Page 24 of Something About September

Cort glanced at her. “That sounds…disappointing. Especially for someone like you.”

She shrugged a little too quickly, knowing it wouldn’t be so easy to shed these feelings, especially now that she had named them. “It’s not terrible. I still like teaching. I like my students. I just—” She paused. “I guess I thought it would feel more expansive.”

“Like there’d be more room to breathe?”

She smiled at him, surprised. “Exactly.”

He was silent a moment, the country road unfurling under the wheels of his truck. “What if you could do anything, be anything you wanted, anything at all? What would you be?”

It wasn’t a real question, or at least not one with an answer that had any bearing on her life as it was, but she still took it seriously. She had always, she realized, taken the things Cort said seriously, and knew he was the same with her. “I’d work in a bookstore,” she finally said. “I’d press my favorite books into people’s hands, all day long. I’d find new books to love, and share those with other readers, too.”

She could hear the smile in his voice, even though she was looking out the truck’s window, at the brilliantly colored leaves on the trees lining the side of the road, and not at him. “That sounds perfect for you.” Cort glanced sideways at her. “Well, you could work at a bookstore, couldn’t you?”

But she shook her head. “I need to find my way in the life I do have. It’s too early to give up.”

“But if you’re not happy—I mean, life’s too short, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know if it’s as drastic as being officially unhappy,” Rebecca said. “I’m just in a slump.”

He nodded. “Maybe being back here for a little while is the break you need.”

“Maybe,” she mused. The conversation felt like it had opened something inside her, but she didn’t know what to do with these feelings, these dreams. The silence in the truck suddenly felt loud. “Do you have any music?” she asked him.

“Sure.” He turned on the stereo. “Anything in particular you feel like listening to?” He paused and smiled at her sidelong. “Do you still have that indie folk obsession from high school? I distinctly remember you defending Fleet Foxes at a party when everyone else was into much louder stuff.”

Rebecca turned to him in surprise. “You remember that?”

Cort grinned now. “You were pretty passionate about it. You cited the final verse of ‘Helplessness Blues’ as…” He paused, searching for the word. “Transformative.”

She laughed. “Guess that’s why I really wasn’t invited to many parties. Great song, though.”

The gentle opening notes of it filled the truck. “Wow. This one really takes me back,” she said.

Cort’s eyes were fixed on the road ahead. “You loaned me your CD after one of our tutoring sessions. Said it might help me focus on studying.”

“And did it?” she asked, genuinely curious.

“Not really,” Cort admitted with a laugh. “It mostly just made me think about you.”

There it was again: the patented Cort Adams Effect. But she kept her pulse in check, and she wondered if he was even aware he was doing it. She decided to focus on the song instead, one she hadn’t listened to in years. She closed her eyes and let it wash over her.

“This song is really just so Bramley Hollow, right? The side of it I knew. Not football games and homecomings, but…” She still had her eyes closed. “This,” she said, not able to put it into words, but she could see it behind closed eyes. The road, the pickup truck, the farmland she knew was on either side of them. She opened her eyes and it was there, exactly as she had seen it in her mind over the years. The last lines of the song faded out, and so did her certainty of what she had been about to say.

Another song had started: “I Was a Fool,” by Tegan and Sara. “Oh my God,” Rebecca moaned as the song flowed from his stereo. “I am seventeen again, truly. I used to listen to this song on repeat while going on…like, angsty walks through town.” She laughed at the memory.

“Angsty walks,” Cort repeated with a laugh in return. “I think I saw you on those walks and never wanted to disturb you. But your expression was so intense, I think I always assumed you were listening to…like, Beethoven or something.”

“Nope. It was always, always Tegan and Sara.”

They were pulling into a gravel lot before a massive weathered barn.

“This is it,” Cort said, cutting the engine, and Rebecca felt relief. These songs she hadn’t listened to, had maybe avoided, for more than a decade, had brought up so much emotion. But she also felt regret, like she wished their car ride down country roads could have gone on forever. He was already out of the truck, though, and coming around the side of it to open her door, a disarming act of chivalry she tried to tell herself was old-fashioned, not charming.

“Looks unassuming, but wait until you see inside.”

She followed him toward a weathered clapboard barn with a simple hand-painted sign above the wide double doors reading Kingman’s Salvage & Antiques. But when Cort pulled one of the doors open, Rebecca gasped. Inside, the massive space soared two stories high, with sunlight filtering through high windows to illuminate an Aladdin’s cave of architectural treasures. Ornate fireplace mantels leaned against walls, rows of vintage doors in every style imaginable stood like soldiers at attention, and chandeliers of every era hung from the rafters like elaborately plumed birds in flight. Narrower aisles held vintage hardware, light fixtures, doorknobs, hinges, and countless other artifacts salvaged from buildings long since demolished.

“This is incredible,” Rebecca breathed, turning slowly to take it all in.