I slid into the seat beside my mom.
She pointed at the stage. “Not bad,” she whispered, nodding along in time with the music in a very middle-aged way. I gave a nod back.
“Who’s the guy with the pretty hair? He seems nice.”
I leaned close to her ear. “That’s Kevin. He is nice.”
“Is he single?”
Track One. I knew it. I knew it was coming, and I didn’t even have time to take a breath to fortify against it. “He is indeed single. He’s also eighteen. So if I tried to convince him we should go out, I believe he’d find it improper. As would his mother.”
She started to say something, but I interrupted her. “Besides that, you heard him speak. He’s a little bit crazy.”
“You say that about everyone,” she whispered. My mother could pack a lot of judgment into a whisper.
I conceded. “I do say that about everyone, and I’ve never yet been proven wrong. But in any case,” I said, “Kevin and I will never be a thing. Sorry.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t mean,” she started to say, but we both knew she totally did mean. She folded her hands around her purse, and I rested my elbow on the back of her chair.
“Thanks for coming,” I whispered into her hair.
She nodded and patted my knee.
When the next band came out, they took several minutes to set up. Kevin tried to amuse and entertain the crowd with a story that started out with a dog, then wandered into strange misunderstandings, and ended with “and that’s why you should always wear a seat belt!” Three people laughed.
I leaned over to Mom’s ear again. “See?”
She saw.
I felt a tiny bit bad that I couldn’t even pretend that Kevin might happen so I threw her a freebie. “Mac is here. Want to see him?”
“Who is Mac?” She said it with her eyes wide open, obviously faking ignorance.
I indulged her. “Just this guy I know. He’s single.” I considered my ability to be nice and mean at the same time as something in which to take pride. “He’s sitting two rows behind us on the other side of Will’s mom. Wait a second before you look.” I would have told her to be subtle, but there were certain things I knew I couldn’t control.
She turned and gave a wave. I sincerely hoped it was to Will’s mom. When she turned back, she took a second to compose herself. In what was, for her, a slightly subtle lean, she said, “Oh, my goodness. He looks like you won him in a raffle.”
“Right?”
She pretended to fan herself. “Wow.”
I felt her start to turn again. Putting my hand on her leg, I shook my head. “Don’t. You can look at him later.”
She leaned close to my hair. “Promise?”
“Gross, Mom.”
She laughed.
Kevin introduced Stan’s banjo number, an original piece entitled “Happily Ever After.” It was a banjo solo, which was a little disappointing since I thought he’d sing. But then he got going, and the man could . . . banjo. There was no actual smoke curling off his fingertips, but wow. He picked? Plucked? Strummed? Whatever he called what he was doing, he did it fast, and it was spectacular. When he finished, everyone cheered.
Half an hour later, Kevin announced the last act, which turned out to be the older guy with the shoulder-length gray hair. He and his band had offered to play out the party, which was apparently musician-speak for “keep singing until everyone left.” This sounded like a nice idea, but what it really meant was that I couldn’t start stacking chairs, because nobody was leaving. The band played six songs, and I sent mental messages for Kevin to get up there and wrap the thing. Mental messages were useless.
I sent an actual, digital text.
I saw him read it, and after the next song, Kevin jumped up and took over the microphone.
“Thank you to everyone who came to play and to listen. What a great turnout.” I looked around, and when you counted all the people who had played, it actually looked like a lot of people had come. But I knew the truth. We had sold very, very few tickets. The truth was that most of the people in the room had paid some fraction of the fifty-dollar playing fee. They’d paid to play not so much to an audience as to each other. I tried not to look defeated.
Kevin mentioned that the band behind him was planning to keep playing the night away, but that the organizers had promised the senior citizens that we’d be cleaned up and out by nine. People laughed, Kevin sat down, and the old guys started up another song.
A few people stood up and moved toward the door. I swooped in behind them and stacked up their chairs. My mom followed me. The view of the room was more comprehensive from the back corner, and she was much more likely to find interesting single men for me to date from that vantage point. Some people stood around in clumps, talking, quite a few danced, and a couple of people stayed in their chairs to watch the gray-haired rock stars.
Julie walked over. Sort of. More like she danced over, in a slightly subtle way. There might have been some snapping. She said hello to my mom and told her how wonderful I was. I tried to believe it. As soon as my mom stepped away, I leaned close to Julie so I wouldn’t have to yell.
“I’m sorry my fund-raiser was a total fail.”
She laughed. “Greta, look at these people.” She motioned toward the room, taking in all the laughing, dancing people with her gesture. “They’re having a great time.”
“Well, of course they’re having fun. Almost none of them paid money for a ticket to be here.” I knew my voice was sliding into the zone where only dogs could hear me, but I couldn’t help it. We’d only sold eleven tickets at the door. Eleven. And three of them were to Mac.
We’d sold fourteen in the weeks leading up to the Book Jam. That made twenty-five. Total. Twenty-five tickets. A nice, easy number. But really? That was it?
