Only Through Love: A Cane River Romance Novella (3 page)

            He
laughed, trying to imagine sweet-faced Alice, now with a baby in her arms,
throwing anybody out of her store. “But he came back.”

            “He
did. He actually moved into the apartment you’re renting.” She smiled, a
softness in her eyes.

            “And
when you saw him all the time, you just fell in love?” He’d heard that
opposites attract but he couldn’t think of anything worse than fighting with a
woman for a few decades, no matter how cute she was.

            “Not
quite. I’m actually starting to wonder about that apartment. First Paul. Then
Henry.” She cocked her head and fixed him with a unfocused look, as if she were
seeing into his future. “Anyway, I guess I finally realized life was easier
when you plow around the stump, instead of over it, although it took me a good
while to stop fighting him and just listen.”

            Austin
felt like he’d missed a step somewhere. It had been a long, hard day and right
about now, a hot meal and a good book sounded just right. Rather than ask for a
details, he just nodded.

            “Here,”
she said, switching gears again, “borrow the first one and see if you like it.”

            “You
run a bookstore, not a library. I think we’ve been over this.”

            “Silly.”
She took the book from his hand and walked toward the register. “There have to
be some perks to living in this old place, right? Paul complains that the wifi
is about as fast as smoke signals.”

            “I
have noticed a bit of a lag.” He followed her back to the desk. The building
was beautiful and so much nicer than anything his college friends had at the
moment. Now he was getting free books. Just like his job, he seemed to have
lucked into a situation much better than he deserved. People said cheaters
never prosper. Apparently, that wasn’t a hard and fast rule.

            Alice
gently placed Aurora in the playpen and put the book in a bag. “Let me know
what you think.” She stopped, reconsidering. “Actually, if you hate it, don’t
tell me. I love this book. I might get offended.”

            “I’ll
be sure to make up a glowing critique.”

            “I
bet it’s on Cliffs Notes,” she said, laughing. “Or you could just ask Charlie
to write you a little treatise on its finer points. I’ll never know.”

            He
took the bag from her and forced a smile. Of course Alice was just making a
joke, but Austin wondered if there was something in his face that said he was
simply blowing smoke and crafting pretty phrases wherever he went. “Thanks
again.”

            “Anytime,”
she said and he could tell she meant it. As he walked out the back entrance and
up the wooden staircase to the upstairs apartments, he felt his spirits sink
lower and lower. Just when he convinced himself it was all in the past, it
showed up again, hovering at the edges of every conversation and every new
friendship. He was a cheater and a thief, no matter how hard he tried to
forget.

            He
unlocked the oversized oak door and let himself into the apartment. It smelled
like warm bricks, books, and a late summer’s evening. The large fireplace
dominated the far wall and he slumped onto the one recliner at the other end.
The place was much too nice for someone just starting out but Tom and Gideon
had talked to Alice and everything had been arranged before he’d even seen the
place. He stared at the fancy iron work around the hanging lights and the floor
to ceiling windows that faced the waterfront, and wished he didn’t feel like
such a fraud.

            Opening
the book, he glanced through the first few pages. His dad always said,
watch
out when you’re gettin’ everything you want
. For years he’d thought that
was a self-defeating little phrase meant to keep someone in their place. He
understood the wisdom now. Much too late, he knew that sometimes a person will
do whatever it takes to get what they want, and it doesn’t matter who they
hurt.

All changed, changed utterly: a
terrible beauty is born.

―Yeats

            “Hey,
did you hear your old house got a fifty pizzas delivered to it?” Alice shook
the rain from her umbrella and stowed it by the door. Her dark curly hair was
damp and she looked tired.

            Charlie
paused a second too long. “Wow, really?”

            “Yep.
Paul heard from Bix who heard it from Barroni’s Pizza that someone placed an
online order. Barroni’s called the number, checked the card, and everything
seemed on the up and up,” she said. “It was so weird. They even cross-checked
the order number with the online white pages and it said that was the new
number for your house. But then they got there with the pizzas, and the owners
said there was no back-to-school party and they had no idea what had happened.”

            “Some
dumb kid pranking his friends, probably.” She lowered her head and pretended to
look for a paper under Van Winkle’s furry backside. He had recently taken to
sprawling on the desk instead of sleeping in his usual tidy circle and she was
about to yield possession of the desk rather than fight him for what she needed.

            Alice
walked around the desk and lifted Aurora from her playpen, giving her a kiss on
each chubby cheek. The little  baby squealed happily and batted at Alice with
her fists. “They said they’ve had trouble like this ever since they moved in.
Huge orders from take-out places, moving vans showing up every Tuesday morning
at dawn, magazine subscriptions they didn’t order. Just crazy. They changed
their number four times already. They’ve even had packages delivered full of
dog poop.”

