“Ah. Yes. Well. I see.” A lot of words are coming out of her mouth, but she is not saying anything. “My son—well, you’ve met him—needs to start thinking about applying to college. Among other things. He needs tips. Say, for writing good admissions essays. I fear he’s losing focus, forgetting the plan for his future, settling in somewhere … unsettling.”
“Do not move or touch anything,” I say.
But when I come back four and a half minutes later, she has both moved and touched something. Many things. I can see some piles of books have been pushed and some have been displaced and some have been rearranged. She has moved to behind my yellow chair. She has touched a picture that sits between the children’s books about gnomes and the children’s books about owls. She has touched it by holding it. It is a photograph of my mother and father at their wedding.
“Your father was a handsome man.” She says “was” which means either she thinks my father is ugly now or she knows he is dead, and it can be assumed it is the latter because why would she think my father is ugly now?
I nod. She nods.
“Your mother was a lucky woman.”
“Lie,” I say.
Her eyes move quickly to look at mine then quickly move away again. She puts the picture back on the shelf and takes a deep breath. “You have my books?”
I hand over what I have chosen for her: a videotape of the movie Animal House, a paperback （old but reissued） of Love Story, and the copy of Charlotte’s Web I took back from Nellie when her reading group was finished with it.
Apple Templeton considers them.
“I don’t have a VCR,” she says.
“You can borrow one from a friend,” I suggest.
“No one has a VCR,” she says. Then adds, “And I don’t have any friends here.”
“Would you like a book on how to make a friend?”
She squints like she is having trouble seeing. “Love Story?”
“Love Story is a novel about two people who go to college in Boston”—it can be assumed, since he will not stay in Bourne, that River will return to Boston for college—“but then half of them die.”
“Uh-huh.” She is smiling a little bit now. “And Charlotte’s Web? What does Charlotte’s Web have to do with writing college applications?”
“I do not have a copy of The Elements of Style because The Elements of Style got sold when my library closed, but fifty percent of The Elements of Style authors wrote Charlotte’s Web.”
“I suppose, but—”
“In addition, Charlotte’s Web is about using writing to change your life and gain admission.”
“To the county fair.”
“Exactly.”
“The county fair is not an institution of higher learning.”
“Both have cotton candy,” I point out.
“I don’t think that’s quite right.”
“Then I have been misinformed,” I say.
“Truth!” She grins like she made a joke.
* * *
On Apple’s way hurrying down the driveway, she encounters Mab hurrying up the driveway. Even though it is sunny out, Mab is carrying a green folder I have never seen before. When she spies and identifies Apple Templeton, she tries to stuff the folder in her jacket. It is too big, but Apple does not notice anyway. They both look away when they pass each other as if they do not like it when people look in their eyes. Mrs. Radcliffe likes to pretend that it is only me who does not like looking in people’s eyes and the rest of their faces, but it is more accurate to say lots of people do not like it. I have just been not looking too hard to see that I am not the only one.
Three
Love stories are only love stories if they go somewhere. Really, that’s true of all stories. They require a beginning, a middle, and an end. Rising action, climax, denouement. Conflicts sorted, strife overcome, or challenges succumbed to. Plot. Change. Lessons learned. That’s what makes a story. Otherwise it’s just a description. Otherwise it’s just conceit.
Maybe the point is that’s true of all stories, but it’s most true of love stories. Boy meets girl and all that. They meet, one of them resists the inevitable, then finally they fall in love. They meet, encounter barriers, love anyway. They meet, encounter barriers, love then lose, love then die. Die then love, sometimes. Love stories often end badly, but their bad ends are what make them good stories.
Unless nothing ever happens. They meet, but love was never really on the table. They meet but don’t imagine it will be requited or even expressed or even noticed. They meet and one of them loves and then nothing happens next. These are not stories.