Read Online The Moment of Everything by Shelly King - Free Book Online
Authors: Shelly King
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endless.
But then I remembered the dishes piled in the sink and the ring around the tub and the copies of my résumé scattered all over my living room floor. And more than that, I anticipated the simple heartache that I could see if I fast-forwarded through the next few months in my mind. Rajhit was trouble. Possibly the best kind. But it was still time to call it a night.
I held out my hand to shake Rajhit’s and my stomach somersaulted as he held my hand a little longer than was necessary.
“I’m glad to have met you, Maggie,” he said. Then he disappeared into the darkness, leaving me alone still feeling his fingers wrapped around mine.
Chapter Three
Closer Than We Thought
We settle and settle more and all the while we tell ourselves we are being practical. We’re not. We’re being cowards.
—Henry
It all happened at the Dragonfly…
It was the perfect headline. Intrigue? Check. Promise of a good story? Check. Name of the business? Check. Yes, all together, it was quite clickable. And then people could come to the Dragonfly and find their own mystery. At least that was my good intention, path to hell be damned.
It was midnight, and I was alone in Suds and Surf, a Laundromat a few blocks from home in a tiny row of shops that also included a Salvadorian restaurant, a pet-groomer, and a florist who also did taxes in Vietnamese. Thanks to the free WiFi, I’d been working on the Dragonfly’s website for a couple of hours, stretching out the geeky muscles I hadn’t used in way too long. The Dragonfly was like software that had been sitting around for decades that no one wanted to take the time to rewrite. Building a website was just like putting pretty icons on that dated, inefficient code. It might be pretty, but underneath was still disorder, dust, and JavaScript held together with a little chicken wire.
There were no funds for a website hosting service, so I was on my own. I had a spare computer at home, so I set up a Web server and a database and now here I was at Suds and Surf building out the pages with free and awesome open source software. I registered a domain for ten bucks, downloaded a template with a book theme, and within a couple of hours, the Dragonfly had a website. That afternoon, I’d dusted off a scanner I hadn’t used since Mac OS 9 and scanned Henry’s and Catherine’s notes and posted them on the pages of the website. Looking at my work on the screen, I wondered what Henry and Catherine would think of my posting their romance here. How would I feel if I were Catherine? I closed my eyes and tried to put myself in a time when men wore suits and hats to baseball games and women carried clutch purses in gloved hands. I tried to imagine finding Henry’s first note and pulling a pen out of my purse to write a reply. But no words came. Catherine was fluent in a language I couldn’t even pronounce.
Movement along the street caught my attention. The streetlight showed the silhouette of a bike that looked like something from the fifties that Wally and the Beav would have ridden. A rocket-shaped headlight was strapped on top of the handlebars and a wicker basket hung on the front. The rider looked my way and stopped, and I got nervous. Then I saw it was Rajhit, and got nervous for a whole different reason.
He propped the bike against the open glass double doors and stepped into the fluorescent light of the store, his hands in his pockets.
“I was just by your place,” he said.
“Hugo’s got a date tonight,” I said.
“The real estate agent or the antiques dealer?” He stood in front of the washing machine opposite me and lifted himself to sit on it.
“Not sure,” I said. “But I think he was making tofu cheesecake this afternoon.”
“Probably the golf pro then. I think she’s vegan.”
He was in a faded pair of jeans, a white button-up shirt with the tail out, and those green flip-flops. I could see his torso moving under the shirt.
“Actually, I wanted to see you,”
But then I remembered the dishes piled in the sink and the ring around the tub and the copies of my résumé scattered all over my living room floor. And more than that, I anticipated the simple heartache that I could see if I fast-forwarded through the next few months in my mind. Rajhit was trouble. Possibly the best kind. But it was still time to call it a night.
I held out my hand to shake Rajhit’s and my stomach somersaulted as he held my hand a little longer than was necessary.
“I’m glad to have met you, Maggie,” he said. Then he disappeared into the darkness, leaving me alone still feeling his fingers wrapped around mine.
Chapter Three
Closer Than We Thought
We settle and settle more and all the while we tell ourselves we are being practical. We’re not. We’re being cowards.
—Henry
It all happened at the Dragonfly…
It was the perfect headline. Intrigue? Check. Promise of a good story? Check. Name of the business? Check. Yes, all together, it was quite clickable. And then people could come to the Dragonfly and find their own mystery. At least that was my good intention, path to hell be damned.
It was midnight, and I was alone in Suds and Surf, a Laundromat a few blocks from home in a tiny row of shops that also included a Salvadorian restaurant, a pet-groomer, and a florist who also did taxes in Vietnamese. Thanks to the free WiFi, I’d been working on the Dragonfly’s website for a couple of hours, stretching out the geeky muscles I hadn’t used in way too long. The Dragonfly was like software that had been sitting around for decades that no one wanted to take the time to rewrite. Building a website was just like putting pretty icons on that dated, inefficient code. It might be pretty, but underneath was still disorder, dust, and JavaScript held together with a little chicken wire.
There were no funds for a website hosting service, so I was on my own. I had a spare computer at home, so I set up a Web server and a database and now here I was at Suds and Surf building out the pages with free and awesome open source software. I registered a domain for ten bucks, downloaded a template with a book theme, and within a couple of hours, the Dragonfly had a website. That afternoon, I’d dusted off a scanner I hadn’t used since Mac OS 9 and scanned Henry’s and Catherine’s notes and posted them on the pages of the website. Looking at my work on the screen, I wondered what Henry and Catherine would think of my posting their romance here. How would I feel if I were Catherine? I closed my eyes and tried to put myself in a time when men wore suits and hats to baseball games and women carried clutch purses in gloved hands. I tried to imagine finding Henry’s first note and pulling a pen out of my purse to write a reply. But no words came. Catherine was fluent in a language I couldn’t even pronounce.
Movement along the street caught my attention. The streetlight showed the silhouette of a bike that looked like something from the fifties that Wally and the Beav would have ridden. A rocket-shaped headlight was strapped on top of the handlebars and a wicker basket hung on the front. The rider looked my way and stopped, and I got nervous. Then I saw it was Rajhit, and got nervous for a whole different reason.
He propped the bike against the open glass double doors and stepped into the fluorescent light of the store, his hands in his pockets.
“I was just by your place,” he said.
“Hugo’s got a date tonight,” I said.
“The real estate agent or the antiques dealer?” He stood in front of the washing machine opposite me and lifted himself to sit on it.
“Not sure,” I said. “But I think he was making tofu cheesecake this afternoon.”
“Probably the golf pro then. I think she’s vegan.”
He was in a faded pair of jeans, a white button-up shirt with the tail out, and those green flip-flops. I could see his torso moving under the shirt.
“Actually, I wanted to see you,”
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