Michael's Arc

Chapter 2 of 9

Thursday came slower than any week Michael could remember. He kept checking his phone between shifts, half expecting the coworker's cousin to take back the invitation. She didn't. She sent an address around noon and a warning that parking was tight. He put on a clean shirt, took off the tank top he'd almost worn out of habit, and drove across town before he could talk himself out of it. The address led him to a small yellow house with a green door and a covered porch. Not a coffee shop. He checked the number twice. He sat in his car and watched the windows. No one moved inside. He got out anyway. His phone buzzed as he reached the steps. It was her. Coffee shop flooded a pipe this morning. We cancelled. Sorry, forgot you were new. Next week? Michael stood on the porch with his thumb over the screen. He could turn around. He could drive to the bar and slide back onto his stool before Jake finished a story. He almost laughed at how easy that would be. He knocked instead. The door opened halfway. A young woman stood in the gap, one hand on the frame, a book pressed against her hip. She wore a dark green blazer over a black dress even though she was clearly home alone. Gold-framed glasses. Brown hair down past her shoulders. She looked at him the way a librarian looks at a late return. "You're not on my porch by accident," she said. "I'm Michael. Your cousin invited me to book club." "My cousin cancelled book club." "She texted me while I was walking up." She glanced past him at his car, then back at his face. She did not smile. "So you drove across town to read with strangers, and now the strangers aren't here, and you knocked anyway." "I didn't want to go home yet." She considered that longer than he expected. He felt the porch boards under his shoes. He felt his own pulse in his neck. Nobody at the bar had ever made him wait for a sentence. "Haydon," she said finally. "I was going to read on my own. I don't usually host walk-ins." "I can go." "I didn't say that." She stepped back from the door but did not open it wider. "One cup of tea. If you can talk about the book, you can stay for the second. If you can't, you leave and don't tell my cousin I let you in." "I haven't read the book." "Then you have one cup." She turned and walked into the house. Michael stood on the porch a second longer, then followed her inside and shut the green door behind him. He had come for a room full of people. He had found one, and she had already started the clock.