Aurelia was quiet at the mention of a ‘big secret.’ Was that what was bothering her—that she still hadn’t found the right moment to tell Oliver about the characters? Was now the right time?
“What’s going on in there?” he asked as he tapped her forehead.
“I… um…”
Now? Surelynowwasn’t the time. He was leaving tomorrow, and Julia would be home soon. This wasn’t a quick story to tell; there would be so many questions that she wanted to be able to answer without either of them feeling rushed.
No, she’d tell him the week before the wedding, just as she’d been planning.
“Um… Sorry. So, you think maybe what I’m feeling is just mixed-up intuition?”
“I do. Everything’s fine, and everything’s going to be fine,” he said as he kissed her. He sat up and added, “Come on, we should get dinner before they come back.”
“Hey—what if we meet them at the theater and grab dessert somewhere?” Aurelia suggested as she, too, got up. “I bet Julia will be buzzing about the show. We can let her tell us about it and also catch up with David and James.”
After a quick shower in a failed attempt to cool off from the flat’s unrelenting heat, she and Oliver foraged in the refrigerator for dinner before taking the Tube to the theater to meet everyone. During the short trip, Aurelia made herself shake loose her lingering worries so that she was able to greet David, James, and Julia with a genuine smile when she spotted them walking out of the theater.
10
Oliverdepartedearlythenext morning for his trip, leaving Aurelia sipping tea by herself at their dining room table. From outside in the square, he looked up at the window and waved to her. She waved back and he pointed at the ground, reminding her that soon they’d be standing right there, getting married. She nodded and grinned back at him, but as he turned to walk toward the Tube station, her smile faltered. Was her intuition telling her something would happen to him? To her? To them? Or was everything really alright?
Later, in the shop, Aurelia tried to keep her spirits up so as not to worry Julia. Business was slow in the afternoon, and the humid air wafting in from the street seemed to slow everything down, including Julia’s unenthusiastic attempts to dust the bookshelves.
“What do you think ofJane Eyreso far?”
“What?” Julia asked.
“The book—Jane Eyre. What do you think of it?”
“It’s alright.”
Aurelia had been hoping for a little more of a discussion, so she pushed ahead.
“What do you think about Jane?”
“She’s okay.”
“Do you think you’d be friends if you met her?”
Julia snorted. “Probably not.”
“Why?” Aurelia decided to fight Julia’s flat responses with a flat question.
“She’s plain… and she’s kind of boring. She says so herself.”
“I know Jane describes herself as being very plain and unattractive, but she’s not, really. Esther fromBleak House—that’s another great book I’ll have you read one of these days—she does the same thing, but she’s also very pretty. It’s good to remember that you can’t always trust a narrator, especially if they’re talking about themselves.”
“How do you know?”
“How do I know what?”
“You said they’re pretty, so how do you know that? Did someone paint a picture of them, or something?”
Aurelia caught her breath. How could she have been so careless? She’d have to be more alert to what she said about the characters in front of Julia. Oliver tended to assume she was just getting carried away and didn’t usually question her odd statements, but Julia apparently would. She’d tell her about the shop’s midnight visitors when Julia was older, of course—she didn’t want her to experience the same fear and surprise that she had—but not yet.
“I just mean… in my imagination. When I’ve seen them in my imagination.”
“Well in my imagination, Jane is ugly.”
