Page 67 of Beachfront Pages
The light through the front windows had gone from gold to rose while they talked. Outside, the street had emptied toward supper. Fiona realized she'd said the thing she came to say. He'd said the thing she never let herself hope for. Now there was the small terrifying matter of what came next.
"I should let you close up," she said, which was foolish, because the shop had been closed for four days.
"It's already closed." He almost smiled. "Walk you home?"
They took the beach. It was the long way, and neither of them mentioned that.
The sand had gone cool the way it did once the sun let off, and the Gulf lay flat and pink to the west. Fiona carried her sandals in one hand. Marty walked beside her, matching her pace without being asked, and they didn't talk much. They didn't need to.
"Can I ask you something?" she finally said, "now that we're being honest to a fault."
"You'll ask anyway."
"I have a problem in book sixteen. Carson's stranded over the body in the alley. I've been stuck on it since February." She watched the water. "How would you end it?"
"I have no idea. I'm a critic, not a writer. We're the ones who tell you it's wrong after you've done the hard part." He glanced sideways. "Why February?"
"Because that's when Drake left." She shrugged. "The book died the same week the marriage did. I've been telling myself those were two separate disasters. They weren't."
He walked a bit further, then stopped. "Annette wrote in the margins of everything," he said. "Her books. My books. Grocery lists, if a thought struck her. After she died I couldn't open a book for two years without finding her handwriting in it. So I stopped opening them. The shop is full of clean copies nobody's marked." He kept his eyes on the sand. "Your books were the first ones in a long time I wanted to argue with. I'd catch myself reaching for a pencil to tell you why you were wrong about Carson. That's the closest thing to alive I've felt since."
"You can argue with me in person now," Fiona said. "I'm right here. It's much harder to win against the actual author."
"I noticed. You quote yourself."
"Only when I'm nervous." She bumped his shoulder with hers. "I'm a little nervous."
"So am I," he said. "I think that's allowed too."
The cottages came up out of the dusk, the lighthouse standing pale against the darkening sky, the keeper's quarters glowing yellow where Winnie was no doubt pretending not to watch. Fiona led him up the path to Sea Glass Cottage and stopped at the bottom of her own porch steps.
"This is me," she said.
"I know. And this is me."
"You alphabetize by author. Like an animal." She grinned at him.
"There is no other way."
"There are dozens of other ways." She climbed the first two steps so they were nearly level, and turned to face him. The teasing ran out of her all at once. What was left was just the two of them in the blue evening, close, the heat of the day finally lifting off the water.
"I'm not good at this part," she said. "I write it well. I'm terrible at doing it."
"I haven't done it in sixteen years," Marty said. "I think we're allowed to be terrible together."
The lighthouse beam swung out across the water, came around, and passed over them both, a slow sweep of light and then dusk again. In the moment it touched his face she saw him decide. He lifted one hand and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, his ink-stained fingers careful, like she was an old book he was afraid of creasing.
Then he kissed her.
It was the kiss of a man who'd spent years being careful and had finally found one thing he didn't want to be careful about. His hand came to rest against her jaw. Fiona's sandals dropped to the porch step. She rose into it, both hands curled into the worn cotton of his shirt. For the first time in longer than she could measure, she was just here. Present. Held. Wanted. The actual her.
When they came apart, he rested his forehead against hers.
"Competent," she murmured and she could feel him not quite laughing.
"Don't."
"Fairly competent." Her mouth spread into a smile.
