Page 9 of Drawn Together

Eight

Word of the day: synallagmatic

Definition: relating to a mutual agreement where each party is bound to perform an obligation

From: [email protected]

Good morning, I hope this email finds you well.

Unfortunately, Mr. Brooks has decided to pass on your commission for his newest book.

Please don’t take this personally, as I said before, we have gone through seven other artists due to his distaste.

If you have a website, we can write a review for your next commission piece if you choose.

Thank you for your wonderful attempt. We will keep you in mind for future commissions.

Best,

Tom

I’ll give you a spoiler: the email did not find me well.

The email found me in the last five minutes of my lunch break at Nook and Cranny.

When I responded back asking for details on what exactly went wrong in my work, the agent merely forward the email straight from Cedric Brooks, which I wish I never even read.

There are stuffed animals everywhere. Tiny squirrels in the portal of a realm of death. She made Evie look like a spineless five-year-old. Did she even read the manuscript?

The biggest problem is I had an hour left in my shift when I read the email.

Meaning I had to hold every piece of my emotional state in for sixty minutes of agony and overthinking, while my phone was locked in a basket under Edith’s desk due to her ‘no devices’ rule.

I had to read a copy of Harry Hops to Harvard to a group of seven-year-olds—sharing the story of a bunny achieving his dreams of going to an Ivy League school.

Meanwhile, all I could think about was this old man’s words, over and over again.

It’s only now, walking down the streets of Park Slope back to my apartment, that I let it all out.

Big, fat tears rapidly slide their way down my cheeks, my sobs uncontrollable.

What started first as a cute, measly sniffle has now transformed to full on ugly sobs.

My bottom lip quivers at the ground, while my curly hair creates a curtain of privacy around my watery eyes.

Each racking sob is combined with the smell of autumn dancing in the breeze, with fleeting notes of leather from jackets and boots, subway steam laced with oil, the distant whisper of apples from surrounding vendors, and freshly brewed coffees from open-lid Styrofoam cups.

It all feels so…big. There’s a better word out there for it.

Encompassing. Overwhelming. Busy. But my mind lands on big right now.

It’s almost comical how in my hometown, if you were caught crying walking down the street, there would be at least ten people stopping to ask what’s wrong.

By lunchtime tomorrow, the whole city would be speculating on your broken relationship, your job loss, or the one diner in town no longer selling your favorite sandwich.

Whisper Bay, Maine—where no one knew how to whisper.

Here, I could run down the street shouting about the end of the world while sobbing, and I don’t think anyone would even glance my way.

Thirty minutes of crying, and not a single person of the hundreds I’ve passed has stopped to—

“Agh—” My shoulder slams into someone walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk.

I look up, ready to rant about the correct way to use the city's walkways, when my eyes lock on a familiar, dark-eyed man.

“Good God.” My fingers lift to wipe the fallen tears off my cheeks, but by the uncomfortable look on Fletcher's face, I know it’s too late, he’s already seen it. Voice wobbly, I force out a sentence. “This city is way too big for me to keep running into you.”

“Sorry.” His cheeks are flushed from the heat of the steam grate near us. “I didn’t realize it was you.”

“Well, you’re walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk.”

“No…I’m not.”

I look around and realize, unfortunately, he is right.

It’s me who is on the wrong side. In my blurry, watery-eyed state, I must've stumbled over to this side without realizing. Thankfully, I’m saved from trying to explain myself, because the second my head is lifted enough where he can see my pink water lines, Fletcher, in that low voice of his, says brusquely, “Did someone say something to you?”

Yes. “No.”

The way his eyebrows dip tells me he doesn’t catch onto the lie, but I don’t have it in me to push it further than the one word.

Then, Fletcher Harding does the impossible. In a turn of events no one would expect, he asks in a gentle tone, “Did someone beat you in romance trivia? Did they learn what Nora Ephron’s favorite underwear brand is before you or something?”

