Finding Dell (7 page)

“How is everything with Nicholas?”

Ruby hesitated while she placed a photo in the corner of her collage.

“He has a hard shell to crack,” she started. “Sometimes I feel like I am pushing and pushing and he never gives me anything in return. Every time he starts to pull away, I push a little more. Sometimes I feel myself going over the top but I can’t seem to stop myself.”

“How are you going over the top?”

Ruby rubbed her eye and ran a hand through her hair.

“Oh, I can feel myself doing it all the time,” she said. “He steals the blankets while we’re sleeping so I buy him a new, bigger blanket, better for cuddling. For heaven’s sakes, his stomach grumbled while we were watching TV the other day so I spent the afternoon baking lemon honey cookies in his apartment while he was at class!”

I felt a burn of embarrassment as I recognized my own actions in Ruby’s words. It was hard not to judge her, but I could see myself doing the same things. It sounded overbearing when she spoke about it out loud, though. Revealing.

“Oh my goodness,” she whispered, more to herself than to me. “Listen to me.” She looked up, stricken. “I just described myself as the perfect example of neediness.” She looked down at the rejected photo of Nicholas, with his insincere smile radiating toward her. “He’s withdrawing just the same. . .”

There was a quick knock on the frame of the open door before Dean walked into the room. He sat down comfortably on Ruby’s bed. I tensed up, waiting to see if he said anything about the nickname he gave me last night or the way I ran away into the storm, but he ignored me. Ruby swept her hands across the carpet to gather up the photos of Nicholas, cautiously tucking them out of Dean’s view.

“A guy from the first floor let me in. I was just at the rec center for my afternoon workout,” Dean said.

I wrinkled my nose. “I hope you showered before coming in here.”

“It’s pouring outside. That’s nature’s shower,” he said as he fluffed a pillow behind his head with a practiced nonchalance.

Dean ignored my eye roll and kept talking.

“I saw a sign announcing moonlight canoeing on the lake. Is that something you’d be interested in doing?” he asked as he regarded Ruby carefully.

Ruby stood up with the stack of discarded photos in her hand and moved across the room to the extra desk. She edged her shoulder so her back was to Dean, but I could see her tilt the stack of photos slightly. The picture of Nicholas’s unsmiling eyes was on top. She turned the stack over and placed it near the back of the empty drawer before turning around.

“I’d love to, but there’s something I have to do first.”

Dean nodded. He leaned forward and the pillow tumbled from behind his head. He rested his thick forearms on his thighs and looked down at the rug.

“There will be moonlight canoeing next spring, too. I’ll wait for as long as you need me to,” he said. When he raised his eyes to look at Ruby, I felt a pang of jealousy mix with my pleasure for her. I wanted someone to look at me the way Dean looked at Ruby, if only for a second.

Dean left and closed the door behind him. Ruby stood in the middle of the room looking at the door. With three quick strides, she bounded back to the empty desk and threw open the top drawer with a clatter. She pulled out the stack of photos once again, opened the door, and hurried into the hallway.

With a start, I crossed the room and leaned on the doorjamb to watch her. She stood over a metal garbage can in the hallway.

I peered out the door and could see Dean standing in the middle of the hall, watching Ruby. With a theatrical flourish, she ripped the stack of photos in half, sprinkling the pieces into the garbage can. As they tumbled into the can, she didn’t break eye contact with Dean. A smile spread across her lips.

Dean started back down the hall in her direction and I shifted from the doorframe into my room, closing the door softly behind me. I walked to my desk and opened the top drawer where my own relationship photos also sat, this stack face-up.

Watching Ruby perform a breakup with her emotional hold on Nicholas startled me. I couldn’t imagine ripping up the pictures of Will and me. I thumbed through the stack and wondered if I’d ever be able to let them go as easily as Ruby did with her photos.

As a test, I pulled one glossy photo from the stack and tucked it carefully into the side of the small garbage can next to my desk. After five minutes of pacing on the lavender rug while fanning myself with the rest of the stack, I removed it from the can and tucked it back in with the rest.

