Honkcomes the sound of a car waiting to turn. It’s not even an aggressive honk like the ones in the city. It’s anAre you okay?honk. That’s a very good question.
The welcome bells to Lorna’s Used Books & Beyond signal my entrance. A lone man in earmuffs peruses a copy ofThe Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Being stuffed inside a wall honestly doesn’t sound so bad right about now.
Oh, the tales my heart could tell.
I welcome the blast of warmth in here, feeling almost content to be in a place that hasn’t changed at all since I was last here. There’s an antiquatedness that couldn’t be copied. My chest is a roaring, open hearth.
That’s until I’m confronted with a table full of Mom’s books and the warm fire extinguishes. The display copies are TV show tie-in editions with the actors holding daring poses in front of a gated castle. Lukas Clifton and Bella Borden, the youngest cast members in the ensemble, embrace in the corner, colorful swirls looping around them to signal their star-crossed love.
A shiver races down my spine at the thought of Lukas’s arms around me like that in his trailer at thirteen figuring things out the way questioning boys do until we were caught, chastised, and scolded into never seeing each other again. I’d go on to very publicly and very loudly come out, following the script written by Sarah Pearson, the very woman who imposed the wedge between me and the only boy I’d ever had feelings for. Lukas would go on playing straight for the sake of the series, his future movie career, and his mostly female fan base.
Yet another case of my feelings not mattering.
Anyway, so much for a hometown author spotlight. There are discarded signed copies galore. Not that I’m surprised. Mom has been vocal about her distaste for small-town life versus big-city living. Those early-career comments really cemented her legacy in this town. Rosalie’s story only proved it.
Next to a pricy Game of Dark Dissension box set, a sign reads:STAFF PICKS…HECTOR.
In the center are copies of books by James Baldwin and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Toni Morrison and Jane Austen. There’s every book Miguel de Cervantes ever wrote. Some even in their original Spanish. Hector couldn’t be more of a literature nerd if he tried.
“Can I help you with something?” comes a voice from behind the counter. I expect to see Grandma, but Hector stands by the register. A navy-blue beanie is pulled taut around his head. He looks surprised but not altogether unhappy to see me. That’s a first. “If you’re looking for your grandma, she just stepped out to grab lunch.” He presents a smile, no more hostile smirking or sneering.
“Actually, I’m here to see you.” The animosity is gone, but it’s clear we’re still unsure how to navigate each other. Last night in our bedroom, in the bunks, we couldn’t see each other. Expressions and circumstances could be imagined.
Here, face-to-face, it’s clear we have some renegotiating to do.
Some real negotiating, period. At least, I hope so. If he’ll hear me out.
Earmuff Man asks to be rang up, so while Hector is occupied, I wander. The store fans out with no rhyme or reason. Hand-painted signs touting genres from Fiction to Religion and Self-Help to Cooking hang crooked from nails half-falling off the walls. Some books are stuffed into overcrowded shelves, while others sit in towers on the floor like an entire city of paperback skyscrapers. Prices are denoted by colorful circle stickers on the spines. Most books cost from fifty cents to twenty dollars, based on cost guides taped onto end caps.
It’s hard not to feel like one of these books. Rehomed. My parents cherished me when I was a brand-new hardback, displayed forward-facing on the shelf, but the novelty faded so they pawned me off. Sent me here.
No amount of revision can change my past, I suppose.
“How are you feeling?” Hector asks after the man leaves with his purchases. “Um, since last night.”
“Okay. Yeah, I’m feeling okay. Thanks for asking.” Though I struggled to get to sleep again, I did manage a few good hours before Hector’s alarm—some wintry Billie Eilish song—woke me up. There was something comforting, if still irritating, about his snores last night. Not that I think I’ll get used to them, but they were a nice reminder that I wasn’t alone.
Funny, I’m so used to being alone. Iknowalone. It wasn’t until I was dropped off on Grandma and Gramps’s front doorstep that I realized just howlonelyI was. Never had I been well-acquainted with that feeling before.
“Good, good.” Hector picks up a box that reads “New Buybacks” and carries it into a nearby aisle. “What did you want to see me for?”
Before my nerve falters, I blurt out, “I have a proposition for you.”
He stops what he’s doing to give me his full attention.
“Hear me out.” I clear my throat, suddenly worried he might say no. A word I’m not used to hearing. “We got off on the wrong foot. We’re very different, clearly. We’re from two different worlds. Planets. Universes, maybe. But I realized there’s one thing we have in common.”
“We’re both queer?” he asks. It’s so casually cool that I choke on my own spit. This conversation has taken a hard right turn.
“What? No, I didn’t… You are?” I hate being caught off guard like that, but I love this new information.
The right corner of his lips folds up into an apostrophe. “Based on your reaction, I guess I misjudged where this was going, dude.” He scratches awkwardly behind his neck, his bicep bulging under the sleeve of a cream-colored sweater with rainbow speckles in the knit. It’s no doubt the department-store version of a designer piece I have hanging in my walk-in back home. Except somehow this one looks better on him than mine ever did on me.
Suddenly, I’m flushed with the thought of him without the sweater. I can’t stop studying him the way I would a figure model in one of the drawing classes I took as an elective in high school. He’s made up of lines that extend out into infinity, some pointed, some more loopy, all adding up to a pleasing portrait.
“To be fair, you did use the word ‘proposition’…” he teases in almost a purr.
“Not that kind of proposition, you perv!” I yell, trying to cover up the entirely uncelibate thoughts I was just having about him.
