The Nearness of You Read online

  He was also a loving father, indulging Lily in clothes and books, whatever he could afford to provide. He championed her education, encouraging good marks at school. Morris had tried to broaden his daughter’s horizons; he bought tickets to concerts, introduced her to everyone-who-was-anyone around town, and had once taken her to Albany to meet the governor.

  But to say that Morris Denton was protective of his daughter would have been the understatement of the century.

  When Lily was little, Morris had picked out what she could wear, had told her what to eat, where she could go, and especially what kids she could be friends with. No detail was too small to escape his attention. Any disagreement was met with a lecture that might last an hour. No matter how much Lily cried or argued, her father always won, not because Morris was mean or shouted at her, but because he believed so strongly in his convictions that he couldn’t be persuaded. Deep down, Lily knew that her father had been trying to do right by her, that as a widower he didn’t have a spouse to go to for advice, but all throughout her childhood, she’d felt smothered.

  Even now that Lily was twenty-one, her father continued to meddle. When she’d wanted to move out, to find a place of her own, Morris had discouraged her. When she suggested going off to college, he’d gotten her a job at the library instead. Worst of all, Lily was convinced that he had chased away romantic suitors, men who might’ve asked her out on a date. No one was good enough for his little girl.

  Because of Morris’s standing in Hooper’s Crossing, nothing was going to change anytime soon. The only way she could leave was in her dreams.

  And so Lily had been caught off-guard the afternoon three weeks back when Jane had leaned against the library’s front desk and asked in a soft voice, “Want to run away to the big city with me?”

  Jane had been Lily’s best friend since kindergarten. Her father owned Dunaway’s Department Store and was one of the friendliest people in Hooper’s Crossing. But while Jane’s two younger sisters flew straight as arrows, she liked to dance to the beat of her own drummer. Jane had never been afraid of a little trouble. She had been the first among their classmates to skip school, to take a sip of alcohol and puff on a cigarette, and she always seemed to have a hemline shorter than what was considered acceptable for a young lady. She certainly wasn’t shy when it came to flirting, laughing, or voicing her opinion. Any one of these reasons should have been enough for Morris to order his daughter to stay far away, but because of her father’s standing in town, he reluctantly gave the girl a pass.

  So because Jane could be prone to big, impractical plans and flights of fancy, Lily had laughed off her question. “How about tomorrow?” she replied with a smile. “I’ll have to check my calendar, but I think I’m free.”

  “I’m serious,” Jane said. “As soon as I have a little more money saved up, I’m gone. I want you to come with me.”

  Lily knew that Jane’s reasons for leaving were different from her own. For one, she was a knockout, the sort of beautiful woman who could turn a man’s head halfway around his shoulders just by walking down a sidewalk. With her friend’s long black hair and sharp feminine features, Lily had always expected Jane to end up in Hollywood making movies or be on a billboard advertising clothes or cigarettes. Running off to New York City was likely a step in that direction. Jane believed that Hooper’s Corner was holding her back from bigger and better things.

  She wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Lily knew she wasn’t as attractive as Jane. Sure, her shoulder-length blond hair was curly and her eyes a sparkling emerald green, but whenever she looked at her reflection in her bedroom mirror, what she noticed was the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and the soft curve of her cheeks and chin, details she thought made her look a bit childish. Lily didn’t think she was an ugly duckling, but if she was standing next to Jane, few people would have thought her to be a swan. Still, Jane’s offer was the opportunity Lily had been waiting for, a chance to finally escape her father’s controlling ways.

  In the end, it was an offer she couldn’t refuse.

  “I’ll go,” Lily had answered.

  For the next few weeks, they’d made plans while talking on the telephone or meeting during Lily’s lunch breaks at the library. She withdrew her savings from the bank, hoping the money would last until she found a job. They wrote out lists of what they wanted to take, crossing out some items while adding others; at first, Jane simply didn’t understand why she couldn’t take all her wardrobe. Everything was meticulously packed in the suitcase she then stashed in the back of her closet, though she constantly worried that her father would somehow find it. But he hadn’t and the days kept ticking by until finally it was time to go.

  That afternoon, Lily had gone to the cemetery, to her mother’s granite tombstone where she’d talked and cried, often at the same time. Sitting on the grass, watching leaves fall from the nearby trees, she spoke of her hopes and fears, attempting to explain herself to someone who couldn’t reply. Later, back home, she’d written her father a letter. In it, she tried to tell him why she was leaving, to make him understand. The crumpled pages scattered on the floor around her were a testament to how hard it had been to find the right words. At the end, she had told him not to worry, that she would write when they reached their destination, and that she loved him. Just before she snuck out, she placed the letter on her pillow; when Morris realized that she was missing, he would quickly find it.

  This was a new beginning, the very thing Lily had always wanted.

  So why did it feel so wrong…

  Jane steered the Oldsmobile through the quiet neighborhoods. Rather than take the shortest route out of town, she turned onto Main Street as if she wanted one last look at the place before leaving. Staring out her window, Lily watched the familiar sights roll by: Will Burton’s barbershop, the post office, Sally Lange’s bakery, the Hooper’s Crossing Bank and Trust, as well as the library in which she’d spent so many hours. On the corner opposite the movie theater was the business Jane’s father owned and ran, Dunaway’s Department Store.

