The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend (40 page)

Neither of them had mentioned Caroline, but Sara couldn't help thinking about her. There had been something so … vulnerable in her eyes.

Everyone in the clothes shop had heard what Josh had said and turned instinctively towards her, but Caroline had simply raised her chin slightly and looked at them with her normal, self-confident, slightly icy look. Then she had nodded to Madame Higgins and left, without looking back.

Her face might have been slightly paler, Sara thought, the lines more pronounced, but that had been all. Not a word. Not a glance.

A dignified exit.

Everyone had known it was only a joke, but Sara was disappointed in Josh. It hadn't been a funny one.

Andy had enjoyed it, of course, but Sara had felt only sympathy, even though Caroline had handled the situation well, and even though she wouldn't have wanted it.

Tom turned around from the bench and took a swig of beer. His posture emphasised his stomach and shoulder muscles, and the kitchen suddenly felt much smaller.

‘The trick with Sloppy Joes is the consistency,' he said. ‘You've got to be able to take a bite without the whole thing falling apart, even though it also has to be a bit messy. The secret is to keep splitting the mince as it cooks.'

‘So Sloppy Joes are just mince in hamburger buns?' she asked.

‘Yup.'

‘No vegetables?'

‘There's ketchup in the meat, if that counts?'

She laughed and took a sip of her beer, and as Tom turned around again to finely chop a green pepper, an onion and some garlic, she thought about how life could be. Working in the bookshop, coming home every evening to make dinner with someone who poked fun at her and her books, a kind of magical world of … everyday life and friendship. Was that really too much to ask?

‘You know the meat's done when you can take a big lump on the spatula without it all falling apart,' Tom continued. He demonstrated by lifting some up, only for it to immediately fall off at the sides. ‘A while yet, then.'

She smiled, but reminded herself not to get distracted. It was precisely because the evening had been so nice that she knew she had to bring up something which had been bothering her since their conversation in the dress shop. Perhaps because she needed to remind herself, perhaps to show him she was under no illusions.

‘Tom,' she said, ‘we don't have to keep living with one another afterwards. You can go on as normal. There won't be any … feelings in any of this.' She had meant to say it firmly, calmly, but it came out more like a question.

The smile in Tom's eyes disappeared. He turned towards the sink again.

‘Of course,' he said. ‘No feelings.'

‘I can stay at Amy's. Or sleep on the sofa.'

She should have stopped talking a long time ago. Sleep on the sofa? What an idiotic thing to say. The image of the cosy life she had imagined disappeared and was replaced by one of a constant stream of Tom's lovers passing through his house during the two years they had to be married for her to be granted permission to work, while she tried to make herself invisible in the living room.

Get it together, Sara. You'll be able to stay.

Not being with Tom was a relatively small price to pay to finally belong somewhere.

‘You can keep seeing other people,' she said because she had to.

Tom didn't even bother to reply. She assumed it had been obvious to him from the start.

They would be sleeping in the same bed.

She had repeated her idiotic offer of sleeping on the sofa but, as he had pointed out, it was definitely a stupid idea. Unless they slept in the same bed, how would he know if she snored, for example? Surely that would be one of the immigration department's first questions? Sara had protested, but he had simply answered that it wasn't something you knew about yourself.

She wouldn't have had anything against sleeping next to him if she had thought for a moment that it was simply a plan on his part to get her into bed.

But it wasn't. He had made that clear depressingly quickly, and now they were lying as far apart from one another as they could.

They had undressed in darkness, but the light of the moon was filtering in through the curtains and she managed to catch a glimpse of his bare skin and naked chest before he lay down. That hadn't helped her peace of mind.

She sighed quietly.

His sheets smelled strange, fresh and manly. She could hear him breathing next to her and felt an overwhelming desire to reach out and touch him. To stop herself, she clasped her hands to her chest and lay there looking up at the unfamiliar ceiling.

