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“Okay, well,” I said, “you guys can keep going down memory lane if you want to. Meanwhile, if anyone needs me, I’ll be upstairs in animal husbandry.”
I headed for the giant ramp leading to the second floor without waiting for a response, although I heard Alison call after me, “Care Clinic!” and then heard her say a quieterSorry, presumably to nearby patrons who were disturbed by a librarian breaking the number one rule of libraries everywhere in raising her voice. Sam caught up with me easily, falling into step beside me as we headed upstairs.
“Your friend Alison’s great,” he said. “I see her all the time when I come here, but I’d never spoken to her outside of general library-related stuff.”
“We were actually friends when we were kids,” I said. “But we haven’t kept in touch since high school. We only started talking again because I’m in town and I texted her a few questions about the cat.”
I didn’t know why it was so important for me to clarify any of those points to Sam. I worried that maybe he’d gotten one impression from talking with her, that I was this loyal, good-hearted friend who’d stuck by her side since fifth grade, and I’d feel guilty if I didn’t correct the record on that point. We may have had aBaby-Sitters Club–worthy friendship when we were kids, but the more recent history was a lot rockier.
I wandered down the aisle for 636, stopping when I saw all the books about pets. There were at least eighteen all helpfully namedCats, so I just went with my gut and pulled out the thickest one, figuring it’d be the most comprehensive.
“It seems like you have some roots here,” Sam said. “Between Alison and your brother... do you ever think about moving back permanently?”
“No.” I flipped through the book, my eyes glazing over as it covered various breeds in detail and described famous cats throughout history. Maybe an encyclopedic approach was overkill here. I put the book back and selected the one next to it instead.
“What if you found a job?” he asked. “Or met someone?”
“Jobs and people exist all over the world,” I said, only half paying attention, “without me having to resort to Florida. Hey, did you know that cats’ noses are as unique as human fingerprints? Lenore won’t be getting away with breaking and entering on my watch.”
“If first offense gets tuna, what does the second offense get? Catnip?”
I started to laugh, only to realize that Sam’s expression looked closed off and not as jokey as I would’ve imagined given his comment. His hands were in his pockets and he was frowning down at the dog books. Either he feltMarley & Mewas as emotionally manipulative as I did or I’d fucked up somewhere.
“Sorry,” I said. “That came out really shitty. I know you live here by choice. I just... don’t have super-happy memories of my time here, I guess.”
It would be so easy to get lost in his eyes. It was probably for public health that he let his hair fall over them half the time, like wearing eclipse glasses to protect your retinas from burning. Except this would be like the sun wearing the glasses? I lost myself in my own simile. He withdrew his hand from his pocket, reaching—for my hand? I hadn’t been fishing for sympathy, but I also couldn’t deny the way my breath caught in my throat, while I waited for him to make contact.
A book. He was reaching for a thin, green-spined book, a fluffy orange-and-white cat staring directly out from the cover with amber eyes. It promised to be a complete pet owner’s manual and had been, rather surprisingly, translated from German.
“Published almost ten years ago,” I said, opening up to the front pages. “What if this doesn’t have anything about the latest updates in kitten technology? Lenore might want the high-tech laser pointer all the other cats have and I’ll have no idea.”
“The basics stay the same,” Sam said. “Food, water, litter box, veterinary care. Love. That’s it.”
Love. The way he said the word made my stomach flip. Thepause before it, like it was the most important one of them all. Which was stupid, because obviously you could die from lack of food or water, or lack of access to veterinary care. No litter box would doubtless mean some toxic shit I’d rather not think about. But no one ever died from a lack oflove.
“All this,” I said, “and I probably won’t even see her again. She’ll find another house to sneak into. She’s a wild thing, roaming the streets.”
“She’ll be back.”
“It’s fine if she’s not,” I said. “I don’t even know if I want a cat.”
“Phoebe,” Sam said. “I promise you. Lenore will be back.”
?BUT SHE DIDN’Tcome back, not that night at least. I gave the cat an entire canful of my tuna—okay,Sam’stuna—and the ungrateful brat hadn’t even hung around to see if there’d be seconds.
After the library, I said goodbye to Sam and headed back into the house. Not even necessarily because I wanted to, but because I knew that I’d never get any work done if I kept hanging out with him. Now that I’d gotten over themaybe he’s a serial killerhump, he was fast becoming my favorite person to hang out with. He was less annoying than Conner, less guilt-inducing than Alison, and generally easy on the eyes.
I was starting to wonder what it would be like to have a fling with the neighbor for my remaining time here, which was a bad idea on several levels.
For one, I had more than enough on my plate. I still hadn’t finished the fucking Capote chapter, which Dr.Nilsson hadstarted emailing about in messages that contained nothing but question marks. I still had a lot of work to do on my dad’s house, including some harebrained scheme I’d cooked up to paint the entire common area this weekend to freshen up the place. In defense of Past Me, that had been when I thought I’d have help from Conner. Now that he was dealing with a fractured wrist, it seemed cruel to ask him to try to wield a paint roller in his remaining uninjured hand. Cruel and, more importantly, not conducive toward getting an HGTV-worthy finish on the walls.
For another, I’d tried “flings” in the past, and had always been left unsatisfied. In relationships, I tended to feel trapped and resentful. I didn’t express my feelings in the way the other person wanted, or at all. “Sometimes it feels like you don’t need me,” a boyfriend I’d dated for six months after college had complained once.That’s because I don’t,I’d wanted to say, and had been pretty proud of my emotional maturity at the time in realizing I shouldn’t actually say it out loud. Still, we’d broken up a few weeks later.
Flings were better in that I didn’t have to pretend I was someone I wasn’t. But they often left me feeling nothing at all—just empty and vaguely sad, like when you spend the night letting bad reality television wash over your eyeballs and it feels good at the time but then later it’s like, fuck, what a waste of a night.
It was hard to imagine feeling that way with Sam.
Still, why risk it. And this was all if he’d even be into the idea, which seemed like a bigifat this point. Sometimes I was sure the sparks were firing off him, too. You couldn’taccidentallyeat a Kit Kat suggestively, could you? And you didn’t compliment near-strangers’ hair for no reason, surely?
