9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

F orrest looked to Porter and saw a gleam in his eyes that made Forrest very nervous.

"Oh yeah. I remember that now. You should go home with Lucy and get it, Forrest."

Forrest turned his face enough that he was certain Lucy would not see and glared at Porter.

Porter grinned in return. "Would you mind, Lucy?"

"Of course not." Forrest turned to Lucy. Was that a blush creeping up her face? In the lamp-lit room, it was difficult to tell. What he did know was that he did not want there to be awkwardness between them, and if he refused to step into her apartment just long enough to grab a book, it could cause damage to their relationship.

Making all of these calculations in only a few seconds, Forrest said, "Thank you. I'd appreciate it. I was going to look over a chapter tonight before I went to bed."

They both bid Porter goodnight as they walked out the back door towards the garage. Forrest was behind Lucy, and he looked back at Porter before he shut the door. Porter raised up his beer bottle in silent cheers to Forrest, to which Forrest shut the door just a fraction too hard.

"I don't believe you've ever seen my apartment, have you?" Lucy asked as they crossed the yard.

"Nope. Never."

"Porter and Charlotte have let me have free rein over it. I've loved learning how to fix things up. It was in pretty rough shape when they bought it."

"My dad has always been handy, but he never really taught me. I think he was afraid if he did I would end up not going to college."

"Well, good news. Fixer-upper skills were not on my mother's agenda for me, either. But you can learn a lot these days with the Internet."

"I'll keep that in mind if I ever decide to take the plunge and buy."

This chatter carried them to the second-floor landing that led into Lucy's apartment. She unlocked the door, and they walked inside. Lucy turned on a lamp near the door. Before Forrest had time to take in the space around him, Clark came clumsily bounding out of a door on the opposite side of the living room.

"I probably should have warned you. This is how Clark greets me."

Clark was so excited to see them both there that he couldn't decide where to go. He ran back and forth in the space that now felt impossibly small, alternating between barking and whimpering.

Forrest began, "Dogs really know how to make a person feel sp..." Just then, Clark's feet slid on the hardwood floors, and he clunked into the side of Lucy's knee. She fell towards Forrest, and he instinctively caught her in his arms.

Immediately, Forrest realized that somewhere in the falling or in the catching, Lucy had turned towards him, and her full breasts were pressed against his chest. Like a lightning bolt, he felt it all over his body. A jolt of awareness of just how perfect she felt crushed against his body. And then his mind, blast his stupid mind, imagined how much more perfect it would be if they were just like this, but with no school-logoed sweaters or t-shirts separating them.

"Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry, Forrest. I'm so sorry."

Suddenly, Lucy was talking in the stream-of-consciousness style she did when she got frazzled.

"Everyone told me to get a lap dog. This apartment is so small. But I, of course, said damn it to practicality and got an 80-pound golden retriever. An abysmally trained one, I might add. I'm so sorry, Forrest."

"Yes, you said that." At least all of the apologizing was causing her to repeatedly say his first name.

In the dim lamp light, Forrest saw a cloud of awareness pass over her green eyes. In her mortification at her dog's behavior, Forrest suspected she had not realized just how much of their bodies were pressed against each other. And then he realized that he had definitely held her longer than was necessary.

"He seems to have calmed down a bit," Forrest said, his voice coming out gruff as he stepped away squeezing Lucy's upper-arms with his hands as if he was setting her back on firm earth. "And I like your abysmally-trained behemoth. You don't need to apologize to me. Ever."

In an attempt to control the sensations still running through his body, Forrest looked around. "So this is where Lucy O'Shields and her noble Clark live. It looks like you. I like it."

"Thank you. We like it, too." She turned on a couple more lamps she had spread throughout the living room. The space glowed like a Grandma Moses painting. "Would you like something to drink?"

"Water would be good. Really cold water."

"On a fall night?"

"Yes. Really cold." Anything to knock his body back under his control. On the wall opposite the front door, Forrest noticed three rows of beautiful wooden bookcases, nothing like the particle board ones from the department store that were in his apartment. "These are beautiful bookshelves. Where did you get them?"

"Well, one night when Miriam was over for supper - we get together about once a week - I mentioned that I needed new bookshelves, and I hated to buy the same cheap ones we always had in our dorm rooms. So Miriam, being Miriam, watched a bunch of YouTube videos, and she and I spent a weekend building them."

"That does sound like Miriam. She has always been resourceful."

"Sometimes I call it resourceful. Sometimes I call it relentless. Depends on my mood."

