INSTEAD OF WALLOWING in self-pity like I’ve been doing most evenings this week after work, last night I decided to distract myself by reading On the Road. It was so good I stayed up until three a.m., until my eyes wouldn’t stay open anymore. I’m just finishing the final few pages when Madison comes barging into the library on Friday morning.
“Where in the world have you been?” she demands.
I lower the book. Look up at her. “Right here,” I say calmly.
“Oh, don’t give me that. You know what I mean. You haven’t answered a single call and you even had Roger lie to me. I know you were here that day.”
I lean back and sigh. I knew this confrontation was coming—I’m actually surprised it took this long. “Where have you been?” I ask, turning the question on her. “That was what—two weeks ago?”
“The kids have been sick.”
I instantly feel bad. “Oh god,” I say. “Are they OK?”
“Yes, just puking all over me and themselves.” She pulls a face. “Hannah got it first, but with kids it’s like dominoes and it’s one after another.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Not as sorry as I am,” she says, and the way she’s looking at me, I know she’s no longer talking about her kids. “Donovan told me what he said to you. The jerk.”
“Is it true?” I ask, holding on to the sliver of hope that he was lying.
“Yeah,” she says, looking down.
“Why’d you do it?” I ask.
“Jealousy.”
“Of me?” I cackle. “You had everything in high school. I just don’t understand how that’s possible.”
“I don’t know,” she says. “You were so pretty and you had this whole air of mystery about you. And Donovan . . . whatever, it doesn’t matter now. It was stupid. I was stupid.”
“I wish you had told me. Wish I didn’t have to find out from him.”
“I know,” she says. “I should have.”
“So was any of it real? Your friendship? Or was it just out of guilt—some pity project for you.”
“No! Jube, I . . . I mean, I guess it started out that way—”
I cut her off. It’s what I thought, but it stings to have it confirmed. “And god, Louise? I mean, she got fired. She’s worked her whole life here. What were you thinking?”
She looks down, chagrined. “I know, I know,” says Madison. “I feel terrible. I’ll think of something, I swear.” Her eyes meet mine again. “But you have to understand—”
“I think I understand perfectly,” I say. “And I think we’re done here.”
“Jubilee!” She doesn’t make any motion to leave, so I abruptly get up from my chair and go into the back room, because it’s the only place I can think to go. She doesn’t follow.
My head is ringing with anger, and it makes my nose tingle and floods my eyes until it overflows, rolling down my cheeks in the form of water. I feel so stupid. About Madison. About Eric and Aja’s leaving. About everything. It’s like I was living in some fantasy high school land where the most popular girl wanted to be my friend and I could fall in love and have a boyfriend like a normal person.
“Grow up,” I mutter to myself, embarrassed by my naivety. God, things were so much easier when I was alone. But luckily, except for this job, I guess I’m back to where I started. Alone. And that’s just fine with me. Safer, even, considering. I straighten my back, wipe my face, and take a deep breath. Then I go back out to the circulation desk.
Madison is gone.
LATER, I’M RESTOCKING the biography shelves when I notice Michael, the pillow golfer, standing at the printer, muttering to himself. It’s weird to see him anywhere but at his carrel staring at that ridiculous green screen and teeing off or whatever he does in that video game.
I move a little closer to investigate. “Damn it!” he says under his breath, then lightly taps the top of the machine with his fist. I jump, startled. He looks up.
“Oh, sorry,” he says, looking a little like a schoolboy who’s been caught writing on his desk. If I wasn’t so miserable, it would be kind of endearing.
“Can I help?”
His eyes go wide, as if it didn’t occur to him to ask for assistance. “Yeah,” he says. “If you can—I’ve been trying to print this thing for thirty minutes and the paper keeps getting stuck. I’ve wasted, like, four dollars in quarters already. I thought I got it out but now it’s telling me it’s still jammed or something.”
“It’s finicky,” I say, remembering Louise telling me the trick on my first day. I reach down and pull a drawer out of the bottom of the printer where we store the paper. He’s right next to the paper tray so I look up at him. “Can you stand back a little?”
He takes a step back.
“A little more?”
He moves two more steps.
“Thanks,” I say, and then fill the tray to the top with paper. I turn to him. “It has to be at least halfway full of paper or it won’t work properly. Just one of those things.”
“Ah,” he says. “Gotta love technology. You should put a sign up or something.”
“We have. A few times. People rip it, write on it. One time someone even stole it. So we just stopped trying.”
“Wow,” he says. “That’s kind of crazy.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Well, listen, I’ll go get the key from the desk and get your money back for you.”
“No, it’s fine,” he says. “The money doesn’t matter, I just want to get this printed.”
“What is it?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me. “Something to do with your video game?”
He looks down, embarrassed. “No, uh . . . nothing like that. It’s just a . . . business plan.”
“Really?” I say, surprised that he has any ambitions outside of the video game. “What kind of business?”
“You know that old golf course just outside of town? The run-down one?”
“Yeah,” I say. I remember passing it in the dead of night on the way to New Hampshire. With Eric. I swallow and push him out of my mind.
“I want to buy it. Bring it back. It’s a great location,” he says, looking at me now. His eyes are shining.
“Huh,” I say. “Good for you. Well, I’ll go get the key now.”
I return a few minutes later and he’s standing at his carrel straightening a stack of paper—his business plan, I presume. I unlock the coin box at the printer and retrieve $4 worth of quarters for him, putting them in a plastic cup I picked up from the desk.
I set it down next to his computer carrel. “Here you go,” I say.
“Thanks,” he says, sitting back down and turning his attention back to his game.
I stand there for a minute, until I’m overcome by my nosiness. “Hey, why do you come in here every day? Just to play this game?” I’m embarrassed as soon as it’s out of my mouth, not realizing how rude it was going to sound. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“No, it’s OK,” he says, but then he just stares at the screen and doesn’t respond. After twenty or thirty long seconds, I’m about to walk off when he finally speaks.
“My parents died. Last year. My mom from breast cancer. And then my dad a few months later. Freak accident.”
“Car wreck?”
“No, he fell off the ladder while trying to clean the gutters.” He chuckles softly. “Mom was always telling him to hire someone.”