by Gregory Ashe
“Please?”
“Sure,” Hazard said, “whatever.”
Grinning, Jessica placed the call. While she spoke, Hazard wandered over to the Wahredua Wildcats Wild Readers bulletin board. He didn’t often have the opportunity to indulge himself like this; most days, there were too many people around for him to stand and track his growth. He had been a skinny child and a skinnier teen; a lot of that had been the desperate unhappiness, and much had changed when he’d started eating properly and exercising regularly. Still, Hazard doubted that most people would connect the boy in the pictures to the man he was today. He moved chronologically backwards through the photos, watching himself shrink, watching the ebb of other faces in the group photos; only a handful of kids had done the program every year like Hazard.
And then he stopped. He leaned closer, inspecting the photo from the summer after third grade. He looked at the tousled blond head in the back row.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “He said childhood, not high school.” Then he raised his phone and snapped a picture of John-Henry Somerset at eight years old, proud member of the Wahredua Wildcat Wild Readers. He was standing two kids behind Hazard and one over. Hazard hadn’t even remembered Somers being in the picture, much less part of the club, but the proof was right there in front of him. He sent the picture.
That’s half, was Somers’s reply.
Hazard held up the DVD case and snapped another photo.
Haha, came Somers’s response.
What?
For real, please.
I am for real.
The bubble that showed Somers composing appeared, flicked out, and appeared again. Stop joking around.
I don’t see why I can’t like Thor: Ragnarok.
You don’t like any superhero movies. Or any action movies. Or any good movies. Besides, you’re supposed to be sending me a picture of your crush.
It’s got my big-boy crush: Chris Hemsworth.
More bubbles flickering in and out. Ok, you had your joke. Time’s running out.
I don’t see why I can’t like Chris Hemsworth. I obviously have a thing for blonds. And he’s got bigger arms than you. Maybe he could keep up with me on back and biceps day at the gym.
Nothing. Not even a bubble.
John?
Hazard let his phone time out.
From the circulation desk, Jessica called, “I’ve got the picture.”
“I don’t need it,” Hazard shouted back.
“It would have been nice to know that five minutes ago.”
Unlocking his phone, he typed another message to Somers. Next clue, please?
No.
Fine, it’s your game.
I’m going to eat all these quiches by myself. And these fudge bites. And all the other good things.
Maybe I want a fudge bite.
Chris Hemsworth can get you a fudge bite. And that’s not a sex thing, so don’t make a dumb joke.
Hazard had to bite the inside of his cheek.
Another message from Somers came through before Hazard could reply: And then you can go to the gym together.
This time, Hazard couldn’t help it; he grinned.
Let’s have the next clue, he messaged.
Nope. I gave you all the clues you need. You’re on your own.
Don’t be mad.
I’m not mad.
And then about fifty skull and knife and gun emojis came through.
V
APRIL 24
WEDNESDAY
8:44 AM
SOMERS DIDN’T ANSWER any messages after that. He didn’t answer any calls. Nothing. So Hazard walked over to the circulation desk and slid both DVDs across the counter.
“Check these out.”
“Please,” Jessica said.
“You keep saying that.”
Grinning, Jessica checked out the DVDs and passed them back. “You know, this is actually a job. I have real work to do besides help you and your fiancé play footsie.”
“Fine,” Hazard said. “Now help me figure this out.”
“Please.”
“Sure, whatever.”
Jessica rolled her eyes. “We’re opening in fifteen minutes.”
“Help me figure this out, please, and I’ll help you do whatever you need to do.”
“God, no,” Jessica said. “You’d probably rearrange everything while my back was turned. Do you still have that crazy idea about revising the Dewey Decimal System?”
Hazard thought of the dream and said, “That’s ridiculous. Although, to be fair, everything needs to be updated once in a while. Are you going to help me or not?”
“Yeah, Dewey worked all right for the first hundred years, but now we’ve got a real library genius on our hands. We can finally iron out all the kinks.”
“This is why people don’t like librarians.”
“This is why librarians don’t like people.”
Hazard smiled in spite of himself and held out his phone. “John said he gave me all the clues. But all he did was make me take a stupid picture of a nursing home and then send me here.”
“Did you try googling how scavenger hunts are supposed to work?”
“I know how scavenger hunts work. I’m doing one right now.”
“Fine,” Jessica said with a sigh. “I’ll do it.”
She typed and clicked; Hazard sorted through the pens and threw away all the red and black ones.
“Those are my pens,” Jessica said, still looking at the screen.
“Technically, they’re the library’s pens.”
“They’re perfectly good pens. Get them out of the trash.”
“I’m doing you a favor. Adults write in blue ink, Jessica. Black ink doesn’t contrast with printed text. And red is garish; you’re not running a clown college.”
“I’m going to talk to the board about instituting a policy on lifelong bans.”
“Do you realize your pencils aren’t all sharpened to the same length?”
Jessica grabbed the container of pencils and put it behind her back. “Here,” she said. “A common trope in scavenger hunts is that the clues solve a meta-puzzle. That means—”
“I know what it means; I’m not an imbecile.”
