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disturb her?”
    A peculiar stillness came over Natalie’s face. “Possibly. I recently mentioned to her an upcoming change in our circumstances.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Emery Stagg and I are getting married.”
    I tried not to look shocked, but it was impossible. Lately, I had seen them dining together at Café Provence and once or twice discussing something while strolling through the bookstore, but the two were total opposites. Whereas Natalie was a lissome Celtic goddess, as good with a joke as with a song, her fiancé appeared to me to have all the charisma of a speed bump.
    When he first entered Riverrun Books two years earlier there had been nothing notable about Emery other than that he looked like a pair of pliers. He was slightly less than six feet tall and lean, with sandy brown hair too dull to be properly described as blond that was cut in what used to be called a flattop. His thin face was characterized by sharp, angular features. An upturned nose deviated a half inch to the left; thin lips turned down at the corners; and closely spaced walnut-colored eyes carefully studied the world behind nondescript wire-rimmed glasses. I sensed he was physically tough, but also sensitive to perceived slights. The guy had “lonely childhood” written all over him.
    Everything about him seemed practical and functional. There were no adornments, no wasted words or actions, no fiddling or fussing. He dressed simply and consistently in a white button-down shirt, black trousers, skinny black belt, dark gray socks, and brown Hush Puppy Mall Walkers. Offered a cup of coffee by Josie his first day in the bookshop, he politely declined, stating that caffeine was off-limits for a Mormon. I recall him having only two expressions at the time: a questioning gaze and purse-lipped indigestion.
    All this combined to make him appear distant or disconnected, and the impression was magnified by his somber presence. I decided he was somewhere on the high end of the autism spectrum, as socially awkward as he was intellectually astute.
    In those days Natalie was waitressing part-time at Café Provence while trying to finish her business degree at Avila College. I noticed that when she was on duty a different Emery Stagg emerged. She must have seemed completely alien to him with her gaudily painted fingernails, dangly earrings, piles of jewelry, and long, scarlet hair done up differently on any given day, but he obviously found the contrasts irresistible.
    He would borrow a mathematics book from our shop, take it into the café, and pretend to read it until she arrived at his table to take an order. Then an amazing transformation would occur—his melancholy face would turn into one of fawning appreciation, like a puppy anticipating a biscuit from its mistress. If she left to serve other customers, his eyes followed her with a gleam that was a weird cross between adulation and guilt.
    Perhaps, like me, Emery had been intrigued not so much by Natalie’s adornments as by the subtle melancholy in her eyes when she wasn’t bounding through the restaurant, bantering lightheartedly with her customers, creating good cheer at each table.
    But I’m guessing.
    What I knew for sure was that apart from the fact that they shared high IQs, Natalie was everything Emery was not—extroverted, comfortable with everyone, volcanically spirited, willing to take risks and laugh off mistakes. She had always shown him polite consideration, but I never dreamed there could be more to their relationship.
    “Congratulations,” I managed to mutter after Natalie found it necessary to repeat the wedding announcement. Then I hastily followed with the only compliment that came to mind: “He’ll be a good provider.”
    Rather than thanking me, she went to close the conference room doors, then returned to the table where I had taken a seat next to a stack of books from the Follis collection. Leaning over, she took my hands in hers.
    “I know you don’t think much