When she stops laughing, she fixes me with a look. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re annoyingly persistent?”
I nod. “Once or twice,” I say. “So we’ve got a deal?” I step out from behind the car door and move toward her, my hand out in front of me. But when I see the look on her face, I stop moving. Her relaxed smile has turned into what looks like sheer terror. Her body is tense and she’s staring at my hand like it’s a snake coming to bite her. I drop it and clear my throat. She looks up at me, her face changing again just as quickly. “I just, um . . . I gotta go get my bike,” she says, sticking out her thumb and gesturing to the bike rack.
“Uh . . . OK,” I say, following her a few steps behind, but keeping my distance. I don’t know what that was, but I don’t want to freak her out again. When we reach the bike, she walks around to the left of it, so I go right, putting my hands on the frame to hoist it up at the same time that she grabs the handlebars.
“Oh, I didn’t mean . . . I can get it,” she says, not letting go.
“I know,” I say. “But I’d like to do it.”
Her eyes meet mine. “Aren’t you doing enough?” There’s a smile on her lips but her gaze is strong, unyielding. Jesus, she’s stubborn.
“Just let me get it,” I say through clenched teeth, picking up the bike more forcefully than I need to in my frustration, giving her no choice but to drop her grip on the handlebars.
She takes a step back, eyeing me, and then trails me as I walk to the car, bike in hand.
“So what’s the next book?” she says, standing at the passenger door as I put the bike in the trunk.
I raise my brow at her. “Huh?”
“That we’re discussing. I tutor, you drive—remember?”
“Oh, right,” I say. “Uh, it’s The Notebook.”
“The Notebook?”
“Yeah.”
She lets out a cackle. “If you need help understanding The Notebook, we’re in trouble.”
I pause, my eyes meeting hers. “I’d say we’re in trouble, then.”
I’M NOT SURE what happens, but when we get in the car, the relative ease with which we bantered in the parking lot vanishes and an awkward silence hangs between us. As I ease the car out of the parking lot, the ticktock of my blinker fills the air, suddenly sounding as loud and threatening as a nuclear bomb set to explode. I glance over at her and see her gloved hands clenched in her lap. She looks as uncomfortable and tense as I suddenly feel, and I wonder if this was a bad idea. She’s clearly independent, but I’ve been surrounded by strong-willed women my entire life, and it seems like it’s more than that. She’s hard to read—not that I’ve ever been good at reading people. But she runs hot and cold like a bipolar faucet, and I never know what I’m going to get. Like at her house on Saturday, it almost felt like she didn’t even want us to be there. But then when I came in from working on the car, she and Aja were laughing together. I was stunned, and not just because I hadn’t heard Aja laugh like that in, well, forever, but god—her smile. It took up the entire room, and I was actually jealous—jealous!—of a ten-year-old. My own son. That he was the one she was beaming at like that.
I massage the stubble on my face. What am I doing? I just came out here for a temporary work gig and to give my daughter some space and now I’m acting like a schoolboy with a foolish crush on the librarian.
“Are you OK?”
“Huh?” I turn my head. Jubilee’s staring at me.
“You made a noise. Like a groan.”
“Oh . . . right. I’m fine,” I say, embarrassed. “Er . . . just a rough day at work.”
“Ah,” she says.
Before she can ask about it, I clear my throat and change the subject. “So, um . . . The Notebook,” I say. “I just finished it on the train.”
“You did?” she says, and I don’t know if it’s my imagination or if her body relaxes a little. “Did you cry?”
“What? No,” I say. The light in front of us turns yellow. I press the brakes. “Why would I cry? Did you cry?”
“Yeah. I cry every time I read it.”
“Every—” I narrow my eyes at her. “Wait, how many times have you read The Notebook?”
“I don’t know. Six or seven. I haven’t read it in a few years though.”
I look over at her, gobsmacked. “Why on earth would you read a book six or seven times? It’s not like you don’t know what happens.”
She shoots a look at me—one I’m familiar with from Ellie—conveying it’s hopeless to explain if I don’t already know.
“OK, but this book?” I continue. “It’s so cheesy.” I reach into the backseat and snag my copy out of my open bag on the floorboard. With one hand on the wheel I use the other to flip to the example I want to offer.
“What are you doing? You can’t read and drive.”
“We’re at a red light,” I say, scanning the pages for what I’m looking for.
“Not anymore,” she says. I look up and sure enough, the light is green. I glance over at her and she’s grinning. A car honks behind us, and I toss the book down.
“Well, it’s the part where in the war, he had Leaves of Grass in his shirt pocket and it took a bullet for him. Do you remember?”
She nods. “Yeah.”
“C’mon, a book of poetry saved his life?” I say, laughing. “It doesn’t get cornier than that.”
She chuckles. “OK, yes, maybe it’s clichéd in some of the details—but it’s also an amazing love story. It’s like the Romeo and Juliet of our time.”
“Now Nicholas Sparks is Shakespeare? Oh god, I think that’s blasphemy. He’s got to be rolling over in his grave somewhere.”
Though I’m meant to be paying attention to the road, I steal a glance at Jubilee. She’s unguarded, smiling, her lips stretched across her face, and a small buzz travels up my spine. The same buzz I got when she was smiling at Aja, except now it’s directed at me.
My phone hums where I left it in the console. I assume it’s work and ignore it. When it falls silent, I pick it up and am surprised to see Mrs. Holgerson’s name pop up on the screen. I know I’m a little late, but I told her that would be the case sometimes. No, this must be something more. My heart revs as I tap her name. It rings and rings, even though she just called me.
“Shit.” I jerk the wheel, making a U-turn in the middle of the street. Jubilee grabs the door to steady herself, but to her credit barely makes a sound. “What—”
“It’s Aja,” I say, cutting her off, my panic rising by the second.
I speed toward home, my mind conjuring worst-case scenarios as fast as I used to calculate square roots of numbers for fun as a kid. Did he run away again? Jump out of a window? Or something worse? When I pull into the apartment’s parking lot, I’m only slightly relieved to not see any police car, fire engine, or emergency vehicle flashing lights.