“There are over a hundred people in this room, and every one of them is making a memory. Because of the library. Because of you. When they look back on this night, they’ll remember playing for each other. Our library will be a huge part of their memory, and it will be positive. I couldn’t be more pleased.” She patted my shoulder, and I tried to keep my eye-roll to myself. I wanted her to be as upset as I was, to be bothered that we didn’t make thousands of dollars.
What good was all her talk of making memories when these people would look back at this night as their last connection with an extinct building?
“You’re still fretting.” Julie got close to my face and gave me a big grin. “Fret not.”
I nodded and tried to find my happy. Walking over to Will and Mac, I smiled. “Thanks for coming to our little party,” I said.
Will’s mom, who looked like a condensed version of Will but with fluffier hair, grinned and said the concert was great. “Do you want to come out for a treat with us?” she asked. “I’ve convinced Will to take his old mom for ice cream.”
Mac answered for me, which would ordinarily have bugged me but when he said, “Thanks for the offer, but I’d really like to walk Greta home,” everything ordinary shot right out of my mind.
“I have to clean up,” I stammered.
Julie heard me. “No, you don’t. You’re off the clock as of right now. Thank you for a great party.” She handed me my jacket and pushed me toward the door.
Mac walked beside me. “What’s with the T-shirt?” he asked.
“I was thinking that since you’ve got the market cornered on pickup lines, I’d make a trend of outdated concert souvenirs.”
He smiled. “I could get you one like mine.”
“That’s very nice of you,” I said, smiling and hoping we were just flirting and he wasn’t really going to buy me a shirt that said “Your first name sounds great with my last name.”
He wasn’t done. “I could, but then everyone who comes into the library would pick up on you.”
The skin around his knuckles was cracked. Maybe it was an autumn thing. Little sandpaper patches, rough and reddish, surrounded the creases in his hands. I stared at his fingers, his hand, right there holding mine, amazed at how easily it had happened. He’d just reached over and taken my hand, and I’d slid into a joy-induced coma.
How could this tiny thing feel so amazing? I mean, my mom used to hold my hand, but it never, ever made my stomach thump like this.
And it’s not like I’d never held another guy’s hand. I had. Plenty. Starting in preschool, when Jaden Kingsley and I had to buddy up to cross the street, and in third grade, when Gavin Cousins used to chase me in the playground. When he’d catch me, I’d run away screaming, even though he had freckles and spiky hair and wicked dimples and I adored him. When Gavin and I were partnered up for the spring music concert and we danced a Virginia reel, we totally held hands. For like, minutes at a time. And my stomach didn’t react at all. Not at all. Then it was junior high and Taylor Greer and Franklin P. Stratford and Chaz Reese, though all such hand-holding could be described as sweaty.
And Will. Always Will.
It was different now, is what I’m telling you.
Mac walked slowly, as though nothing was more important than spending time with me. He kept my hand in his, and I watched him walking. He looked nervous. He kept glancing around. Like he was watching for something, waiting for a sign maybe.
I squeezed his fingers. “Talk to me.”
He might have looked a tiny bit panicked. “About what?”
I looked up. “Stars.”
“You want me to talk about stars?”
“Sure. Talk like you text.” I nudged him with my elbow. “You’ve sent me some really excellent texts. You have a poet in you.”
He visibly gulped. “You want poetry.”
I leaned my side against his side. “I always want poetry.”
We walked in quiet for a while, and then the silence became weird silence. Strained silence. Too-silent silence. Pretty soon I realized we were walking faster than before. A whole lot faster. Almost jogging.
He cleared his throat a couple of times.
I waited for my poetry, but also I gasped for oxygen.
“Stars are shiny. Like your hair.” The words burst out, loud and fast and so, so odd.
I couldn’t. At all.
No response was right. Believe me, I went through every possible one in my head. None was right or even approaching right. And so I didn’t respond.
I told myself it could be worse. He could have said, “Shiny like your forehead.” I sneaked a look at his face to see if he was kidding. He looked like he’d been busted doing something Very Bad. (In fairness, it was Very Badly Attempted Poetry, so there was that.)
I was still gripping his hand when we reached my apartment, but our arms were stiff and there was nothing sweet or comfortable about any of it. I realized I hadn’t said anything to him since I begged him to compose love-words to me on the spot.
“Thanks,” I said. “For coming tonight. And for walking me home.”
When he faced me, no sign of discomfort remained. He did the smolder, put both hands around my waist, smiled into my face, and kissed me.
That was where it got weird.
Weirder.
During that kiss, which was not quick, I had time to notice three things: First, Mac was an excellent kisser (which I already knew) and his confidence only added to the goodness of the experience. Second, although there was a difference between being a bad poet and a bad speaker, it was possible that—tonight—Mac was both. And third, he didn’t find it necessary to say anything about the whole mess. Not that I required an apology or whatever, but I’d asked for something in the poetry department and I’d gotten “Stars shine like your hair.” Which, obviously, was exactly nothing in the poetry department. And, as a corollary to the third thing, I didn’t actually ask much of him. Until tonight. Maybe requesting a face-to-face deeply poetic conversation about stars was pushing the boundaries of our relationship too far.