I don’t think he even knows who Nora Ephron is, but shockingly, it works. It makes me stop crying.

“No.” I wipe my snotty nose on my sleeve and tuck it behind my back.

He hums. “They said you read sub-par romance, then?”

“If that were the case, you would have made me cry with the first trivia question I answered.”

“Maybe.”

My eyes land on the brown paper bag in his hands. “What are you—”

“There’s a farmer's stand around the corner that grows a Golden Delicious and Autumn Glory hybrid.” He lifts the bag. “They sell out within an hour of setting up, so I had to go early today and wait.”

I nod, and my chest is slowing to a steady rhythm. “O-Okay.”

I guess I’m not completely done crying, because the word coming out of me is pathetic and kind of whiny.

Fletcher turns to face the same way as me and keeps walking. He glances over his shoulder and jerks his head in a gesture telling me to follow him. Maybe it’s the stupid apples or the disparity of getting to my apartment as soon as I can so I can properly cry it out, but I follow him regardless.

We pass a community garden tucked behind an iron gate, late-summer plums still clinging to vines, and herbs spilling over raised beds.

The September sun casts a golden slant across the sidewalks as we silently walk side by side through Park Slope.

Fletcher keeps shifting his giant bag of apples from one hand to the other.

A breeze picks up and rustles the bag, and he checks in it, like maybe the wind has taken one of the twenty-five in there, and he must seek revenge.

He wraps up the bag and cradles it to his chest with a stern, determined look on his face.

We round the street corner and keep going. I assume he is taking us back to both of our apartments. Despite the last five months of walking to work, I still get lost on a regular basis, and none of this side of the neighborhood looks very familiar.

Like my thoughts are on a steady walking track, Cedric's words come curling back around to me and my sobs release themselves without my permission, again. How contradictory of my life—to be too much, yet somehow never enough.

The thought lets loose another broken sob, and someone leaving the record store beside us flares their nostrils at me.

“Stop crying,” Fletcher hisses.

“Gosh,” I cough out. “I’m trying.”

We walk around a couple making out against a light post.

“Do you want a Golden Glory?”

I look up at Fletcher, and the sun behind him makes me squint. “Like…a golden shower?”

“Uh, no. Not— Not that. It’s the apple hybrid.” He reaches down and pulls out a perfectly yellow apple. “The Autumn Glory and Golden Delicious hybrid. Golden Glory.”

“Oh.” I sniffle. “Okay.”

I bite into my apple, and it’s so juicy it spills out of my mouth and down my chin.

Fireworks of flavors dance around my tongue—sweet and a touch of sour, and so very fall.

It tastes like popping When Harry Met Sally into your DVD player and curling up with a too-hot bowl of your mom’s chicken and dumplings.

It’s like lighting a new candle for the first time or cracking the spine of your favorite, yellow-paged historical romance.

It tastes so wonderfully like my childhood that I feel like crying all over again.

I think I miss home. I think I miss me. I miss the steadiness of a friend and the support of a parent from one room over.

I miss school buses driving along the street and the laughter of kids running at the beach.

I miss the Maine air—salty and warm—and, I miss Sloane and her exceptional fashion taste.

I don’t think I realized just how much I missed it all, until I took a single bite of this apple.

And so, my crying perseveres.

“I read Twilight last night,” Fletcher mumbles into his bag.

That has me looking up. “You did?”

“I did.”

My nose scrunches. “And?”

“I…didn’t get it.”

“A shame.”

“It is.” He nods like, pity. “I didn’t get it but…I read the entire thing in one sitting.”

The thought of Fletcher pacing his apartment, holding a hard cover about sparkly vampires with a puzzled expression on his face has me temporarily smiling.

“I have a vague memory of doing that in seventh grade.”

“It was enchanting at best.”

“Enchanting.” I nod. “Numinous.”

“Good one.” He takes out an apple of his own and bites into it. I look away from the juice on his Adam's Apple.

“I think it was him calling her spider monkey that left me the most confused.”

