5
W hen MC pulled up in front of the library, there were only a few cars in the parking lot. Sensible sedans, mostly, and a massive, forest-green pickup truck with a mud-spattered dirt bike strapped in the flatbed.
None of them were the ancient silver hatchback MC remembered Nora driving.
It was possible she’d gotten a new car since then.
Likely, even. But some part of MC was hoping Nora wasn’t there, that she was on vacation.
Maybe a sabbatical. Did librarians take sabbaticals?
If they did, she could tell Joe she’d done her best, but the story was out of town, and would it really be so bad to go back to the drawing board and plan some new way to save him from the chopping block?
She walked up the stairs to the portico entrance, stuffing her hands in her pockets.
There was a sudden, strong wind, which upset the high bun she’d arranged before getting out of the car.
She was self-conscious about how she’d look to Nora after all these years—maybe because of Girl Next Door , maybe because being back home made her feel self-conscious in general.
Whatever the case, her preparation was in vain.
As she walked through the double glass doors, she caught a glimpse of her reflection, and it did not inspire confidence.
On the surface, the library, like the town, had an oppressive blandness to it.
Linoleum floor in the lobby. Industrial wall-to- wall carpeting in the stacks.
A few windows in the back, harsh fluorescents everywhere else.
But the librarians—many of whom had been there as long as MC could remember—had also made the place their own.
Life-size cardboard cutouts of children’s book characters pointed the way to the kids’ section.
A leaf-strewn display of recommended fall reads brightened the circulation desk.
A monumental Lego sculpture of Yoda standing on top of a stack of banned books greeted her in the lobby.
The sign beside him said, FEAR IS THE PATH TO THE DARK SIDE .
“MC Calloway, all in black.” A librarian appeared before her, decked out in a pink wool sweater so soft it gave her an aura. Her hair was close-cropped and not quite uniformly dyed, but the wise eyes squinting at MC from behind half-moon glasses would not be ridiculed.
“Hey... Lois?”
“She remembers my name,” Lois deadpanned to one of the other librarians walking past with a cart of books. The other woman, who sported a salt-and-pepper bob, gave MC a pitying smile. Lois flapped a hand against MC’s arm. “What brings you back to town?”
“Just visiting my brother.”
“The new vice principal, isn’t he? Past time the high school got a change in leadership. You know, we recently did an event with the English Department...”
Somewhere in the middle of Lois’s complaint about the curriculum being by and for “a bunch of old farts,” MC finally saw her.
She was sitting at the reference desk. Same choppy black hair, a little longer now, no more bangs.
She was curvier than MC remembered, or maybe it was just the snugness of her shirt, a sleeveless top made of some heavily embroidered fabric, like the upholstery on a vintage ottoman.
She had mascara on, or maybe her eyelashes had always been that thick.
When she saw MC staring, there was a brief moment where her shoulders seemed to draw together, but then it was gone, and she was focused on her screen again.
Too late, MC realized Lois had clocked the whole thing. “Weren’t you and Nora in the same class?” she said.
“Yeah.” MC swallowed. “We were.”
“Come on, you should say hi.”
“That’s okay,” MC said, panicking. “I don’t want to bother her.”
“Why? All she does is sit around.” Lois was already walking back toward the desk. MC felt like she had no choice but to follow.
Which was good. Because this was what she needed to be doing. And anyway, there was nothing to be nervous about. Besides the fact that Nora Pike was a secret bestselling author who’d written a book about them.
“Nora,” Lois said, “look who’s here.”
Nora’s eyes flicked up from her screen, her face as blank as ever.
“Hey,” Nora said.
“Hey,” MC replied.
Nora went back to her computer, typing away, her fingers striking the keys harder than seemed strictly necessary.
“Nora,” Lois said, “shouldn’t you be asking MC if she needs help finding any books?”
MC wondered for a moment if Lois knew about Girl Next Door , or if she was just bored and trying to get the young people to socialize.
“I’m good,” MC said quickly. “Just figured I’d stop by and look around for a minute. On my way to pick up takeout.”
She could hear Joe screaming at her on some astral plane.
But she didn’t know what to do. Nora didn’t even want to make eye contact with her, let alone catch up.
She began to suspect that she and Joe had been wrong about the significance of the correspondence between Girl Next Door and their senior year.
