To My Romeo, with Love novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: In Front of Everyone

At the block party Laurel ends it in front of the whole street with a lie about a job in Tulsa, and Shelby slides her hand into Fraser's arm.

Pembroke Lane holds a block party every October, and I had never once missed it.

That Saturday the street was closed with sawhorses and strung with paper lanterns.

Someone had dragged a grill out of a garage.

Eight houses of neighbors stood around folding tables, eating Marge's pies.

I had a fertility shot in my stomach from that morning and a bruise under my shirt the size of a plum.

I wore a long cardigan so nobody would see me hold my side.

I had decided to walk through the party once, wave at everyone and go home.

I made it to the lemonade table.

"Pink."

I turned around, and Fraser was there.

He had shaved his beard down to stubble.

His glasses were clean, and there were dark smudges under his eyes that his glasses didn't hide.

I hadn't seen him in five days.

I'd driven past the shop every night anyway, slowing down at the lit window upstairs.

"I'm not going to make this a scene," he said quietly. "I'd just like to talk to you. Five minutes. You can say whatever you need to and I'll listen."

I wanted to say yes so badly that my knees went.

"There's nothing to say," I said.

"Laurel."

"There really isn't."

"Hey, you two!"

It was our neighbor from across the street, holding a paper plate with a hot dog on it.

She was eighty and had known us since diapers.

She lifted her plastic cup at us.

"About time," she said, loud enough for the whole table. "I saw you two at the lemonade table, looking like that."

A couple of people laughed.

A man by the grill cheered.

Somebody started clapping.

I felt every eye on the street turn toward us.

Fraser's mouth moved as if he was going to say something kind and low, to stop it.

I got there first.

"We slept together one time," I said.

I said it in a clear voice, the voice I use to quiet a cafeteria.

The clapping stopped.

"It was a mistake, and it's over. I'm not seeing him. Please don't make it something it isn't."

The old woman's cup came down slowly.

Behind her, somebody whispered, "Oh, honey."

I kept going because I had to.

"And I've taken a teaching job in Tulsa, starting in January. So there's no reason for anybody to wait for anything."

There was no job in Tulsa.

I had made the city up in the shower that morning because it was far and flat and nobody I knew was there.

Fraser looked at me.

I will remember that look for the rest of my life.

It wasn't anger.

It was the face he'd had at nineteen, at the funeral home, when they'd asked him to choose a casket for his father.

He looked at me.

"A mistake," he said.

"Yes."

"One time."

"Yes."

"And Tulsa."

"January," I said.

My voice shook on the last word, and I turned it into a cough.

He nodded slowly.

He took off his glasses, wiped them on his shirt, and put them back on.

"Okay," he said.

That was all.

He didn't beg and he didn't ask me why.

He turned and walked away down the middle of the street, past the tables and the grill, with his hands open at his sides.

Nobody said a word until he'd passed the last lantern.

Then the old woman said, in a very small voice, "Well. I'm sorry I said anything."

"It's fine," I told her. "It's not your fault."

I picked up a cup of lemonade because my hand needed something.

I watched Fraser's back get smaller.

I thought, That is the worst thing I will ever do to him, and it's worth it.

A voice beside me said, "Wow."

I turned.

A woman in a pale pink blazer was standing at my elbow with a plate of fruit.

She had glossy platinum hair blown out smooth and perfect white teeth.

I knew her face.

Shelby Pullman had dated Fraser for two years, until she wanted to move to Denver and he said no.

"Laurel," she said sweetly. "I'm so sorry, hon. That must have been so hard to say."

"I didn't know you were coming."

"A neighbor invited me." She put a hand on my arm and squeezed. "You did the right thing, you know. Honestly, he's been so lost lately. Somebody should be there for him."

She was already looking past my shoulder.

I turned my head.

Fraser had stopped at the corner, under the last streetlight, with his back to all of us.

Shelby set down her plate.

"Excuse me, hon," she said. "I think he needs a friend."

She walked across the street in her good shoes, fast and light.

I watched her catch up to him.

I watched her slide her hand into the crook of his arm.

He didn't pull away.

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