Connor holds up his hand to stop me. “Be careful. Don’t get too close to him.”
“Why not?” But in a moment, I understand.
The man drops to the floor and curls up in the fetal position. He’s gasping for breath.
“Sir?” I say. “Are you all right? Can I help you?”
The man moans, but doesn’t reply. Tony sings in the tea room, unaware of what is transpiring only yards away.
“Oh, no,” I say. “What’s happening? Connor, can you help him?”
“Call 911,” Connor says. “I have to go.”
I tug at his sleeve. “Right now? You can’t go.”
The man moans, shaking violently.
“Make the call,” Connor says, his voice soft, regretful.
My throat dry, I rush for the hall phone and punch in 911. The dispatcher comes on the line. “What is your emergency?”
“There’s a man having some kind of an attack.” I give her the address and hang up. When I turn around, Connor is gone.
The dog whines and licks the man’s face, then paces back and forth, agitated.
Tony bursts from the tea room. “What’s going on here? We’re not open yet—oh, no! Should I call 911?”
“I already did,” I say, looking around for Connor.
A woman rushes down the hall and elbows her way past Tony. Olivia. “I heard someone yelling. Oh!” She sees the man on the floor and presses her hand to her mouth.
“The paramedics are coming,” I say. “My friend was just here. He’s a doctor. Did you see him? Tall, dark hair?”
“I didn’t see anyone.” Olivia kneels to read the tag on the dog’s collar. “Your name is Hercules,” she says softly, patting his head. “That’s a good boy. Everything’s all right.”
Tony runs his fingers through his sprayed hair. “Should we try CPR? I wish I had taken a class.”
“The medics are almost here,” I say.
A siren wails, growing closer, and then the paramedics arrive, striding in with their equipment. They’re asking questions, taking the man’s vital signs, moving him onto a stretcher. Tony is talking to them, following them outside.
“I’ll watch Hercules for now,” Olivia says to me. “Don’t worry.”
“Thank you, Olivia,” I say as she leads Hercules outside. The door closes; I’m left alone. I check all the rooms, but Connor has vanished. Maybe he didn’t want anyone to know he spent the night with me. But why? What if he’s hiding a secret?
This should not surprise me, after Robert, but I feel as though I’ve been picked apart, bone by bone.
Chapter 37
“The guy’s going to be all right,” Tony says in the evening, just before closing.
“What? Who?” I’m dusting the tables in the parlor with a soft cloth, trying to stay busy.
“The camouflage kid. He has post-traumatic stress. Just got back from a war zone. He’s going to need counseling.”
I fold the cloth into a neat square. “Does he have any family to help him through this?”
“Fiancée, parents. They went to the hospital.”
“That’s good, that he has a fiancée.” Someone to be there for him in his time of need.
Tony grabs his coat from the closet. “You haven’t heard from Dr. Hunt, have you? I can tell by your long face.”
“Am I that obvious?” I try to smile.
“Stop working so hard. Come out for dinner with me. Forget about Dr. Hunt for a while. He’ll come around.”
I unfold the cloth and return to dusting. “Maybe he will, or maybe he’s like my ex-husband. Maybe I’m a jerk magnet.”
“Give him the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure he has a reason—”
“It had better be good. Look, I’ll stay here and close up. I’m tired anyway.”
And Connor might come back. He has a lot of explaining to do.
“Do something good for yourself. Soak in a bubble bath. Don’t worry about the good doctor. He probably fell for you and freaked himself out. He’ll be back.”
I wave the cloth at him. “Go on. Get out of here.”
“Take care of yourself.”
“You, too.”
After Tony leaves, the silence is almost unbearable. I should take him up on his dinner offer. Maybe I can catch him before he reaches the ferry. As I stride down the hall, the floor creaks behind me.
“Leaving so soon?” Connor says.
I whip around, my body already at war with itself—flush with relief and at the same time tight with anger. “I didn’t hear you come in! How long have you been here?”
“Long enough to hear what Tony said. He’s right. I did fall for you. But I didn’t freak myself out.”
“Then why did you leave? Why didn’t you do anything to help that man? Are you not really a doctor?” I press my hand to my forehead. The hall seems to shrink.
“I am a doctor. But I couldn’t help.” He looks tall and solid, casting his shadow in the hall.
“You could have taken his vitals, at the very least. Why didn’t you?” I feel as though I have just stepped onto a moving ice floe. The cold wind blows over me, and every part of me is numb.
“You know the answer. You read my memoir.”
“Your father’s memoir—”
“Not my father. I wrote that memoir. You admire my father. He is me. Was me.”
I grab the banister, hold on for dear life. “But he’s dead.”
Connor nods. “I was about to come home from Africa. I didn’t make it.”
“That scar on your chest.” I need to sit down. I need air—
“A poacher shot me in Nigeria. This is a gunshot wound, the shot that killed me.”
The shot that killed me.
I close my eyes, hoping this moment isn’t true.
Outside, the rain splatters down in giant-sized droplets. “You disappear when you step out the front door,” I say, half to myself. “You show up at the worst possible moments. I thought it was coincidence. But you were always here.” Images of our lovemaking return to me. The places we did it—the positions. I didn’t even do those things with Robert.
“The island was my home. After I died, I wandered for a while. Restless. I found refuge here.”
“When did you first … show up? Why did you appear to me?”
“The first moment I saw you, when you cursed Robert’s family jewels, I knew. I knew I had to talk to you. I knew you could see me. You and your aunt share a special talent.”
A special talent.
Or perhaps a curse. “Were you watching me all the time?”
