It did not take as long as I thought for Lauren to seek Jonathan out.
She was not overly concerned about what he said at first, but last night it did occur to her that the incident Jonathan mentioned might repeat itself. She thought that if it did happen again, Tucker might get into trouble, and that thought worried her enough that this morning, she left her house and headed straight downtown to find Jonathan’s shop.
He was just about to take his customary lunch break—a sandwich and some raw fruit and vegetables in the old armchair tucked away into an alcove in the back of the store—and the tingle of the shop bell sent a twinge of irritation running through him. As he does not close the store during his break, though, he duly got up and went out to greet the customer.
“Ms. Isaacs,” he said, blinking at her. If he remembered their exchange at the soccer game, neither his face nor his aura showed it. “How can I help you?”
“I was wondering if I could talk to you about Tucker Baldwin,” Lauren answered, setting her purse down on the counter.
Jonathan only raised his brows and put his hands behind his back, waiting.
There was a beat of awkward silence, and then Lauren stepped forward. “Look, I don’t want to press, it’s really none of my business—”
“You’re right,” Jonathan said evenly, “it’s not.”
Lauren, well used to interruptions from interactions with her students, forged ahead. “—but I know the Baldwins fairly well, and if Tucker is getting himself into trouble with—I don’t know, with drugs, or maybe with—”
“It’s nothing like that,” Jonathan interrupted her again.
Some irritation began to appear in Lauren’s aura, but she kept her voice level. “I just want to make sure that he’s going to be okay.”
Jonathan looked at her for a moment. Then he said, “Your concern is touching, Ms. Isaacs, but I assure you that Tucker will be fine.”
“But if you could just tell me—”
“Are you here because you are genuinely concerned, Ms. Isaacs,” Jonathan asked, his brows lowering, “or because you couldn’t control your curiosity any longer?”
Lauren stared at him, her aura flaring up as bright as her hair. “What do you think I am, some kind of gossip?” she snapped. “You think I entertain myself with stories of my kids’ misdemeanors? No, Mr. Harris, I am not here to satisfy my curiosity. I am here to check on a good kid and make sure that he will be all right because yes, sometimes kids do dumb things, and sometimes doing those things means that they need help from the adults in their lives to make sure the consequences of those dumb things don’t hurt them in ways that they can’t get out of on their own.”
She said all of this very fast, and it impressed me. I think it impressed Jonathan, too, because he let his hands fall back to his sides.
In the small silence that fell, the ringing of the bell at the door seemed very loud.
Jonathan looked past Lauren and only in that moment seemed to notice that he still held his napkin in his hand. “That’s Mrs. Mosely,” he informed Lauren. “I need to talk to her for a moment.”
Lauren, who saw in this a dismissal, snatched up her purse. “Well, since you’re so busy—”
“Won’t you have a seat in my office?” Jonathan continued, stepping back and indicating the comfortable armchair in a corner that was most certainly not an office. His mouth quirked up on one side. “It won’t take me long, and I will answer your questions then.”
Surprised, Lauren didn’t say anything as Jonathan went past her to greet the older woman who comes in every Monday at the same time to get her husband’s favorite raspberry preserves. She watched for a moment as the lady fussed over Jonathan with every evidence of delight, which Jonathan suffered with a faint smile. Then she went back and sat in the armchair, looking at Jonathan’s simple lunch, the small bookshelf where he keeps a little paperback exchange with his customers, and the record player he uses instead of a stereo. It was a very peaceful little corner, and Lauren felt herself relaxing into it, and very puzzled by the man who had arranged it.
The armchair is right next to the storage room, the door to which Jonathan never bothers to close, so Lauren got up to look inside. The back room was just as tidy as the rest of the shop, with boxes on shelves neatly labeled and the floor swept and clear. There was a tiny desk in one corner, which Jonathan does not often use, preferring the computer at the checkout desk. On the desk was a picture of Jonathan’s parents, squinting against the sun and smiling brightly.
“Were we not just talking about curiosity?”
Lauren jumped and spun around to see Jonathan watching her. She quickly ducked out of the storage room past him. “Well, maybe you should close your door if you don’t want people in there.”
He shrugged. “If anyone wanted something from in there they’d have to take it out of the box, and I’d hear them doing it.”
“What about your cash?” Lauren asked.
“It’s either in the till or the safe.”
Confused, Lauren looked back into the storage room, but she didn’t see a safe. “So where’s the safe?”
“You wanted to talk about Tucker,” Jonathan reminded her.
Now Lauren was curious, but she pushed that aside. “Yes.”
Jonathan sighed. “Last week, Tucker came into my shop and tried to walk out with a bracelet from my local artists’ display. I stopped him and found out that a girl had asked him to take the bracelet for her. Having been a teenage boy, I know the pressure to impress girls, so I let him off.” He took a seat in the armchair and reached for his sandwich. “No harm done. And no lasting consequences.”
“Oh.” Lauren considered this. “Who was the girl?”
Jonathan, his mouth full, only shrugged.
“So that’s it? Just shoplifting?”
“Unsuccessful shoplifting,” Jonathan pointed out.
Lauren folded her arms. “Still, maybe I should talk to him. He might—”
“Ms. Isaacs,” Jonathan said, setting his sandwich down again and wiping his mouth. “There is such a thing as being too involved in your students’ lives.”
She blinked at him.
“Tucker is fine,” Jonathan said. “He knows what he tried to do was wrong, and he doesn’t need it hammered home by every authority figure he sees. You should remember what it was like when you were fifteen and everyone was telling you not to do something.”
A rueful smile came to Lauren’s face. “Yeah, I guess it would’ve driven me crazy.”
Jonathan nodded and crunched into a carrot. He swallowed the bite and said, “So everything’s fine. Does that satisfy you?”
Lauren looked down at him, frowning. “You’re a strange one, Mr. Harris,” she said after a minute.
He met her eyes, and suddenly he smiled, wider than I have ever seen him do. “Jonathan is fine,” he said.
She raised her brows at that, noticing how much younger he looked when he really smiled. “So’s Lauren.”
Then, rather bemused, she picked up her purse and left the store.
On the surface, the encounter may not seem terribly promising, but then I did not have to do anything to keep them moving in the direction I wanted. Partly in spite of himself, Jonathan made a good impression on Lauren, and she is curious about him now. It is a good start.
I think this is one connection I should not press. I still do not know much about Jonathan, and Lauren is much of a mystery to me, too. Neither of them is expressly looking for a relationship, and both seem to be the sort to duck aside if matter progress too quickly. So I will take my time, learn more about both of them, their similarities and differences, and try to bring them together as naturally as possible.
Still, I am pleased by this new beginning.