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“I only need one,” I tell him. More than one would be cheating. “Wait one second.”
I open a second cookie—and am relieved by what I find inside.
ADVENTURE IS AROUND THE CORNER.
“Well done, sir,” A says to the waiter once I show it to them both.
“Your turn,” I say. A carefully opens his cookie, and practically beams when he reads what the fortune says.
“What?” I ask.
He holds it out to me.
ADVENTURE IS AROUND THE CORNER.
I am not a superstitious person. But I’m excited to get to that corner. Wherever it may be.
—
I know we don’t have much time left. I know that A and I are only borrowing this time from someone else, not receiving it entirely for ourselves. But I want to borrow it for as long as I can. I want him to keep talking to me. I want to keep listening to him.
Back in the library, I ask him to tell me more books to read. Because I know the answer to this question will get me to know him even more.
He shows me the book he was reading before. It’s called Feed.
“It’s about the difference between technological connection and human connection. It’s about how we can have so much information that we forget who we are, or at least who we’re supposed to be.” He takes me farther down the shelves, to the very end of the YA section, and holds up The Book Thief. “Have you read this?” I shake my head, and he continues. “It’s a Holocaust novel, and it’s narrated by death itself. Death is separate from everything, but he can’t help feeling like he’s a part of it all. And when he starts seeing the story of this little girl with a very hard life, he can’t look away. He has to know what will happen.” He pulls me back to an earlier shelf. “And on a lighter note, there’s this book, Destroy All Cars. It’s about how caring about something deeply can also make you hate the world, because the world can be really, really disappointing. But don’t worry—it’s also funny, too. Because that’s how you get through all the disappointments, right? You have to find it all funny.”
I agree. And I’d talk to him more about that, but he doesn’t want to stop. I’ve asked him the right question, and he wants to answer it fully. He shows me a book called First Day on Earth. “I know this will sound weird, but it’s about a boy in a support group for people who feel they were abducted by aliens. And he meets this other guy who may or may not be an alien. But it’s really about what it means to be human. And I read it a lot, whenever I find it in a library. Partly because I find new things every time I read it, but also because these books are always there for me. All of them are there for me. My life changes all the time, but books don’t change. My reading of them changes—I can bring new things to them each time. But the words are familiar words. The world is a place you’ve been before, and it welcomes you back.”
He shakes his head. “I’ve never said that to anyone, you know. I’ve never even said it to myself. But there it is. The truth.”
I want to take out all the books, want to start sharing those worlds with him. Then I remember: This isn’t my library. This isn’t my town.
“What about you?” A asks. “What do you think I should read next?”
I know I should show him something really smart and sophisticated, but I know he’s asking me the question in the same way I asked him—to see me in the answers, to know more about me after the answers than he did before them. So instead of pretending that Jane Eyre is the story of my life, or that Johnny Tremain changed me completely when I read it, I lead him over to the kids’ section. I’m looking for Harold and the Purple Crayon, because when I was a kid, that appealed to me so much—the power to draw your own world, and to draw it in purple. I see it on display at the front of the section and go to get it.
As I lean over to pick it up, A surprises me by calling out, “No! Not that one!”
“What could you possibly have against Harold and the Purple Crayon?” I ask. As far as I’m concerned, this is a dealbreaker.
A looks relieved. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I thought you were heading for The Giving Tree.”
Who does he think I am? “I absolutely HATE The Giving Tree,” I tell him.
“Thank goodness. That would’ve been the end of us, had that been your favorite book.”
I would say the same if he’d chosen it. The tree in that book needs to stand up for herself. And the boy needs to be slapped.
“Here—take my arms! Take my legs!” I imitate.
“Take my head! Take my shoulders!”
“Because that’s what love’s about!” Really, I can’t believe parents read the book to children. What an awful message to send.
“That kid is, like, the jerk of the century,” A says.