Jessica muttered something.
“What was that?” Hazard asked.
She gave him a saccharine smile.
“So these clues are supposed to go together somehow,” Hazard said, pulling up the pictures. “A nursing home with a sunrise and a sunset, and a library bulletin board.” He grunted. “Do you think Somers is standing by a bulletin board in the nursing home?”
“That seems a tad literal,” Jessica said. “Usually you have to think laterally. Like, maybe the nursing home picture is really about the sunrise. Do you guys go anywhere with the words sunrise or sunset in the name? A hotel? A restaurant? Or do you like drinks with the word sunset in the name, maybe a place with a sunset cocktail?
“Or maybe Somers is joining some kind of geriatric quilting club? That’s the kind of thing that gets posted on bulletin boards.”
Jessica made a noise, but when Hazard looked up, her face was composed. Her eyes were very bright. And her lips were quivering. But otherwise, composed.
“Or not,” Hazard finally said.
“Maybe not.”
“Well, fuck,” Hazard said.
“Laterally,” Jessica said.
“I heard you the first time.”
“Ok,” Jessica said, pushing away from the circulation desk. “I think that’s enough helping for one day.”
“What help? How did you help?”
“Stay away from my pencils.”
“Fine. They can look like the jagged stumps of rotten teeth.”
“It’s always a pleasure, Emery. And now, since you did promise to help me, can you get the newspapers ready?” She gestured to a stack. “I’m going to unlock the doors.”
“Not exactly a fair trade,” Hazard said to Jessica’s back. “Just because you have a stranglehold on public access to informational resources doesn’t mean you can treat the rest of us like second-class citizens.”
Jessica waved her middle finger without looking back.
Hazard grabbed the stack of newspapers and moved over to the rack, stripping the old editions from the newspaper sticks and then sliding today’s copies into place. Hazard approved of libraries in general, and he thought that, for the most part, they provided a much-needed public service while perpetually underfunded. What he didn’t approve of, in this particular case, was freeloading senior citizens who took up valuable library table space to read the Wahredua Courier while a wealth of literature—
“Oh,” Hazard said, dropping the stack of newspapers. “Damn it.”
Then a much younger voice echoed, “Damn it!”
He could hear Jessica’s sigh all the way across the library; he glanced over his shoulder, to where a woman and a small boy stood just inside the doors.
“Richard,” the woman said to the boy. “We do not use that kind of language.” Then she turned on Jessica. “Excuse me. I thought the library was supposed to be a family-friendly institution, and—”
“I didn’t finish the newspapers,” Hazard said as he jogged past.
“Tell John-Henry hi,” Jessica said with a small wave.
VI
APRIL 24
WEDNESDAY
9:12 AM
HAZARD GOT TO WAHREDUA HIGH during passing period. After he’d identified himself via a security camera and been buzzed inside, he found himself carried along like a leaf in a river. He was a big man, but there were just so many goddamn teenagers. And they just kept moving. And talking. And tapping on their phones. And he found himself stumbling to keep up so that he wouldn’t be trampled. A lot had changed since Hazard had first come here as a gawky fourteen-year-old freshman: kids staring at their phones, kids covered in piercings, kids with wireless ear buds. But a lot hadn’t. He remembered this same feeling from all those years before, being carried along by the same current, carried by it but somehow never quite part of it.
The building was a single-story maze, built before land had become valuable, and Hazard followed offshoots and side hallways until he stood outside room 137. The door didn’t look any different. The window set into the door had obviously been replaced, and Hazard wondered about the story behind that. Had a kid thrown a chair through it? Had a teacher lost his cool one day? Or something more mundane, like a safety measure of some kind? The plaque by the door was different too; under the room number was printed the teacher’s name: Dr. Stratford.
Inside, the light was on, but through the window Hazard could only see rows of chairs, each with a tablet arm. He wiped his hands on his new trousers. Sweat popped out across his back. New kids, the few that had come to Wahredua High, had to stand at the front of the room in each class and introduce themselves. Hazard’s hand hovered over the doorknob.
Then the bell rang, and the hall emptied. Hazard opened the door and stepped inside.
Somers was sitting cross-legged on the teacher’s desk with an elaborate brunch spread out beside him: not just the mini quiches and the fudge bites, but a fruit platter, a pitcher of what Hazard guessed was mimosas, and a basket covered with a tea towel. Hazard guessed by the smell that it held biscuits from Big Biscuit.
“Tardy,” Somers said.
“I was in the bathroom,” Hazard said, shutting the door behind him. He leaned against it, studying Somers.
“Talking back? I should send you to the office.”
Hazard looked around the room. Some of the posters on the walls had changed, but—unless Hazard’s memory was worse than he thought—some of them hadn’t. He was positive the IRISH PLAYWRIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY poster had been there since his senior year.
“Senior Lit,” Hazard said.
“Took you long enough to figure it out.”
Hazard began walking up an aisle of chairs.
“I really expected better,” Somers thought, crossing his legs at the ankle and leaning back, his weight supported as he planted his hands behind him on the desk. “I really thought you’d be here while the food was still warm.”
