Love Lettering Read online

  I feel a blooming sense of relief. There’s an explanation for this, for him being here. It’s not because he knows.

  No one but me could know.

  I push the notebook out of the way and fold my hands on top of the counter, look up to offer help. Of course in the face of a human-shaped piece of granite I find myself struggling to muster the cheerful informality that’s always made me such a hit in here, that had lifted my low spirits throughout today’s shift. Ridiculously, I can only think of phrases that seem straight out of Jane Austen. Are you in need of assistance, sir? What do you require this evening? Which of our parchment-like wares appeals most to you?

  “I suppose it’s to be expected,” he says, before I can settle on a question. “You wouldn’t need this job, what with all the success you’ve had.”

  He’s not looking at me when he says it. He’s turned his head slightly, looking to the wall on his left, where there’s a display of greeting cards that Lachelle, one of Cecelia’s regular calligraphers, has designed. They’re bright, bold colors, too—Lachelle uses mostly jewel tones for her projects, adding tiny beads with a small pair of tweezers that she wields as though she’s doing surgery. I love them, have three of them tacked on the wall above my nightstand, but Reid doesn’t even seem to register them before his eyes shift back to me.

  “I saw the Times article,” he says, I guess by way of explanation. “And the piece on . . .” He swallows, gearing up for something. “Buzzfeed.”

  LOL, I think, or maybe I see it: sans serif, bold, all caps, a bright yellow background. Reid Sutherland scrolling through Buzzfeed, the twenty gifs they’d embedded of me drawing various letters with pithy captions about how it was almost pornographically satisfying, watching me draw a perfect, brush-lettered cursive E so smoothly.

  He probably got an eye twitch from it. Then he probably cleared his browser history.

  “Thank you,” I say, even though I don’t think he was complimenting me.

  “Avery is very proud. She feels as though she got on the ground floor, hiring you when she did. Before you became . . .”

  He trails off, but both of us seem to fill in the blank. The Planner of Park Slope, that’s what I’m called now. That’s what got me out of the wedding business, that’s what the Times wrote about late last year, that’s what’s had me on three conference calls in the last month alone, that’s what’s brought me the deadline I’m avoiding. Custom-designed datebooks and journals and desk calendars, the occasional chalk-drawn wall calendar inside the fully renovated brownstones of my most handcraft-obsessed clients, the ones who have toddlers with names like Agatha and Sebastian, the ones with white subway-tile kitchens and fresh flowers on farmhouse-style tables that never once saw the inside of a farmhouse, let alone the outside of a farm. I don’t so much organize their lives as I do make that organization—work retreats and weekend holidays and playdates and music lessons—look special, beautiful, uncomplicated.

  “Are you looking to have me design something for her?”

  I haven’t been taking on new clients lately, trying to put this new opportunity first, but it’s clever, I guess, for the one-year paper anniversary. A custom journal, maybe, and it’s not as if I don’t secretly owe him an apology-favor. Of course, if this is what he wants, he’s cutting it close, especially if he wants me to design the full year up front, which some clients prefer. Those here in Brooklyn I’ve mostly got on a monthly schedule, but Reid and Avery, I’m guessing they stay in Manhattan most of the time. Avery had a tony address on East 62nd when she was engaged; she’s got the kind of money I don’t even understand on a theoretical level, much less a practical one.

  For the first time something in his face changes, a twitch of those turned-down corners. A . . . smile? It’s possible I forgot what smiles are since he came in here, jeez. But even that brief flash of expression, of emotion—it changes him. Double-take face turns to triple-take face. Take-a-photo-and-show-it-to-your-friends-later face.

  He’s very tall. Exceptionally tall. I hate myself for thinking about the symbolism of my pens.

  In the context of a married person, no less.

  “No,” he says, and the sort-of smile is gone.

  “Well,” I say, extra cheerful, “we have other gifts and—”

  “I’m not looking for a shopgirl,” he says, cutting me off.