            Charlie
closed her eyes for a moment. All that was meant for her. When she made the
mistake of bearing her heart to someone, they turned her online friends against
her. Her guild took their revenge, they doxxed her, sending her personal info
out into cyberspace. The only thing that saved all of that hassle from really following
her was that she’d never given out her full legal name. They’d gotten enough,
though. The people who bought her parents’ house last year were now living the
nightmare meant for her. “That’s awful,” she managed.

            “It
is, poor people. They’re thinking of moving.” Alice swayed from side to side,
Aurora curled in the crook of her arm. She cleared her throat. “I hate to ask,
but can you run an errand for me?”

            “Sure.
Or I can watch the baby and you can go.” Charlie reached out without waiting
for a response, but Alice shook her head.

            “No,
I took too long at the post office. I think she’ll be ready to eat again soon
and I don’t want her to scream at you while I’m gone.” She peered out the front
windows at the sheets of rain. “I hate to make you go out in this, but if the
choice is between a wet baby, a hungry baby, and you…”

            Charlie
smiled. “I don’t mind being the low girl on the totem pole.” She lifted
Aurora’s little hand and gave it a kiss. “Where am I going?”

            “To
the juvenile justice center. I had an idea I wanted to pass by Austin.”

            She
froze, Aurora’s pudgy fingers still in hers. “Why don’t you call?” She hoped
that Alice didn’t have any ideas about fixing them up. Austin was definitely not
her type. Nobody was, at the moment.

            “See…
Here’s the deal…” Alice shifted her feet as if slightly embarrassed. “I think
there’s a better chance of having it approved if we do this in person.”

            “You
mean if
I
do this in person, and I don’t know what
I’m
doing
yet.” Charlie didn’t mean to sound snippy but she was already imagining a
conversation with Mr. Golden Boy. She would explain why she was there, and he
would smile at her, completely ignoring what she said. Or he might listen, then
present it to his supervisors as his own brilliant idea. Or he might
relentlessly pick holes in her plan instead of giving it any chance at all.
“Maybe you can have Paul go down there. They’re already friends, right?”

            Alice
sighed and slumped into the chair. “I need you to do it. Not me.”

            She
made a humming noise and waited. This was sounding awfully suspicious.

            “The
other day I asked Cora if the kids there had library cards. She said she’d ask
around. She got back to me and said it seemed like none of them did.”

            “Okay.
Maybe we can run a sign-up or something. But they’ll need a current―”

            “Phone
bill, electric bill, driver’s license. Right. And honestly, are they going to
go through all that trouble?”

            “Probably
not.” Anybody who thought the kids would take that kind of trouble were many
paper plates short of a picnic.

            “So,
I thought maybe we could start our own library down there. Maybe in a corner of
some room they don’t use much. The kids can borrow a book, sign it out, return
it when they’re done.”

            Charlie
almost laughed out loud. “Return it? You know that you’re not going to get
these books back, right?”

            She
lifted her chin. “Honor libraries work really well. Studies have shown that
people steal from honor libraries less often than regular libraries. Maybe it’s
the trust factor.”

           
Trust
factor.
That was funny. Of course the kids trusted the people who ran the
place. But nobody should trust
them
. She rubbed a hand over her face.
“So, you have this idea for a free lending library. Why do I have to go?”

            “I’d
like you to take a box of our newer books down there, some science fiction and
fantasy and young adult stuff. Pick whatever you’d think they’ll like. Then
show it to Austin, explain the idea. If he looks like he’s on board, maybe you
two could talk to Cora.” She swiveled in the chair, making a shushing sound as
Aurora started to fuss. “I’ve thought this over, and I really think you’d be so
much better at this presentation than I would.”

            “Miss
Alice, a free lending library… In a juvenile justice center.”

            “Hey,
they have a room with a giant screen television and a game player and all the
best games. Paul donated it and while I think that’s great, it irked me a
little.” Something flashed in her eyes and Charlie was reminded of how Paul and
Alice used to be on opposite sides of the technology divide. “I asked him why
he didn’t donate ereaders. He said he’d thought about it but couldn’t figure
out how to keep them in the building. They could be sold so easily, and books…”

            “Nobody
really wants books,” Charlie supplied. She thought of the glossy hardbacks, the
complete series with fancy dust jackets, the fantasy books as large as a
doorstop that cost more than she had in her wallet at the moment. She hated the
idea of some bratty teenager throwing it in a puddle. “Are you going to replace
them if they get ruined?”

             “I
haven’t decided yet. But if they don’t, if everything goes well, then I have
another idea…”

            “Oh,
you do have an ulterior motive. I thought so.”

            Her
cheeks turned pink. “I thought if everything goes well, we might start stocking
a few of the older books. Not the rare ones, but say a few poetry collections
that aren’t in print anymore.”

            Charlie
blinked. She wanted say it was a great idea and Alice was a genius, but deep
down, she really didn’t believe any of those kids would pick up a book, let
alone some old poetry anthology. “I guess I better get a box sorted out. You’re
sure about this?”

            “I’m
sure. My
mamere
said that sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.
I’m okay if I get got this time. If they destroy the books or they all
disappear, I’m only out a few hundred dollars and at least I tried.”

