Page 46 of All These Beautiful Strangers

“You’re kind of a mess, aren’t you?” he whispered.

“You’re kind of direct, aren’t you?” I whispered back.

He smiled at me.

“I’m sorry about your foot,” I said. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“It’s okay. I wasn’t really using that foot anyway,” he said with an easy smile. “What were you listening to?”

“A little bit of everything,” I said as I stacked the fallen books in my arms. “Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins.”

“Smashing Pumpkins,” the guy said, nodding in approval. “I saw them the other year at Lollapalooza. You listening to stuff from their last album?”

I nodded.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Grace Fairchild,” I said. “Yours?”

“Teddy,” he answered. “Teddy Calloway.”

And my first thought was of Jake.

The thing was, I recognized Teddy’s last name. Jake had been good friends with a Calloway at his boarding school. He had talked about him all the time and I had seen pictures. I remembered fragments of those photographs: tall, blond, ice-blue eyes, a smug smile. The boy I had seen in the pictures looked like the boy kneeling next to me now, in between the dusty stacks in the library.

“You went to Knollwood Prep,” I said.

Teddy looked surprised. “Yeah, actually, I did. I’m sorry, do we know each other? Did you go there?”

“No,” I said. “A friend of mine used to. Jake Griffin. Did you know him?”

“No,” Teddy said. “But I was only there a few months my freshman year. I spent most of my time at Andover, actually.”

“Oh,” I said.

“But maybe you’re thinking of my older brother, Alistair?” Teddy asked. “He spent all four years there.”

Alistair. Yes, now I remembered. That was his name.

“Oh, yeah, I think you’re right,” I said.

“So, what overpriced prep school did you go to?” he asked.

“Me? None of them. I just went to public school.”

“Lucky,” he said.

I shrugged.

“Do you go to Princeton?” he asked. Princeton was only about twelve miles up the road from Trenton.

“No, I’m just a local,” I said.

His face lit up. “Really?”

“What other perfectly ordinary things about myself can I impress you with?” I asked.

“No, it’s just refreshing, that’s all,” he said. “Here, let me get those for you.”