“Halfway through the fourth time we played ‘Witchy Woman,’ ” he says.
A fuzzy memory surfaces, just for a second, before submerging into the wine-and-liquor haze again: standing on a sticky floor, in the glow of a neon sign, holding on to either side of Miles’s face as I enunciated as clearly as I could manage: It’s going to get easier. This time next year, you won’t even remember her name.
If we keep drinking like this, he replied, I’m not sure I’ll even remember my name.
Miles grabs the sriracha, and twists the lid back onto the syrup jar. “I’ve got stuff to do, but if you hear from your ex, tell him I said . . .” He holds up his middle finger.
“If you hear from yours, tell her thanks for the new boyfriend.”
“Gladly,” he says, and turns to go.
6
FRIDAY, MAY 24TH
85 DAYS UNTIL I CAN LEAVE
The following Friday, I’m playing my least favorite kind of Tetris at the reference desk: choosing which fall releases to buy for our branch. Rearranging and reprioritizing them, cutting title after title until the moment the cost dips into our budget.
Every time I go to remove a book, a different face flashes in my mind, the kid or kids I specifically picked the book for.
A superhero picture book for Arham. An early reader about mermaids for eight-year-old Gabby Esteves. A dense upper-YA fantasy that reminded me of the first time I read Philip Pullman, for Maya, the braces-wearing preteen with a Smiths patch on her backpack and a reading level so far above her age that she’s started giving me recommendations. She’s shy enough that it took months to get her to really respond to my attempts at book-related small talk (the only kind I can do). But now she’ll happily chat for forty minutes at a time about books we’ve both read and loved, an informal two-person book club. I’ve been working on convincing her to join one of the teen readers groups, but she’s very politely informed me that she doesn’t like “group activities” and is “more of an independent type.”
Basically, she’s me at twelve years old, if I’d been nine hundred times cooler. Right down to the fact of being the only child of an overworked but lovely single mother with a penchant for eighties British goth rock. During the school year, Maya walks the short distance from the junior high to the library, and her mom picks her up when she finishes her paralegal shift.
The new hardcover fantasy I handpicked for her is the most expensive book on the list, but I can’t bear to cut it. Ordinarily, I talk this kind of thing over with Harvey, the branch manager, but he left early for his youngest daughter’s med school graduation (the other two are already doctors; he’s apparently created an army of high achievers).
Back in the office we all share, the adult librarian, Ashleigh Rahimi, is on the phone, the shut door reducing her words to a flat rumble.
On the desk, my own phone buzzes with a notification from Sadie. My gut rises expectantly, only to plummet when I see that, instead of a message or even a comment, she’s simply Liked my most recent picture.
The one in which I appear to be milliseconds away from licking the side of Miles’s face as he hangs over me, arm latched across my chest.
I tap over to Sadie’s account and instantly regret it. She uses social media as infrequently as I do, which means there, right in the top row of images, three shots back, is a picture of her and Cooper with me and Peter at Chill Coast Brewing on their last visit—beer being the one thing Peter breaks his low-carb diet for.
I personally hate beer. Obviously Petra loves it. She’s a walking fantasy, and I’m a librarian who actually does wear a lot of buttons and tweed.
From behind the office door comes a frustrated shriek-groan. Not an outright scream, but a sound loud enough to cause kids gaming at the computer bay to spin toward the desk in unison.
“It’s fine, everything’s fine!” I tell them with a wave.
Behind me, the door flings open and Ashleigh, five foot nothing with a topknot the size of a melon, storms out. “Never make friends with moms,” she tells me before stomping over to her rolling chair.
“You’re a mom,” I point out.
She whips toward me. “I know!” she cries. “And that means I have basically one night, every two weeks, when I can do something fun with other adults, except all those other adults I used to call are also parents, and in many cases partners. So half the time, the plans fall through because someone’s puking or fell off a trampoline or forgot they have to build a fucking volcano for science class by tomorrow!”
“Ashleigh!” I hiss, jerking my head toward the row of teenage gamers.
She follows my gaze and greets their stares with a blunt, “What?”
They spin back toward their screens.
“I want to get out,” she says. “I want to look hot in public and drink alcohol and talk about something other than Dungeons & Dragons.”
And as she’s saying it, I’m picturing myself at home, alone, watching happy couples shop for or renovate the homes of their dreams on HGTV, just like I did last Friday night, and the Friday night before that, and basically every night since the breakup, barring my drunken MEATLOCKER escapade with Miles.
Meanwhile, Peter’s and Petra’s social media feeds are an in-real-time documentation of her and Peter kissing, hugging, and selfie-ing their way through our old haunts, with our old friends in Arbor Park.
His haunts, I correct myself. His friends. Just like Arbor Park is his neighborhood.
I’d thought we were building something permanent together. Now I realize I’d just been slotting myself into his life, leaving me without my own.
I feel the words rushing up my throat, and then they’re splatting out between us: “I’m free tonight.”
Ashleigh stares, wide-eyed. Like I just threw up on her shoes. Or like I threw up a whole shoe.
I search for a graceful way to take it back.
I’ve landed on something along the lines of, Oh, shoot, I forgot! I have plans to organize my e-reader, when she gives an abrupt shrug and says, “Why not? Text me your address, and I’ll pick you up on the way to Chill Coast.”
“Chill Coast?” I’m sure my face just went from tomato red to milky white.
Luckily Ashleigh is looking at her phone. “It’s a brewery,” she says, typing. “In Arbor Park? My friend who just bailed said it’s super cute, has a big patio.”
There is absolutely no way I can go to Chill Coast. Waning Bay is small enough without me wandering directly into the heart of the Peterverse.