  A . . . shopgirl?

  Now it’s him that’s made a crack in the space-time continuum, or maybe some kind of crack in my normally frolicsome façade. I wish I could unzip my forehead and release the Valkyries on his person. It’d be worse than the debate team captain mugging, I can tell you that.

  I blink across the counter at him, trying to wait out my annoyance. But then, before I can plaster over the crack, I press up on my tiptoes, exaggeratedly looking over his shoulder (one of two excellent shoulders, not that I should care) to the street beyond, the dark green awning of a fancy shave shop flapping gently in the spring breeze.

  “Did you come here in a time machine?” I ask sweetly. I lower back down to my heels, meet his eyes so I can catch the expression I’ll see there.

  Blank, flat. No anger or amusement. The most sans serif person.

  “A time machine,” he repeats.

  “Yes, a time machine. Because no one has said ‘shopgirl’ since—” Parchment wares, is all I can think, annoyingly. So I finish with an exceedingly disappointing, “A long time ago.”

  I think my shoulders sag. I am truly terrible at confrontation, though this man, with his blank handsome face, seems unusually capable of making me at least want to try getting better.

  He clears his throat. He has fair skin, an aesthetic match for the ruddy tone in the dark blond of his hair, and part of me hopes he flushes in shame or embarrassment, some physical reaction that would remind me of what I’d seen in him all those months ago. Something that would remind me he’s not a man-sized thundercloud, come to monsoon on the rainy disposition I already felt taking hold before he walked in here.

  But his complexion stays even.

  I could’ve been wrong that day, thinking he was lost or sad. It could be that he’s just a smug, stick-up-his-ass drone. Thinking of him this way—I wish it made me feel better about what I did, but it doesn’t, not really. It was so . . .

  It was so presumptuous. So unprofessional.

  But I’m all out of patience now, no matter the error I made, especially since he doesn’t even know about it. I may not be good with confrontation, but I am exceedingly, expertly good at avoiding it. I can paste on a smile and finish this shift for Cecelia and get him out of here, back to whatever doorman-guarded high-rise he lives in with his fancy wife who never has ketchup stains on her clothing. A shopgirl, for God’s sake.

  “Anyway,” I say, clenching my teeth in what I hope is an approximation of a smile. “May I help you with something?”

  I think, in the pause he leaves there. Flat, flat, flat.

  “Maybe,” he says, and for the first time he removes his hands from his pockets.

  And I don’t think I could say, really, what it is that makes me realize that monsoon was an understatement, that this is about to be a tidal wave. I don’t think I could say what I notice first: the fact that there’s no wedding ring on his left hand? The corner of that thick paper he begins to pull from the inside of his jacket? The matte finish, the antique cream color I remember Avery stroking her thumb over, her smile close-lipped and pleased? The flash of color—colors—I used on the final version, the vines and leaves, the iridescence of the wings I’d sketched . . . ?

  But I know. I know what he’s come to ask.

  be, I think, the word an echo and a premonition.

  He doesn’t speak again until he’s set the single sheet in front of me.

  His wedding program.

  I watch as his eyes trace briefly over the letters, and I know what he’s seeing. I know what I left there; I know the way those letters worked on me.

  But I didn’t think anyone el
se ever would.

  Then he looks up and meets my eyes again. Clear blue. A tidal wave when he speaks.

  “Maybe you could tell me how you knew my marriage would fail.”

  Chapter 2

  Talk about whimsical.

  Not this moment, obviously. This moment is more like: How noticeable would it be if I stress-vomited in the wastebasket underneath this counter?

  But the program that Reid’s set down between us? The one that’s sucking all the available air out of the room while reminding me of my recklessness?

  That is definitely whimsical.