He wasn't interested in her, but, she reminded herself, that was hardly a catastrophe. Or news to her. Sometimes, feelings simply weren't reciprocated. She hadn't expected anything else, really.

The same was true in books. She knew that Tom thought she preferred them because they were happier than life, but even within their pages, people were dumped and broke up and lost those they cared about. And in life just as in books, people eventually moved on to new loves. There was no difference between books and life there: both involved happy and unhappy love stories.

Still. Lying there rigidly on her back, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the soft, regular sound of his breathing, she felt more lonely than she ever had before in Broken Wheel.

Of course, with books, you could have greater confidence that it would all end well. You worked through the disappointments and the complications, always conscious, deep down, that Elizabeth would get her Mr Darcy in the end. With life, you couldn't have the same faith. But sooner or later, she reminded herself, surely someone you could imagine was your Mr Darcy would turn up.

Though that was assuming you were one of the main characters.

She almost sat up in bed at that startling realisation. Tom stirred next to her, and she forced herself to relax again, but her mind was still thoroughly worked up.

Help me, she thought, don't let me be one of the minor characters.

She could live with not having found her Mr Darcy yet. In actual fact she had never expected she would. Once upon a time, she hadn't wanted to be anything other than a minor character. Being the protagonist, that would have been too much to ask, much better to be given the occasional appearance and the kind of character trait that could be described in a couple of sentences whenever she happened to encounter the real heroine. But now … The thought that Tom had been meant to meet someone else all along filled her with sheer horror. Her thoughts naturally drifted to Claire, but she tried to forget the idea.

Imagine if she, Sara, was
Caroline Bingley
rather than Lizzy Bennet.

Or Mrs Hurst.

 

 

 

 

Broken Wheel, Iowa

May 22, 2011

Sara Lindqvist

Kornvägen 7, 1 tr

136 38 Haninge

Sweden

Dear Sara,

Naturally I'm happy to hear you've been saving money, not least if your work situation is so uncertain (though then you would have more time to stay with us?), but money doesn't come into this. It was meant as an invitation between old friends – since our books have met, don't you think it's time we did too? – but I can't let you pay for it. I'm afraid you're going to have to let me decide this time.

Just the thought of you having to pay to be bored to death by an old woman! Honestly, life isn't a competition for paying your way.

Live a little. Read a little. Stay as long as you like, completely free, but come soon.

With warm regards,

Amy

MAYBE IT'S NOT
the end of the world, Sara thought. People have got married before. Even to completely ordinary people.

Outside the car windows, the corn marched past. The harvest had already begun in some of the fields, which cropped up at regular intervals like bare, flattened strips in an otherwise billowing landscape of corn.

Tom seemed shamelessly alert and rested next to her in the car, and as though to confuse her, the day was warm and clear.

If she was going to stay, she thought, she would need to find a way to support herself. She still had some money saved, but it wouldn't last forever, and she wasn't planning on letting Tom pay for her.

More customers had started coming to the bookshop. Nowadays, barely a day went by without her selling something, but you couldn't live on three paperbacks a day.

If she was going to stay, she would have to polish up her sales strategy.

She smiled to herself and glanced at Tom. It was a dizzying thought. Having time, being able to continue her work with the bookshop. When he noticed that she was looking at him, he flashed her a smile before turning his attention back to the road. They missed another car by the narrowest of margins.

Maybe she could launch a website for the bookshop? It was something she had considered before, back in Sweden. A combination of a book blog and online shop, with a personal feel to it. Interviews with local authors, every book ever written about Iowa or by someone from the state. An online version of those small, independent bookshops that had once existed. She wondered how far people were actually willing to travel for a charming little bookshop. A long way, she suspected, if it sold books by people they knew. You should never underestimate the marketing power of enthusiastic amateurs. With a Cedar County shelf, and maybe even a virtual shelf for all the other counties in Iowa.

