Holly and Her Naughty eReader

by Julianne Spencer

  That’s Holly for you.

  Derek said those very words when our mutual friend was over at my apartment.

  “Yep, some basketball players, a library, and a unicorn. That’s Holly for you.”

  At the time I convinced myself he was admiring me for my varied interests. Now I’m pretty sure he was making fun of me. I’m pretty sure he was implying that I needed to grow up.

  Lebron got the best of the Nuggets on this night, and the Heat won 92-87. I turned off the TV and tried to go to sleep.

  No luck.

  I turned the TV back on and flipped to an episode of Law & Order. But it was so flat, so….two dimensional, that it made me frustrated and I turned it off again.

  I tried reading the Bible that was in the hotel nightstand, thinking some old story of Jabe who begat Jedediah who begat Obi-Wan or whatever would make me drowsy. It didn’t. The words on the page were a constant reminder of what I was missing. My brain sat there in waiting, wondering when the magic would kick in and I would become one of the begattees.

  At midnight I grabbed the phone and started dialing Vivian’s number. But I didn’t finish. I knew what she would say, and my own difficulty was just more evidence that she was right. I was an addict. I was going through withdrawal.

  I brought up a fan fiction web site on my phone and read some Twilight fanfic. It was totally inadequate now. How could I read about Bella and Edward when I had been Bella and Edward?

  At one in the morning I dialed Vivian again and this time I let the call go all the way through.

  “Hi, you’ve reached Vivian--”

  Argh! Her phone was off!

  “I’ll just have to go over there,” I said. “I’ll just have to go see her and take back what’s mine.”

  I was out of bed and putting my shoes on when I realized how pathetic this was. I couldn’t even make it through one night without the Kindle? What would happen when I did get it? Was I going to stay in this hotel room for the rest of my life, lying in bed and reading it? What about when summer was over and I had to go back to work?

  If I couldn’t make it through one night, I was in trouble.

  I turned off the lights, got back in bed, and forced myself to go to sleep. It wasn’t all that restful a sleep, but I did it, and when the alarm on my phone woke me the next morning, I felt like I had accomplished something. I was strong enough to resist the siren song of my Kindle, at least for one night.

  Now off to Vivian’s to go get it.

  I rang the doorbell at seven-thirty. Max answered.

  “Oh….um….is Vivian here?”

  Max put a big smile on his face and looked right at me. It was kind of weird.

  “Come inside,” he said.

  Something about him--maybe it was his body language—made me feel completely at ease. He moved and spoke with a confidence that made me think our own awkward history wasn’t on his mind in the slightest. It was like he was saying, I’ve forgotten all about what happened and you should too.

  And my mind had its own involuntary response. Yeah, I should just forget about it too.

  I stepped into the house. As Max closed the door behind me, he also put his hand on the small of my back, guiding me further inside. There was an energy to his touch.

  This was a completely different Max than I remembered from high school.

  “What are you up to these days?” I asked him.

  “Come to the den,” he said. “I’ll get you a drink and we’ll talk.”

  The house smelled of the smoke from Vivian’s herbs, reminding me that the strange events since the reunion were not some hallucination. At least, not the part where Vivian and I got drunk and stoned and I slept on her couch.

  Max entered the den carrying two beautifully made Bloody Mary Martinis complete with little stalks of celery.

  “Oh, Max, I don’t know. I don’t usually drink this early in the--”

  “Stop,” he commanded. “You’re on vacation. This will make it a fun day.” He handed me the glass and said, “Start with a little sip.”

  Something about the way he said it to me. He spoke with such force. He was bossing me around, but it wasn’t rude or offensive. He had real authority.

  I took a sip.

  “That’s really, really good,” I said.

  “I felt inspired,” said Max. “It is so, so good to see you again, Holly.”

  Okay, this is a little weird, I thought. Was Max hitting on me?

  “Where’s Vivian?” I asked.

  Max sighed and set his drink down.

  “She left,” he said.

  “She’s already left? How many hours a day does that woman work?”

  “Too many,” Max said. “Perhaps that was the problem.”

  He took another sip on his drink. He was so relaxed about things. It was good—he was setting me at ease, because Lord knew, I was on the verge of panic at hearing that Vivian was already gone.

  “Stay here and have more of your drink,” Max said. “I’ll be right back.”

  “You’ll be…where are you going?”

  “Just to the kitchen,” he said, already on his way out.

  I shook my head in frustration. I couldn’t believe Vivian didn’t even call me before she left. We had discussed this! She got the Kindle for the night; I got it back in the morning.

  No doubt she took it with her to work. No doubt she was going to read it all day, and tell me I needed more time away from it still. Ooo…I could just hear her voice and it made me mad.

  One day isn’t enough to prove anything, Vivian said in my mind. Look at you Holly. You made it through the night, but just barely. You came running to my house in the morning and wanted the Kindle back right away and freaked out when I wasn’t there.

  “Shut up, Vivian. It’s my Kindle,” I muttered under my breath.

  Max returned with a piece of paper in his hands.

  “She left this note,” he said.

  “Note? You mean Vivian? Why would she--”

  Max handed the paper to me before I could finish the sentence. Dear Max, it began.

