On my way home I swing by Rosewood Café & Bookstore, where Ava has her sneakers up on the register. Rosewood never has a lot of customers, but on Tuesday nights it has nobody at all. Ava scored the perfect gig. A few years back when Amazon reimbursed people for some weird tax they’d unfairly charged to every Kindle book you bought, most people got about three dollars. Ava got $342. That’s how many books she reads regularly. I read, too, but I read the newspaper and autobiographies of badass women and historical figures. Ava loves romantic fiction. The real, get-in-your-bones, make-your-skin-tingle, make-your-eyes-water kind, she says. I say it’s more about girls who love boys they can’t have until the boy notices them for some reason they never did before. I say it’s all the same. But I don’t say it to Ava anymore, because that infuriates her.
Ava is a lover in real life, too. She’s had a string of relatively long-term, serious boyfriends, all wildly different, all pretty flawed, all of whom she loves to the very ends of the earth, until one day she decides she just doesn’t, and she very politely moves on to another. And none of them ever hate her for it. It’s always an amicable breakup. A part of me has always been jealous of the way she can give herself to someone so easily, and accept that love in return.
“What’s breaking your heart tonight?” I call out to her, and it takes her a moment to even look up. She’s got a hand buried deep in her brown curls, her mouth hanging slightly agape. When she does meet my eyes it’s with a glossed-over expression, so I decide to see for myself.
“Something True,” I read out loud. “When Samantha Watson’s parents die in a tragic car accident, she moves to a farm in Iowa with her estranged aunt, only to discover that getting back to basics is exactly what her heart needed.” I look up at Ava with mock intrigue. “Let me guess,” I say. “A young dairy farmer catches her eye? Just tell me”—I throw my body over the front desk, and Ava rolls her eyes in response—“will they make it?”
“You’re coldhearted,” Ava says. “But I shouldn’t be surprised. Every time we tried to play make-believe as kids, you just wanted to be real people who already existed. Like newscasters.” She makes a gagging noise.
“This is WBZN News At Night—Welcome Home,” I say in my best faux newscaster accent, and flash Ava a big grin.
Ava shakes her head, then catches my eye with a more serious look. “Hey. Do you want to talk about it?”
I know what she means. The separation. The House. I texted her about it before first period.
“Not yet,” I reply, wandering over to the biography section, and I glance back to see her nodding. She’ll be there when I’m ready.
I start to pull the volumes out one by one, then pause.
“Here’s something I do want to talk about.” I turn back around, leaning against the shelf, crossing my arms over my chest in thought. “I got asked out on a date this afternoon.”
As I anticipated, Ava is by my side in an instant.
“Tell me,” she says, facing in my direction and leaning her own shoulder against the stacks.
“Tell you what?” I say casually, pulling out another book. As a romantic, this is going to kill her, and I want to draw it out. “Tell you how Will drove me home from school today, and how he just happened to ask me to see my favorite band tomorrow night?” I hold the book in front of my face to examine it, then make a face. “Paris Hilton: The Untold Story.” Gross.
But Ava doesn’t squeal. She is all business, her eyes boring into me. She takes the book from me and snaps it shut, replacing it on the shelf. “I don’t have time for games. Tell me all.”
I sigh. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I think he might be perfect.”
I glance over and find Ava’s mouth hanging open. “You realize you’ve never said that about anyone before.”
“I know.”
“Like, not even Jamie Garcia, when he asked you to prom last year,” she says.
“I know.” Jamie was our school president, headed to Stanford, and also happened to look like a South American polo player. But it just never felt right. Now, thinking about Will, my mouth can’t help but curve into a dopey grin. “Will invented an organizational sleeve for his driver mirror to keep track of all his necessities” is all I say, and I don’t need to say any more than that, because a best friend understands you to your core.
“Oh, no, he didn’t.” Ava humors me. “He’s like your perfect, OCD Prince Charming. Sounds like he was made for you.”
“And he smells so good,” I say. “And his car . . . It’s so clean.”
“Stop, please, or I’ll have to fight you for him,” Ava says blandly, fanning herself with bored eyes.
“Shut up,” I say, chuckling. “When he dropped me off it started pouring rain and, Ava . . .” I say, placing a hand on the shelf and turning toward her, to make sure she gets it: the importance of what I am about to say. “He came around to my side of the car to walk me to the door.”
Ava starts walking back to the register. “When did it rain?” she wonders out loud.
I pause. “It was really odd. The whole thing was odd, actually. Will just appears all perfect out of nowhere, dying to go out with me, especially after what Lucy said.”
“Lucy who?” Ava asks, sitting on the counter, and when I explain about the author showing up in class, she looks at me as though I just ran over her cat. “Lucy Keating was at school today, and you did not tell me?”
“I’m sorry!” I say. “She’s an old friend of Epstein’s apparently.” I shrug. “But honestly, you may wanna rethink your fandom. She completely freaked me out.”
“What do you mean?” Ava asks.
“I don’t even know how to say this out loud without sounding nuts. . . .” I start.
“I already think you’re nuts,” Ava deadpans.
“Fine.” I shake my head. “She claimed to be writing my life.”
Ava makes a face. “What?”
“Now you know how I felt!” I say, coming toward her and resting my hands on the counter next to her. “I don’t even know a better way to explain it. All I know is Maya asked her what project she is working on, and she talked about a protagonist with my life. Grows up in Venice, happy, parents selling her childhood home, separating, even a weird little dog.”
“That could be a lot of people,” Ava says. “It doesn’t mean she’s writing about you.”
“Except then I asked her about it, and she said she was,” I say, and Ava’s eyes go wide.
“What do you mean she said she was? Like, she’s been stalking you?”
“No, that would almost be better than what she said! She said I am a character in her book. She said we all are.” I make a “spooky” motion with my hands, as I walk back over to the bookshelves. This conversation is making me feel antsy.
“Oh, okay, so she’s crazy,” Ava states, raising her hands in the air. “Great. Just my childhood idol, a lunatic—toss that in the trash. No big deal.”
I scrub at a spot on the bookshelf with the sleeve of my T-shirt distractedly.
“Wait, you don’t actually believe her, do you?” Ava laughs.
I roll my eyes. “No,” I say. “It’s just been a weird day. I woke up, found out my parents were getting divorced, and then the most perfect boyfriend imaginable appeared out of thin air.”
“I know it has.” Ava grabs her coat and bag, and the big set of keys to the shop. “But even if we were both totally crazy, and actually believed Lucy, you still couldn’t be a character in one of her books, because you aren’t in a love triangle.”