The Difference Between You and Me(19)

Growing up, Jesse knew every corner of every room. She knew exactly where to find her favorite picture books in the children’s room, and she even had favorite toys she would visit on a regular basis. The stuffed animals were overloved and overhandled—communally owned by every kid in town—and they smelled like mold and sand when she brought them up to her face to kiss them, but she adored them anyway: the long, rainbow-striped worm; the thin-furred, floppy-necked dog. As a kid, every time she walked in the front door she would rub the belly of the statue of the bronze boy holding his fishing rod on his shoulder that stood in the corner of the foyer next to the creaky stairs. It was a ritual; it didn’t feel right to pass him without greeting him that way. For a long time he was taller than she was. Then she was taller than he was. Then one day she read the little bronze plaque on the base by his bare feet and realized that he wasn’t just some random country boy going fishing, he was supposed to be Huck Finn, from the books by Mark Twain. Somehow after that she didn’t feel close to him anymore, and she never rubbed his belly again.

A couple of years ago, the library had a massive fund drive and raised the money to tear off the back half of the building and add on a big, bright new addition—three stories of stacks, a new community room in the basement, an airy atrium for the periodicals section with couches and armchairs for people to sit and read the newspaper in. It’s nice and everything, and much tidier and easier to find things in than the old building, but Jesse feels like the renovation kind of killed the library. The gloomy, odd-shaped rooms, the toffee-dark wood of the old banister, the secret place to hide under the stairs that were the best parts of the library’s back half have all been replaced by an impersonal, featureless newness. The new part of the building feels like a chain hotel. She never goes back there unless she absolutely has to.

But this is where Wyatt leads her today. He loves the big communal reading table in the periodicals room, right in the center of the new atrium. Jesse hates to sit here—it feels so public, so glaringly bright—but Wyatt is determined. He’s not even finished unpacking his stuff to work when she jumps up from the seat beside him.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she whispers apologetically. “I’ll be right back. Save my seat.”

Jesse bounds up the back stairs two at a time and emerges into the dark of the third floor. The upstairs of the Minot is untouched by the renovation, and the big third-floor room still houses the old Mystery and True Crime section, the Local Revolutionary War History section, and the Cookbook Memoir section. Around a corner and down a long, narrow hall lined with dormer windows is the upstairs handicapped restroom. It’s the dumbest place in the world for a handicapped restroom (up a flight of stairs? down a narrow hall?), which is maybe why no one ever goes in there. And why it’s the perfect place for Jesse and Emily’s weekly meetings.

Emily works as a circulation assistant, shelving books, after school on Tuesday afternoons. She’s the one who found this place for them, and she’s already in there today, waiting impatiently, when Jesse knocks the secret knock (knock knock, pause, knock knock, pause, knock). Emily opens the door a crack, grasps Jesse’s hand, and pulls her inside.

“You’re late,” she says before Jesse can even say hello. “I only have a few minutes left on my break, and I’ve been dying to see you. I’ve been waiting all week for you to walk in that door.”

Jesse has planned to say, We have to talk about what happened on Friday. She has planned to say, From now on, I don’t want to pretend we don’t know each other when we see each other in public. She has planned to say, I don’t know how much longer I can do this. But Emily pulls Jesse close, slips her arms around her neck, and presses her sweet, soft mouth against Jesse’s.

Jesse dissolves.

Kissing Emily is literally the best thing Jesse has ever done. In her life. There is no feeling more right or more perfect than the feeling of having Emily in her arms. It makes Jesse feel larger than life—superpowerful—to touch this girl and be touched by her.

Every time they kiss, no matter how into it Emily seems, she always starts out a little tense, a little jumpy, and it’s Jesse’s job to soothe her, coax her closer, seduce her into the deep making out. Jesse holds her tightly and kisses her gently, and at a certain point, every time, she feels the little latch holding Emily together give way. Then Emily’s head falls back, her neck loosens, her shoulders drop, her fingers relax—she comes a little bit undone in Jesse’s arms. Jesse gathers her up and pushes her back against a handy wall (or tree, or window, or car door—but usually wall, almost always a bathroom wall) and feels Emily open up to her, draw her in with her entire body.