auburn touch in the golden morning light. Huh.

“Sorry, phew, traffic was insane.” I practically throw myself and my things on the tabletop beside him, paperback and notebook in hand.

“You took a cab?”

That would probably make more sense, yes.

“Yep. My driver’s name was Fiona. She really liked Alanis Morissette.”

“Fiona?” Fletcher repeats, like the name has never existed until this moment.

“Fiona Apple,” I confirm.

“Like…the singer?”

That was a singer?

“Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?”

The joke goes right over his head, apparently, because he just pushes this little engine of a conversation right on through.

“You took a cab for a two-block walk?”

“Two blocks?” I all but shriek.

How is that even possible? Did I just do a giant circle around Park Slope?

He eyes me, then the table.

That’s when I see it there. A blueberry muffin with golden brown crumble on top, resting on a small porcelain plate.

I raise a brow at him, and there’s a slight tinge of pink across his nose.

“It’s yours. Just felt fair. Since you’re helping me.”

I smile at that and sit down on my own barstool. I take the plastic knife out of its wrapping and use it to cut the muffin in half, pushing the plate to the middle of the table.

When we are both settled into our seats—me more so than him—I clasp my hands together and lean forward. “So, what did you think?”

Jane Eyre was my first classic lit. My mom gave me a copy when I turned sixteen; she said her mom did the same for her. I gave the same copy to Sloane, who now uses it as a phone stand when filming her outfit of the days.

Fletcher takes a long sip of his coffee, his throat bobs, and I feel like I’m somehow violating his privacy, so I zero in on the paperback in front of him.

“I enjoyed it.”

I wait for more, then realize that was the whole sentence.

“That’s it?”

“It was certainly better than the vampires.”

“Well, I would hope you didn’t go into it comparing the two. I thought this would be a very good dipping your pinkie toe into the water of romance here. It’s got everything you need, depression and death—”

“I don’t remember saying I needed either of those.”

“With a touch of some sizzle.”

“I don’t remember much sizzle either.”

“What about the proposal scene?”

“It was effective.”

“Effective,” I deadpan. “Fletcher, that scene had nineteenth century women swooning in the streets.”

“It’s a very good thing I’m not a nineteenth century woman.”

“You were right, this won’t work.”

I take a pinch off the top of the muffin and pop it into my mouth; Fletcher watches me before straightening his back.

“Fine. Honestly, I was annoyed at how much I enjoyed it. There.”

“Details, Fletcher. That’s the point of this, we need to dive into these things. I had a full two hours blocked out on my calendar for this.”

Fletcher chokes at two hours. “What else is on that calendar?”

7:00 am – Meet Fletcher

9:12 a.m. – Stand in kitchen. Sip tea. Contemplate all past decisions while staring at my pothos like it holds answers.

11:47 a.m. – Revisit The Great Unsent Email Archive (TM).

12:36 p.m. – Make a sandwich. Call it lunch. Actually a ritual of emotional self-repair.

2:01 p.m. – Calendar blocked: Emotionally intensive speculation (RE: stranger at the bookstore, scarf, aura of melancholy).

3:14 p.m. – Listen to exactly 2.5 sad songs. Crying optional. Insight mandatory.

All-day recurring: “Be inexplicably invested in your own mystery.”

I take a sip of my coffee and allow the silence to linger. “None of your concern.”

Fletcher lets me grill him on the book—each scene, every moment, every reaction leading up to the ending.

We talk about character arcs, plot points, theories, and ideas of how we would have changed it.

He says Rochester should have died in the end, and I gasp like I just saw him kick a puppy.

I say I wouldn’t change a thing, because even if it has flaws, Jane Eyre is wonderfully perfect.

He groans like maybe he saw me kick a puppy.

“She leaves him. And she comes back? Just like that?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

“Not just like that,” I say, sitting forward and imitating his deep tones. “She leaves because she has to. She comes back because she wants to. There’s a difference.”

“I still think Rochester should have died.”

“You probably like movies where horses die.”

“I mean I’m not searching for that, exactly. I just think Rochester is…” He looks over my shoulder, like maybe the word would float in the air for him.

“Mercurial? Discombobulated?” I rack my brain for another. “Tumultuous?”

“Uh, yeah. One of those.”

“Oh, he is. But that’s not the point. It’s not about him.