Forrest smiled. Miriam had been a fantastic student, and now she was back in town, and he heard only good things about all she was doing. Porter talked about her as if she was the best thing to ever happen to Trinity Episcopal Church. She was always advocating for marginalized groups and delivering sermons that pushed boundaries where boundaries needed moved. Lucy's friendship with her seemed to be a place from which she gleaned confidence, and so in Forrest's book, Miriam was the best kind of friend for his Lucy.

It also struck Forrest that Miriam's car might have been the one he saw Saturday evening when he had walked to Porter's house for the game. His smile broadened. Maybe he could ask her? But no. There wasn't a way to do that without coming across stalker-ish. Also, he had no idea why he cared so much. She could have anyone she wished over on a Saturday night.

Lucy's quiet voice cut into his thoughts: "While I'm very proud of the bookshelves, I'd rather you ignore the actual books on the shelves."

"And while I respect your wishes, I don't think I'll be able to resist."

Lucy closed her eyes in resigned horror. "I did invite a book junkie into the house. Go ahead."

Forrest took a finger, and began running it slowly over the spines of books. "Jane Austen. Anthony Trollope. The Bront?s. There's nothing to be ashamed of here."

"Keep going."

He moved to the next row. "Aah. The Governess and the Duke . The Rake and the Wallflower . Once a Duchess ."

"Bingo."

"I had no idea." He was flummoxed in the best possible way. Lucy liked paperback dime-store romances. It was her secret, and he now knew one of her secrets. Was he giggling? That couldn't be dignified for a middle-aged professor.

Lucy's brows creased in warning, and a finger pointed directly at him. In the same voice she used when Dr. Hubert forgot his medicine or Billy and Luke left toy cars in the front of the office, Lucy said, "Yes, I like romance novels, but you will not tell anyone, or I'll divulge the mystery-novel stash you keep behind your desk."

"You wouldn't."

Her face said she would.

Finally catching his breath, Forrest said, "But really, Luce, you shouldn't be ashamed. Nor should I, for that matter. There is nothing wrong with a little escapist literature."

"In my experience, shame is an integral part of womanhood."

Lucy had spoken the words in jest, but something, maybe it was the tilt of her head or the way her mouth shifted to the right, something told Forrest the joke was tinged with truth. And then, in the pit of his gut, Forrest felt anger swell. He was not used to anger. Fear? Regularly (especially here lately). Doubt? Occasionally. But anger was foreign to him. The anger was not directed towards Lucy. It was towards anyone and everyone who had ever made Lucy O'Shields feel ashamed.

He wracked his brain for something to say, something that would take away that shame. Frustrated with his unending legacy of ineptitude when it came to communicating with women, he turned to the only thing he really knew; he turned to Mark Twain.

"There's no shame in enjoying a good love story. Most of the great American writers were cynics about love, of course. But that's why Mark Twain's my favorite. He and his wife lived one of the great love stories of American history. After she died, he wrote an ode to her, Eve's Diary ."

"I've never read it."

"It's amazing. And she edited all of his writings. Did you know that he used to put things he knew she wouldn't like into his writing just to see her reaction?"

"Is that why you refuse to adopt the Oxford comma? You enjoy seeing me stress?"

"You'll never know." Whatever he had seen in Lucy before seemed to have passed. He could always count on Mark Twain, he supposed. Forrest said, "Maybe my next article can be on Mark Twain and his wife. Now that I know your favorite genre, I'll write you a romance." Forrest realized only after speaking the myriad ways his words might be interpreted. He added, "So you won't be bored."

"Your writing doesn't bore me, Forrest. I love that I get to edit. But since I do clearly have a depth of experience in romance - books, not life - I'm sure I'll be exceptionally good at editing it."

She was being cheeky, but Forrest wanted to reinforce the truth of her words. "You always do an exceptional job."

Ever since Forrest had first had Lucy as a student, he had been able to sense that she needed to be told when she had done well. Perhaps it was the easy blushing or the talking that got whisper-quiet when she was uncertain, but he had known. So he frequently complimented her work. However, he was beginning to wonder if compliments on editing and her work at the English Department were enough to blunt the shame and insecurity she carried with her.

Not realizing he was going to, Forrest suddenly asked, "Why do you always edit for me?"

***

Lucy was surprised by the question. Why did she always edit for him? It was not something she did in her capacity as the English Department's secretary, and she didn't need the extra income he paid her. She did it, simply, because she wanted to.