The second thing and the third thing and especially the corollary to the third thing disappeared behind the first thing.
After a few more minutes, I pulled away, smiled at Mac, thanked him again, and let myself inside.
Chapter 16
By morning, I’d gotten over my momentary crisis. So he didn’t always talk like he texted. Sometimes he did. I shook off thoughts of the times when his words were, well, weird and focused on the times when he was confident. Rehearsed, maybe. Big deal. Obviously he was a poet who was into revision. Who didn’t like people to see his rough drafts. That was hardly a reason to stop making out with him.
I sent him a text after I finished my workout.
He didn’t answer for a while. But when he did, it was worth it.
I . . . He . . . What . . .
I was a puddle. Completely melted.
I lounged on the couch and read his messages over and over. I didn’t think about them because thinking was work. I willingly accepted his pretty, pretty words.
A text arrived from Will.
Gross? Clever? Grossly clever? No matter.
I wasn’t sure if it actually was no big deal. But I was getting there.
Well, that was not an answer.
Always.
As soon as I typed the words, I realized that was exactly what I wanted. I wanted to make the world more just and more awesome. It was unfair to think that the Franklin of next year might have to live without our library. And I wanted to be the one to rectify that injustice.
And Will understood.
As soon as I sent the text, I realized what I’d said: I can have Mac, but you can’t have anyone. You know that moment when you’re working really hard to un-press send, and it’s never, ever worked before, but you’re sure that this time—this one time when you really need it to—it will work? Yeah. That.
I saw the sent message. I saw the words “never” and “girlfriend” in close proximity. I couldn’t pretend it was autocorrected. I couldn’t think of anything I might have meant that would translate to that. I couldn’t imagine he’d read it any other way. Obviously, I worried that I’d hurt him with a thoughtless comment like that. He’d never, ever say anything about feeling hurt, and he’d never been a pouter, but he had to be a little jealous that I had Mac and he had . . . nobody. He must think about it. Everyone thought about it. And it must be painfully obvious that he wasn’t reeling in the ladies here in Franklin—and why. He owned a mirror. He knew.
What could I do? How could I fix it?
I called Mac.
“Hey, Greta.” His voice slid through my phone like some slide-y and gorgeous thing.
“Hi. I need— I can’t— What are you doing?”
“Working in, um”—I heard him shift his phone—“forty-seven minutes.”
“Help me. I did something mean but it was an accident and I regret it.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, if it was an accident . . .”
I waited for more. There was no more. “There was still meanness. And, I imagine, hurting.”
He didn’t say anything.
For a long time.
Many seconds together.
I breathed in and out into the silence and remembered that Mac didn’t like to be rushed into saying things. I changed angles.
“What kind of damage could you do to a vat of French fries in forty-seven minutes?”
He laughed. “Lots. I’ll meet you at Happy’s in ten. I’ll be the one watching the door. Every second. To see if you’re there yet.”
I tried to keep my sigh quie
t. “You’re saving my life.”
“While eating fries. My specialty.”
“Mac?” My voice caught somewhere between throat and teeth, jagged and rough.
“Hm?”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
I put on shoes and a sweater and walked toward Happy’s. On the way I replayed my walk with Mac from last night. With Mac’s perfection out of my direct line of sight, the whole silent speed-walking bugged me again. Why wouldn’t he talk to me?
Then I reread the text conversation I’d had with Will. Oh, Will. I wanted to say “SorrySorrySorry” until he forgot that I ever said anything. Will was amazing and wonderful and funny and brilliant and practically perfect in almost every way.
And now I was hoping to sit down with Mac and talk over how to apologize to Will for the stupid and insensitive comment I made? Really? What did I think Mac could do to help? I could never tell Mac about the conversation I’d been having with Will, because he didn’t understand my need to fix the library. And he didn’t ever need to know what I’d said about the girlfriend thing, and there was no way to tell him part of it without telling him too much of it.
By the time I got to Happy’s, I’d reverted to a state of near-total regret. For everything. There was no way I was going to bring up this Will thing to Mac. He wouldn’t know how to fix it. He wouldn’t even understand what needed to be fixed. And I couldn’t explain it all and then demand quick and thoughtful solutions in the few minutes we had to talk it over.
No.
I stood outside the door and watched Mac as he ate fries at the table across from the fake tree by the door and played on his phone. He made a stack of the really crunchy fries, saving them for me because I’d told him once I loved the crunchy ones. He glanced toward the door once in a while but didn’t see me. I stood in a shady spot, away from the sun. Like I planned. His shirt said, “You look exactly like my next girlfriend.”
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