  “Oh no. She ran away with the Kindle,” I said, more to myself than to Max.

  “The Kindle?” Max said.

  I ignored him and continued reading.

  I’ve decided I need some space. I need to get away from my life for a time. I’ll be gone for a couple weeks. You’re welcome to stay in the house or go your own way if you’d like. I’ve enjoyed our time together, but it’s time for both of us to move on.

  Vivian

  “Max, you should know, this isn’t about you,” I said.

  He smiled. His teeth were good but not perfect. There was an incisor on the lower row that was tilted just a smidge to one direction. Oh how I fawned over that crooked incisor in high school.

  “I’m not concerned about me,” he said, taking another drink.

  He seemed so relaxed, not at all upset that his girlfriend had broken up with him and disappeared in the night.

  Maybe he was too relaxed. Maybe this idea of Bloody Marys in the morning with a guest, acting all cool—maybe this was his way of coping. The poor dear. First his wife leaves him, taking their two children away and leaving him broke after child support, alimony, and legal fees, then his girlfriend disappears in the night. No wonder he was behaving so strangely. He was in denial.

  “Vivian isn’t well, Max.”

  “Yes, I gathered as much from her note.”

  “I know it seems like it came on suddenly, and it did, but I spoke with her last night, and…”

  I couldn’t finish my sentence I was so angry. That bitch stole my Kindle! I took a big swig of my Bloody Mary. All this talk about protecting me from my own addiction. I should have seen this coming. I got so wrapped up in the idea that I had a problem I never considered the problem Vivian would have when she went home with my precious. She was just as hooked as I was, and had run away with it so she wouldn’t have to give it back to me.

  “And what?”
Max said. “You spoke to Vivian last night and what?”

  “And she’s…not well.”

  “Yes, you’ve said that part already.”

  “I mean not well in the head. I should have done more. I’m sorry, Max. I should have known she would pull something like this. She’s sick. We have to go find her.”

  “Interesting,” Max said.

  He took another sip on his drink. He was acting so suave—he might have been James Bond at a casino sipping on a dry martini.

  Maybe cool was what I needed right now. I was in such a panic about my Kindle I wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe Max could help me.

  “Max, we should leave today,” I said. “We should go together. You and Vivian can’t end like this.”

  “Me and Vivian?” Max said.

  “Yes, Max. You and Vivian. Did you know…just the other night she was speaking about a future where you and she got married and had children.”

  Max took another drink. “Was she now?”

  “We’ve got to find her,” I said. “I’m worried about her.”

  Or rather, I’m worried about my Kindle. I’m worried about Christoph. I want so badly to be together with him again. And I’m insane with jealous rage that Vivian has taken my place.

  “She said she wants to be alone,” Max said. “We should give her the space she needs to sort out whatever troubles her.”

  “No, Max, she needs help,” I said. “There are things….things that happened the other night. After the reunion.”

  “Oh? What sort of things?”

  I imagined myself telling him a story about a ceremony to summon a Dream Spirit resulting in a magic Kindle. Without the Kindle here to show him, there was no way I would come across as a sane person.

  “It’s hard to explain,” I said.

  “Because I’m a man,” Max added, thankfully giving me an out.

  “Precisely,” I said. “This is girl stuff. And it’s pretty heavy. We need to find Vivian. I’m worried about her. Is there anyone she would contact to tell where she was going? Is there a credit card she would have used to buy plane tickets or something?”

  Max finished his cocktail with a long, slow drink, and gently set it down on the coffee table.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll take a look around this place and see if she left any clues behind.”

  “I can help you,” I said.

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ll call you the minute I’ve found something. Let’s exchange phone numbers.”

  I wanted to protest more. I wanted to dig through every inch of this house, call every person Vivian knew and hunt her down like a dog.

  But that was how a crazy person behaved. I knew that now. This morning I was on the other side. I was the one who lived in reality and was looking on as the naughty eReader stole someone away with its promise of adventure, excitement, and piping hot sex.

  Not that I wanted to remain out here in the real world. I was itching to find Vivian, yank the Kindle out of her hands, and leave her in my dust while Christoph and I rode a sex sling into the sunset.

  “Okay, yes, let’s trade numbers,” I said.

  We had our phones out and were sharing digits and the words just slipped from my mouth.

  “You remember when we did this at Clarissa’s graduation party?”

  Max looked up from his phone and right at me.

  Oh shit, I thought. Now I’ve gone and done it.

  “Sorry,” I said with a giggle. Then, in a sing-song voice, I said, “Elephant in the room!”

  Max looked at me even more intently. I felt like I wanted to shrivel into my shoes.

  “We have quite the history, don’t we Holly?” he said.

  I let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah we do.”

  “Well, allow me to apologize now for all the many ways I’ve wronged you in the past,” Max said. “You’ll have to forgive me. I was a stupid child back then. I’ve changed.”

  The way he looked at me while he talked—part of me wanted to run away, but another part wanted to jump into his arms and kiss him on the lips.

  “I’ve changed too,” I said.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I find something.”

