Enchanted Again by Nancy Madore Page B

fiancé, David, broke off their engagement. Theirs had been a convenient but shallow connection that impressed her more than anything else by its very existence, and it fizzled into nothingness with almost as little fanfare as the original proposal. But with that final blow Claire at last admitted to herself that there was nothing real to keep her there. And once the decision was made it was remarkably easy. There were no close friends to bemoan her leaving, and no other male admirers to pine over her. Even her mother had moved on and left Claire behind, sitting tranquilly by herself, day after day, in a tiny room at the full-care facility that housed her, having settled herself into a pleasant and mysterious place of her own making. There was hardly anyone for Claire to notify that she was leaving; not even so much as an employer to which she must tender her resignation. She worked from a small office in her apartment, for a company far away, who mailed her checks in exchange for completed manuscripts of newly updated textbooks. It was all very technical and Claire was proficient at it, so there was little communiqué necessary between the parties at all. Her landlord was the only person with whom she was obliged to discuss her move away from the city, aside from the post office. Her landlord seemed genuinely disappointed to lose her, complaining that she was the only tenant in the building who paid the rent on time every single month; whereas the postal employee she spoke to was much less affected, abruptly sending her to the self-serve desk where she could fill out a form and mail it back to them.
    But to the residents of Anamoose, North Dakota, her life was a different matter entirely. Claire was received with a remarkable amount of interest by everyone she encountered, from the clerk at the market to even the men she passed working outdoors. And as for the employees of the Anamoose Post Office, they took down her information as if it was of the highest importance, and the postmaster himself filled out the little change-of-address card for her, going to great lengths to assure her that every piece of mail that was addressed to her would be delivered correctly and on time.
    All this was frightening to Claire at first. Her distrustful mind could not help wondering what all the attention she was getting was going to cost, and she doubted that she would be able to foot the bill. She knew there was little that was particularly noteworthy about her and that in any other town she was more apt to disappear altogether into the woodwork. She realized that it wasn’t something extraordinary about her as a person that was causing the interest, but simply that she was a new face in the stale little town. And furthermore, her coming to Anamoose from the city suggested she must be chic and sophisticated, if not beautiful or charming. In time, she knew the novelty would wear off and she would become just like everyone else in the town, and this thought appealed to her. To finally belong somewhere and be known by the people around her was all she had ever hoped for. All of her previous relationships had been shallow and fleeting, leaving her to wonder if she even possessed the skills required to develop lifelong connections. But now, she believed and even knew that she would find those kinds of connections in Anamoose, just as she always dreamed she would from as far back as when she was a child.
    During her weeks of notoriety, Claire’s presence never failed to trigger a response from the men she happened to encounter. Although she applied the same common-sense reasoning to this phenomenon, there was nevertheless something awakened in her from this new kind of attention that caused her no little distress and anxiety. She found herself longing for things she had spent years forcing out of her consciousness.
    There was one man in particular who stirred more than the usual amount of discomfort with his curiosity over her. Claire guessed