“You’re the one who Parent-Trapped me with him,” I point out, pulling the spatula from Libby’s hand and ushering her toward a chair. “It never would’ve happened if you hadn’t ditched me.”
“Look, Nora, sometimes even mommies need alone time,” she says slowly. “Anyway, I thought you hated that guy.”
“I don’t hate him,” I say. “We’re just, like, opposing magnets, or something.”
“Opposing magnets are the ones that draw together.”
“Okay, then we’re magnets with the same polarity.”
“Two magnets with the same polarity would never make out against a door.”
“Unlike other magnets, which would definitely do that.” I carry over our loaded plates, flopping into the chair across from her. It’s already hellishly hot. We’ve got the windows open and the fans on, but it’s as misty as a low-rent sauna.
“It was a moment of weakness.” The memory of Charlie’s hands on my waist, his chest flattening me into the door, sears through me.
Libby arches an eyebrow. With her blunt pink bob, she’s closer to mastering my own Evil Eye, but her cheeks are still, ultimately, too soft to get the job done. “Lest you forget, Sissy, that type of man has not worked out for you in the past.”
Personally, I wouldn’t lump Charlie in with my exes. For one thing, none of them ever tried to ravage me outside. Also, they never lurched out of a kiss like I’d shoved a hot fire poker down their pants.
“I’m proud of you for going off book—I just wouldn’t have chosen a hard-core groping by Count von Lastra as The Move.”
I drop my face into my forearm, newly mortified. “This is all Nadine Winters’s fault.”
Libby’s brow pinches. “Who?”
“Oh, that’s right.” I lift my head. “In your desperation to see me barefoot and pregnant, you ran out before I could tell you.” I unlock my phone and open the email from Dusty, sliding it into Libby’s field of vision. She hunches as she reads, and I shovel food into my mouth as fast as I can so I can get my workday started.
Libby’s not a startlingly fast reader. She absorbs books like they’re bubble baths, whereas my job has forced me to treat them more like hot-and-fast showers.
Her mouth shrinks, tightening into a knot as she reads, until finally, she bursts into laughter. “Oh my god!” she cries. “It’s Nora Stephens fan fiction!”
“Can it really be called fan fiction if the author clearly isn’t a fan?” I say.
“Has she sent you more? Does it get smutty? Lots of fan fiction gets smutty.”
“Again,” I say, “not fan fiction.”
Libby cackles. “Maybe Dusty’s got a crush.”
“Or maybe she’s hiring a hit man as we speak.”
“I hope it gets smutty,” she says.
“Libby, if you had your way, every book would end with an earth-shattering orgasm.”
“Hey, why wait until the end?” she says. “Oh, right, because that’s where you start reading.” She pretends to dry heave at the thought.
I stand to rinse my plate. “Well, it’s been fun, but I’m off to track down Wi-Fi that doesn’t make me want to put my head through a wall.”
“I’ll meet you later,” she says. “First, I’m going to spend a few hours walking around naked, shouting cuss words. Then I’ll probably call home—want me to tell Brendan you say hi?”
“Who?”
Libby flips me off. I loudly kiss the side of her head on my way to the door with my laptop bag. “Don’t go anywhere from Once in a Lifetime without me!” she screams.
I cut myself off before Not sure those places even exist can spew out of me. For the first time in months, we feel like the us of a different time—fully connected, fully present—and the last thing I want is some uncontrollable variable messing things up. “Promise,” I say.
10
AFTER PAYING FOR my iced Americano at Mug + Shot, I ask the chipper barista with the septum piercing for the Wi-Fi password.
“Oh!” She gestures to a wooden sign behind her reading, Let’s unplug! “No Wi-Fi here. Sorry.”
“Wait,” I say, “really?”
She beams. “Yep.”
I glance around. No laptops in sight. Everyone here looks like they came straight from climbing Everest or doing drugs in a Coachella yurt.
“Is there a library or something?” I ask.
She nods. “A few blocks down. No Wi-Fi there yet either—supposed to get it in the fall. For now they’ve got desktops you can use.”
“Is there anywhere in town with Wi-Fi?” I ask.
“The bookstore just got it,” she admits, quietly, like she’s hoping the words don’t trigger a stampede of coffee drinkers who would very much like to be un-unplugged.
I thank her and emerge into the sticky heat, sweat gathering in my armpits and cleavage as I trek toward the bookstore. When I step inside, it feels like I’ve just wandered into a maze, all the breezes, wind chimes, and bird chatter going quiet at once, that warm cedar-and-sunned-paper smell folding around me.
I sip my ice-cold drink and bask in the double-barreled serotonin coursing through me. Is there anything better than iced coffee and a bookstore on a sunny day? I mean, aside from hot coffee and a bookstore on a rainy day.
The shelves are built at wild angles that make me feel like I’m sliding off the edge of the planet. As a kid, I would’ve loved the whimsy of it—a fun house made of books. As an adult, I’m mostly concerned with staying upright.
On the left, a low, rounded doorway is cut into one of the shelves, its frame carved with the words Children’s Books.
I bend to peer through it to a soft blue-green mural, like something out of Madeline, words swirling across it: Discover new worlds! Off the other side of the main room, an average-sized doorway leads to the Used and Rare Book Room.
This main room isn’t exactly brimming with crisp new spines. As far as I can tell, there’s very little method to this store’s organization. New books mixed with old, paperbacks with hardcovers, and fantasy next to nonfiction, a not-so-fine layer of dust laid over most of it.
Once, I bet this place was a town jewel where people shopped for holiday presents and preteens gossiped over Frappuccinos. Now it’s another small-business graveyard.
I follow the labyrinthine shelves deeper into the store, past a doorway to the world’s most depressing “café” (a couple of card tables and some folding chairs), and around a corner, and I freeze for a millisecond, midstep, one foot hovering in the air.