  “There’s a place I never want to see again,” her friend said, frowning as they drove past. “If I had a nickel for every box of mousetraps I unloaded, screwdriver I priced, or can of tomatoes I lined up on a shelf, there’d be enough money for us to fly to the city.”

  “I always had a soft spot for the candy counter,” Lily replied. “Your dad always had the best lemon drops.”

  Jane shook her head. “Maybe so, but no candy is worth sticking around here,” she said with a wink. “There’s better where we’re going, anyway.”

  Main Street ended where it ran into City Park. Wooden booths in various stages of completion lined the sidewalks under the streetlamps. Homemade banners advertised NEW YORK’S TASTIEST APPLES, WOOL SWEATERS—STITCHED TO YOUR SIZE, HAND-CARVED BIRDHOUSES, and dozens of other goods. Strings of lights, currently unlit, had been wound into tree branches and stretched toward the pavilion in the center of the park, the very one Lily’s father had been instrumental in having built; in a matter of days, musicians would play and the park would overflow with hundreds of people, many dancing under the stars. The Hooper’s Crossing Fall Festival, an annual event that drew people from hundreds of miles in every direction and culminated in a Halloween night party and parade where almost everyone wore a costume, was about to begin.

  “Aren’t you going to miss this?” Lily asked as the Oldsmobile finally left town and headed for the highway.

  “The fall festival?” Jane replied.

  Lily nodded.

  “Not in the least.”

  Lily couldn’t help but laugh. “You make it sound like the worst thing in the world! You’ve had lots of fun there over the years!”

  “All right, so it hasn’t been all bad,” Jane admitted a bit reluctantly. “Remember, that’s where Jake Conroy kissed me behind the bandstand.”

  From there, it was as if the floodgates had been thrown open on their memories of growing
up in Hooper’s Crossing. Driving out of town, they reminisced about days long past: the summer afternoon they’d dared each other to jump off the bridge into the Porter River, both of them screaming the whole way down; Martin Bradley’s ninth birthday party when Katie Sharp had eaten too much cake and gotten sick all down the front of her new dress; the shiveringly cold February day when Jane had caught Dave Cooke, the projectionist at the movie theater, shoplifting tins of hair pomade from her father’s store. But even as laughter filled the Oldsmobile, Lily felt a strange sadness settle over her, and no matter how hard she tried to shake it off, it refused to let go.

  On the road ahead, the car’s headlights illuminated a large sign announcing that they were leaving Hooper’s Crossing. It quickly loomed before them, its colors bright, then vanished and all was dark.

  And something inside Lily cracked.

  “Stop the car,” she said, the words quiet and mumbled.

  When Jane didn’t respond, still talking about the time Matt Hoskins had forgotten the words to “Silent Night” during his solo at the school Christmas concert, Lily repeated herself, this time loud and clear enough to be heard.

  “What for?” Jane asked. “Did you forget something?”

  “Just pull over!” Lily snapped, the sharp sound of her voice surprising even her, her heart racing faster than the speeding car.

  Jane did as her friend asked, guiding the Oldsmobile onto the road’s shoulder and pressing down hard enough on the brakes to make the tires slide in the soft gravel. For a long moment, neither of them spoke, the only sound the ticking of the car’s engine.

  Sitting in the silence, Lily searched her feelings, trying to understand why she’d suddenly gotten cold feet. The answer didn’t take long to find; it was there in the silent stalls of the festival, the shops along Main Street, the billboard on the way out of town. Hooper’s Crossing was her home. No matter how much she had dreamed about leaving, the truth was, she was scared to go. The grass might be greener elsewhere, but what if it wasn’t? And even though her father meddled in her life, Lily still loved him. In the years since her mother’s death, all they’d had was each other. If she left, especially like this, without telling him, she would be abandoning him. She wasn’t willing to break his heart all over again.

  “I can’t do it,” she finally said, staring at her hands, folded in her lap. “I can’t go to New York City.”

  “Sure you can,” Jane replied encouragingly. “It’s easy. We take the highway once we reach Lewiston and from there, all we have to do is—”

  “I’m not going,” Lily interrupted, raising her eyes to look at her friend.

  Jane’s cheerful expression deflated. She nodded, then looked out the windshield into the darkness.

  “I’m sorry,” Lily said, feeling more than a little guilty. “I know you had your heart set on us going. But who knows, maybe next spring things will be different and we can try again. Both of us can save up more money and—”

  “I’m still going,” Jane interrupted.

  Lily was too shocked to answer.

  “When I came to see you in the library that day,” her friend continued, “I’d made up my mind, and nothing that’s happened since has changed it.” She hesitated, then turned to Lily. “You might be able to keep living here, but I can’t bear the thought of another day. I want more than Hooper’s Crossing can offer.”

  Without another word, Jane turned the car around and started back in the direction they’d come.

