Page 20 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper

Oliver

Oliver was taking lunch at Giovanni’s Croissants & Baguettes.

He and Giovanni had met through jiu jitsu about a year ago.

Although Giovanni used to work out at a studio in Astoria where he lived, he’d started coming into one in Manhattan where Oliver trained because it was a couple blocks away from the bakery, which he’d spent many months remodeling and then launching.

And since you bond pretty quickly with the guys you spend hours with each week wrestling on the mat, when Giovanni opened the doors of his shop, Oliver was the first customer.

He was here now every weekday for lunch.

“That new flavor you suggested is already sold out!” Giovanni said as he set a fat slice of quiche Lorraine on Oliver’s table. “Who’d have ever thought to make a chocolate croissant with a swirl of mulberry jam inside? Brilliant, Ol.”

Oliver said nothing. He couldn’t take credit for the flavor. It was that run-in with Chloe in Little Tokyo that had triggered a memory of chocolate ice cream with a mulberry jam swirl. They had come up with it together, once upon a time.

Giovanni went back behind the counter to tend to his customers, and Oliver cut into his quiche. Before he could take a bite, though, the sun glinted through the plate glass window, and he looked up.

Chloe stood on the sidewalk, the wind fluttering at the hem of her jewel-green sundress, her mouth slightly open in clear delight at Giovanni’s bakery name stenciled in gold on the window. Did she know him, too?

She burst in through the door. Oliver froze, fork suspended in the air.

He felt her gasp as she saw him, even from across the room, because he’d inhaled at the exact moment, too. How could it be that after all this time, it still felt like this to see her? Even after what he’d done to her—way back when, and also recently, on the street in Little Tokyo?

Chloe laughed—that familiar, piano-like trill that had once been the soundtrack of Oliver’s life—and as she walked toward him, nervous anticipation flailed like a live wire inside his rib cage.

“It’s you again,” Chloe said.

Just four syllables from her, and sparks flickered across his skin.

“You were rude to me last time, you know,” she said, in that generous way she had of forgiving people even when they didn’t deserve it. Chloe had always been like that, even when they were kids.

But Oliver frowned. Maybe if he pretended he didn’t remember their last encounter, she’d go away. Which was the exact opposite of what he really wanted, but it would be better that way. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Chloe hesitated, as if deciding whether she was mistaken. “Little Tokyo? I crashed into you on the sidewalk and apologized, but you were still a jerk about it?”

Oliver winced.

“Ah-ha! So you do remember!” Chloe laughed again, and the warmth of it felt like the sun rising in Oliver’s chest. “Well, you can make it up to me by buying me a coffee. I’ll have a caramel cappuccino.”

Oliver glanced down at his own mug, and his stomach fluttered.

They had discovered coffee together, illicitly, at twelve years old, when they were definitely not yet supposed to be having caffeine.

It had happened after the first day of middle school.

They were biking to her house, but since the school was in a slightly different part of town than either of them knew, they’d gotten turned around.

Chloe and Oliver wandered onto the University of Kansas campus and somehow ended up on the lawn of a sorority house.

“Oh my goodness!” one of the girls had cried. “Are you two adorable things lost?”

“No,” Oliver said. “We don’t get lost.”

“We’re just… taking the scenic route,” Chloe said, echoing something her dad always said when they were driving and he was definitely lost.

“Wait,” another girl said. “You’re Clover, from the Ice Creamery!”

Oliver wrapped his arm around Chloe proudly. “Yep, that’s us.”

“Come inside,” the girls said. “We’ll call the Ice Creamery and tell Chloe’s parents to come get you. You can have some caramel cappuccinos and cake while you wait.”

Caramel cappuccinos had been one of Clover’s “things” from that day on.

(Chloe used to blame the caffeine for stunting her growth, but it certainly hadn’t stopped Oliver—he was six one.) Of course, Oliver didn’t drink such frivolities anymore.

Even with Giovanni’s friend discount, a cappuccino still cost too much more than regular drip coffee for Oliver to justify such a daily luxury.

Sure, he could afford it, but he’d learned the hard way that everything you had could vanish in an instant. That’s what happened when you grew up with a con artist for a mother, who lost as often as she “won.”

So now Oliver meticulously saved every extra cent he could.

For Chloe, though… He rose without question and went over to the counter to order her a caramel cappuccino.

But as he ordered, he added, “Make that to go.” As much as he wanted to be around her, the less time he allowed, the less chance she’d have to recognize him.

“No, I think I’ll make it for here ,” Giovanni said, winking as he glanced over at Chloe sitting at Oliver’s table.

“Giovanni.”

“My shop, my rules.” He grinned and shrugged like there was nothing he could do.

While Oliver waited for the coffee, he watched Chloe through the crowd.

She had pulled a novel out of her bag but then hadn’t gotten around to actually reading it, because she was too busy smiling at everyone who walked in and out of the bakery past their table, taking time to say hello, to coo at a baby, to make happy faces at the puppy tied to the lamppost outside.