You're only kidding yourself
, she thought perversely. Part of her seemed determined to be in a bad mood. Probably the part that hadn't slept all night and was tired and had a headache.

Even the sight of Tom smiling at her didn't cheer her up.

‘Why did you dislike me the first time we met?' she asked before she could stop herself.

She instantly regretted it.
Don't answer
, she wanted to say.
Let's just go on pretending.

‘Dislike you?' he said.

‘When you gave me a ride to the Square?' Great, he probably didn't even remember it.

He pulled up outside the bookstore, turned off the engine, and looked at her.

‘I didn't dislike you,' he said.

‘It sure seemed like it.'

He raked his fingers through his hair. ‘I was just tired. It was the week after Amy died. I just didn't want to bother with anything right then.'

‘What made you change your mind?'

‘About you? I told you, I didn't dislike you.'

‘About bothering. You're definitely bothered now.'

He laughed. ‘Always the romantic.' He seemed to sense that she was serious, because he added: ‘They can be very persuasive.'

‘They?'

‘Jen and Andy were the leaders, but funnily enough, George was the most effective.'

Sara blinked. ‘George convinced you to marry me?'

‘Like I said, he was pretty effective.' He smiled. Sara didn't. ‘Besides, it didn't feel like the first time we'd met.'

‘What?'

‘When I picked you up. It didn't feel like the first time. Amy talked about you constantly.'

She smiled then, but sadly.

‘And then there you were, all of a sudden, as if you'd stepped out of one of her books. You even had one in your pocket. And don't pretend you wouldn't rather have read it than talk to me.'

So he did remember. ‘Well, you weren't very nice. Then, I mean.'

He looked at her until she had to look away. ‘I'm sorry,' he said.

She shook her head. ‘It's OK. You were tired, and grieving, and besides, you didn't know me.'

‘I knew you made Amy happy. And maybe I couldn't deal with it. With you suddenly being there, when she wasn't. She really wanted to meet you. It seemed sort of a shame at the time that I was the one who got to. She called you her “friend from Sweden”.'

Sara swallowed. She had no idea what to say. In the end, she just sat there until Tom leaned over her and opened the door.

‘Go sell some books now,' he said, and somehow she managed a smile.

So he'd been talked into marrying her. Was that really such a big deal? She wanted to stay, and he was prepared to offer her a way to do so. If he'd been dead against the idea, surely he would have been able to say no to George?

Grace was leaning against the door and nodded to Sara as she passed by. ‘Coffee?' she shouted, and Sara was grateful for the interruption. She wanted a break from her own thoughts.

Grace poured a cup for each of them and leaned against the counter. ‘I just don't understand why you want to stay.'

Why shouldn't I? Sara thought. Grace herself clearly had no plans to move away. Why should she get to belong there if Sara couldn't, just because there had been some kind of mistake at birth and she had ended up in Haninge instead?

‘Have I ever told you about the time they started a petition against my grandmother? “Amazing Grace is the Devil in Disguise”, that was what they called it.' She looked expectantly at Sara, who was playing with her cup of coffee. ‘Like the Elvis song! Can you imagine. An Elvis fan in Broken Wheel. Whoever came up with it must've had a lot of fun with that. The church women didn't realise it was a quote. This was during the years when Elvis was still provocative.'

‘Yeah, but I see you haven't left town.'

‘They might force me out yet,' Grace said dramatically before adding, more prosaically: ‘Home-made cakes!'

‘Come on,' said Sara. ‘Neither you nor your grandmother really seem to have had any problems being accepted here.'

‘What a horrible thing to say!'

‘They like you,' Sara said. ‘They want you here. And you like them, even though you pretend you don't belong here. Even your grandmother stayed. I'd bet she liked the town too.'

Grace looked as though Sara had hit her. ‘Like!' she said. She continued, desperately: ‘It's not just my grandmother. Us Graces have always been outcasts. We sold liquor! We fought! It's –'