  Lily stood in the street with the door open. Jane had stopped at the end of the block, far enough away so that Morris wouldn’t see them. They’d already shared a long hug, Lily apologizing for what felt like the twentieth time, but still she lingered, not yet ready for her friend to leave.

  “It’s awfully late,” she said, looking up at the dark sky. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait and go tomorrow?”

  Jane shook her head. “It’s like my dad always told me when I didn’t want to unload boxes in the storeroom. There’s no better time than the present.”

  “I understand,” Lily said, and in a way she did. “Be safe.”

  “I will,” Jane agreed as she put the Oldsmobile in gear. “And I promise I’ll write just as soon as I can. I want you to know what you’re missing.” Lily smiled weakly at her friend’s good-natured teasing. But then, just as she was about to say good-bye, Jane added, “It’s not too late to change your mind. Again…”

  Lily shut the car door without a word, then watched as Jane drove away, not moving until the car’s taillights were out of sight.

  Trudging toward home, Lily’s suitcase felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds. Every step she took seemed to add another question for her to worry about. Was she making the right choice in staying? Had her father found her note? If he hadn’t, would she be able to sneak back into the house without being seen? Would Jane be all right by herself in the big city?

  This time, answers were hard to come by.

  Her house came into view. Lily was relieved to see that light still shone from the window of her father’s office; that meant that he was still awake, working on something, and likely hadn’t discovered her note. She stashed the suitcase in the bushes in front of the porch, knowing that she could retrieve it in the morning before she left for work.

  But then, just as Lily stepped onto the driveway, already considering how to get inside unnoticed, she was blinded by a glaring light. Then the quiet of the night was broken by a man’s forceful shout.

  “Freeze! This is the police!”

  Chapter Two

  LILY WAS TOO FRIGHTENED to scream. Her heart and thoughts raced. She spun around and was momentarily blinded by the light, forcing her to quickly look away. She struggled to make sense of what was happening, further worried that her father was about to come stomping onto the porch to investigate what was disturbing him at such a late hour.

  But then the light vanished and laughter filled the night.

  “You should see the look on your face! I got you good!”

  And just like that, Lily knew who it was.

  Garrett Doyle was nearly doubled over on the drive, one hand slapping his knee while the other held a flashlight. He wore his police officer’s uniform, a badge pinned to the breast pocket, a gun holstered at his hip; he hadn’t been lying when he announced himself. His squad car was parked across the street in front of his own house. Lily must have been so preoccupied with her father seeing her that she hadn’t noticed it.

  She should have. Garrett had almost always been a part of her life.

  Lily had been eight when Garrett’s parents were killed in a car accident and the orphaned seven-year old had come to live with his mother’s folks, the Dentons’ neighbors. At first, the boy had been quiet, shy, and plenty sad, understandable given the circumstances. But with persistence, as well as the knowledge of how lonely life could be without a parent, Lily finally managed to draw Garrett out of his shell. Together, they raced around on hot summer nights, collecting fireflies in Mason jars. They set up a lemonade stand on the sidewalk and used their earnings to watch Tarzan matinees and buy comic books. They pulled Garrett’s wagon up and down the street, collecting tin cans and newspapers, doing their part to support the war effort against the Germans and Japanese. Where one went, the other was sure to follow.

  Morris had never minded the two of them spending time together. As protective as he was when it came to his daughter, he found Garrett to be an honest, hardworking boy who was attentive and caring toward his elderly grandparents. Garrett hadn’t hurt his case by becoming a police officer, either. As the youngest member of the Hooper’s Crossing Police Department, he patrolled his community’s streets, helping to keep it safe.

  But while Garrett hadn’t changed much on the inside, his outside was plenty different. He was no longer a skinny, somewhat awkward boy whose blond hair always stood up in the back, his elbows and knees covered in scrapes and scabs. His shoulders were now broad, his chest full, and his arm
s muscled. His unruly locks had been tamed, his chin kept free of whiskers, his smile as bright as the flashlight he’d shone in her face. But whenever one of Lily’s friends commented on how handsome Garrett was, she couldn’t help but laugh. She just couldn’t think of him that way. After all, he was the brother she’d never really had.

  Which was why he was so good at teasing her.

  “You scared me half to death!” Lily hissed, her heart still racing.

  “Sorry, but I couldn’t resist,” Garrett explained with a chuckle, making her doubt how sincere his apology really was. “I saw you and thought I’d have a little fun.”

  “At my expense!”

  Garrett held up his hands. “Guilty as charged,” he confessed, then asked, “What are you doing out here at this hour, anyway?”

  Unable to stop herself, Lily looked toward the porch where she’d just stashed her suitcase; she could see the edge of it, poking out from under the bushes. She wondered how long Garrett had been watching her. Had he seen her coming down the street? Did he know about the bag? Quickly, Lily decided that he didn’t, otherwise he would’ve already asked about it. Not wanting to give herself away now, Lily tore her eyes from the suitcase and moved a couple of steps to her right, drawing his attention away from the house.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she lied. “I thought that some fresh air might clear my head.”

  Garrett waved an arm toward the sky. “You didn’t try counting stars?”