I look over at him. “I’ve got to renew my books.”
“You don’t have any books.”
Shit. He’s right. “I think they can just do it on the computers.”
He pulls a crinkle fry from the bag on his lap. “Can I stay in the car?”
I hesitate. I don’t really want to leave him alone, after everything that’s happened, but it’s a library parking lot, I reason, and I’ll be able to see him through the window. “I guess,” I say, and then: “But just eat. No telekinetic stuff or destruction or anything, got it?”
He nods, and I wonder how many other people need to give that directive to their children before leaving them alone for five minutes.
I avert my gaze from Aja and direct it through the front windshield of the car. From my vantage point in the parking lot, I have a direct line of sight to the brightly lit innards of the library. And Jubilee. She’s standing at the checkout counter, her face partially obscured by the wild vines of her hair. I don’t know why I’m so drawn to her. She’s beautiful, yes, but it’s more than that. There’s something different about her—how she’s guarded yet completely vulnerable at the same time. She’s like a Rubik’s Cube that I find myself eager to sort into a pattern that makes sense. Or maybe I’m eager to sort out why I keep thinking of her. I don’t know. I’ve never met anyone quite like her. And I was never good at Rubik’s Cubes.
My stomach gurgles. I take a swig of the water that came with my meal to try to settle it. I shouldn’t have eaten so fast.
Walking in, I notice that the library is mostly empty, save for a man at a computer carrel sitting on a pillow playing what looks like a golf video game on the screen. I wonder if he just had surgery or something.
“Slow night,” I say when I get within a few yards of the circulation desk and Jubilee.
She starts and looks up at me, her eyes wide. I never really noticed them before, beyond the fact that they’re brown. But under the fluorescent light of the library they look like chocolate that’s been flecked with caramel.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She relaxes her expression. “It’s OK,” she says. “It was just so quiet in here. I didn’t hear you come in.”
We stare at each other for a few beats and I study her face up close. Her lips and cheek look a little better, not as red or swollen. I tear my gaze away from her mouth and run it down her neck, over her ill-fitting suit jacket, to her hands, which are cased in leather gloves. The same gloves she had on for Halloween. I eye them for a beat.
“Um . . . can I help you?” She glances up at the wall beside us and I follow her gaze. A clock. Its hands point to 6:55.
“Yes, I’m sorry.” I draw my eyes back to her face. “I, um, need to renew my books.”
She glances at my empty hands and then narrows her eyes. “Didn’t you just check them out? On Halloween?”
“I did,” I say.
“You get three weeks. It’s only been”—she calculates the numbers in her head—“eleven days.”
“Oh.” I rap my knuckles lightly on the counter. “Right. Good, good. Then they’re not late.”
I came with the intention of asking her about The Bell Jar but now find that I’m not sure how to say it. Or maybe that I don’t want the conversation to be over so quickly. “How are you feeling?” I ask, at the exact same time she says: “Are you taking a class or something?”
We both laugh.
“You first,” I say.
She repeats her question.
I tilt my head. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know—are you taking a class in modern literature? I’ve just been trying to figure out why you’re so interested in The Virgin Suicides. You’re not exactly the demographic.”
“No? You mean, you don’t have middle-aged men checking out young adult books all the time?”
“You’re hardly middle-aged,” she says, then looks down. She’s doing that thing again, where she’s bold and forward and then suddenly timid, self-conscious. It’s like a dance and I don’t know the steps.
“It’s for my daughter,” I say.
She crinkles her brow. “Daughter?”
“Yeah. Ellie. She’s fourteen. Lives in New Hampshire with her mother.” And then I add: “My ex.”
She crinkles her brow. “So . . . are you guys in a father-daughter book club or something?”
I offer a grin, but I know it’s a sad imposter. How do I explain what I’m doing? What am I doing? “Something like that,” I say. “I’m just, I don’t know, reading some of the books she’s read, trying to relate to her, I guess. Trying to understand her better.”
She glances up at the clock again.
“Sorry, is it— What time does the library close?”
“Seven,” she says. “But it’s OK. Michael’s still here.”
She nods toward the man with the pillow. I glance over at him and then back at her and decide I should get to the point. “So, you’ve read The Bell Jar, right?”
“Of course,” she says, as if everyone on earth has read it, when I only just heard of it from Ellie’s notebook.
“If someone really identifies with Esther—do you think that’s concerning? Like, maybe they’re—I don’t know—suicidal or something?”
“Are we talking about your daughter?”
“Yeah.”
She purses her mouth as if really thinking it over, or maybe she’s just trying to remember details of the book, and I notice she has a slight underbite, forcing her top lip to protrude like the brim of a tiny hat. I stare at it, unable to look away. Finally, she says: “I think it’s more concerning if a teenage girl doesn’t relate to Esther.”
“Really?” I say, dragging my eyes up to meet hers. “Why?”
“Well, she’s flailing, right? She feels trapped, insecure, unsure of herself and her place in the world. Even when she has this glamorous internship that other girls would kill for, she feels like an imposter.”
“And that’s a good thing? Low self-esteem?”
She tucks her tiny bottom lip under her teeth. “Better than the alternative.”
“What’s that?”
“You were in high school once—is there anything worse than an arrogant teenager?”
I laugh, and then get a little pang thinking of Ellie struggling with these big life issues, wondering where she fits in.
“But then again,” says Jubilee, “that book is partly autobiographical and Sylvia Plath did kill herself a month after it came out. So, what do I know?”
I stare at her deadpan face, until she cracks a small grin. “Thanks,” I say with a soft chuckle, trying to conceal my surprise at her wit. “Very helpful.”
She glances over at the computer carrels. I follow her gaze and see that Michael has just turned off the computer screen and is now on his feet, stretching. I watch as he picks up his pillow and slowly makes his way to the door.
“What do you have to do to close up?” I ask.
“Not much,” she says. “Just turn off the lights. Lock up.”
“Can I walk you out?” It just falls out of my mouth, but then, when her eyes drop to the desk, I worry that it’s too forward.
“Um . . .”
“Sorry, it’s my grandmother.”