“I gave you the privacy you needed. You were always safe with me.”
“I thought I was safe with Robert, too.”
“I’m not Robert.”
“I know you’re not. But I thought—I hoped—I don’t know what I hoped for.”
“If I could stay with you, I would. If I could love you forever, I would.”
“But you went with me to Seattle. You ate pizza … you even had dessert. How can that be?” I wipe tears from my eyes.
“The force of your will, and bringing my memoir out of the store, allowed me to be with you for a while. But that time has passed, and now—”
“Now you have to go,” I whisper. Tears blur my vision. “Your watch stopped …”
The moment you died.
Connor takes me in his arms. “Please don’t cry. My task was to help you. My last task here on earth.”
I press my cheek against his chest. “I don’t want you to go. Please don’t leave me.”
“I can’t remain here. I would be nothing but a wisp of smoke drifting through this bookstore forever.”
“But I can hold your memoir, carry it outside, and you can come outside again with me—”
“That could happen only once, for only one day.”
“No, please. I love you, Connor, I always have.”
“I love you, too,” he says slowly, “in every moment of light and darkness, in every wink of the stars. I love you when you sleep, when you first awaken in the morning. I love you all the time.”
“Then stay!” I hug him tightly. I’m trembling, breaking. If I don’t let go, he can’t leave.
“I have no choice,” he says gently. “Thank you for letting me feel the sunlight on my face, the island breeze, one last time. Thank you for letting me taste the wonder of the life I lost, of love.”
“Connor, no.” But I have to let him go. He’s been trapped here, in this limbo.
“You don’t need me anymore. You’re strong, so much stronger than you know. You’ll be all right now. Don’t turn away from happiness. Take the leap.”
“You are my happiness.”
“And you are mine.” He pulls away and rests his hands on my shoulders, but already their weight is dissipating.
Chapter 38
“I wish I could have seen him,” Tony says as we wipe down the shelves and windowsills, surfaces that, mysteriously, always end up dusty again. “I can’t believe that hunk of a man was standing right there all along. Is he still here watching us?”
“I told you,” I say, “not anymore.”
“I just can’t believe it. You made love with a ghost.”
I nod and smile, remembering the fun Connor and I shared, the intimate moments that I hope he recalls in the Great Beyond.
For the past few days, I’ve jumped at every creak of the floorboards, whipped around when I’ve felt a breath on my shoulder, rushed into a room if I’ve heard a voice. But Connor is gone.
“I didn’t know it was possible,” Tony goes on. “I mean, was he fully functional?”
“Of course he was.”
“So exactly what could he do?”
“I’ll leave that up to your imagination. That’s all I’m going to tell you, no matter how many times you ask.”
Tony rolls his eyes. “You’re cruel.”
“He could do anything a living person could do.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath, hoping for a whiff of Connor, a hint of his return. But his scent lives only in memory. His fragrance is gone forever. The shop smells like books, dust, paper, wood.
“You’re positively radiant, girl. And your hair, it’s shiny. And look at this place. Your aunt will be proud of you.”
The store is bustling with customers. Maybe they like the new lights or the spacious, homey atmosphere. I’ve rearranged the furniture to open up the rooms. Outside, a late autumn sun is shining. I forgot how much I once loved the mottled sunlight, the sound of rustling alder leaves.
“Jasmine, there you are.” Lucia Peleran bustles into the store, dressed for takeoff in a white outfit that reminds me of an astronaut. “I’ve got a special plan, for my future. Could we try again? It seemed as though you almost had something for me before, a cookbook.”
“Do you smell that?” I say, turning in circles. A phantom orchard of fruit trees grows up around me, an instant plethora of leaves, sunlight, a harvest of Valencias, tangerines, Seville oranges.
Lucia is staring at me, her mouth slightly open. “What? Dust? This store has always been dusty.”
“Not dust,” I say. “Citrus. Smells sweet and fresh.”
“I don’t smell anything.” She sniffs the air, an expression of longing in her eyes.
“Listen to Jasmine,” Tony says. “She knows of what she speaks.”
I choose
The Way to Cook
by Julia Child. “We just got a copy in,” I tell Lucia.
She holds the book close to her chest and dances around in circles. “This is it, this is it. Jasmine, you figured it out!”
“Not me,” I say, smiling at Julia Child’s invisible spirit.
After Lucia leaves, I make a phone call—one I should have made several days ago. Half an hour later, Professor Avery shows up in the store, his hair a gray wilderness. He touches all the books in the Travel section. “So you say you’ve found what I need?”
Magic in the Mango Orchards
glows, as it was always meant to do, and Rudyard Kipling whispers in my ear.
T.S. Eliot misquoted me. I never said that one must smell a place to know it.
“I hope you enjoy India,” I say, handing the book to the professor.
He flips through, his eyes lighting up. “This is the perfect book. The smell! Don’t you catch the odors of India?”
“Yes,” I say, and I do.
Professor Avery clutches the book in his wrinkled white fingers, as if every hope were concentrated in those pages. “Thank you, thank you!” He can’t pay fast enough; he leaves too much money on the counter as he rushes out of the store. Tony chases after him with change.
I pull out Connor’s memoir, which is sandwiched between two new books, and carry it back to the tea room. I’m not sure I want anyone else to own this volume. I can keep a small memento of him. The author photo on the back cover looks faded, distant. But I sense Connor watching me from another world.
There’s a woman standing in the tea room—a regal, stunning woman in a blue dress. The same woman I saw in the parlor during my first night in the house, during the storm. I recognize her now.