Page 27 of The Librarians

Hazel might not have recognized Conrad had he not stared at her with those distinctive eyes: amber, downturned, a rim of white showing just above his lower lash lines.

Now she is the one staring, trying to merge the flesh-and-blood man with the impressionistic clutter of her memories. Trying to make sense of the monumental significance of those memories against the awkward silence of two strangers sitting down to coffee.

Coffee, not lunch, because he has a flight to catch and only a quarter hour to spare.

The pure elation that surged through her a minute ago has dissipated, like effervescence fading from a glass of champagne. She realizes she has no idea what to say.

But she took his number, so she must account for her lack of a response all these years. “I’m sorry that I never called or texted.”

“That’s quite all right—I didn’t expect you to.”

His voice is so distractingly lyrical—how did she not remember this?

—that it takes a moment for her to understand that his courteous and understanding answer is also cruel.

He implies that it didn’t matter and he didn’t care.

He implies that she was but a fling on a sailor’s shore leave—less than that, in fact, because they never got around to having sex.

She presses on because of the way he looked at her in the noodle shop. The sheer disbelief on his face, as if he’d buried her himself and here she was, alive, prattling, without the least recollection of said interment.

She couldn’t have been entirely trivial, could she, if her reappearance provoked this outsized reaction?

“Will you give me a chance to explain?” she asks but does not wait for an answer.

“Until I was ten, I grew up in a happy home. My dad was a family doctor and my mom ran his clinic. He adored her. Whenever I butted heads with her—and we did that a lot—he always pulled me aside and told me that she’d sacrificed so much for us.

“I had no idea what he meant until one day, in fifth grade, I came home to find her crying happy tears. That was when I learned that she’d been born into a wealthy family in Singapore.”

His brow raises slightly. “ Crazy Rich Asians ?”

“Close enough. They fell in love when they were in college. Her family objected to her choice and threatened to disown her. She said ‘bite me’ and married him, giving up an enormous inheritance in the process.

“But that day, her parents finally relented and called her. And they told her that not only did they miss her desperately, they also admired her. That she, raised in the lap of luxury, had managed perfectly well without their money. Now would she please come back into the fold, so that they could have her company—and mine—in their old age.”

He slowly peels the wrapper from the cupcake before him, no longer looking at her.

She wishes he would—when they met on Madeira he rarely took his eyes off her.

She presses on. “To me my mom’s story sounded like a fairy tale, the banished princess finally allowed back into the castle.

For my dad, however, it was a cruel twist of fate.

My mom would come into so much money that his income would become utterly irrelevant, and he had always prided himself on being the provider for our family.

He simply could not deal with that existential crisis.

“It marked the beginning of the end of their marriage.

Five months later, my mom took me and moved back to Singapore.

Two months after that, they formally separated.

Another two months after that, he died of a stroke.

His father too had died of a stroke, but in his fifties. My dad was only thirty-eight.

“In the wake of the news, I overheard my mom saying to her own mother that if he was fated to die anyway, why couldn’t he have died a year sooner, so that she would always remember him as a wonderful husband and father, and not as a man who could only be happy with a wife financially dependent on him.

A man who lacked the maturity and confidence to face his much wealthier in-laws, as if all his achievements in life evaporated the moment my mother regained her birthright. ”

His cupcake’s wrapper now lies in a perfect circle. Hazel looks down at her cup of mocha. The barista had drawn a heart with latte foam.

“That was my first lesson in romantic love. That time is its great enemy. That, everything considered, an early end might very well be the kindest possible outcome.” She dips in her spoon.

The foam heart elongates but still holds its shape.

“It was the reason I tore up your number, so that I would never be tempted to get in touch with you.”

“Wow,” he says softly, his tone undecipherable.

She deserves it, this cool unresponsiveness. He still isn’t looking at her but at a point somewhere beyond her—the polka-dotted walls of this cute but unremarkable suburban cupcakery.

“If it’s any consolation, I regretted my decision almost immediately. I was in Miami for a month, checking the marinas every day to see whether a new hundred-foot sailing catamaran had come in. I checked all the marinas in Fort Lauderdale too.”

He takes a sip of his black coffee. “We docked in Charleston, South Carolina, instead. The new guests we were taking on were from Charleston and the guests already onboard decided that they preferred to visit Charleston over Miami.”