  “Oh…yes,” I said, shaking off my daydream. “Call me soon.”

  Max walked me to the door and reached across my body to open it. As he did, his arm brushed against my shoulders, ever so briefly.

  I remembered being a high school senior, crushing hard on this guy.

  “Speak with you soon, Holly.”

  “Bye, Max.”

  Chapter 14

  Two hours passed from the time I left Max on Vivian’s front porch to the time he called me with news. During those two hours, I performed a manic, confused search on the Internet for information about Vivian. I learned all that Google had to tell me about her, mostly stuff from her days in law school. She edited the law review. She participated in mock trials. She did pro bono work for various charities. There was nothing to find about her personal life. No clues as to where she might have run away with my Kindle.

  I was researching various private investigators in the Albuquerque area when Max called.

  “I’m looking at her credit card statement online,” Max said. “She had the user name and password written on a post-it note in the drawer of her computer desk.”

  “What? Where is she?”

  “Last night she reserved a room at the Holiday Inn and Suites in Durango.”

  “Durango?” I said, acting surprised even as my mind told me it made total sense. Durango, a quaint little mountain town in Southern Colorado, was half a day’s drive from Albuquerque. If Vivian left in the early morning, she’d be there by midday. She could hole up in a hotel room with the Kindle for the rest of the day.

  Or the rest of the week. Or the rest of her life.

  “I’ve got the phone number of the hotel if you’d like to call them,” Max said.

  “No need,” I said. “I’ll go up there. I’ll leave right now and find her. Thank you Max. You’ve been so helpful.”

  “Holly, you can’t drive up there alone,” Max said.

  “I’ll be fine. I know where I’m going.”

  “You looked very tired when I saw you this morning. A long drive is a dangerous thing to do when you haven’t slept.”

  “I can do it,” I said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  But as I spoke the words, I wondered. It was true that my body was off-kilter after my two-day bender with the Kindle. I was full of energy at the moment—the thought of finding Vivian in a hotel room and stealing back my Kindle had woken me up—but how long would the energy last? How would I feel after a couple hours on the road by myself?

  “I will take you,” Max said. He said the words not as a suggestion or an offer, but as a command. He had no way of knowing it, but that was exactly what I needed to hear. I longed for my sweet, precious Christoph, for the strength of his voice, for the clarity my life took on when he told me what to do, and Max’s little bit of bossiness was a welcome sound to my ears.

  And it was a good idea. I needed to take this seriously. Vivian wanted that Kindle as badly as I did. I needed to get some rest before I took it from her. With Max driving, I could sleep on the way, and have the advantage over Vivian when we had our inevitable confrontation.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I will pick you up at your hotel in thirty minutes,” Max said. “Then we’ll be on our way.”

  *****

  Max was right on time, pulling up to the front of the hotel in a Ford Explorer. As I approached, he ran around to the passenger side and opened the door for me.

  “Thank you Max,” I said. It would be the first of many times I thanked him.

  There was a fast food bag waiting for me next to my seat. The scents that came from that bag were heavy with nostalgia for good days gone by.

  “Oh my God, did you buy me Taco Bell?”

  “You do like this, don’t you?”

  “Are
you kidding? This is my guilty pleasure food!”

  I looked inside the bag. A taco, nachos, and a Diet Coke. It was like he knew my order.

  “How’d you know to get this, Max?”

  “It seemed right,” he said with a smile. “Enjoy. Do you need anything else before we leave?”

  “No, I’m good, thanks.”

  We were looking in each other’s eyes for a second, and I swear it seemed like….

  Nah. I needed to get that thought out of my mind and fast. Max Brody was my high school crush who broke my heart. Nothing more. Nothing less. His apology this morning was a good one and I was ready to forget about my grudge with him, but I was not ready to rekindle old interests, and neither was he. Lest I forgot, while I was on this trip on the lookout for a Kindle, he was here because his girlfriend had dumped him with a goodbye note.

  But it was funny that he bought me Taco Bell.

  Taco Bell. Oh Max, if you only knew.

  There were three Taco Bells and a hundred other fast food joints close to the campus of Highland High School in Albuquerque’s southeast heights, but it was the Taco Bell at the intersection of Gibson and San Mateo Boulevard where the girls and I hung our hats. This was a place where we knew we could be free from eavesdropping ears and sightings that might lead to gossip later. It was just far enough away that nobody else went there, and just close enough that we could make it back in time for fifth period. The words “Taco Bell” became a secret code between me, Michelle, and our gang. If you received a “Taco Bell” message by text or handwritten note (my high school years were right at the beginning of the texting revolution), that meant you had to drop whatever else you were doing for lunch and gather with the gang, usually because someone was having boy trouble or some other existential crisis.

  I was mostly there to listen. The only time I ever called a Taco Bell meeting was the last semester of senior year, after a surprisingly eventful astronomy lab.

  It was an outdoor lab that started at seven-thirty on a Wednesday night. We met at the football field. Mr. Guiliani passed out star charts, telling us that we each had one portion of the sky represented on our chart. Our job was to look in the heavens, find our piece of the sky up there, and then answer some written questions on the backs of our papers. We worked in groups of two.