"I like editing. I know it sounds strange, but I like it for the same reason people become dental hygienists or quality control specialists. I love finding little flaws and moving stuff around and finding a better flow. I like fixing problems. Underneath it all, I enjoy editing for the same reason I sincerely enjoy my job. I like anticipating what people need before they realize it, finding the areas that are missing something or altering a situation where things aren't running smoothly. I'm extraordinarily competent and meticulous to the extreme. It's a gift. A boring gift. But a gift."

"Boring is in the eye of the beholder."

Lucy quirked her eyebrow in question.

"In other words, I'd have to disagree with your assessment."

Lucy felt that her apartment had never been quite this small. Forrest kept giving her compliments, and with each one, the walls closed in a little more.

It was all Clark's fault. She would be able to dismiss the compliments as basic politeness had it not been for the brief moment when she was quite sure every inch of her from the chest down had been pressed against every inch of him. It wasn't that it felt divine. Whether or not it did was completely irrelevant. It was just that it had been so disconcerting.

And when Lucy was disconcerted, she spewed words. As she apologized a thousand times for her dog (her dog who would not be receiving treats for several days), her mind had screamed for her to shut up. But as soon as she did shut up, she became instantly aware of him and all the parts of him that were touching so many parts of her.

Which all led to this moment. This moment in which a man simply telling her she was not boring (how low could her compliment threshold possibly get?) was sending her into a crimson hot flash. Suddenly, she desperately needed water. Frigid cold ice water.

"Ice water," Lucy squeaked. "I forgot to get you ice water." She turned around and walked to her kitchen.

Forrest followed, saying, "No problem. Can I help?"

Oh, good grief , Lucy thought. Her kitchen made the living room look positively spacious. "No, thank you. I've got it."

He leaned against a cabinet, one foot crossing the other. His long legs easily stretched halfway across the kitchen, seeming to engulf the space. One arm crossed his abdomen, while the other hand rested beneath his chin, the thumb aimlessly rubbing back and forth through his whiskers. He looked like Huckleberry Finn all grown-up, pensively recalling his days on the raft.

"What has you smiling?"

Lucy hadn't realized she was smiling. "Oh, nothing really."

"I believe the saying goes a penny for your thoughts. But given inflation, I'll make it a dollar."

He would be relentless. She might as well go ahead and relent. "I was thinking about your beard. It's a nice beard. Very Americana."

"Americana? So basically, I am what I teach?"

Lucy grinned as she mindlessly wiped already-clean counter tops. "We've clearly spent too much time together reading-slash-writing about American literature."

"What makes you say that?"

"I was just thinking to myself that you look like what I'd imagine Huckleberry Finn would look like all grown up."

A laugh sputtered from him, and he said, "I'm going to choose to take that as a compliment."

"As you should."

Bewildered that she'd complimented Forrest's looks through a comparison to Huckleberry Finn (of all people), Lucy refocused on the task at hand. She opened the dishwasher to grab glasses, but noticed it was empty. She'd forgotten that before running out the door to the game, she'd put up the clean dishes. That meant all of the glasses were just above Forrest's shoulder. Of course they were.

"Excuse me, Forrest. I just have to reach..." Physical proximity was unavoidable. Forrest tilted to give her room, but she still brushed him with the side of her torso, warmth radiating off of him. A spark of heat spread directly from him to her center.

Extra ice was in order.

Turning to the fridge, Lucy figured her best chance for regaining composure would be to make normal, everyday conversation. What could be more mundane than talking about parents?

"So, how's your dad doing? I haven't heard from him this week. Didn't you go over there Saturday?"

"Yes, I raked his yard for him and hauled the leaves away. Afterward, he and I sat in the kitchen and talked. He made me the same lunch he made me for the vast majority of my childhood." Forrest's face took on a look of distaste. "Bologna sandwiches."

"Your favorite, clearly."

He looked directly into her eyes to check for sarcasm. He must have found it there, because he said, "Oh, yes. The finest in culinary delights."

"Other than fixing a less-than-favorite lunch, how was he doing?"

Lucy carried the glasses of ice water to the small dining table that separated her kitchen from her living room space. It was a round Formica table from the 1940s that she'd found at a local antique fair. Around it were four metal chairs, each with olive green leather cushions. It was a favorite piece in her apartment because of its retro flare. They sat opposite each other as Forrest began voicing concern.

"Not good, I'm afraid. He was shakier than usual. His voice sounded like gravel, and he was moving slowly. He never offered to help me outside. Not that I minded, of course. I was fine doing it myself. It's just unusual for him to not insist he can help. But the worst thing I didn't even notice at the time. It's just looking back on Saturday that I keep thinking about it."

