“Hi,” I say in my most casual voice, which is really my most practiced voice, because I’m not sure what casual should sound like and I’ve been practicing really hard.
“Hi,” he echoes, though his ‘Hi’ sounds better than mine. “So, um, Sunday, my roommates are having a party for 4th of July. They bought a grill from some guy on another floor and managed to wedge it onto our tiny patio. I mean, you have to stand inside to use it but they’re really excited about this whole idea of a 4th of July barbeque in the apartment. I’m sure we’ll probably get arrested or something but um…man, I’m rambling…I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“So, um…will you come?” he finally asks. I smile, every tooth in my mouth acts like it wants to be seen.
“Yes,” I say and feel myself blushing as he breaks into a relieved smile.
“Okay, great!” he says and then reaches into his back pocket and pulls out something wrapped simply in brown craft paper. “Here,” he says, thrusting it at me. I hold the package lightly, confused to be getting a present. Nobody has ever given me a present before, well, not since after I went to the home. I shake my head in amazement and open the flap gently. I pull the book out of the wrapping carefully and quickly see that it’s a first edition of The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. My mouth drops open and I turn the book over, examining it. It’s beautiful. He reaches over and opens it to a page in the back. It says ‘Clark Spencer. 55 Greene Street #2D. 6:30 p.m., July 4th’
“You…you bought a first edition of my favorite book so that you could write your address in it?”
“Yeah. The woman who sold it to me almost had a heart attack.”
“Um, there’s probably like, scrap pieces of paper up by the register…”
“Yeah, but you’d never remember that. Then maybe someday that piece of paper would get thrown away and one day we’d even forget the first illegal 4th of July apartment barbeque we went to. This way, we’ll always remember it,” he says. I look at him, stunned.
“I don’t think I could ever forget something like that.”
“Well, I wanted to give it to you anyway,” he says, shrugging and smiling. I narrow my eyes playfully.
“What if I hadn’t said yes?” I ask. His eyes get all big and innocent.
“Well then, I’d still have given you the book, but you’d have to look at my name and address for eternity and wonder what you missed,” he says. It’s far too charming an answer for the likes of me and so I default to stumbling idiocy.
“I don’t know what to say,” I mumble, blushing and holding the book carefully, tracing the old edges with my finger, trying not to realize that other than my mother’s bracelet it’s easily the most priceless thing I’ve ever owned. It’s also the first gift I’ve been given in twelve years.
“Just say you’ll be there at six-thirty,” he says, all boyish charm and hopes.
“I’ll be there at six-thirty.”
“Good,” he says resolutely and then smiles for just a second before walking away. On the stairs he looks back at me and smiles again, but it’s less boyish now, more handsome, more serious. More a portent of things to come. And suddenly I’m really nervous.
I have no idea what I’m doing.
The first date happened so fast I almost didn’t have time to think about it, but now, this second one is two days away and those days stretch out before me as impossibly long and full of nothing but waiting and worry.
I go into the backroom to re-load my cart and put my gift in my locker. Liesel is on the floor, as I’ve come to expect, but she’s moved on from Tropic of Cancer to Metamorphoses.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” she says and then adds nonchalantly, “Watch your back, I just saw Erica and she’s like…on a tear.”
“About?”
“Yeah, she knows you went out with that Clark guy…or are going out with him again, or something…she’s freaking.”
“Wow. I mean, how does she even know that?”
“Who knows? Books here have ears so far as I can tell,” she says shrugging.
“What should I do?” I ask before I even realize I’m asking a near stranger. But Liesel considers it seriously enough to even put her book down for a minute, which I’ve never seen her do before.
“I think, I’d punch her in the face. Not a slap, but like, a full on punch - BAM!” she says, doing a little punch with her small fist. I try not to laugh.
“Um, I can’t do that,” I say, wishing I could. She screws up her mouth.