Just the same as the Chloe he had known as a kid.

Oliver sighed wistfully. She didn’t realize what an act of bravery it was to look someone in the eye and smile without expecting anything in return.

Hers was not a smile that demanded that the other person cheer up or even smile back.

Instead, it was a gift with no strings attached—affirmation that she saw you and it made her happy that you existed and had crossed her path.

She had done this all throughout their childhood, for everyone who came near her.

There’s nothing better , Oliver thought, than a smile from Chloe Quinn .

A few minutes later, he returned to their table with a caramel cappuccino in a red mug. Giovanni had designed it with a heart in the milk foam. Oliver was going to pummel him the next time they were at jiu jitsu.

“Ooh, thank you.” Chloe held the mug up to her nose and closed her eyes for a second, inhaling appreciatively.

Oliver could only watch silently.

But by the time she opened her eyes again, he was back to looking studiously at the table.

“What’s the most interesting thing you’ve read recently?” she asked, splaying her hands over the cover of the book she was reading, as if he’d cheat and steal that title as his answer.

As accustomed to her non sequiturs as he’d been as a teenager, Oliver was still startled by the way Chloe opened the conversation.

He cleared his throat. “You don’t start with, ‘So, what do you do for a living?’ like everyone else?”

She smiled into her cappuccino. “I read somewhere that that’s not actually normal.

It’s a very American thing to ask, to be focused on our jobs as if they’re the sole definers of our identities.

But if you go to a French dinner party, they ask interesting questions, like, ‘What are you reading now? What was the best movie you watched in the last year? Do you believe in fate or reincarnation?’?”

“That’s… a big jump from books and movies to reincarnation.”

Chloe laughed. “You’re stalling. Is it because you don’t read, so you don’t have a book to share?”

Oliver rolled his eyes. “I’m reading The Shape of a Life by Shing-Tung Yau, about the hidden geometric dimensions of the universe.”

“Oh! Wow. Now I feel dopey,” Chloe said. She uncovered her book on the table, revealing a ring of cupolaed gold buildings, arced like a crown. “I’m reading a young adult fantasy about a magical duel set in Imperial Russia.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Of course not,” Chloe said. “Sometimes teenagers are wiser than adults. I should know, I’m a guidance counselor. Which, by the way, is the answer to the boring question you wanted me to ask. But still, a YA novel isn’t a book about the geometrical secrets of the galaxy.”

Oliver poked at his quiche.

“All right, then,” Chloe said. “Since you’re obviously interested in the big things in life—like the shape of the universe—do you believe that coincidences are significant?”

He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?” She hadn’t given any indication that she knew who he was, other than connecting the dots between now and the Little Tokyo encounter.

Chloe pointed between the two of them. “Like, why did we run into each other again, when it’s probabilistically unlikely in a city this size. Is it just serendipity or something else?”

Oliver shoved away from the table and stood up. “No.”

Her mouth parted, confused. “What?”

“No. We’re not doing this.” Because Oliver had calculated the probabilistic odds of them meeting again in so short a time period, and it was a statistically significant outlier that their paths had crossed.

The book he was reading was about very complicated math and string theory, and one of the concepts was that there were low-energy vibrational strings that serve as connectors.

Oliver could feel that vibration now between him and Chloe, as if the universe was trying to bring them back together no matter what.

But he couldn’t let it happen, because reconnecting and revealing who he was would mean opening up old, deep wounds.

He wanted to spare Chloe as much as he wanted to spare himself.

“We’re not doing what ?” Chloe asked. Her cappuccino had sloshed all over the table when Oliver pushed away.

“This first-date question-and-answer thing,” Oliver said. “I don’t believe in relationships. They’re too… people-y. ”

Chloe made that little mouse noise again, the one when her feelings were hurt. Oliver tried not to hear it, but it still burrowed into his chest and formed a tight knot against his heart.

“I’m not hitting on you,” Chloe said, rushing to gather her things. “For your information, I’m seeing someone.”

“Oh.” All the adrenaline drained from Oliver’s veins, and he suddenly felt hollow inside. “Um, right. Well… good for you.”

“You know, you had actually reminded me of someone, but I was wrong,” Chloe said. “ He would never be so harsh and unfeeling.”

At least she’ll never confuse me with who I used to be , Oliver thought. Because when Chloe had known him, he’d been a boy who was chatty and quick to warm to strangers and game for anything anyone suggested. But that boy was long gone. His mother had destroyed him.

Chloe rose from her seat and shook her head. “This was a mistake. So, thanks for the coffee, um, whatever your name is.” She laughed ruefully. “Doesn’t matter, though. Chances are, we’ll never see each other again.”

She didn’t look at Oliver as she turned on her heel and walked out the bakery door.

And she didn’t notice the handwritten chalkboard on the sidewalk where Giovanni had written, Today’s Special—pain au chocolat with a mulberry jam swirl. Then, over the last part: Sold out.