Chapter 12

Henry was coming over again tonight, and Helen was nervous. There were so many levels to her nervousness that she couldn’t even focus on one, to try to breathe through it. It was Grace’s fault. Helen wouldn’t be thinking about feelings if Grace hadn’t brought them up earlier today. But there they were, tiny little seeds of feelings spreading on the soil of her overactive imagination. Were they real feelings or just sex-feelings? And if they were real feelings, were they mutual? And if they were mutual, was it worth risking their friendship to see if they went anywhere? And if they were just sex-feelings, would continuing to have sex turn them into something more? Should she put a stop to this, if it was causing so much confusion? Even if it was improving her writing about sixteen hundred thousand percent? Just today she’d written two thousand words. She hardly ever wrote two thousand words on a workday, and she’d been doing it for the past few days. And they were good words, not just filling up an empty page with “insert sex scene here” notes to herself.

She should probably wait on the feelings conversation. Once she was done writing, they would be done researching, and then she could see what was left after some time apart. Or at least some time clothed. Which would be a shame, given how much she liked looking at Henry unclothed . . .

No, she should keep her feelings to herself, at least for now.

And she also had to keep her conversation with Lou to herself, under pain of death, according to Lou. They were getting a new archive, Lou assured her. The woman was positively bubbling over with glee, which at first Helen thought was a heart attack. No, not a heart attack. A new building. It would be off campus, and they’d have to share it with the Willow Springs Historical Society, who did not have the same professional standards she did, but Lou had been assured that she would be the lead on the project and she felt confident she could whip those armchair archivists into shape.

That’s great, Helen had told her. Also, what are you talking about?

They were going to demolish that old house downtown, Lou told her, and they’d build the archive up from scratch. A real archive, built to be an archive. Not some ancient administrative building that had been shoddily converted from a library into a glorified broom closet full of old stuff. She’d be able to catalog everything, restore everything, preserve everything. And it would all be in one place, and she would be in charge of the whole collection.

All they had to do was tear down Henry’s dream.

How could Helen keep that to herself? She’d promised Henry she wouldn’t keep any secrets from him, and now here she was, keeping a secret that she knew would destroy him. He’d put so much of himself into proving that the Wood Street house was really Madame Renee’s infamous brothel, and now he wouldn’t get the chance to find the answer either way. Because the house would be gone.

There would be a plaque, Lou assured her. But not a plaque that acknowledged what the house really had been, because there was no proof. Just a plaque that said how old the house was, and how it was now an important piece of the partnership between Pembroke College and the town of Willow Springs.

Rah rah rah.

She’d promised Lou that she wouldn’t tell anyone. And she’d promised Henry that she wouldn’t keep any more secrets.

So this was what that space between the rock and the hard place felt like.

“I don’t like it,” she told Tammy, who huffed at her in response. “Great. My emotional crises don’t even warrant a real bark from you.” George howled from the front room. The front door opened. Henry was here.

Helen put on her happy face as she followed Tammy to the door.

Henry did not look happy. His eyes looked drawn and dark, as if he hadn’t slept well last night. Which, maybe he hadn’t? Helen had slept like the dead, or at least the really, really sated. She hadn’t noticed Henry not zonking out the same way she had.

As she moved closer, she realized that “tired” wasn’t the right word for how he looked. He looked troubled. Her panicked head went to last night again. Had she done something wrong? Had she pushed the boundaries of their friendship? Yes, of course she had, but had she done it in a way he had changed his mind about?

Whatever was troubling Henry, though, seemed not to be Helen-related, because as soon as she was close enough, he pulled her into a tight hug, stuffing his face into her neck and inhaling so deeply she thought he would take her pulse with him.

“Hey,” she said, pulling back far enough to get a look at his face but not so far that he had to let go of her. They felt good, those arms of his. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head.

“Don’t tell me nothing,” she said. “No secrets, remember?”

“No, it’s just—” He sighed and she braced herself for the blow of really bad news. “Can we do this later?” He pulled her closer, and she let him.

“Can we just get this sex stuff out of the way?” she teased.

It was the wrong thing to say. Henry looked like she had slapped him.

“Is that what you—”

She cut him off with a kiss. “It was a joke.” She leaned back into his mouth. “A terrible joke.”

“OK,” he said, and he pulled her even closer, so close her feet left the ground. Then he walked her back to the bedroom and shut the door and Helen thought for sure her word count would at least double tomorrow.