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Chapter 20
Sophie
I’ve finished prepping my new books and they’re nearly ready to be put on Scott’s shelves. I’ve savored the job, sealing the binding tag with a firm hand. It’s one of my favorite things to do at work.
I stand from my desk and step to the stacks. Now for the hard part: choosing which books to remove in order to make room for these. The new kids on the block are here and my old babies are going to need to step it up to show me whose time has come.
The computer can tell me that. It’s a simple algorithm: years on the shelf divided by number of total checkouts and boom, the ones with the highest scores are gone. Either to a storage closet at city hall until it’s time for them to reappear, or to be sold. Except it’s not that simple, because there are certain books I just can’t get rid of.
That’s kind of like Oliver, come to think of it. The algorithm in my brain tells me things with him will never work out. I’m small-town Sophie, and Oliver hates small towns except if they’re located in Italy and end in the letter I.
Or maybe he just hates Longdale?
In any case, I have this urge to ditch the algorithm and go with my gut instead. He’s like those books that in theory don’t make the cut, but I just can’t quite part with them.
Not that he doesn’t make the cut because he’s somehow deficient. Oh boy, no. He’s everything. I thought that I loved him for all those years. But what’s happening now? My soul is on fire and set free. What I feel for him is more than I could have comprehended before.
But he said something about long term, and I froze up. I constructed the thickest hamster ball I’ve ever experienced, which is frustrating. I just want to be free to love this man.
Except, the way he pronounces the name of Capri should have given me a hint of the divide that exists between us. He says it with the emphasis on the “Ca,” and I say it like “CaPREE” like Capri Sun drink pouches, which let’s face it are delicious and I sometimes still put one in my lunch.
I have freaking Capri Suns in my lunch and Oliver has lunch brought to him in fancy packaging by Sebastian’s assistant, a hipster named Drake.
I laugh to myself. Stranger things have happened than two opposites getting together. And instead of obsessing over questions of the future, I can try to live in the now.
I shift my focus on the books, ready to wrestle an older non-fiction home décor title from the stack’s clutches, when a family comes into the library. Three little kids, plus the mom and dad. I’ve seen them here quite a bit, and I swoon over the cuteness of a family reading together.
I’m so focused on them that I don’t notice someone else is in the library until I smack right into the bouquet in a glass vase they’re holding. Its roses, daisies, and mums are scratching my face and arms as I try to spring back and away from it.
Did Oliver just bring me flowers, and did I just ruin them?
I fall down hard on my rump, on account of the stack of books in my arms. Falling down in a mobile library ain’t pretty. The whole thing pitches and sways like the vessel in20,000 Leagues Under the Seawhen it gets rammed by the mysterious green monster.
Everyone rushes to my aid, which also is not pretty since the walkway is not a two-lane highway and I’ve got three adults trying to help me up. Totally nice of them. But I realize then, once the enormous bouquet is out of the way, that it’s actually not Oliver who is holding it.
When I’m upright again, the guy with a flower shop uniform hands the flowers to me. “Sophie Lawson?” he asks and I nod, a little dizzy.
I know instantly they’re from Oliver, and as much as I could die from the heady gloriousness of the scent and intricate beauty of the mix—these are some high-quality flowers—I struggle to find somewhere to put them.
Again, I’m freaking out about the metaphors here. This enormous bouquet just does not fit in the mobile library. There’s not a single flat surface big enough to accommodate it. It’s like Oliver. Oliver himself is too big and exciting and smells way too nice to fit into my life.
A thin throb begins forming behind my eye while I head outside to stow the flowers near the ramp. A niggle of truth scratches at me: Oliver is to me like a vintage wine is to a juice pouch.
I rip open the card:
Thinking of you. This bouquet’s beauty is nothing compared to yours. Love, Oliver
I giggle and smack my forehead. When my heart begins to skitter, I rub my breastbone.
Is this real life?
Somehow, I’m able to focus on work, and a few hours later, I drive Scott back to Longdale and park him in the county offices parking lot. I open the back seat of my car and brush away as much Wilford hair as I can. The flowers should improve the smell in here. Wilford—gotta love him—leaves a distinct scent wherever he goes.
I shut my car door, the squeak from my Corolla’s ancientness reverberating through the air.
I drive away, out of town, and onto Lakeside Road heading to Longdale Lake and the resort.
Oliver knows me. He knows this is where I belong, and he’s still kissing me and sending me flowers. He designed an office space for me, and he pushed a cart full of books around the book show like he was my groupie bodyguard and I was a celebrity.