Something she would have known had she not torn up his number.

He puts down the coffee cup. It makes a soft thud that nevertheless makes the hair on her forearms stand up. “I guess some things are not meant to be,” he says calmly.

She’d come to that same conclusion years ago, hadn’t she? Then why does she feel so bleak?

It was that stupid surge of warm, buoyant hope. That moment when all the shards of all the dreams, disturbed from their somber vaults, rose and swirled into a perfect, spectacular vision—before falling victim to gravity again to lie quiescent and powerless.

“I bought a jigsaw puzzle for us,” she murmurs, a futile appeal. “I still have it.”

He stands up. “I’m sorry. I really must go now. It was nice to see you.”

She rises to her feet and scrapes together enough pleasantries to see him off. And then she sinks back down. Next to his barely sipped coffee, the cupcake he bought sits naked, untouched. She picks it up and eats the whole damn thing.

“If I never see you again, have a wonderful life,” she says to the man who should have remained a perfect memory.

“Spill the tea!” exhorts Ryan, his voice full of anticipation.

It’s been almost an hour since Jonathan texted him about Conrad running into Hazel at Peng’s Noodles. The wait was dispiriting, but now Jonathan is buzzing because Ryan has bypassed texts and called him directly.

He takes out a carton of eggs from his city-mandated reusable grocery bag and gives what he hopes is a punchy version of events.

“You know what makes this interesting?” Ryan demands gleefully.

“What?” Jonathan obliges.

And belatedly realizes that he’s been walking around the kitchen holding that carton of eggs instead of putting it in the fridge.

“Not that Conrad’s been carrying a great big torch for your colleague all these years, but that he lied about it with the not-dating-Asians crap. Now I’m dying of curiosity.”

It would be nice if Ryan would spare a bit of that curiosity for Jonathan but Jonathan can’t complain. Even he is invested in Hazel and Conrad now.

“But is that all you know?” continues Ryan. “Did she not give you a report on their little one-on-one?”

“No. Them walking off into the sunset was the last I saw of her.”

Not that he expects details from Hazel even otherwise, but Ryan doesn’t need to know that.

“Well, let’s talk to her. Bring her over for dinner.”

“Wh—” Dinner? Jonathan forgets how to breathe. “You mean tonight?”

“Why not? I’ve got some good Bolognese sauce in the freezer. I’ll make some salad and we’ll be set. And if your colleague doesn’t eat meat or gluten, let me know; I’ll order something for her.”

“But wait. Wait.” Somehow Jonathan is still able to think despite his wildly drumming heart. “How do you know the two of them aren’t together right now, being really busy—if you know what I mean?”

“Oh, I know what you mean, and I’m sure they would love to be really busy with each other, but they can’t because he has a flight to catch—and right before I saw your message I texted him and asked if he got to the airport on time and he said yes.”

Now Jonathan’s heart rate is through the roof. If Hazel says yes, then he gets to hang out with Ryan tonight. “Let me get in touch with her and see what she says.”

“Okay. Let me know.”

Ryan hangs up. Jonathan takes several deep breaths. Good Lord, he’s still holding on to the carton of eggs.

Hi Hazel, this is Jonathan. Hope it’s okay to text you privately. My friend Ryan, Conrad’s roommate, would like to invite us to dinner at their house tonight. I hope you’ll be able to come?

It’s only after he sends the text that he finally puts away the eggs and the rest of his groceries, so he won’t just stare at his phone on pins and needles.

But what if things didn’t work out after Hazel and Conrad were reunited? What if seeing each other in person isn’t a dream come true but finally waking up from that dream instead?

He realizes that he’s standing in the middle of the kitchen, biting his thumb, an old pregame nervous tick that he thought he’d banished ages ago.

His phone dings.

Thanks , says Hazel. I’d love to.

Jonathan leaps up, his head nearly hitting the recessed ceiling, relief raging through his body as pure happiness.

In a few more exchanges he gets Hazel’s okay on the menu and arranges to pick her up at seven thirty p.m.

He showers and agonizes over outfits before changing into a chambray shirt and a pair of chinos. Then he goes out and buys a six-pack of highly rated local IPA and a bottle of red wine that his mom likes to drink when she has Italian food.