Page 26 of The Librarians
She could not label the question invasive as she herself had brought up the concept, but it was…
discomfiting. And then she saw, all at once, that it was discomfiting because no, she had not accepted the inevitability of pain.
She had simply come to believe that she had sufficiently equipped herself to keep pain at bay—and would not need her mother’s feebler measures.
She tapped her fingers against the parapet. The honest answer is no. I probably believe that by living very carefully and making no mistakes, I will not hurt.
Will you be happy that way?
I don’t know. How strange that she was speaking of such a deeply personal matter with a stranger. But then again, who better than a stranger to listen to a conversation between a woman and all the forces of the universe? I don’t often think about happiness. Do you?
He expelled a breath. I do, but I’m not sure that I approach it the right way. I don’t seem to care whether I’m happy today, but I worry over whether I’ll be happy when I’m forty-five or fifty.
Well, are you happy today? she asked impulsively.
He glanced at her, then smiled down at the leaf in his hand. Yes, today I am.
It would be maybe a quarter hour after this, with his suggestion that she try her hand at designing tabletop games, that he sealed his place as one of the most influential individuals in her life.
At the time, though, the idea made no impact—it was so out of left field, barely plausible, let alone practicable.
At the time she was busy laughing over his purposefully entertaining description of his absolute terror of rapid downward motion because as a child he’d once fallen off a high slide and broken an arm.
And yet he’d come with her on the tremendous downhill rush that was the toboggan ride.
For lunch, once he recovered, they shared an enormous traditional Madeira beef skewer, enjoying it with warm fluffy buns and a glass of local wine each. Afterward, they bought popsicles from a tiny grocery store.
The early afternoon sun was liquid and warm.
As they walked past little squares filled with locals lingering over their luncheon—it was a Saturday— she asked him where he was headed next.
He told her that after three days in Madeira, his boat would sail to Ponta Delgada, in the Azores, then cross much of the Atlantic to Bermuda, before arriving in Miami.
In Miami their current guests, an old couple, would depart and they would welcome a trio of retired siblings and herd them around Cape Horn.
I’m scared. Rounding Cape Horn is the sailing equivalent of climbing Mount Everest—the waves there can toss a yacht end over end. It’s no joke.
But his eyes were undimmed as he looked at her.
They did dim a few minutes later. By then they were back on the waterfront. Her plan called for her to take the hop-on-hop-off bus to Cabo Gir?o, a nearby scenic point, but he could no longer accompany her, as he had to be back at work by three in the afternoon—it was his turn to cook for the crew.
She had never believed in the parting-is-such-sweet-sorrow nonsense. Yet there was indeed something pure and fresh about the sadness that permeated her heart.
Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other , wrote Jane Austen in Sense and Sensibility , and seven days are more than enough for others.
They’d had less than seven hours. Seven days would be such a luxury.
Good luck crossing the Atlantic , she told him. And safe passage around South America. You’ll be fine.
Thank you. And happy travels to you too.
She smiled. The corners of his lips lifted slightly, but he didn’t quite smile back. He only took her in with his eyes. She raised her hand, intending to offer it for a shake, but instead settled it on his shoulder.
Surprising herself even more, she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.
A quick peck for a lovely and all-too-brief day. Maybe this was exactly the experience she had sought on the trip, this serendipitous connection, this freedom that she never felt at home.
But as she stepped back, he banded an arm around her. He did not crush their bodies together. In fact, he kept two inches between them—and did nothing except study her intensely.
His eyes were light brown, almost golden, the lashes long and thick. A breeze stirred his dark hair. Under her hand—her hand was still on him?—the thin cotton of his T-shirt was warm, the shoulder beneath hard and sinewy.
He leaned in, but still did not do anything, as if he was only interested in breathing the same air as she. Her heart scarcely beat, her fingertips trembled, waves roared and crashed in her ears.
The space between them disappeared— she had closed it. Her hand that had been on his shoulder was now behind his nape, pulling him to her.
He tasted of lime sherbet and latent heat.
Excuse me! Excuse me, madam! I’m sorry to interrupt but you need to board the bus now. It’s leaving.
They pulled apart. Vaguely she was aware that she must smile, wave, and turn away, but her body wasn’t yet capable of doing anything to follow a predetermined schedule.
He unslung his backpack and pulled out a pen and a small notebook. Conrad , he wrote. Funchal, Madeira. Then the date and a number.
He tore out the page and handed it to her. Will you take this?
I will take it , she said lightly. But I make no promises.
She leaned in to kiss him again on the cheek, but he embraced her instead, holding her tight against him.
I wish I didn’t have to let you go , he whispered in her ear. I will always remember you.
In the coming months and years Hazel would marvel that she actually got on that bus, climbed up to the open-top upper deck, and waved a final goodbye to him.
But she did all that, and then, as the bus peeled away from the curb, jacked her earphones into the box on the seat before hers and listened to the audio guide that introduced the sights along the route.
At Cabo Gir?o she took lots of pictures—it was a spectacular headland above a heart-stoppingly sheer cliff. She made it back to her cruise ship just before the crew pulled up the gangplanks and barely had time to take a shower before the vessel pushed off from the long quay.
Rushing up to the top deck, she scanned the marinas along the shore. But she didn’t see any watercrafts that matched the description of his ship, a big sailing catamaran over forty meters in length.
Her heart ached dully. Not because she didn’t see his catamaran but because she wished now that he hadn’t held her close and that she hadn’t kissed him.
Had they remained platonic friends, she would have felt free to contact him, to ask at some point how he was getting on. But that sudden turn into romance—that complicated things.
The short acquaintance, the age difference, the fact that she had no idea where he called home when he was not a cabin boy sailing the seven seas—all those things paled in comparison to the baggage she would bring to this—or any—relationship.
She could be fun and attentive for a day—or maybe even a month.
But over time, she would revert to the reserve instilled in her by her mother, who believed emotional stasis to be the best defense against life’s slings and arrows.
Why would anyone want to love a puddle when there were lakes, rivers, and oceans out there?
Madeira receded. The panorama, at first that of Funchal’s endlessly upward slopes, was now the entire silhouette of the island, a beautiful rock four hundred miles off the coast of Morocco.
A place that held her spellbound and wonderstruck.
But it was the nature of enchantments to wear off. And it was the nature of reality to rush back in.
She recalled his candor, his curiosity, and the rather threadbare texture of his T-shirt under her palm. I will always remember you , he’d said.
Yes, let him remember her as she had been this day, spellbound and wonderstruck. And let her remember him as he had been this day, gentle, wise, winsome.
She took out the piece of paper from the inside pocket of her small backpack. Conrad. Funchal, Madeira. The date. His number. And underneath that, If I never see you again, have a wonderful life.
She hesitated. A wonderful life, what an outrageous aspiration.
But she proceeded to carefully tear out the part of the piece of paper that bore his number. She would keep his name, the time and the place of their meeting, and his heartfelt inscription. She would simply remove the temptation to ever find him again.
She pressed the number to her lips, then ripped it to pieces and let the wind carry away the confetti.
Now it would never not be perfect.