Page 47 of The Write Place

“I’ve been to Chicago several times for various reasons, but never to the Art Institute.” He doesn’t take his eyes off the road as we merge onto the highway.

“Oh, I think you’d really love it. It’s not New York, but…” I trail off, finding myself feeling the need to qualify my city for him somehow, and wondering why I care if he likes what Chicago has to offer. He slides his gaze to me and then back to the road.

“It doesn’t have to be New York, Mac.” He sounds a little restrained, and I don’t realize how important it was for me to hear him say that. I love getting into the city when I can, even if it isn’t that often during the school year, and I’m especially glad to be going with Daniel this time. This is going to be a great weekend.

The only sound for a little while is the radio playing as I watch the suburbs pass us by. I slip off my shoes and fold my legs under me, adjusting my seatbelt a little more comfortably. I flip through the radio stations until I find one that’s playing an innocuous pop song and turn it up a bit to break the silence.

“You never told me who the poet who is reading tonight is,” I say after a little while.

He clears his throat, as if I’ve caught him off guard, or interrupted some deep thoughts. “Patricia Anderson,” he says. “She and I met when I was first getting into the industry, and she took me under her wing, so to speak.”

“So, she’s, like, your writer-mom?” I ask.

“Please don’t suggest that to her,” he grouses. “She’ll start pinching my cheeks and asking me when I’m going to give her grandbabies. But yeah. Something like that.”

I giggle at the idea of anyone treating Daniel like their kid, and he looks at me again. I meet his eyes and forget he’s supposed to be driving for a second. It’s just on this side of dangerous when he returns his focus the road.

“She just released a new book of poems. I have two copies in the back if you want to grab one and read on the way. If I didn’t buy them, she’d likely castrate me. One is for you, if you want her to sign it.”

I grab the books from the back seat. They are thin paperbacks with a beautiful floral motif on the cover. I flip through one of them. I’m not familiar with her writing at all, so I skim, but then close the book.

“I think I’ll wait to hear them for the first time tonight,” I decide aloud.

“The reception afterwards is at her apartment near the bookstore, and the hotel isn’t too far from either place.” He cuts another glance in my direction. “If we stay.”

“Mmm,” I hum, only half paying attention as I run my hands over the soft, matte cover of the paperback book and flip the pages in front of my nose, inhaling deeply. It’s not that old book smell, but new books smell good to me in their own way. I catch Daniel noticing me, smiling strangely. “What? You don’t smell books when you first get them?”

His laugh warms me. “I can’t say I do.”

“Did you know,” I continue, “that as books decompose, the paper releases a chemical compound similar to vanilla, and that’s why old books smell so good?”

“I did not know that,” he says, “but it makes sense. My parents had an entire library of old books in our house, and I used to sit in there for the smell of it. It was comforting.”

I feel another pleasant warmth in my heart at the thought of little Daniel Evans curling up in his family’s library, breathing in the mild scent of old books and being comforted by it.

“I would go to the public library and do the same thing,” I offer. He snickers, and I chuckle again. “Our lives were very different.”

He looks sidelong at me. “Not that different.”

“You’re right,” I agree. “Not that different.”

He’s silent again for a long moment, and I tilt my head back to rest on the back of the seat. I feel more at ease than I have in a while, like the tensions of the last weeks are falling away on the road behind us.

“Did you know,” Daniel starts playfully, “that the scent of vanilla is also an aphrodisiac?”

I roll my head toward him, not breaking contact with the back of the seat. I raise the book to my nose and inhale deeply again, not moving my gaze from him. “I did not know that, but that also makes sense.” I see the tips of his ears go red, and I worry I’ve gone too far, but he chuckles.

The rest of the drive passes in much the same way. Eventually, he pulls into a parking space near a small, local bookstore on the north side, and we walk inside together, each holding a book.

There are folding chairs set up facing a podium. The space is small enough that she won’t need a microphone. Daniel selects two seats for us in the back row. The front rows are already full.

Patricia looks exactly like I would expect a poet to look. She is a thin, wiry woman in her sixties, with gray hair that falls to her shoulders and looks like she doesn’t bother spending too much time styling it. She wears a plain, baggy, forest green turtleneck with baggy jeans and brown combat boots. Her only flair are huge, shiny earrings that are similar to the flowers that adorn the cover of her new book.

“Thanks for coming, everyone.” Her clear voice is deep and rich. “Let’s get to the poetry.”

She dives right in, and each poem is more breathtaking than the last. As she moves through her poems, telling stories about each one, I find myself leaning forward in my seat, clutching my copy of her book to my chest. At one point, I look to Daniel to see if he’s enjoying this as much as I am, but he’s looking at me, a strange expression on his face. His eyes are so warm they take my breath away. It takes some effort to refocus my attention on Patricia’s reading, but I feel his eyes on me throughout most of the second half.

When she finally concludes, I know there are tears lining my eyes, and I wipe them away quickly. Daniel leans close and whispers in my ear, “Did you enjoy it?”