“Fair. And the meadow scene?”

“Meh.”

And just when I thought I couldn’t loathe him more.

“It was also enchanting,” I correct his dismissal. “Learning just how much he wants to protect her.”

“Ah.” He bites into his apple again. “Okay.”

His okay is so clearly backed by a large disagreement, but I don’t have it in me to push an argument right now. Certainly not with someone this impossible.

We keep walking, our apples dissipating into nothing but cores and seeds tossed in a nearby trash can, and Fletcher asks, “Are you going to tell me why you were crying?”

Maybe it’s because I have such little skin in the game, or maybe because I know my search for friends wouldn’t extend itself to this man, but I tell him. He can argue and make fun of me and whatever else, and it wouldn’t even shock me anymore.

“I have this job—”

“The one that was supposed to depend on my muffin?”

“My muffin. And yes. It’s this commission piece I’m supposed to do, and the guy who hired me basically said I have the emotional depth of a cartoon squirrel. He wants all dark, moody themes, and I just can’t do it.”

It’s almost ironic how quick it hits me—Fletcher ‘can’t get’ romance in the same way I ‘can’t get’ Cedric Brooks’ gothic youth novels.

Fletcher stays quiet as we move along the path, weaving in and out of crowds.

“Your reassurance is greatly appreciated.”

There’s a ghost of a smirk on his lips, and he looks less menacing that way.

“I didn’t know if this was one of those rants that doesn’t need advice, or if you actually want my opinion.”

I shouldn’t want his opinion. It shouldn’t matter to me.

But still, as we cross the street together, only two blocks left to our respective apartments, I whisper, “I wouldn’t hate an opinion.”

“You’ve read a lot?”

I nod.

“Do you remember that one book about the struggling artist?”

I’m racking my brain, looking for any familiarity, but I come up short. But I don’t want to say the word ‘no,’ so I ask, “Which one?”

There’s this look on his face I can’t pinpoint.

“I can’t remember the title, but it’s this girl that can’t find her muse for an art piece.

And the guy who stole her breakfast one morning happens to be an expert on the style she is missing.

The best part is that he also needs help writing an article, so they form a pact. ”

My eyes narrow. “Funny, I don’t remember that one.”

“Keep thinking. They have a…book club, of sorts. Where she helps him understand all these romances he’s been reading and not grasping.”

“And what did she get out of it?”

“Well, beyond excellent company—”

“Mediocre company.”

“He helps her find the more moody, dark themes she is looking for.”

“How exactly did they do this?” We’re only a block away now. I am craving another apple in the same way I’m slightly intrigued by this ‘book.’

“Well, I think it was some kind of agreement, where they meet once a week to exchange books and go over their thoughts. Over time, they both kind of pick up on what they’re missing, and ultimately don’t get fired from their jobs, allowing them to continue to make their rent.”

I hum, my throat all dry from the past tears choking me, any remnants of golden glory juice all gone.

“So, they had just a book club?”

“Just a very odd, two-person book club.”

“And how long did they do that for?”

He opens his mouth, then shuts it. “I…can’t remember. You’ll have to remind me at the end of it.”

“Hmm. I think I’d like that book.”

I take it back. This look on his face is a real almost-smile. Corner slanted down like he’s trying his hardest not to.

“Give me your phone.”

“Why?” I ask, but my fingers are already dropping the device in his big open palm.

“So I can send you your assigned research. And I can come up with a place for us to meet.”

“Oh.”

Just as he is done texting himself, we are at our respective halfway point.

We should stop on the corner so he can easily use the cross walk over to his place, but instead, he walks me the whole way to the entrance to my apartment’s lobby.

When we give our respective goodbyes—his, “Wait to cry until you get back upstairs,” and mine, “Are you always this much of an asshole, or is it just around me?”—he turns away with shaking shoulders, and I wait until he walks in his door to walk in mine.

As soon as I get back to my empty apartment, I open my email and send the agent my response, begging for one more chance over the next week.