An idea started to form as I thought about how people hid valuables in their mattresses for safe keeping—money, jewelry, even guns. I kneeled on the floor and hefted the mattress, sliding a shoulder under it to prop it up. With a free hand, I slipped the stack of photos into the springs of the bedframe. I lowered the mattress and scrambled to sit on top of my bed. My feet dangled from my lofted bed and the nudge of satisfaction from self-improvement made me smile. I decided that I’d solved the problem: I wouldn’t risk the self-induced torture of looking at the photos whenever I pleased, but I had the comfort of knowing they still existed if I needed them.

CHAPTER 8

THE BIKE SURGEON
boasted a yellow sign that read “Now Open on Sundays” amid the circus of bicycles dangling from the handlebars from the ceiling. With a sweaty hand, I pushed the door open and guided my bike in as bells chimed my entry.

The crowded shop blocked sunlight and my eyes took a minute to adjust to the dimness. I guided my bike through the narrow aisle to the back counter, where a skinny boy with long sideburns sat perched on a stool. He idly twisted a socket wrench in one hand—click, click, click—winding the head around in lazy circles. His brown eyes widened and he smiled shyly when he looked up from the textbook spread on the counter before him.

“My chain’s skipping.”

Inspired by Ruby, I woke early with an urge for reinvention. I found my forgotten bike chained to a steel rack near the lake, but months of neglect had left it in bad shape. Halfway through a strenuous ride across campus the chain slipped and I crashed into the woods.

“If you’re lucky, lube will stop the skip.”

He took a sip from an open can of soda before he slid from the stool. He knelt before the muddy bike and plucked a wet maple leaf from the frame.

With a steady hand, he backpedaled the bike and watched for the offending link to make itself known. His black sweatshirt, zipped to the neck, protested as he raised his hand and revealed pale forearms. His sleeves were at least two inches too short.

“What’s the verdict?”

He grabbed the chain and flexed it between his thumb and forefinger.

“Your side plates are bent. You’ll need a new chain.”

When he stood, his knees creaked and he lurched behind the counter to pick up a dull pencil.

“Let me take your name and I can fix this for you,” he said as he reached into a khaki-colored messenger bag lounging near the base of the stool. “We’re closing in a few minutes, so it won’t be ready until tomorrow.”

I took a step to the counter and leaned on my elbows to examine the boy as he rummaged for a scrap of paper. He was handsome, with dark hair and unnecessarily long sideburns.

“Oh, I don’t want to be any trouble. It’s not worth it.”

“Not any trouble. I’m meeting you right now, so I’d say that’s worth it,” he said.

I pulled back to look at him more carefully. When he raised his eyes, he looked at me in a way that made me catch my breath.

“My name is Madeleine.”

“Madeleine, I’m Cameron.” He slid a scrap of paper across the counter. “Write down your address.”

He jumped, startled, when the chimes on the door signaled the arrival of new customers, and knocked over his can of soda. It spilled on the countertop, drowning his socket wrench and splattering my arm with sticky brown liquid.

He began to apologize, his expressive brown eyes darting around the shop, looking for something to mop up the spill.

“Cameron, it’s fine. Cameron.” I tried to get his attention as his eyes kept searching the shop. “Cam,” I said forcefully.

His neck flicked back and he faced me head-on. “Do you already have a nickname for me?”

I smiled. “If that’s what it takes to get your attention.”

Cam handed me a rag with grease stains. I let my fingertips linger on his as I took the rag from him. Just talking to someone who couldn’t anticipate my next move was invigorating.

A tentative smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. With his free hand, Cam tugged on the sleeve of his sweatshirt sheepishly.

“I have to help the new customers, but I’ll let you know when your bike is fixed.”

He turned away to greet the customers at the front door. I heard a familiar voice and turned.

Alex and Dean stood by the door. Dean hadn’t noticed me; he was talking animatedly to Cam. Alex’s eyes were fixed on me. I instinctively dropped the wet, greasy cloth on the counter.

“I’ll leave my bike here overnight. Thanks for fixing it,” I called.

I put my head down and rushed to the door with a final apologetic glance at Cam. His gaze was both startled and searching. The door was chiming my departure when a finger lightly touched my arm.

“Better wash off your arm. You must be sticky from that spill,” Alex said.

Alex’s eyes gave off a wounded cast and I couldn’t meet his gaze, so I let the door of the Bike Surgeon slam behind me.