"What's that?"

"His skin. I'm sure I'm just being paranoid because of how much he has drunk over the years, but he looked, I don't know, yellowish. Just off, I guess."

"I'm sorry, Forrest. Should he see a doctor?"

"I called Gracie Sunday afternoon to ask her opinion. She drove down there Monday to see for herself. She is trying to encourage him to set up an appointment, but he's being ornery. He insists it's just regular aging, but I don't know about that."

Lucy had met Gracie a handful of times over the past ten years. She would occasionally stop by campus to see Forrest if she was driving through town for a work trip or to take their father to a doctor’s appointment. Just from the few times Lucy had seen the two together, it was clear they shared a significant bond. Forrest only had good things to say about his sister. Lucy sometimes wondered how someone who so clearly could maintain a wonderful familial relationship with a sister could not maintain a romantic relationship for more than six months. She would never ask Forrest this question directly, but she supposed it wouldn't hurt to ask a question indirectly.

"You and Gracie seem close. You're lucky to have her right now. Have you always been close?"

"Yes. Although, the nature of our relationship has changed throughout the years. Originally, it was more paternalistic. She was trying her hardest to be a replacement for my mother, and at times," his eyes squinted as if it was painful to say the words out loud. "And at times, she was also trying to replace dad, too. He was never a mean drunk. He didn't hit us or anything. But, there were times when he was just absent. Even if he was bodily there, he wasn't there."

"So Gracie would be there?"

"Yes. And now she is married with two beautiful children and she refuses to ever let me spend a holiday alone."

"Whether or not you want to?"

"Whether or not I want to." Forrest winked as he took a drink of water.

"But Gracie agrees with you? She's worried, too?"

"Unfortunately, yes." They were quiet for a moment, and then Forrest said, "It must have been hard going through your mother's sickness without a sibling to support you."

Lucy thought back to that dark time in her life. She had been 25 years old, in her third year working for the English Department.

It had been a quiet, summer Friday in the office when her mother called to invite her over for lunch the following day, saying she needed to talk with Lucy. It wasn't unusual for Lucy to be summoned by her mother in this way. It might be that one of the boys with whom she had grown up had just broken up with a girlfriend and was back on the market. Or a women's magazine had a diet that promised an astonishing ten pounds gone in three days. Or her mother wanted to announce the most recent engagements of girls from her class to amp up the pressure to "at least start trying to find a man."

On the next day, a humid, sweltering Saturday morning, Lucy had driven south of Paducah just across the Tennessee border to her parents’ rural home. She was fully anticipating an uncomfortable conversation about her weight or dating prospects. What she'd found, though, was her mother looking even smaller than normal but still dressed to perfection in a crisp white-collar shirt tucked into a tight and flattering pencil skirt. Lucy's father had also been there, his complexion that day as pale as her mother's shirt. Typically, he allowed Lucy's mom to guide conversations, but that day, his silence was like the ominous tune scoring a dramatic film.

Lucy's mother placed a salad in front of Lucy and her father, but she refused to have one herself. Lucy made a joke about how a salad for lunch would hardly cause her pants to not fit. And then her mother had said, "I'm not hungry. Apparently, telling one's daughter that one has terminal cancer takes one's appetite."

Thus, Lucy had found out her mother was no longer invincible. She'd always looked so petite, as if a wind might carry her away. It suited her mother to camouflage her fierceness in fragility. Her version of femininity worked best when the illusion was maintained that the female might need rescuing at any moment. However, that year, it was no illusion. And over the coming six months, it felt as though the wind did just carry her away.

About six months later, she died of an aggressive lung cancer. Her mother had quit smoking in public or socially decades before when it went out of vogue, but she continued the habit in secret in the family home's garage and on walks in the nearby woods. Lucy always figured it was a weight management strategy, pure and simple. There was nothing her mother had feared more than gaining a few pounds, and she had seen many of her friends quit only to put on ten or twenty pounds through the process. It probably never occurred to her that the smoking might cause something worse than the weight gain she would face if she quit. In fact, knowing her mother, she had probably thought that since she wasn't smoking in front of people, it didn't even count. Her mother had lived her life building an image for others to see. What happened behind the curtain was hardly real to her.

Lucy shook her head, trying to escape the reverie that consumed her anytime her mother's illness was mentioned. "I'm sorry, what did you say, Forrest?"

"Just that it must have been hard when your mother got sick. Not having siblings."