  It’d been Avery’s suggestion, the A Midsummer Night’s Dream theme, inspired by her first date with Reid. “Shakespeare in the Park?” she’d said, as though maybe I hadn’t heard of it, though I definitely had. Sibby and I had gone once, not long after I’d moved here and she was still acting as both my best friend and my expert tour guide/distractor-in-chief. I wouldn’t necessarily have pegged it as a good first date activity, but that’s because when we went it had been ten thousand degrees outside and the play had been Troilus and Cressida, which so far as I could tell was basically about sex trafficking.

  But A Midsummer Night’s Dream—that was romantic, I guess, at least in some parts. Forests and fairies and couples coupling, and Avery seemed important enough to control weather patterns, so the date with Reid had probably been perfect.

  It’d been easy, really, to develop the treatment. Lots of ornate lettering, illustrative details overlaying or weaved in. I frolicked my face off for this job, and everyone I’d shown it to had loved it.

  Except Reid.

  Right now his face looks very similar to how it had the first time he’d seen all the preliminaries that day we met. Like he’s taken a professional brow-furrowing class and like his mouth has had a turn-down service. He is laser focused. He would definitely notice if I stress-vomited.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I try, but I am as bad at moderating my voice as Reid is good at moderating pretty much every single thing about his physical presence. It sounds almost cartoonish; I half expect to blurt, I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you crazy kids! next. My hands are clasped so tightly together, the braided-together fist of them backing off from where the program lies between us, as though it’ll burn my skin if it touches me.

  But clearly Reid has no such reluctance. He reaches out a hand—a big hand, broad palm, long fingers, forget about the symbolism—and touches two fingers to the corner of the paper. I don’t look at him, but I’m hoping the pause is him rethinking this. I’m hoping it’s him deciding that what he saw isn’t really there after all. I don’t know what happened with him and Avery, but hey, breakups can be messy. You can start looking for all kinds of reasons things went wrong, right? Two years ago, Sibby developed an elaborate theory that the banjo player she’d been dating couldn’t commit to her because the banjo as an instrument has a “wanderer’s sound.”

  It’s not a reasonable hope, though, not judging by the way Reid is staring down at the program. He is not the type—unlike me, I guess—to lie to himself.

  “There’s a code in this program,” he says, still looking down. “A pattern.”

  Oh, God. A half hour ago I was lamenting the end-of-day quiet in the shop, but now I’m so glad for it. If Cecelia heard this, if any shoppers heard this—God, if this got out on social media—I can’t imagine it’d do anything good for my career. Those conference calls where I’ve been making all sorts of professional promises I’m not even sure I can keep.

  I can imagine, in fact, that it’d wreck everything.

  “I—”

  Before I can even attempt another very unconvincing denial, his hand moves, his index finger tracking to the first line of the program, second word: Marriage. The tip of his finger rests right above the M, the letter over which I drew the first fairy—she’s facing left, the very tip of one of her slim, delicate feet touching down on the second shoulder of the letter, her veiny wings—I’d used the finest tip for those—still fully extended as she descends. I’d made her blond, same as Avery, though she’s tiny enough that nothing about her simple facial features suggests a resemblance.

  His finger moves again. Second line, where their names were side by side, joined by a viney ampersand I’d been particularly proud of. Reid, that’s where his finger pauses, and he taps over the i, which I’d dotted with a delicate, golden drop of the love potion from Act Two, a mischievous-looking Puck drawn above, his hand still extended, as if he’s only just finished the job.

  Third line, where I made something of the first S in Four Seasons, the lower curve turned into a leafy hammock, a sleeping Titania’s long, wavy hair draped over the terminal curve.

  M-I-S . . .

  He keeps tapping. The t in Wedding Party, another blushing, smiling fairy hanging by one hand on the cross-stroke. The capital A in Andrew, the name of the violinist, a raised-eyebrow fairy tucked into the triangular counter, a tiny, slim finger raised to her smirking mouth, good-humoredly reminding everyone to be quiet. The k in Thank you, a confident Oberon leaning against the high ascender. The e in special day, Bottom’s ass’s head peeking from the eye, one of his long ears slightly bent. It’s all spread out, over the course of a lot of letters, but still . . . still, it’s there.

