Page 10 of Love’s a Script (Hearts Collide #1)

Chapter Ten

It was a Saturday morning with agreeable weather, but Ruben was tucked away on the top floor of the downtown library.

He sat in front of a microfilm machine scrolling through photographic reproductions of century-old newspapers, looking for the personal advertisements sections in each issue.

There, with a simple turn of a dial, he read about people—some his age, many much younger, and most of them white—seeking companionship, a spouse.

Even though time and circumstance separated them, Ruben wanted to know, for instance, if the malting plant worker from Biggar, Saskatchewan, ever did get a response from a woman of mild nature and good morals.

Ruben was loading yet another microfilm reel when a Black boy in a noisy snow jacket appeared at his side and studied the computer monitor.

“Hello,” Ruben said, looking around for an accompanying adult. “You here with someone?” It was a large library with three levels, and the children’s section was on the ground floor.

“Luther!” came a woman’s sharp whispered call.

“You Luther?” Ruben asked the boy, who showed off his gummy smile then bolted down one of the aisles.

Moments later, the woman who’d called for the boy came into view with her back to him. She had a grip on a toddler’s wrist and a diaper bag slipping from her shoulder. “Come on, Luther. You’ve gotta listen to Auntie. Story time is going to start soon and we won’t?—”

“He’s between the third and fourth filing cabinets,” Ruben told her.

The woman turned, presumably to thank him, but she froze as did he when he recognized Mary. Even on her day off, she looked polished, wearing a neutral-colored outfit with a sleek hairdo. A peal of giggles from Luther as he darted down a different aisle knocked them out of their mutual surprise.

“Could you…” Mary placed the diaper bag at Ruben’s feet and handed him the toddler’s arm before taking off in the direction of the hiding nephew.

“How’s it going?” Ruben awkwardly asked the child he was now in charge of, but the boy didn’t respond, more interested in the floppy curly-haired doll he held in the crease of his elbow.

Ruben watched Mary track Luther through the aisles, begging compliance with promises of treats and gifts that grew more elaborate with each offer.

At one point she vowed to find him a real firetruck to drive.

Finally, she got a hold of the kid, and she returned to collect the other boy and the diaper bag. It was then Ruben noticed she also had a third child, a baby, strapped to her chest.

“Let me carry this for you,” he said.

“Not necessary.”

He insisted, and she took a moment before relenting.

“I’m still getting used to there being three of them,” she told him as they moved toward the elevators as a group.

“You’re doing fine,” he said.

On the ride down, Mary reminded the boys that they’d be using their inside voices for the rest of their library visit.

When they exited on the ground floor, they passed stout shelves filled with colorful slim books on their way to the reading corner where children and their guardians had gathered.

A woman in an owl-print dress had already begun reading from a picture book, so they tiptoed to a spot in the back.

Ruben had planned to leave after handing off the diaper bag to Mary, but the path he’d taken there had somehow closed up. So he sunk onto the green carpet with Mary and her nephews.

“Thank you, but you don’t have to stay,” Mary whispered as she removed the baby from the contraption on her chest and plopped him on the carpet with a wood stacking toy he immediately took to.

“Can’t,” he said, matching her volume. “I don’t want to step on tiny fingers trying to fee-fi-fo-fum my way out.”

The older boys, like most of the children in the room, were engrossed in the vibrant illustrations and progressing story of a bird in the Serengeti learning self-esteem.

“I’m sorry for taking you from your work,” Mary said after some minutes.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m enjoying story time,” he said, and debated before adding, “even if the lady reading sounds like she was just shotgunning NyQuil.”

It was satisfying to watch Mary shake her head but fail to squash her smile. And what a pretty smile, he thought, noticing the way her eyes crinkled. Mary’s gaze suddenly met his, and he realized he was gawking. In an attempt to deflect, he asked, “Have you ever seen old matrimonial ads?”

“I don’t think so,” she said, so he produced his phone and showed her what he’d been researching all morning.

“This is for your documentary?” she asked.

He nodded.

“They look like job postings,” she said. “It’s a little depressing.”

“How so?”

“You don’t think it’s sad that people were pitching themselves like a used futon on Facebook Marketplace?”

“How different is it from dating app bios or even what you do?”

“For one, I want you to actually fall in love.”

“Okay, but love wasn’t their focus or the priority,” he said.

“Then my point still stands. Depressing.”

“To you as a person living in the present day. But I’ve been reading this anthropologist’s research on marriages across times, and different peoples from communities in northern Cameroon to Roman philosophers to French peasants viewed love as a threat to rationality, or just a bonus, or an entirely illegitimate emotion.

So while the matrimonial ads weren’t romantic, they were honest.”

