Lock and Key(72)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“And lose your keys,” he added, cranking the engine.

“Maybe it’s the universe conspiring against you.”

“I have had a run of bad luck lately,” he agreed.

“Yeah? ”

He glanced over at me. “Well, maybe not all bad.”

Hearing this, I had a flash of us in the kitchen that day, his hand brushing against mine as he reached for the key lying in my palm. As Nate turned back to the road, I suddenly did feel awkward, in just the way I’d thought I would. Talk about bad luck. Maybe this wouldn’t be so easy after all.

For me, December was all about work. Working for Harriet, working on my applications, working on calculus. And when I wasn’t doing any of these things, I was tagging along with Nate on his job.

Logically, I knew the only way to stay in that middle ground with Nate was to let space build up between us. But it wasn’t so easy to stop something once it had started, or so I was learning. One day you were all about protecting yourself and keeping things simple. The next thing you know, you’re buying macaroons.

“Belgian macaroons,” Nate corrected me, pulling two boxes off the shelf. “That’s key.”

“Why? ”

“Because a macaroon you can buy anywhere,” he replied. “But these, you can only find here at Spice and Thyme, which means they are gourmet and expensive, and therefore suitable for corporate gift-giving.”

I looked down at the box in my hand. “Twelve bucks is a lot for ten macaroons,” I said. Nate raised his eyebrows. “Belgian macaroons, I mean.”

“Not to Scotch Design Inc.,” he said, continuing to add boxes to the cart between us. “In fact, this is the very low end of their holiday buying. Just wait until we get to the nut-and-cheese-straw towers. That’s impressive.”

I glanced at my watch. “I might not make it there. My break is only a half hour. If I’m even a minute late, Harriet starts to have palpitations.”

“Maybe,” he said, adding a final box, “you should buy her some Belgian macaroons. For ten bucks, they might cure her of that entirely.”

“I somehow doubt the solution is that easy. Or inexpensive. ”

Nate moved back to the head of the cart, nudging it forward past the chocolates into the jelly-bean section. Spice and Thyme was one of those huge gourmet food stores designed to feel small and cozy, with narrow aisles, dim lighting, and stuff stacked up everywhere you turned. Personally, it made me feel claustrophobic, especially during Christmas, when it was twice as crowded as usual. Nate, however, hardly seemed bothered, deftly maneuvering his cart around a group of senior citizens studying the jelly beans before taking the corner to boxed shortbreads.

“I don’t know,” he said, glancing at the list in his hand before beginning to pull down tins decorated with the face of a brawny Scotsman playing a bagpipe. “I think that what Harriet needs might be simpler than she thinks.”

“Total organization of her house, courtesy of Rest Assured?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Reggie.”

“Ah,” I said as the senior citizens passed us again, squeezing by the cart. “So you noticed, too.”

“Please.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s kind of flagrant. What does she think all that ginkgo’s about?”

“That’s what I said,” I told him. “But when I suggested it to her, she was shocked by the idea. Shocked.”

“Really,” he said, pulling the cart forward again. “Then she must be more distracted than we even realize. Which, honestly, I’m not quite sure is possible.”

We jerked to a stop suddenly, narrowly missing a collision with two women pushing a cart entirely full of wine. After some dirty looks and a lot of clanking, they claimed their right of way and moved on. I said, “She said she was too busy for a relationship.”

“Everyone’s busy,” Nate said.

“I know. I think she’s really just scared.”

He glanced over at me. “Scared? Of Reggie? What, she thinks he might force her to give up caffeine for real or something? ”

“No,” I said.

“Of what, then?” he asked.

I paused, only just now realizing that the subject was hitting a little close to home. “You know, getting hurt. Putting herself out there, opening up to someone.”

“Yeah,” he said, adding some cheese straws to the cart, “but risk is just part of relationships. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.”

I picked up a box of cheese straws, examining it. “Yeah,” I said. “But it’s not all about chance, either.”

“Meaning what? ” he asked, taking the box from me and adding it to the rest.

“Just that, if you know ahead of time that there might an issue that dooms everything—like, say, you’re incredibly controlling and independent, like Harriet—maybe it’s better to acknowledge that and not waste your time. Or someone else’s.”

I looked over at Nate, who I now realized was watching me. He said, “So being independent dooms relationships? Since when?”

“That was just one example,” I said. “It can be anything.”

He gave me a weird look, which was kind of annoying, considering he’d brought this up in the first place. And anyway, what did he want me to do, just come out and admit it would never work between us because it was too hard to care about anyone, much less someone I had to worry about? It was time to get back to the theoretical, and quickly. “All I’m saying is that Harriet won’t even trust me with the cashbox. So maybe it’s a lot to ask for her to give over her whole life to someone.”

“I don’t think Reggie wants her life,” Nate said, nudging the cart forward again. “Just a date.”

“Still,” I said, “one can lead to the other. And maybe, to her, that’s too much risk.”

I felt him look at me again, but I made a point of checking my watch. It was almost time to go. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe.”

Ten minutes later—and one minute late—I arrived back at Harriet’s, where, true to form, she was waiting for me. “Am I glad to see you,” she said. “I was starting to get nervous. I think we’re about to have a big rush. I can just kind of feel it.”

I looked down the middle of the mall, which was busy but not packed, and then the other way at the food court, which looked much the same. “Well, I’m here now,” I said, sticking my purse in the cabinet under the register. As I did, I remembered the thing I’d bought for her, pulling it out. “Here,” I said, tossing it over. “For you.”