  “There’s other drawings,” I say. I’m still too afraid to touch the thing, but I nod my head toward the flowered arch over the first line. There’s additional sketches, too, worked in throughout, some of them even on or inside the letters themselves. The flowers and vines, the—

  “Not like these,” he says, and he traces his finger up, working backward over the hidden word now, until he taps again at the M. “Not fair—” He stumbles over the f there, the furrow in his brow almost a trench at this point. I don’t imagine he’s had much occasion in his life to talk about fairies, I guess other than his first date with his ex-wife. He clears his throat. “Not—characters. This is a pattern.”

  “It’s random. A coincidence.”

  Even as I say it, I feel a pang of unpleasantness in my stomach, different from the stress-vomiting feeling. Bad enough that I’d done this in the first place, now I’m going to gaslight him about it? Gross. This reminds me of a plotline from Troilus and Cressida, or maybe it reminds me of something closer to home.

  “No.” It’s the most emphatic syllable he’s uttered since he walked through the door, and he raises his eyes from the program so he’s looking right at me, and there. That’s it, that’s what had made me think Reid Sutherland seemed lost, sad. That look in his eyes.

  “I see it,” he says. “I know patterns.”

  I feel my own brow crinkle at the way he’s said this, as though I’d been dumb enough to hide the word MISTAKE in the wedding program of the guy who invented Morse code or something.

  “Aren’t you a banker?” I ask. I’ve got a vague memory of Avery saying something about Reid working on Wall Street, which I functionally understand as a beeswarm of bankers, a bunch of black- and navy-suited people with dollar signs in their eyes instead of pupils.

  “I’m a quant,” he says, as if that explains everything.

  “A what?”

  He shakes his head minutely, answers quickly. “Math models for investments. Risk management. Numbers, code. You know what I mean.”

  Uh, I do not know what he means. He said “math models” and all I could think of was the time my tenth-grade geometry teacher built a cube out of cafeteria straws and silly putty. I’m guessing that’s not the kind of work Reid does.

  “Sure,” I say, which is, interestingly, also what I told Mr. Mes-teller when he asked if I understood his lesson with the straws and silly putty. I got a D in geometry.

  There’s a stretch of silence. It feels long, but it must be only a matter of seconds, that program lying between us like a headstone. Inscription, not frolicsome: Here lies everything you’ve worked for. Dead by your own unruly, interfering hand.
/>   I take a silent breath through my nose before I speak again.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your divorce.”

  “There’s no divorce. I didn’t—we didn’t have the wedding.”

  So, forget getting sick in the trash can. I’ll just move in there like the piece of garbage I truly am.

  “I am so—”

  “It’s not because of this,” he says, touching the corner of the program again before tucking his hands back in his pockets and taking a small step back. “Or rather, it’s not only because of this.”

  I wonder if I could fit a blanket with me in the trash can. I definitely do not deserve a pillow.

  “But I would still like to know. I would like to know how you knew.”

  He’s looking at me with that stern face, those sad eyes, and I think I could say a lot of things. I could say, I was talking about myself; it was always a mistake for me to do weddings. This is an old habit. Sometimes I don’t always know when I’m doing it. I didn’t mean for it to come out in your program the way it did. You and Avery were a nice couple.

  I can almost see it, how it would go. I’d tell his triple-take face and he’d know I was lying about half of it, but he’s too reserved or too uptight to press, and maybe I don’t seem all that reserved or uptight to him, but still. Still, I know how that goes. I know how easy it is to avoid saying anything important at all. I can already see, by the way he holds his jaw—his ears seem to sit higher with the tension—that he came to ask me this question once and once only, and he’ll give me one of those nods (this one not so approving) before he leaves. I’ll close up and go home. I’ll walk in the front door and I’ll tell Sibby, You will not believe what happened today—