The security guard raised his eyebrows toward Ezra like this was at least something intriguing. Then: “So no visitor’s pass?” He peered at Ezra over his reading glasses.
“I’m about to be assaulted!” Ezra shrieked, then he heard the clanging of the doors behind him, and he felt himself physically shrivel, as if he could make himself invisible and avoid whatever was about to come next.
The guard looked past him, and his face relaxed. “Oh, Zoe.” He gestured as if to indicate that she should just mosey on through. “You have a shift today?”
Ezra turned to face her, this Zoe. His shoulders were hunched, and his chin was tucked into his neck. He held a hand over his eyes and said, “Please, I’m not even bothering you anymore!”
Zoe laughed.She laughed!Ezra felt his mouth drop open in surprise—that she could be so casual, so cavalier after actually inflicting physical pain on him, and he lost track of what he’d planned to say next, how he’d planned to beg for mercy.
“Hey, Bruno,” she said, then jabbed her thumb toward Ezra. “This dum-dum is with me.”
“Been trying to get back into the library twice now.” Bruno sniffed. “I’ve explained the rules.” Ezra wanted to scream that all he did was follow the rules! And that anyone who thought he was a rule-breaker was absolutely fucking hilarious.
“I just want my phone,” he said, and his voice cracked like he was going through puberty. “I just need to call my girlfriend so I can make sure that she’s all right. So”—his voice raised an octave—“I can make sure that I can propose tonight.”He looked from one to the other. “You know, it’s New Year’s Eve. The turn of the century. I just thought it would be amazing.”
Ezra honestly thought he might cry.
“Whoa, whoa,” Bruno said, rising to his feet, holding both hands in front of him as if he were guiding a car to a stop. “Just calm down. Calm down now.”
Ezrawaspretty calm, given the set of circumstances.
Zoe’s brow wrinkled. “Your girlfriend is literally right outside. She just tried to bribe me with a Night Vixen CD and a Walkman.”
“No,” Ezra said. “That’s not my girlfriend.”
At this, Zoe’s forehead folded further. “The lady you slept with last night in my bed isnotyour girlfriend?”
Bruno stood up even straighter, as if he were now personally invested.
“It’s a long story.” Ezra sighed.
“Well, that would certainly explain why she didn’t want me to tell you about the condoms,” Zoe tutted.
“Condoms?” Ezra heard his pitch, knew he was spinning toward hysterical, toward a full-blown panic attack.
“She thought you’d react this way,” Zoe said.
“She knew?” Ezra’s voice bounced off the ceiling of the rotunda, and Bruno turned toward the library’s interior to see if anyone had been disturbed. Given that Ezra hadn’t seen anyone come or go since he’d arrived and called Gregory (Gregory! Where the hell was Gregory?), he didn’t know who on earth Bruno thought he was disturbing.
“Well, she knows now.” Zoe shrugged.
Ezra cast around for a bench, for a seat, for something tosteady himself. He thought he was going to be sick. Mimi would never forgive this. He didn’t blame her. He wouldn’t forgive it either. Fidelity was the bare minimum.
Zoe seemed to take pity on him. “Bruno, how about if he comes back with me for a minute? As my guest.” She reached into her messenger bag and pulled out an ID. Then to Ezra: “You’re lucky this is my work-study gig. I get special privileges.”
Bruno shrugged like the artifice he’d constructed around his tough-guy security image didn’t matter one bit.
“Come on,” Zoe said, as if she weren’t dangerous, as if she hadn’t maimed Ezra just a few hours earlier with her pepper spray and her excellent hand-eye coordination that had managed to get him right in both eyes. (And possibly his lungs.) “You look like you could use some luck. I guess, since it is New Year’s Eve, I’ll try to make that happen.”
Ezra nearly fell to his knees in disbelief. Then he remembered that he didn’t believe in luck. Luck was what beginners relied on at the card table; luck was leaving something up to chance. What Ezra believed in had nothing to do with luck, but he didn’t have a better option, or another hand to play. He shuffled his feet through the turnstile and left the next steps up to chance.
TWENTY-ONE
Frankie
Well, it wasn’t glamorous, but Frankie had hidden behind a tree while Zoe approached Ezra, and then watched as he scrambled into the library, with Zoe right behind. Then Frankie pointed herself in the other direction as far away as she could get on foot with a head injury and several inches of snow. She could only imagine how Ezra would hit the marbled rotunda roof if Zoe shared her discovery of a three-pack of condoms, and Frankie wanted to be nowhere near that emotional detonation when the time came. Ezra was, of course, a one-woman man, and Frankie knew he’d never forgive himself for straying, even if she were the party involved. Especially if she were the party involved.
She picked up her pace now, something coming loose in her, and she didn’t think she could blame the concussion. She knew herself well enough to know that if shehadagreed to the scavenger hunt, and if shehadagreed to partner with Ezra, that she would have gone in whole hog. Even if she begrudgedit. Even if she hated him. Frankie had never been one to enact the mercy rule, to wave a fellow competitor over the figurative finish line ahead of her because she’d already won all the other trophies. No, she may have hated that she was a prodigal drone, she may have despised that she felt like a windup toy putting on a performance for the adults who were significantly more invested in her success than she was, but she still wanted to win. She’d always been wired that way.