“I don’t know about honest,” Mary said. “I think marrying solely for practical or economic reasons would’ve incentivized exaggeration and scams. Jebedia says his wagon is bigger than it is to get a wife with great cooking skills.

Meanwhile, Edna lies about being the best canner on this side of Hudson Bay.

One fails to mention their hoarding habit, and the other doesn’t reveal their debt. ”

Ruben chuckled, somewhat compelled by her reasoning. “Are you single?” he asked, realizing late that the question might be invasive.

She looked at him, her eyes wide. “Why?”

“I guess I’m wondering how your work influences your romantic life. Are you too enlightened to slum it with the rest of the mortals on dating apps?”

“I wouldn’t call myself enlightened,” she said. “But my job has altered what I expect from a future partner.”

“And what do you expect?” he asked, not sure why he was curious about the specifics or why he watched her closely as she pondered.

When she emerged from her thoughts, she said, “Someone who sees me for exactly who I am and what I am, and doesn’t just accept it but relishes it.”

It was a nice sentiment, one he could echo. More questions piled up in his head that he didn’t get to pose because the room erupted with the jubilant squeals and applause of children, marking the end of story time.

“You won’t put anything I mentioned in your documentary, will you?” Mary asked as he helped her get the boys into their toques and mittens.

“No. Not at all. That was a genuine conversation.”

“Okay, good,” she said. “Then it was nice talking with you.”

“Yes, it was,” he replied. It wasn’t until he was back with his microfilms on the quiet library floor that he knew he meant it.

* * *

When Mary returned her nephews home, they were tuckered out from their day and didn’t put up a fight when their mother, after greeting them with kisses, declared it time for a nap.

Mary waited for Hattie in the kitchen, and when her sister arrived it was with a plastic-wrapped parcel in hand.

“Catch,” Hattie said, tossing the bag.

“What is this?” Mary asked after pulling out the contents of the bag to find a felt mermaid costume and purple wig.

“I thought we could dress up for this year’s plunge,” Hattie said.

The sisters had participated in an annual polar plunge fundraising event every year since Hattie had experienced a bout of postpartum depression with her second child.

“Thanks for taking the boys out today, by the way. How was it?”

“We managed,” Mary said as she removed her coat to try on the costume over her clothes. “I took them to see the ice sculptures, then we got hot chocolate. And ended up at the library for story time.”

“Which library did you go to?” Hattie asked.

“The downtown one.”

“Oh, I haven’t been since they finished the renovation.”

“It’s nice. They have this pretty mural as you walk in now. And they put in new carpeting in the kids’ library.”

“I’ll have to visit soon,” Hattie said, eying the bottom of Mary’s costume. “It’s a bit long, no?”

“A little,” Mary said, attempting to walk but nearly falling with the effort it took to move her legs.

Hattie grabbed her kitchen shears from a drawer and sat on the tiled floor at Mary’s feet. “Don’t move,” she said.

As her sister went to work taking off inches, Mary’s thoughts drifted to Ruben.

She rarely ran into clients out in public.

When she did, she’d wave or stop for a quick chat.

She certainly never sat shoulder-to-shoulder with them on a carpet in a kids’ library.

They’d been so close that she’d noted a cluster of freckles below his right eye that looked like an upside-down anchor.

He always set or reset the tone of their interactions with his off-kilter questions and dissecting gaze. She couldn’t rely on rote politesse. The unfiltered truth always came out, and as a result, today, she’d revealed too much about herself.

“There!” her sister said, hopping to her feet to look at her alterations from a distance.

“Feels good,” Mary said, easily crossing the kitchen with the room the hem shortening had given her.

“Okay, now on to more serious issues,” Hattie said, folding her arms. “What have you learned about Dad’s girlfriend?”

Mary removed her costume and stuffed it into the bag. “I did my best, but I couldn’t find anything on her.”

“See!” Hattie said. “That’s suspicious. How’s her only online presence the subreddit she and Dad met on?”

“She could be other places, but there’s a popular author with her exact name and it skewed every search I tried.”

“Mitch thinks we should hire a PI,” Hattie said.

“A private investigator? That’s a little dramatic.”

Hattie laughed, the sound almost unbridled. “Baby, is this not a dramatic situation?”

“Why don’t we talk to Dad first?” Mary said. “Tell him our concerns and give him a chance to clear things up?”

“I already asked him all the questions. It was like pulling teeth getting that Reddit information. This will save us time and stress.”

“I hear you, but can we at least try talking to him together? Please?”

Mary didn’t want to go behind her father’s back to investigate him like he was incapable of running his own life. He’d raised them mostly on his own after the divorce, and he built a respectable academic career as a mathematician. Surely he could account for his girlfriend’s existence.

“Fine, okay,” Hattie said. “But if things still sound sketchy, we’re going with the PI.”