            Charlie
headed toward the back to find a box, her heart feeling squeezed and achy. She
knew what it was like to “get got”, and she had lost a whole lot more than a
few hundred dollars. She’d lost everything she held most dear. Even Alice’s
friendship, in a way. They could never be as close as they were. Not after what
Charlie had done to Paul’s company. Someday the truth would come out. It was
only a matter of time.

            As
she stood in front of the young adult section, she thought of the couple now
dealing with the vicious bullying meant for her. Some people might think the
pizza prank was funny, but she knew it was only a half-step to seven moving
vans showing up at dawn, and that was only a half-step to fifty death threats.  Those
credit cards they were billing didn’t belong to the pranksters. They knew how
to fund their hate campaign, and it was always on someone else’s tab. Or maybe
they were still working their way through her college account and she was
funding all of the harassment herself.

            Her
stomach lurched and she refocused on the shelf. There was nothing she could do
about that anymore. It was in the past. As annoying as it was, her future was
apparently trying to convince Austin that Alice’s idea had merit. Pulling one
of her favorite sets of from the shelf, she stared down at the first cover. The
gray creature holding an amulet might appeal to someone there, but the writing
was probably light years beyond them. Setting the set in the box, she lifted
down a steampunk series set during World War II featuring a prince and a girl
shipmate. Charlie had read the series at least three times, always punching the
air triumphantly when Deryn finally revealed herself to be a girl. She’d
understood what it was like to have so many obstacles smoothed away when she
used another persona. But Deryn’s happy ending wasn’t Charlie’s. In the end,
there was no prince to stand by her side and protect her from those who would
punish her for breaking the rules.

            Dropping
the set in the box, she wiped her cheek with one hand and took a few deep
breaths. The girl in the story had faced court martial for being a midshipman
when she should have been home in a dress. It had seemed so exciting then.
Charlie never knew what could really happen when she revealed herself to her
friends. Ex-friends, actually. 

            Most
people couldn’t imagine such deep online friendships. They thought real
connection had to be face to face, or at least over the phone, but in the
digital age, friendships sprang up over the simplest things. Add a few hours working
through a level in a game every night, and those online friends seemed closer
than family after a few years. They might not have known what she looked like
exactly, but they knew her hopes, her dreams. They didn’t hear her voice, only
read her words, but they knew more about her than people she saw every day.
Those friends were the first to see her digital art, the first to try out her
programs, the ones who cheered her on through every difficult project. Sure, she
may have gone along with their occasional anti-girl bluster and their sexist
comments, but she hadn’t meant to hide who she really was. Well, maybe a
little. But by the time she’d grown up enough to care, it seemed too late,
somehow.

            Yanking
a few books from the shelf and stuffing them in the box, Charlie sighed. As
unfair as it was, she had to take a little responsibility for what happened.
She’d been so young when she’d started playing Ultimate Voyager. She knew it
was easier to be invited into a guild if she presented herself as a male
player. And later, when she started programming, she saw firsthand the way
girls were treated in the tech and science departments. Every day, she saw the
guys receive the better assignments and get more feedback. They picked up
mentors as easily as she collected Van Winkle’s hair on her black clothes. They
formed study groups that never publically advertised their meeting times. It
was never said out loud, and it would have been denied if she’d spoken up, but
it was clear. It was much easier to be a guy in the computer sciences
department.

            Staring
down into the box, Charlie wondered what her life would have been like if she’d
been truthful way back in the beginning. She would have been part of a guild
eventually if she had created a female avatar and used her legal name, Mary
Charlotte. Maybe it wouldn’t have been with the top-level young programmers and
hackers that she used to call her friends, but she would still have the life
she’d worked so hard to build.

            She
hoisted the box into her arms and headed back to the main area of the
bookstore. In her first year she’d considered asking Paul for help, but was
never sure how to approach the subject. Of course he understood how hard it was
for women in technology. He wasn’t blind. He probably saw it in his own
company. She didn’t think for a moment that Paul agreed with the silent
preferential treatment of men, but she never heard that he’d done anything to
protect or promote women who worked for him. She figured it was just the way it
was, and she’d better get used to it. Little did she know, being passed over as
a project leader had been the least of her worries.

            Stopping
at the back door to slip on her jacket, she tucked plastic bags around the box
so it wouldn’t get wet on the way to her car. The gas gauge was nearly on empty
but she couldn’t afford to put anything in the tank until she got paid at the
end of the week. Charlie stared out at the pouring rain and wished she could
turn back the clock. She’d go back years, all the way back to the beginning
when she created her first online persona. She’d tell her teenage self to not
to spend a lifetime in silence afraid to say something wrong, that she had a
voice that was clear and strong. The funny t-shirts and converse shoes and
bright pink hair were all just coverings that could change at any moment. None
of those things were really her. Who she really was, the person she was created
to be, wasn’t something she should ever hide.