Anna Jarzab - Tandem

“Maybe.” I tried unsuccessfully to suppress a smile. “What are you doing here?” The fact that he had no books in his possession hadn’t escaped my attention.

“Hey.” He affected a hurt tone. “I love to read. Books are my life.”

I shot him a dubious look. “The last time we took an English class together, you tried to turn in a book report on The Matrix .”

“Fair enough,” he replied, grinning. “In my defense, I had it on pretty good authority that The Matrix was based on a book.”

“And whose authority would that be?”

“Johnny Hogan’s,” he admitted reluctantly. I covered my eyes in embarrassment for him.

“Johnny Hogan!” I cried. “Well, then you deserve whatever you got. I don’t think Johnny’s read a book since Hop on Pop .”

His smile faltered a bit, and I realized that he didn’t have any idea what I was talking about. “The Dr. Seuss book? Hop on Pop ?”

“I know what Hop on Pop is.” Grant rolled his eyes.

“It sure seemed like you didn’t,” I teased.

Grant shrugged and leaned toward me. My heart was beating so fast I could feel it in my throat. “So, are you going to answer my question? What are you reading?”

I turned the book so that he could get a look at the cover. “ Twelfth Night, huh? Never heard of it.”

“It’s for Ms. Dunne’s English class. But I’ve read it before.” Several times, actually. It was one of my favorites. I couldn’t imagine Grant was interested in my schoolwork, but hey, he’d asked.

“What’s it about?” Grant settled back in his chair, as if preparing himself for story time.

“Really?” He nodded. “Well, okay. It’s about this girl, Viola, who gets shipwrecked in a foreign country and has to pretend to be somebody else to keep her identity a secret.” That got his attention; he sat up straighter, and his eyes widened a bit. “But she ends up falling in love with this guy she’s supposed to be working for, and all the while the woman her boss is courting starts falling in love with Viola, who’s disguised as a boy. It’s a comedy.”

“Sure sounds like one.”

“Believe me, it’s very funny. If you like Shakespeare.”

“I’m assuming you do, judging by the state of your copy,” he said. I glanced down at my battered paperback. The pages were curled and yellow, the cover so tattered that it was only connected to the spine by a small tab of paper that seemed liable to rip any second. For some reason, Twelfth Night spoke to me, in the same way that A Wrinkle in Time and Alice in Wonderland had when I was younger. I was a lucky girl; considering the way things could have gone, I’d had a wonderful life so far. But there was always a part of me, even before my parents died, that yearned to be plucked out of my everyday life and thrust into some great adventure. My favorite heroines were girls who suddenly found themselves having to live by their wits in a world they didn’t quite understand. I couldn’t help but envy them; their experiences made them stronger, smarter, better—or, rather, it proved to them that they had been those things all along.

“Absolutely. Twelfth Night is my favorite play of his. Most girls prefer Romeo and Juliet, because they think it’s so romantic.” I fiddled with the charm I wore around my neck, a crescent moon with a little star hanging beneath it. It was a sixteenth birthday present from my grandfather, and playing with it was a nervous habit of mine.

“And you disagree?”

“It’s okay. The poetry is beautiful. But I’ve always thought Romeo and Juliet themselves were sort of silly.” Why was I telling him all this? What did he care about my opinions on fictional characters? But he gazed at me with interest, as if he was hanging on my every word, which was unnerving. The experience of sitting side by side with Grant Davis was more than a little bit surreal, like a pleasant dream in which everything was slightly off-kilter.

“How so?”

“This isn’t exactly an original opinion, but it seems to me that there’s almost always a better way of solving romantic problems than killing yourself,” I told him. He chuckled. I glanced at my watch. “Oh, crap. I didn’t realize how late it was. I’ve got to get home.” I gathered my things and stood. Grant rose as well.

“It was nice … chatting with you, Grant,” I said, unsure of how best to leave things. Had he come over to talk to me for a reason, or was he just killing time? And what was he doing in 57th Street Books, anyway? I was pretty sure he hadn’t come to browse.

“Let me walk you,” he offered.

“That’s okay,” I said, suddenly shy. The heat of a blush rose up in my cheeks. “You don’t have to.” Part of me was desperate to stay and keep talking to him. I was curious, and I could feel that old crush I’d nursed through junior high starting to rekindle. But another part of me wanted to get away from him as fast as possible. Talking and joking with Grant while nobody else was around was one thing, but Grant was one of the most popular kids in school, and I was … not. It was hard to imagine spending time with him out in the world, as if we were friends.

“I insist,” he said, taking the bag from my hand and slinging it over his shoulder. “Let’s go. I don’t want you to be late.”

It was almost six o’clock, but it was early May and the light outside was still bright enough that I had to shield my eyes as we emerged from the dim cave of the bookshop. We started down Fifty-Seventh Street, then took a left on South Kenwood and passed through Bixler Park in awkward silence. I knew Hyde Park like the back of my hand—I’d lived there since I was seven, in a ramshackle Victorian that Granddad had bought in the early eighties—and the neighborhood just wasn’t that big, fifteen blocks by fifteen blocks max. I was pretty sure Grant had lived there all his life. But as we strolled the familiar streets together, I felt like I was discovering it for the first time. Everything seemed like a much better version of itself; the grass was a little greener, the historic brownstones and houses with their painted gables seemed better cared for and more brightly colored, and the breeze that came off Lake Michigan was sweeter and cooler than it had been two hours ago. I was pretty sure this was all in my head. Nothing had changed, not really. But it still felt like something had.

Grant was strolling languidly, his face tilted toward the sky to catch the warmth of the sun, as if he was in no hurry. I, however, was. Granddad enforced a very strict dinnertime—six o’clock on the dot, every night, no exceptions.

“Where do you live?” Grant asked.

“South Kenwood, between Fifty-Second and Fifty-Third.”

“Not that far from us, then. We’re on Fifty-Fourth and Ridgewood.” He waited for a moment, then added, “My mom and I. It’s just the two of us.”

“Us too,” I said. “Just me and Granddad.”

“Yeah, I was wondering—where are your parents? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“They died,” I told him. That part always made people uncomfortable. They didn’t know what to say, and most of the time they ended up apologizing, but even though I missed my parents every day, it wasn’t painful to talk about anymore. In fact, I preferred not having to dance around it. Hiding it to avoid awkwardness seemed disrespectful to their memory.

“I’m sorry,” Grant said, as I knew he would. He kneaded the back of his neck in what I took to be a nervous gesture.

“That’s okay. It was a long time ago. What’s the story with your parents?”

He shrugged. “Divorced. Dad’s an attorney out in L.A. I haven’t seen him in a while. Your grandfather teaches at the university, right?”