One of the desks was out of line; Hazard straightened it, and then he adjusted the tablet arm, flattening it.
“And then you had to turn into a wiseass,” Somers said, leaning back even farther, the lean lines of his body on display under a thin t-shirt and tight jeans. “I didn’t forget about that, by the way.”
Hazard stopped at the desk. He set his hands on Somers’s knees and spread them, moving into their vee, and then his hands slid up to Somers’s waist.
“Missouri still allows corporal punishment,” Somers said. “I should—”
Hazard grabbed his hair, pulled him forward, and kissed him.
Somers’s pupils were huge when the kiss broke. He ran his tongue over his teeth before saying, “If the school and parents agree, teachers are allowed to paddle—”
Hazard kissed him again.
“In this case,” Somers whispered when he could speak again, “I think you’ve already learned your lesson.”
“Thank you for doing this.” Hazard held up his hand, ticking things off on his fingers. “You chose places that were significant for our relationship. The parking lot where we made out. The library. I had no idea you were in that reading club, but you were definitely my childhood crush. And a class we had together senior year. I’m surprised you were able to get them to let you use a classroom on a school day.”
Somers nodded slowly and then said, “The new principal is a closet romantic, and the teacher is an old friend. Plus I’m very charming. But, more importantly: wrong, wrong, wrong.”
Hazard blinked. “What?”
“I picked places that I wanted to share with you. Things I wanted you to know.” Somers held up one finger. “Before that parking garage and movie theater went in, do you remember what was there?”
“A Safeway?”
“Close. A Food 4 Less. And one time I was in there because Mikey had dared me to steal some booze, and I saw you and Jeff.”
Hazard’s hands loosened, sliding from Somers’s waist to his thighs.
“I didn’t know you were dating, not then, but I watched you talking, watched you laughing with him. I don’t know if I’d ever seen you laugh before. You were always so serious.” Somers touched Hazard’s face with one hand, and then his touch fell away. “I walked back and forth, watching you guys go up and down each aisle. Listening. It was like I was starving. And jealous, although I couldn’t admit it to myself. Do you remember that?”
Shaking his head, Hazard said, “No.”
“I didn’t think so. It didn’t look like something special. But . . . but I wanted it so bad, and I didn’t know how to even put into words what I wanted.”
“John.”
Somers blinked and tilted his head back so that he was staring at the fluorescent tubes overhead. “And the reading club, well, you were partially right. I only did it that one year. And I did it because I was curious about you. I was too young for what I was feeling to be romantic or sexual, I think, but I knew you were different. And then, a little later, I realized different was dangerous. But there was this window when I had a kind of little-kid crush on you, before I was so afraid of being different.”
“Hey,” Hazard said, stroking Somers’s cheek, his chin, his throat. “Look at me, would you?”
But Somers just blinked, still staring up. “And here, you know, Senior Lit. We were in the same class. And it was after . . . after everything that had happened with Jeff. And for almost all of first semester, you looked like you were one step away from killing yourself. I’d never seen anybody hurt so bad. And I knew we’d done that to you.”
“Stop, John.”
“We—”
“No. We’ve talked about this. You weren’t
responsible for what happened to Jeff.”
“I’m just trying to tell you how it felt back then. I’d look at you. Every day I’d look at you, and I wanted to die myself, because of what we’d done. I think that was when things really started to change. I mean, I couldn’t admit it to myself yet. But when I went away to college, I remembered. And I didn’t ever want to be that person again.”
“Fine,” Hazard said, taking Somers’s chin firmly and forcing his head down. Their eyes met; Somers’s were liquid, and when he blinked, tears coursed down his cheeks. “You don’t need to feel guilty about that anymore.”
“I don’t feel guilty. I feel sad about what I lost, acting that way all those years. But I’m crying because I’m happy I’m with you now. And I wanted you to know about those moments. They’re these little slices of time when I loved you, or something like loving you, and I couldn’t tell you, and now I can.”
Hazard kissed him and said, “Thank you.”
“Happy birthday, right?” Somers said, dashing at his eyes. “God, do I know how to be a downer or what? And I made you play that stupid game. Sorry. It won’t happen again.” He grinned. “We are going to have to go back to the library, though. I hid your birthday present there. I thought for sure you’d pick Ken Burns as your big-boy crush.”
“Yeah?” Hazard said, sitting on the desk next to Somers, looping an arm around his waist, and grabbing a quiche.
“Yeah, I was sure you’d pick his Civil War documentary.”
Hazard held up the two DVDs he had checked out from the library.
Somers took the copy of Thor: Ragnarok. “We’re definitely watching this. And I’m going to make you apologize for that comment about my arms. For now, though, open that one.”
Hazard opened the multidisc case for The Civil War. A single piece of paper was stashed inside, and Hazard unfolded it between bites of quiche.
“Why are we going to Washington, D.C.?” he asked as he reached for another of the mini quiches.
“The American Film Institute’s documentary film festival is there this year.”
“We can’t afford that.”
“Zip it.”
“John, we can’t—”