“Something like that, but I don’t want to be too harsh. It sounds like neither of us really knows the circumstances, but when two adults get involved with each other there are at least two stories there … Well, you know.” I tried to smile again, but a distinct sense of unease made me swallow hard. A married professor and his student having a sexual relationship was such a cliché, and never a good thing as far as I was concerned.
Rena’s eyebrows came together as she looked toward the pub. Her profile moved into some of the yellow light, and it deepened the lines of concern around her eyes.
“What?” I asked. “There’s more?”
“This is going tae sound even more dramatic, and maybe ridiculous, but I do have a favor tae ask of you.”
“Anything.”
“If something should happen tae me, will you watch over Sophie? We’ve been comrades for sae long that she’d be lost without me, at least for a short while.”
Any harsh judgment I had disappeared; any sense of treading lightly because we didn’t know each other well yet was gone. Real fear lined her words, and, catching me off guard, her Scottish accent seemed to become thicker. I hadn’t really paid attention to the crowd noise still bass-beating from inside the pub, but a knot of concern now thumped with the beat in my stomach.
“What’s wrong, Rena? Really, what’s going on?”
“Nothing that I’m certain of,” she said with a forced smile. “See, I went and made it way too dramatic. I’m sorry. I’m just worried about Sophie, I think.”
I nodded. “Hey, let’s grab a cab and you come back to my place with me. You can get some rest.”
“No, that’s okay. I need tae get home, so I’m there when Sophie wakes up. She’ll need some support in the morning.” The accent went back to light again. “You need tae get home too. I’m sorry, Delaney. I’m … It’s late, it’s been a tough week.”
I didn’t want to let her out of my sight, but we were going in opposite directions, and I sensed she didn’t want me to go with her. “All right, let’s get you a cab.”
We flagged down two cabs, and I directed her into the first one. She opened the back door, but then turned to face me.
“You’ll do it, though?” she asked.
“Take care of Sophie?”
“Just watch over her for a wee bit if…”
“Of course,” I said. Then I added, “You need to tell me if something else is going on, Rena. I can help. If I can’t, I know people who can.”
“Nothing’s going on. I just want tae make sure.” She bit her lip again. “We’re all each other truly has. Neither of us have a family who cares. It’s just us, and between you and me, I’m the stronger one.” She smiled sadly.
“I’m there for anything either of you might need, Rena. Anything,” I said.
“Thank you.” She got in the cab.
I watched it for so long that my cabdriver honked at me.
My cab smelled of men’s aftershave and peppermint. I was sure it was my addition of the smell of gin that made the cabbie roll down his window a small crack. If it wasn’t so late I would have called my landlord, Elias, so he could pick me up in his cab, but even though he’d happily have made the trip, he and his wife, Aggie, were early-to-bed and early-to-rise.
“Where tae, lass?” the cabbie said in the mirror.
Besides, I wasn’t quite ready to go home. I gave him The Cracked Spine’s address.
* * *
I’d spent a few late hours at The Cracked Spine. Sometimes I worked without any attention to the time; sometimes I went back into the warehouse when I woke up in the middle of the night and felt the need to get back to a project I was working on. I liked the quiet.
Tonight, however, I had a different idea. I’d been spooked by Rena’s unsettling request, and I didn’t relish the idea of being in the old bookshop building in the middle of the night myself, but I knew someone who could join me.
Tom, my boyfriend, though it had become a habit to call him “my pub owner,” was available. He was the proprietor of Delaney’s Wee Pub, a place not far from the bookshop that hadn’t been named after me, but the moniker given to the business founded long ago felt like a perfect coincidence nonetheless. His employee Rodger was able to close up the pub on his own, so Tom met me outside the bookshop and gallantly paid the cabbie as I got out.
We’d come to that spot in a relationship where we shared these sorts of things all the time. I didn’t usually think much about it, but I did notice it that night, and for a moment I marveled at the longevity—almost ten months—of my relationship with this man who allegedly didn’t like long-term relationships.
“You’re wearing a kilt!” I said as the cab pulled away.
“Aye. I’d say it was just for you, but we had a wedding party in the pub tonight. Rodger and I spiffied ourselves up a bit.”
“I like you in a kilt.”
“I might have heard that a time or two.”
I couldn’t see the cobalt of his eyes, but they glimmered off the light from an old-fashioned streetlight on the corner.
I cleared my throat. “Let’s go in.”
“What are we going to do?” Tom asked as I unlocked the front door.
“Look for some scalpels.”
“Aye? Sounds like an interesting adventure.”
I gave him a quick rundown of my night with Rena, Sophie, Mallory, and Dr. Eban as we walked through the darkened retail portion of the shop, the side I’d deemed “the light side.” I never tired of the book smells, and the constant sense of “messy” all around. Almost a year ago I thought I wanted to straighten everything up, no messes anywhere. Now I knew that the bookshop was just the way it was supposed to be. However, I’d organized most of the
