Amy Inspired - Bethany Pierce [108]
He sat at the desk, the blue light of the computer screen highlighting the hollow of his cheeks.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Finish your book?”
“I can’t seem to concentrate.”
He gestured to the calendar on the wall. “Zoë’s on the work schedule,” he said.
“I know.” I ventured over, took a seat beside him. “She’s planning to come home next week.”
“How is she?”
“As well as can be expected.” I paused. “So you’re here for the summer?” I asked conversationally. Hoping.
“Uh, no, actually—” He glanced at me, then quickly looked back to the computer, minimizing windows on the screen. “I’ve been accepted to the Pendleton Artist Residency—upstate New York. I leave Friday.”
He brought up the website, began flipping through a number of photographs, studios, galleries, paintings. But New York? I was so disappointed by his news I overcompensated. When he asked what I was doing for the summer I announced I had no plans with such enthusiasm it was almost grating in my own ears. “They don’t need any more adjuncts for the summer so I’m essentially on vacation with my students. Which would be splendid except for that little problem of money.”
“Maybe they’d hire you here—they’ll need to fill my spot.”
“I could never work here,” I said. “I need somewhere to sit and think that’s not my desk.”
There was an uncomfortable pause. I said I should get going.
“I’ll let you out.”
The chairs had been stacked while we spoke, the lights in the coolers switched off. Outside, the streets were just as abandoned.
“I told Jillian the truth,” he said. “I wanted you to know.”
“How did that go?”
His expression said enough.
“Eli, I’m so sorry. I should never have said the things I did about you—about your family.”
“Stop apologizing, Amy.”
He held the door for me. “You want me to walk you home?”
“I don’t know. That didn’t work out so well for you last time.” We both laughed in a forced kind of way.
He let the door shut behind him. The noise of insects buzzed in the night air. I studied his feet. He desperately needed new shoes; how insane to fall in love with a man who couldn’t even afford shoes.
“I hate good-byes,” he said, all of a sudden awkward.
So stay, I thought.
I said, “So, let’s just say ‘I’ll see you around.’ ”
He leaned in closer. He lifted my chin to his face and kissed me, a gentle kiss, a chill down my spine. His hand lingered a moment on my cheek.
“See you around, Amy Gallagher.”
With a definitive click, the bolt latch locked behind him.
24
Eli left.
To the last minute, I held out hope he would come to the apartment to say good-bye, but he disappeared from Copenhagen as unobtrusively as he’d appeared. I went to The Brewery Saturday, ordered coffee and sat at the bar reliving our last conversation, stunned by the permanence of his absence.
My only consolation was that Zoë had finally committed to a plane ticket. She would arrive Monday, and her return was the only thing that made Eli’s leaving bearable. She had not stipulated how long she planned to stay in town, but there was never any talk of her moving out and both our names were on the summer lease. I washed her bedsheets and stocked the fridge with nonfat yogurts and organic spinach. At Wal-Mart I bought a cartful of cleaning supplies, intent on scrubbing the apartment from ceiling to floor, on distracting myself from the terrible loneliness that threatened to ruin the long summer vacation hours I usually enjoyed alone.
Grandma called while I was in the home-goods aisle comparing prices for Swiffer mops.
“I wanted to talk to you,” she said.
“About?”
“Let’s talk in person. How about dinner?”
She drove up that evening. The limited list of Copenhagen eateries did not impress her, so we went half an hour out of town to an Italian place she and Grandpa had frequented before his