Page 9 of The Librarians
Hazel parks her grandmother’s Miata in the garage and immediately picks up her phone.
During the pandemic, when anti-Asian sentiments ran high, Nainai proactively put up a dozen cameras in and around her house. They are connected via Wi-Fi to her home security company’s app. Hazel checks the feed from cameras that overlook the street and does not see any cars drive by.
She isn’t sure she’s being followed, but she also can’t be sure she isn’t. She had the same feeling for a few weeks in Singapore, over the summer, then the microsensations went away and she thought that was the end of it.
Perhaps not.
She gathers her things, heads into the house, and stops for a minute in the formal dining room: On the usually gleamingly empty dining table there is a piece of paper, a flyer for a school trip fundraiser.
Well, Nainai is very charitable by nature.
She crosses the living room and peers into a book-lined space where a thin woman with a sweep of silver hair and a pair of large headphones is ensconced in a Lamborghini of a zero-gravity chair.
The back of the seat rears up like the spine of an alien creature, then expands into a canopy from which suspends an enormous monitor.
Nainai’s hands, cradled in armrests of equally impressive curvature, fly over a pair of ergonomic keyboards.
Hazel wouldn’t dream of distracting Nainai from the blood sport on her monitor. She merely waves and then goes to the front door: While she was at Game Night, Nainai texted to let her know that a big package had arrived for her.
Hazel hefts up the box and carries it to her bedroom upstairs.
She slices open the heavy-duty carton and pulls out a smaller box stuffed with drafts of rules, palm-sized cards cut from double-thick stock, polymer clay miniature books, and three different versions of a game board—one printed, two hand-drawn, and none remotely resembling what she really wants.
Perhaps she didn’t abandon development on this book-themed game only because of unforeseen circumstances in her life. Maybe the game just plain sucks.
Underneath the box that contains the half-finished game is another box. Judging by its weight, inside are the books she borrowed from her mother, a semiserious collector, for inspiration. But inspiration, sorely lacking for months, is no more forthcoming tonight.
She sighs, picks up the whole carton again, staggers a little under its weight, and carries it to the hall closet for storage. She’s about to shut the closet door when she glances up and recognizes a still-sealed package on the very top shelf.
She knows what’s inside: a two-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle of a sailing ship cutting across a cobalt blue sea. An old wistfulness takes hold of her. Reaching up a hand, she touches the edge of the box. A fine powder clings to her fingertips—her hopes, turned to dust.
“Hazel!”
Hazel closes the door on her past and heads downstairs. “Did your team win, Nainai?”
“Yes, but it was an ugly victory,” grumbles Nainai, standing by the newel post.
Hazel doesn’t have to ask what kids these days are doing; she only needs to check what Nainai is into, and then look online to find out that it’s either the hottest trend going or, even better, the next big thing.
“I forgot to put cilantro on the shopping list I gave to you earlier,” says Nainai. “Can you stop at H-E-B again tomorrow?”
Hazel strikes her own forehead. “I can’t believe it. I didn’t go to H-E-B at all. I’ll go now—and I’ll put cilantro on the list.”
She glances at her watch—nine forty, not too late.
“How was Game Night, by the way?” asks Nainai.
“Uneventful,” replies Hazel, pulling on her boots. “Which is all anyone can ever ask for.”
Closeted
I did not say yes because
If I opened my mouth
I would say far more than yes
I would say, don’t stop
I would say, kiss me
I would say, what is your middle name, if you have one
So I did not say anything
I let you touch me, your tongue on my skin
And then, I said, how dare you,
I did not say yes
Jonathan submitted the poem anonymously to his university’s literary magazine when he was nineteen, before the injury that ended his college football career.
Two months ago, after his high school class’s belated and rather disorganized twenty-year reunion, he came back home, dug up a copy of the magazine, and took a picture of that meager confession.
Ever since then, he’s been on the verge of forwarding the image to Ryan.
Jonathan shifts on his living room couch, which is beginning to sag. Chimney, his cat, climbs onto his stomach, studies the glowing screen in his hand, and looks up at him, as if asking, Are you going to do it tonight? Finally?
He doesn’t. Instead he texts Ryan, Tell your roommate I’ve found his perfect woman.
Hazel, of course, has not agreed to meet with Conrad, Ryan’s roommate.
To his astonishment, a few minutes later his phone vibrates softly.
He’s out of town.
Jonathan’s heart rate surges. Does this mean Ryan will pass on the message to Conrad at some point? And does this mean Ryan will then get back to Jonathan?
He sits up straight, startling Chimney. In the next ten minutes he taps and deletes a dozen different responses.
Dare he read any significance into it? Or is Ryan’s casual reply merely their generation’s equivalent of his mother’s willingness, at times, to talk to telemarketers and pollsters because there’s nothing good on TV?
In the end he tosses aside his phone and holds his cat close, because only one of the two has affection to share.
When Astrid returned to her condo, it seemed the most natural thing to contact Perry.
Are you okay?
I’m home.
Come and let me take a look at you.
But now, after she’s taken a shower and ordered a pizza, he still hasn’t responded, as if his desperate pleas the day before were just so much pollen, there to cause headaches and itchy eyes.
The bag of Halloween decorations she brought back from the library sits limply on her dining table, all illusion and fakery.
In the beginning, everything went so well with Perry she actually looked forward to telling the truth about her accent to people and at last unburdening herself.
Looked forward to having friends again. She would organize potluck parties, binge-watching parties, and maybe even a book club for her condo community.
In that moment of blind optimism, she bought the Halloween decorations in anticipation of a whole new life.
But he ghosted her the next day and her hopes, castles in the air, fell prey to gravity.
Astrid’s phone dings. Her doorbell rings at the same time.
She whips around in surprise. He hasn’t stood her up?
Yet she does not feel buoyant. To the contrary, she feels as if someone has poured concrete over her feet. A deep dread curls around her heart.
It’s the moment of truth and moments of truth are always, always the worst.
A little before eleven, Sophie totters into her house.
Almost immediately Elise appears at the top of the stairs. “Hey, where have you been?”
Oh, shit. Sophie does not want Elise’s observant eyes on her now. She manages a smile. “You’re still up, nugget?”
“I just got done with my Hamilton essay. How long does it take to buy some cookies? I texted you.”
For the first time in her life Sophie wishes she had a sullen, self-involved teenager who shuts herself in her room, blasts music 24/7, and would never notice her mom briefly leaving the house at night.
Sophie has no choice but to brazen it out. She sets the cookies on the kitchen counter and sorts other items into the fridge. “I decided to get more stuff since I was already at the store. I got cupcakes too. Frozen burritos. Frozen tamales. But don’t touch the cupcakes—they’re for the library.”
“Oooh,” says Elise. “What’s come over you, Mom?”
Sophie considers frozen prepared meals processed food and tries not to indulge in them too often.
“I guess the success of Game Night went to my head.” She laughs a little.
Even though she feels like crying.
No, a nervous breakdown, that’s what she feels like having.
She shoos Elise out of the kitchen. “Okay, go to bed, now that you’re done with your essay. I need to sleep too.”
But how can she ever sleep again, knowing what is to come?