True believer - Nicholas Sparks [50]
“So you came back here and began working at the library, and . . .”
“That’s it,” she said. “That’s what I’ve been doing for the last seven years.”
He did the math, figuring she was about thirty-one.
“Any other boyfriends since then?” he asked.
With her fruit cup wedged between her legs, she broke off a piece of cheese and put it on a cracker. She wondered if she should answer, then decided, What the hell, he’s leaving, anyway.
“Oh, sure. There were a few here and there.” She told him about the lawyer, the doctor, and—lately—Rodney Hopper. She didn’t mention Mr. Renaissance.
“Well . . . good. You sound like you’re happy,” he said.
“I am,” she was quick to agree. “Aren’t you?”
“Most of the time. Every now and then, I go nuts, but I think that’s normal.”
“And that’s when you start wearing your pants low?”
“Exactly,” he said with a smile. He grabbed a handful of crackers, balanced a couple on his leg, and began stacking some cheese. He glanced up, looking serious. “Would you mind if I asked a personal question? You don’t have to answer, of course. I won’t take it the wrong way, believe me. I’m just curious.”
“You mean, more personal than telling you about my previous boyfriends?”
He gave a sheepish shrug, and she had a sudden vision of what he must have looked like as a small boy: a narrow, unlined face, bangs cut straight, shirt and jeans dirty from playing outside.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Ask away.”
He focused on the lid of his fruit cup as he spoke, suddenly reluctant to meet her gaze. “When we first got here, you pointed out your grandmother’s house. And you said you’d grown up there.”
She nodded. She’d wondered when he would ask about that.
“I did,” she said.
“Why?”
She looked out the window; habit made her search out the highway that led out of town. When she spotted it, she spoke slowly.
“My parents were coming back from Buxton, out on the Outer Banks. That was where they got married, and they owned a small beach cottage there. It’s kind of hard to get to from here, but my mom swore that it was the most beautiful place in the world, so my dad bought a small boat so they wouldn’t have to use the ferry to get there. It was their little escape, the two of them sneaking away, you know. There’s a beautiful lighthouse that you can see from the porch, and every now and then, I head out there, too, just like they used to, just to get away from it all.”
Her lips formed the tiniest of half-smiles before she went on. “But anyway, on their way back that night, my parents were tired. It still takes a couple of hours to get there even without the ferry, and the best guess is that on the way home, my dad fell asleep at the wheel and the car went off the bridge. By the time the police found the car and dredged it out the following morning, they were both dead.”
Jeremy was quiet for a long moment. “That’s terrible,” he finally said. “How old were you?”
“Two. I was staying with Doris that night, and the next day, she headed off to the hospital with my granddad. When they got back, they told me that I’d be living with them from now on. And so I did. But it’s strange; I mean, I know what happened, but it’s never seemed particularly real. I didn’t feel like I was missing anything when I was growing up. To me, my grandparents seemed like everyone else’s parents, except that I called them by their first names.” She smiled. “That was their idea, by the way. I guess they didn’t want me to think of them as grandparents anymore since they were raising me, but they weren’t my parents, either.”
When she finished, she looked over at him, noticing the way his shoulders seemed to fill out his sweater, and eyeing that dimple again.
“Now it’s my turn to ask questions,” she said. “I’ve talked too much, and I know that my life must be boring compared to yours. Not so much about my parents, of course, but living here, I mean.”
“No, it’s not boring at all. It