“How’ve you been?” MC said.
“Fine,” said Nora. “You?”
“Uh, yeah. Same.”
Scintillating.
“Look who it is,” said another voice, low and smooth. “What’s good, MC?”
MC blinked as a woman emerged from the stacks carrying a pile of books in her long, toned arms. Jen Turner had been in the grade below MC and Nora, and the top-ranked women’s tennis player in the county.
Now her gangly looks had settled into a tall, serene presence of total confidence, like she could bend MC into a pretzel without so much as grunting.
“Hey, Jen,” MC said, “how’s it going?”
“Pretty well.” Jen beamed, her teeth white and straight, her eyebrows stylishly thick.
MC remembered something on Instagram about an injury before a national competition, a personal transformation in the wake of promise stolen.
Not caring about sports, MC hadn’t paid much attention, except to the part of Jen’s journey that involved a rainbow-strewn announcement of her bisexuality.
“Checking out books?” MC said helplessly.
“Yeah, just a few things I’ve been wanting to read for a while now.”
MC glanced at the spines: Freedom , The Power Broker , the Ramayana. “Nice,” she said.
But Jen had already turned to Nora. “See you out there?”
Nora cleared her throat. “Yep.”
“Good to run into you, MC.”
“Same. I mean, likewise.” MC’s hands, which were still in her pockets, clenched into fists for some reason. “I should head out too,” she said, mostly just to Lois. “Didn’t realize I’d come in right as you guys were closing.”
“Come back tomorrow,” Lois said. “I have ideas for your brother.”
“Okay. Sounds good. Bye, Nora.”
Nora didn’t even look up.
MC rushed out of the library, past a sullen teen girl in a brown cardigan who glanced at MC over a copy of the Financial Times .
As MC got back in the Destroyer of Worlds, she saw Jen come out and load her books into the cab of the green pickup. Gritting her teeth, she called Joe.
“I’m done,” she said.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Nora’s a zombie robot. That’s all there is to report.”
“I’ll ask again. What happened?”
“I went to the library just now and tried to talk to her, but she barely even looked at me.”
“Come on, MC, she wrote a novel about you, and now you just appear . She’s freaking out.”
She bit her lip. “I didn’t think about it like that.”
“Because you’re also freaking out. Stick with this a little longer, and she’ll talk.”
“I don’t know. This is so shady. I feel like she’s going to know what we’re up to.”
“How would she know?”
“It’s not exactly a secret that you work for Jawbreaker.”
“But I’m not there. You are.”
“I’ve written for you before.”
“A handful of times. And she doesn’t have social media, remember? How else would she come across all this information?”
“Word of mouth?”
“She’s not friends with anyone.”
“She’s friends with Jen Turner,” MC muttered, watching Nora come out of the library with a purse over her shoulder, walking over to where Jen was waiting.
MC reminded herself that none of it mattered.
She wasn’t jealous or hurt in any way by two people who were, for all intents and purposes, total strangers to her. She wished them well!
“Wait,” Joe said, “Jen Turner, the goody-two-shoes tennis chick? How do you know?”
“Because they’re all over each other in the parking lot right now.”
Which wasn’t exactly true. Jen had just slid her arm around Nora’s waist for a moment, leaning in to kiss her cheek before opening the passenger door for her. The stupid truck was practically eight feet off the ground.
“Okay,” said Joe, “I’m on Jen’s Instagram right now, and there is absolutely zero evidence of her being in a relationship with Nora.”
“So?”
“So it’s either early days or pure fuck buddies. Regardless, it’s irrelevant. You’re not there to become Nora’s girlfriend. You’re there to get her to tell you about the last nine years of her life.”
MC watched as Jen Turner hung a muscled arm out her window.
Bad folk music piped into the night air as she reversed the truck and rolled off toward the street, toward whatever date or special moment they were about to share.
Which MC didn’t care about, except that it presented an obstacle to her mission.
She told herself Joe was right. It wasn’t really an obstacle, it just felt that way. In the end, it was better that Nora was involved with someone else. It made the whole absurd exercise a lot less confusing for MC.
“You have to let it all go, Neo,” she said to herself. “Fear, doubt, and disbelief...”
“Sorry, what?”
She sighed. “Never mind.”