Trumpet notes trilled from down the hall, and with each rising note, I cringed. Ben had an even timbre and rich tone, but his
poor jazz playing reflected his slow left-handed reflexes.

The wooden table was carved with long-forgotten promises of affection and ghostly initials from past residents. At the head of the table, Levi tipped his head, his vibrant mohawk slicing through the air, to examine a sample of murky sediment in a small jar. He held the jar to the fluorescent light above his head, swiveling it while scribbling observations on a lab report.

Natalie sat next to Levi. She rarely had to write papers or study textbooks in a traditional manner; much of her curriculum was instructive lessons with the horses at the stable. Even now she stared dreamily out the window at the lake, no doubt dreaming of the bluegrass fields downstate where miles of wooden plank fences announced horse farms.

Breathless, Helen approached the table in bounding steps, her petite frame bouncing around the corner.

“Dell,” she huffed. “You have a visitor outside.”

The waning sunlight reflected off the lake and through the window to alight Helen’s hair in a blaze of glowing gold.

“Who is it?”

Helen shook her head and she tugged mindlessly on her pearl necklace. “I haven’t seen him before. He’s not the guy who came back to your room last month.”

I pushed away from the table. It wasn’t Alex, but it could be Will. Finally, my wait could be over.

The harsh sun struggled in its last moments before the day faded into twilight and the effect backlit Cam’s thin frame. Pink sky, pink satiny azaleas clustered in his pale hand.

He thrust the flowers toward me and a few lux petals floated to the sidewalk. I took the blooms with a tentative hand. I hadn’t seen the rich-hued bloom since springtime, on a weekend trip to Louisville with Natalie.

“The chain on your bike had to be replaced. I wanted to drop it off personally.” He took a step forward, revealing my mint-green road bike gleaming in the sun. The mud from yesterday morning’s feverish ride through Wild Mare Woods was gone.

“Do all of the bike surgeons offer flowers with home delivery?”

“If they do, I have even more competition than I’m anticipating.”

I felt a blush as pink as the azaleas in my hand creep to my cheeks.

Bernie looked impossibly tall in a sleek black jumpsuit when she knocked on the bedroom door later that week, entering with an unapologetic saunter, her wheat-colored hair fanned over her shoulders.

Mindful of the thick glasses she only wore at nighttime, and never in public, Natalie turned her head to shield her face when Bernie entered. I knew Natalie was achingly curious as to the purpose of Bernie’s visit, but her self-consciousness at her appearance kept her head trained on her computer screen.

Bernie rested her hand on the doorknob.

“I’m unequivocally opposed to the restrictive confines of society’s relationship rules,” she started. “We’re meant to foster connections, to experiment. But regardless of my views, not everyone is as liberal with their love. I thought you should know that Cameron Finn has a girlfriend. She’s a corn-fed girl with mousy brown hair, but they’ve been together for years. She’s a senior in high school now, and she’s planning to come here when she graduates.”

“You must be thinking of the wrong person. How do you know Cam?”

“We lived in Palomino Hall together last year. He’s a film major.”

Shaking my head, I reached across the desk and slid the drinking glass filled with fragrant azaleas toward her. Water sloshed from the brim as I held out the cup as evidence against what she was saying.

“You’re wrong, wrong about Cam. He brought me these flowers. Azaleas haven’t bloomed since the Derby. That means he bought them for me.”

Bernie rolled her eyes theatrically beneath her oversized frames. “Those flowers don’t change the fact that he’s sneaking around behind his girlfriend’s back.” She raised her eyebrows. “Besides, I’m sure he just took a detour through the greenhouse on his way over. I can guarantee he didn’t buy those flowers.”

Bernie guided my hand with the glass of flowers back to my desk. A ring of water formed at the base and Bernie rubbed it absently with a finger adorned with costume jewelry.

“I only told you because I respect you and I don’t want to see another female fall into the trap of a controlling man.” Bernie raised her finger to her mouth and licked off the water. “And because we’re paired up on this project for Sylvie and I want to produce honest work, so we can’t have tension between us.”

She turned and left and I hustled to my feet, throwing the bathroom door open and reaching for a bath towel to soak up the small spill.