I use the library.
You return books to the library. That's not the same thing.He'd have leaned back in his chair then, tipping backward. It always looked like he was about to go too far, but he never did.
What's going on?
We'd grown up six houses apart in Lexington, Massachusetts. We'd been best friends since the third grade. He had nearly twenty years of practice reading me.
He would have sat across from me in the library and waited me out. He was always patient.
What he would not have done was let me leave without saying the true thing.
The last time I'd seen him in person was on a chilly day in October, fourteen days before his mother called me. We'd grabbed lunch when I was passing through Boston between a weekend shift and a drive back to the apartment I was subletting in Providence.
We ate at a diner near his place, sitting in a booth by the window, and he'd ordered the same thing he always ordered: scrambled eggs, wheat toast, and coffee. We'd talked for two hours about nothing important.
I complained about my job. He complained about his job. He told me about a mutual friend's engagement that neither of us had seen coming. At the end, he'd walked me to my car and saidcall me this weekand I'd said,yeah, definitelybefore I got in and drove away.
I didn't call that week.
Bryan's mother called me on a Sunday morning two weeks after the diner. I was still in bed. She opened saying,this is Bryan's mom.It had always been Mrs. Baker before.
That was my first clue that something was wrong. I just didn't know how wrong. He'd used a gun.
I sat in the Harold Washington Library with my hands flat on the book I wasn't reading and let the memory move through me. It wasn't the call. I didn't need to go back there. It was the diner. Bryan's fork with scrambled eggs on it. Two hours of nothing important that turned out to be our last hours.
Call me this week.
Yeah, definitely.
I turned another page I didn't read and hung around for another twenty minutes.
When I was at Lake and State on my walk home, my phone buzzed.
Pratt:Bus to the airport. St. Louis next. You working tonight?
I stood on the corner and typed.
Sully:Tomorrow. What's in St. Louis? Never been there.
Pratt:Hockey.
Sully:Besides hockey.
The street light cycled, and I crossed.
Pratt:Toasted ravioli.
Sully:Have you had it?
Pratt:No. Varga says it's unnatural.
Sully:You should have it while you're there,as research.
Pratt:I'll consider it.
That was likely a no, but I had made him consider it.
I crossed on the green and headed north with my hands in my pockets andThe Undertakingunder my arm and the first smile of the day on my face. Bryan would have pointed it out.