It’s about her choosing herself first. Then deciding—on her own terms—to go back.

Some people say it’s not a romance, but I think they’re not thinking of the story as a whole.

She loves him despite the fact that he’s a mess and everything they’ve both been through. ”

In a way, it’s a lot more realistic than more contemporary romances—which I also love.

But there’s something about watching these two love each other through the depths of fire—literally—and still making it that feels like maybe, despite all our dirty rotten flaws, there’s someone out there who could love us no matter what.

Fletcher nods slowly, lips pressed together in thought, before taking another sip of the green sludge in his cup. He took the lid off earlier, and it smelled like a grass smoothie, despite him saying it was a ‘gut cleanse tea’—which sounds like the worst thing in the world.

“So, do you get it now?” I take a sip of my own drink—decidedly not a grass smoothie.

“Get what?”

“Romance. Do you understand it more?”

“Oh.” He dips his chin. “Not at all. But, I can admit it was a fine read.”

A fine read. I scoff.

“And Coraline?” He taps the paperback I gave back to him after borrowing it the last week. I am more than glad to get it out of my possession, now.

“Deeply frightening. How they expect an eight-year-old to read that is absurd.”

“It’s one of those books known to be written for older kids, but adults like it just as much. It’s got a ton of theory threads and online groups to discuss what the ending really meant.”

“I will say it had me on edge. I was staring at my closet last night waiting for the other mother to pop out.”

“I’m surprised.”

“That I was on edge?”

“That your apartment has a closet.”

“I should specify that by closet, I mean a door leading to a room taken up by an air return system, two boxes, and four stuffed animals.”

“Ah.” A woman passes by Fletcher and brushes her purse against his shoulder by accident, he curls into himself a little and leans closer to my side of the table. “So, do you get it now?”

“The closet?”

“The themes of the book. Did it help your dark, moody, artistic skills for the commission?”

I think about it for a moment. I mean, I think it worked. But then again, I have yet to hear any feedback from Cedric or his agent, and unfortunately, I know that silence is probably worse than a response at this point. But then again, I’m not sure how much darker I can get here.

“I think it helped. But, not enough to get me the job.”

He hums and takes another sip of the tea in front of him. The speaker above us replays the same jazz song that’s been on a loop for over an hour now.

Fletcher must have noticed the start-up of the same saxophone rhythm again, because he cracks his neck and tries to shrink down. “Do they not have any other music choices?”

“I like it. It’s…mellifluous.”

“Mellifluous?” His nostrils flare.

“That’s my word of the day.”

“Oh?”

“I have this app that sends me personalized words of the day. I try to use it in a sentence at least three times that day so I’ll remember it.”

“Hence… Mercurial, discombobulated, and tumultuous?”

“Mercurial and tumultuous, yes. Discombobulated is what my dad called the living room if there was a single sock on the floor.”

You should have seen his reactions after Sloane had a sleepover.

Empty Cheeto bags scattered between a multitude of Jellycats and friendship bracelet making kits half open, beads dispersed like confetti on stage after a concert.

While my sister and her friends slept in, he just walked right through and got in his car, driving in circles until we assured him the room was picked up to his liking.

“It must work if you remember them.”

“Fortuitously.”

He raises a brow.

“That was one of my words last week. I think I may have used it wrong, though.”

We go back and forth on our own theories of the ending of his chosen book—he thinks that she never left, while I fully believe it’s clear she is safe and sound at home.

“Okay,” I say, as I clasp my hands together. “What am I reading for next week?”

Fletcher leans down to his backpack at our feet and pulls out an old, worn-out paperback.

The book is soft and pliable in my hands, and the corners are yellowed and velvety, folding down from endless picking and turning of pages.

The title, Frankenstein, is faded, and there are so many creases in the spine it’s like it has its own wrinkles of time holding it together.

“Wow.” I flip it over and read the back. “You must like this one a lot.”

He shrugs. “It was my buddy’s.”

It’s only four words that shouldn’t hold that much weight. But something in it feels off.

“I feel like I shouldn’t take this. I can just get the eBook.”

Fletcher stares at me with such emptiness, I almost wonder if he means to be looking at someone behind me. “Take the book, Flora.”

“Will your friend mind?”

“No. He won’t mind.”