“No pathetic excuse, even? No ‘I have a headache’?”
Nina shrugged. “The other girl beat me to that one, and I was freaking out, remember?”
Polly shook her head. “It’s amazing to me you ever get laid at all.”
“It’s amazing to me, too.”
“When was the last time?”
“We’re not talking about this.”
“We are. I can hear us.”
“No.” Nina walked away toward the stock area to grab some books that needed shelving, or something. Anything.
“Well,” said Polly’s voice from behind her, “if it’s any consolation, you have a great walking away view. Walking away makes your butt look awesome.”
“Good to know,” called Nina. “I’ll make sure I always keep attractive men behind me.” She paused. “You know what I mean.”
“Sadly,” said Polly, “I do.”
At the end of the day, Nina started to set out the beanbags for the elementary book club. She’d been feeling irritable and sad all day, but she knew the generous application of little girls would distract her perfectly.
“All right, young one,” said Liz, pulling on her battered Dodgers baseball hat. “It’s an important game, and I am so out of here I am basically a dot on the horizon.”
Nina frowned at her. “You’re still very much in front of me.”
Liz replied, “And yet my heart is already in the stadium, a hot dog in its hands, ketchup on its chin.”
“Does a heart have a chin?”
“Some have several. I, however, am slender and lissome, so mine only has the one.” And with this utter ridiculousness over, Liz touched the brim of her cap and left the store. Nina stared after her for a moment and shook her head. Honestly, that woman was a lunatic.
“Do you need any help?” Nina looked up to see Annabel, one of her book club ladies, as she called them. Annabel was ten, a serious child, with deeply held beliefs and unwavering suspicions.
“Sure,” said Nina. “Can you grab the extra beanbags from the office?”
Nina had started out using regular chairs, but everyone had been silent and reserved. Beanbags worked much better. Annabel knew where they were kept; this was the first book club she’d joined, but she was one of those kids who was geared toward mastery. She wanted to know how you did it, then she wanted to do it herself.
Logan came in. Logan was also ten, though she went to a different school than Annabel. They looked at each other and Logan smiled first. Annabel smiled back and said hi. Logan followed her back into the office, and they both came back with the final pair of beanbags, not saying anything. Nina was often surprised by how tentative and shy ten-year-olds were. She had been like that herself, but all the other girls had looked so much more confident than she’d felt. They would greet one another enthusiastically, play together at recess, argue passionately, and hug. She had always marveled at them and wondered if maybe her mom had been supposed to apply for some kind of training for her, something she’d forgotten to do because she was so busy. Other people’s moms had clearly equipped them better. Then she would feel guilty for feeling that way and retreat further into her books and TV shows and solitude.
The door flew open and Nora and Una came in, full of chatter and giggles. They were the same age and had known each other since preschool. Just behind them were Asha and Ruby-Fern, another pair of friends. They were all dressed in regulation girl-power ensembles, with fully empowered whimsical touches: rainbows, fake fur, glitter, unicorns, pictures of Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Amelia Earhart, enamel pins of donuts or sloths or foxes. Check, check, check. This age was the last hurrah of individualism; already they dressed like one another, but usually because they saw something and loved it. Icons or fabrics blew like a breeze through every classroom in the land, and parents, happy to get a request they could fulfill with a simple trip to Target, went out and bought every Girls Rule the World T-shirt they could.
Nina wondered how much good it would do once hormones rolled up and kicked the doors down; her own observation of middle school girls was that they dressed alike in order not to be separated from the pack and eviscerated online, which was an entirely different motivation than “OMG, that sloth is so cuuuuuute!” She looked at her watch; it was time to start. She locked the front door—nothing was more distracting to book club than customers wandering about—and went to the office to get the Goldfish crackers and bottled water that constitute the mortar of childhood.
“Who wants to start?” she asked when she returned and sat down on her own beanbag. The book that month was The Mysterious Benedict Society, one of her favorites. Seeing as she got to pick the books they read, this was hardly surprising.
Nora stuck up her hand. Nora was a highly creative little girl, who never hesitated to share her thoughts. As they were usually sharp and insightful, nobody minded, and in this group the kids had clearly decided she was the leader.
“I loved this book, but it made me really frustrated. Why is it always kids who have to solve stuff?”
“Please clarify,” requested Nina.
Nora tipped her head to one side. “Well, in real life kids don’t get to do anything much on their own, right?” She looked around at her peers, all of whom nodded. “Parents drive you places; there are teachers and babysitters and whatever. But in books, little kids are always doing things. In this one, they take weird tests and join a secret society and save the world.”
“They don’t have parents,” said Logan. “Not proper ones. None of the kids in books do.” She counted on her fingers. “They’re usually dead, or evil, or distracted and busy.”
“Junie B. Jones has parents. Ramona Quimby has parents,” Nina said.
“Yes,” replied Logan, “but those kids do regular stuff. I’m talking about when the kids do awesome stuff. Stuff that nine- or ten-year-old kids never really get to do.
“Like fly on a bat and fight rats like Queen Luxa in the Gregor books.”
“Or travel through space like Meg in A Wrinkle in Time.” Annabel clearly agreed with Logan on this one.
“Let’s try and stick to this book.” Nina sometimes let them ramble on about all the books they loved, because she enjoyed that conversation as much as they did, but she was trying to be more grown up about it.
“Sticky has parents, though.” Asha waved her copy of the book. “Right?”
Logan nodded. “He does, but he thinks they don’t want him anymore.”
“Which is worse than not having any,” said Annabel.
“Definitely,” said Ruby-Fern.
“And Kate has a dad, but she doesn’t know it.”
“What about Miss Perumal?” asked Nina. “Isn’t she like a mother to Reynie?”
There was a sudden knocking on the store’s front door, which scared the applesauce out of all of them. One of the girls actually squeaked.
From where they were on the floor, they couldn’t see the door, but Nina stood and saw a man standing outside. The early-evening sun was behind him, so she couldn’t get a good look at his face, but she started over to let him know the store was closed. The parents wouldn’t be here to pick up the kids for nearly another hour, but maybe it was one of them.