Page 70 of Hilarina and the Ogre

The Toothpaste Factory

They ate together at the small table. It had only two chairs, the perfect size. “Do you like to read?” Trenton asked.

From his angle near the door, he could see the bookshelves in the living room. Two of them, each of a decent size.

Hilary followed his gaze. “I read, though I don’t always like it. Do you want to take a look?”

The man followed him out into the living room, carrying his bowl. It reminded Trenton of the restaurant. Hilary would often eat like that, in the doorway, talking to him and watching him work, usually complaining about the heat. It was why Trenton always kept the fan angled toward the doorway.

On the first shelf were a surprising number of children’s titles. That was how he knew the man really did read. Hilary wouldn’t have them if the books were there only for decoration or to make him seem like some kind of intellectual. Trenton ran his fingers along the spines and recognized most of them. The man had exceedingly good taste, though it soon became apparent that the overlap was more than coincidence. Yes, many of the books he liked were classics, but to see not just some of his favorites, but all of them? This was another thing Hilary had done with intention—and done for him.

He pulled Anne of Green Gables off the shelf. It was a strange choice for a man in his thirties to own, and he cherished so much that Hilary did. “I love this book.”

“Yes.”

Trenton knew that if he asked, Hilary might tell him how he’d known about the books, and just knowing that the answer existed somewhere was enough that he didn’t need to ask for it. Trenton turned to the second bookcase. “You must like poetry.”

Hilary crouched down before the many, seemingly endless volumes of verse. “I hate it, actually. It’s unbearable to read, but somehow I keep buying more volumes.” He tapped the Anne of Green Gables. “Will you read aloud?”

It was different from reading to himself. Maybe it shouldn’t have been considered reading at all. He was so aware of Hilary. Even more than he would have been with just outright staring at him. When he came to the end of the third chapter, he looked up to gauge whether to continue and found himself saying, “I’m going to get a new job.”

As before, Hilary showed no surprise, either at his speaking or with the subject. He was leaning against the couch cushions, curled up with his feet tucked to the side. “You want to?”

It came from a realization he’d had while cooking dinner. Back at the restaurant, he thought he’d been cooking for many people, but really, he’d just been cooking for Hilary. Even without the day’s incident, just having this now, having been in the house’s kitchen, there was no longer any point in returning to the restaurant. “I don’t want to go back there.”

Hilary brought his head up. “You misunderstand. What I meant was—do you enjoy working? Employment?”

Trenton was confused by the question. “Does anyone?”

“Some do.”

For some reason, the image that came to mind was of a man spooning ice cream out of buckets wearing a badge with Official Ice Cream Tester across it. “When I was a kid, I thought I’d get a job at the toothpaste factory.”

A bark of surprised laughter left Hilary. “Why toothpaste?”

It had been such a stupid thing to say, but there was no choice but to continue. “Most jobs have you talking to people all day, but I was painfully shy as a kid, frightened of growing up. But then I saw this series called ‘How things are made’ and it was all these different factories putting things together. And in one of them there was this person in a gown and mask checking toothpaste caps all by herself, and I thought, ‘I could do that.’”

He was afraid to look at Hilary, sure the man’s estimation of him must be in the toilet, but Hilary was smiling, enchanted. “In that case, I’d work at a candy factory. Something like cotton candy or chocolate bars. I bet it would smell amazing.”

Yes, he bet it would. “You’d be hungry all day.”

“I’m hungry all day anyway. Look, jellybeans.” Hilary had his phone out, scrolling through videos already. “It’s a fucking rainbow in there. Fantastic.”

What was fantastic was the childlike look of wonder on the man’s face. It felt impossible that just a few hours ago he’d had his hand around the neck of a customer, vomiting and crying like some demented criminal. It should have made this place, the quiet loveliness of the house, and the sounds of a narrator explaining the outer shell of a jellybean, feel like an illusion. But it was the life outside that felt like a dream, the nightmare he’d woken up from. Here, now, with the grain of the wood beneath his feet, the brocade lining the edges of the couch pillows, and the warmth gently radiating from the body beside him, it all seemed real in a way he had no experience with.

“I’m changing my choice,” Hilary said, having switched to another video. It was a tour of the Hostess factory, and they were watching mechanical arms fill cupcakes with cream. “I think this one is open for public tours. Think we should go? Shit, it’s in Kansas. Am I really at a point in my life where I’d get on a plane just to see some cupcakes?”

This was the feeling, Trenton realized. The one that had made Anne Shirley wax poetic about Diana Barry’s hair, and why Gimli had risked his life to go with Legolas to the Undying Lands. This feeling, the tightness of the forming bond, wasn’t a thing of fiction like all the best things in books were. It was real.

“No,” Trenton said, rudely interrupting Hilary’s definitive listing of all Hostess snack cakes, ranked best to worst. “I don’t like working.”

Hilary stopped in the middle of baby bundts (cute, but revoltingly soggy) and said, “Then don’t.”

“Don’t?”

Trenton thought being dismissed was his punishment for interrupting the conversation. But it wasn’t dismissal at all. Hilary switched gears as easily as another person might have changed the TV channel. “Don’t work,” he said. “I make enough for both of us, so there’s no point in going if you don’t enjoy it. So long as neither of us takes up a penchant for luxury Italian sports cars, we should be fine.”

Again, Hilary was saying life-changing things with deceptive casualness. As if it really could be as simple as that.