Susan Pfeffer - This World We Live In

Back in the time when life was easy, the Internet would have told me what I needed to know. The great thing about the Internet was it didn’t care why you were asking.

But even though we have electricity more often than not, we don’t have phone, or cable, or Internet. Maybe they do in safe towns, but I don’t live in one.

I tried to remember how people found things out before the Internet existed. They had to have questions, after all, and they couldn’t always ask their parents. Or teachers. Or librarians.

Librarians! Librarians always know how to find out things. That was their job even before the Internet.

There was only one problem: The Howell library closed months ago.

But that didn’t mean all its books were gone. Maybe there was a book that listed all the universities in the country. And if the library ever did have a book like that, it was probably still there, because who would have stolen it?

The next question was whether I should go to the library and see if I could find the book and get Sexton University’s address. If I don’t, I won’t have to tell Alex. But if I do go, it’s specifically to tell him, because why else would I want to know where Sexton University was located, except to fantasize about going to a school that had Sex in its name?

If I told Alex, he would leave. It wouldn’t matter how far away it was. He’d wait until he was sure Julie was up to the trip, and then they’d take off and I’d never see either one of them again, unless I went with them, which apparently would require the approval not just of Mom and Dad but the eyes of God and the Church.

But how could I not tell him? And how could I be certain Syl wouldn’t let something slip during Bible studies with Lisa and Charlie? Alex would hear about Sexton University, and he and Julie would leave, but he’d leave hating me.

If we were never going to see each other again, I wanted him to at least feel bad about it.

So I biked to town. I lied to Mom, saying I was going to Dad’s to play with the baby, and Mom didn’t try to break me. I guess some lies are more believable than others. My bike was in the garage, but she didn’t notice when I got it, or if she did, she didn’t run out to demand an explanation. Nobody else did, either. I biked the four miles to town all on my own.

I don’t like going to town. It’s a reminder of everything that isn’t anymore. It was never a big town, but there were places to eat and to shop and to hang out. And now it’s dead, except for City Hall, open on Mondays to hand out food. For as long as that lasts.

As I biked to the library I thought about having to break one of the windows to get in. That seemed horribly immoral, as bad as breaking a window of a church. But lucky for me, someone else didn’t feel that way, because the window was already broken. I let myself in.

It was filthy. I don’t know why that surprised me, since we scrub frantically to keep the soot manageable and there was no one at the library to do that. But there was something about the library being so cold, dark, and dirty that broke my heart. It felt like losing Horton again.

I didn’t cry, though. There’s enough to cry about without shedding tears over a building. Besides, if a miracle happened and Mom went to Dad’s and found I wasn’t there, I’d be grounded for life, which I pretty much am anyway, but this time it would be official.

I walked over to the reference section. Most of the books were still there. Of course most of the books had nothing to do with colleges. I had to dust off the covers of a lot of no longer useful books before I found what I’d been looking for: The American College Guide.

I almost didn’t pick it up. I told myself I could pretend I hadn’t seen it and bike back home before anyone noticed I was gone and forget all about it, and Alex and Julie would stay with us. At least Jon and Julie would be happy. Didn’t I owe it to Jon to keep Julie from going? And Dad and Lisa? And Charlie? And if Jon was miserable, then Mom would be miserable, and if she was miserable, she’d make Syl miserable, and that would make Matt miserable. And everyone would make me miserable.

Ignorance is bliss.

I picked up the book.

The colleges were listed in alphabetical order.

Sexton University was located in McKinley, Tennessee. It had a student enrollment of 5,500 and was best known for its agricultural and veterinary programs.

There’s something about succeeding, even at a job you don’t like, that makes you push harder. I tore out the page about Sexton University, then located a road atlas. There were five pages devoted to Tennessee, and I ripped them all out. Alex would have to find the state on his own, but once he got there, he could follow the map to McKinley.

Then, because I was all alone in a library and had already destroyed two books, I found my way to the poetry section, located an anthology of contemporary American poetry, and took it for Syl. I might even give it to her someday.

I stopped in at Dad’s on my way home. Gabriel was yelling his little baby head off.

“He’s teething,” Lisa said, like he needed an excuse to scream.

Alex, Jon, and Julie were in the parlor. Alex was giving them a world history lesson. Alex probably felt history still mattered. Julie believed Alex still mattered, and Jon believed Julie still mattered. Or maybe all three of them were actually interested.

I could have interrupted, told Alex then and there about the safe town in McKinley, Tennessee, waved good-bye as he and Julie left us forever, consoled the brokenhearted, consoled my own broken heart.

Instead I gave Alex a quick nod, returned my bike to our garage, and came up to my bedroom closet to write all this down. I’m spending so much time in here, I’m thinking about putting up curtains.

Alex told me to trust in tomorrow. Well, maybe tomorrow I’ll know what to do.

I still haven’t decided.

Instead of thinking, I scrubbed the house so clean that if decorating magazines still existed, our house would be the cover.

I didn’t sleep well last night, and when I did, I had the same dream over and over, that I was alone in the house, which was our house but didn’t look like our house. It was sparkling and new and I couldn’t get over how beautiful it was, but every room I entered was empty. The more I had the dream, the more I knew the house was empty because everybody had died and I was the only person left alive.

After a while I gave up trying to sleep.

I thought about my choices. They seemed pretty simple at first. Either I told Alex or I didn’t tell Alex.

Then it got more complicated. I could tell Alex now or I could tell Alex next week. Or I could decide whether or not I’d tell him next week. Or next month. Or next year. Just because I didn’t tell him now didn’t mean I’d never tell him.

Of course when you can’t be really sure you’ll be alive a year from now, postponing decisions is the same as making decisions.

That got me back to either I told Alex or I didn’t tell Alex. Because it would take him and Julie months to get to Tennessee, and winter comes early these days. Like by the end of August. If I delayed telling him until then, he and Julie would set off anyway and have a lot harder time making it to Tennessee.

For all my talk about choices, I really didn’t have any. I’d tell Alex where the safe town was, and I’d tell him right away. He and Julie would stay through Monday. Two days from now.

They’d already stayed much longer than Alex had intended. If the convent had still been open, they’d already have been gone for more than a week. My fantasy that Alex would have stayed with me was just that, a fantasy. He’d made a deal with God. Julie in the convent, Alex in the monastery. And Miranda? Miranda was just another dream.