"It was hard in the way it's always hard to lose a parent. But I didn't feel alone. You and Dr. Hubert and Porter and Edith wouldn't allow that. Never have four absent-minded professors been so solicitous." She smiled. This was the part of the memory that made it bearable. "Dr. Hubert would sneak me little shot glasses of Kentucky bourbon anytime I looked sad or had received more bad news. It's really a wonder he didn't turn me into an alcoholic that year." Just as the words left her lips, Lucy realized the insensitivity of her quip. Her eyes wide, she immediately said, “I’m so sorry. I’m such an idi-...”

But before she could finish her self-admonition, Forrest dismissed her apology with a wave of the hand. “You are not an idiot. It’s fine - really. Besides, Dr. Hubert does keep a fine stash of Kentucky bourbon. Wasn't it Edith's first year in the department?"

Relieved Forrest was - as ever - not easily offended, Lucy answered, "Yes, she was fresh off of her Harvard defense. I was so intimidated by her back then."

"She still terrifies me."

Lucy rolled her eyes as she laughed. "Yeah, right. We all know there's no bite behind that bark."

"But the bark is deafening."

Lucy sipped her water. "The funny thing is, I think she was more afraid of me than I was of her because she didn't know what to do with a woman going through losing her mother. She ended up making gestures of sympathy that were completely incongruous with what you'd expect from her."

Forrest's thumb was moving back and forth across his water glass, drawing lines in the condensation while he listened to Lucy's musings. "Like what?"

"She got me one of those really hokey stuffed bears they sell next to the greeting cards that said 'Thinking of You.'"

"You can't be serious." Forrest looked as though he had just received proof the moon landing was indeed a hoax. "A stuffed bear?"

"Yes. A stuffed bear. Coming from her, someone I didn't expect to notice my pain or care, it was really special. I actually broke down crying and hugged her."

"I know I shouldn't laugh right now, but that was probably her worst nightmare."

"I know, right?" And then they were both laughing, a deep, cathartic laugh. Lucy took her glasses off for a moment to wipe at a tear. She wasn't sure if it was from laughter or one of the other myriad emotions the conversation conjured. She slowly put them back on.

At some point over the past seven years, Lucy had arrived at a spot where she could take joy in memories from her darkest chapter, and it was due to her co-workers, of all people. "And then there was Porter and you. Candles and flowers kept popping up around the office until it was a level of cluttered that would daunt Marie Kondo."

Forrest slapped both hands onto the table, and said, "You knew that was us?"

"I suspected. Now I know."

"We didn't know what else to do. But we knew you liked those two things, so we came up with a rotation where we kept you well supplied."

"I'd say so. I'm still burning through the candles."

"I preferred buying the flowers. I've always hated buying them for girlfriends. I never know what they'll like, and it feels cliché, like I'm checking a good-boyfriend box. But that year, when it was my turn to get them for you, I'd go to that little flower shop across from the campus book store."

"Woodley's Florals?"

"That's the one. And I'd walk around and buy whichever stood out that day. I didn't worry, because you always seemed to like them."

"I didn't just like them. I loved them. I could feel you guys cared. It helped."

"Good." It was a simple reply, but it brought Lucy's eyes directly to his. She didn't know why he struggled to buy flowers for women with whom he was romantic. She didn't know why it was easier to for him to buy them for her. But she suspected it was because there was something good between them. Something simply good.

Forrest broke the eye contact first, taking a final few gulps of his ice water. "I'd better be on my way. The book?"

"I'll grab it for you."

She got up and retrieved the book from where Miriam had left it Saturday night. Forrest stood up and stretched, yawning. The hem of his t-shirt rose an inch above the waist of his pants, and Lucy glimpsed a dusting of hair, the same light brown as his beard. It was a mere inch of skin, but Lucy was certain that if she were ever to see Forrest without a shirt on, she would find him beautiful. She looked down at the book, running her thumb over the embossed title.

"Thanks for the water and the talk. It was nice."

He reached out for the book. She gave it to him, careful to not brush hands this time. "Of course."

"I'll see you tomorrow at work." He was opening the door to head out.

"Alright," Lucy said. "Goodnight, Forrest."

His hand paused on the door knob, one foot over the threshold. "I like that you're saying my name now. Thank you."

The door shut.

Lucy looked down at Clark, who had awoken just in time to see Forrest leave. His eyes looked into her own, their expression mournful, as if Forrest leaving had left a gaping hole in their living room.

"Come on, Clark. Let's go to bed."

Not that she was going to be able to sleep.