When I'm Gone: A Novel by Emily Bleeker

Author:Emily Bleeker [Bleeker, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781503951457
Published: 2016-03-15T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

It had been eighteen years since Luke’s last first date. Even that wasn’t really a first date since it was with Natalie and they’d technically had their first date six years earlier. Back then they had eaten pizza and watched a movie on the threadbare couch in his apartment—not gone to a gallery opening followed by dinner at a fancy restaurant.

Felicity had called him the day after she’d handed over her number with an offer—if he would be her plus one to her brother’s art show, then she’d treat him to dinner. Luke, like Felicity, enjoyed their conversations during his office visits, but this was a huge step. Not only their first date but also his first date since becoming a widower. He told her he’d think about it. Then he got the first e-mail.

It was a nice note from a woman with the screen name JerseyPrincess, a thumbprint photo of a smiling woman with dark, curly hair in the corner. She explained Natalie had contacted her several months earlier during what must’ve been her last months of life. JerseyPrincess apologized because she’d recently entered an exclusive relationship, so she wouldn’t be able to fulfill her promise to Natalie to help him transition into online dating. This was getting crazy.

Later that day, another e-mail came through. This time it wasn’t an apology—it was an offer. StaceysMom sent Luke a long message detailing her e-mails with Natalie, a very thorough family history, and several semisuggestive pictures.

That decided it. He’d rather date Felicity than the total strangers Natalie had picked. Returning Felicity’s phone call and accepting the date was more uncomfortable than answering May’s questions on impending puberty after one particularly explicit day in health class.

So far, he couldn’t say he regretted going out with Felicity. What he regretted was the fight he’d had with Annie and the way he made her face crumple with mortification. The art gallery was fine, a little odd maybe. All the pieces in the gallery were made with “found objects,” which seemed to translate to garbage in his linear engineering mind. Every piece of art in the gallery made him think of Annie and how easily their friendship had turned into a heap of trash. He couldn’t stop himself from checking his new phone to see if she’d texted.

No, he told himself, forcing the phone back into his pocket. He focused in on Felicity’s voice explaining the pieces.

He’d always laughed at “art,” but there was this one figure, a sculpture crafted out of discarded bottle caps, some nailed flat, some twisted or cut. They came together to form a sculpture of a man crying. Even though the bust wasn’t behind any kind of velvet rope, Luke resisted the urge to reach out and touch it. In many ways he felt like that metal man, pieced together out of old, once useful objects, cold and sharp and empty on the inside. No way he’d buy the statue, but it did speak to him. It was beauty out of chaos, art out of refuse.

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