Kindle Notes & Highlights
You keep your own ideas. Always keep your own ideas. Got it?”
“Nice to meet you too,” I said. I smiled up at her, expecting her to say something else, but she didn’t speak, only continued to look at me. Maybe she expected me to say something. But I didn’t speak either. As a result, I sat there, and she stood there, neither of us breaking eye contact. It was awkward. For me. It didn’t seem to faze her at all. Finally, she tilted her head downward, her smile growing by a fraction as she did it, as if apologizing for making me uncomfortable.
She hadn’t turned at the sound of the “bing” of the door, she hadn’t turned to look at the boy or his mother. Her eyes were on me, waiting.
Ordinarily, I’m an extremely shy person, especially around women to whom I’m even the slightest bit attracted. And this was more than just a slight attraction.
Vanilla. It came to me the second my eyes opened the next morning. As if I had dreamt about it during the night. If I did, I didn’t remember it. Her perfume. The sweet smell I couldn’t put my finger on. It was vanilla. Warm vanilla. Maybe it smelled differently straight out of the bottle and it was her body heat that changed the scent. From something you associated with ice cream, to something else, something that had nothing whatsoever to do with ice cream. The floral scent was still out of my reach. I don’t know flowers, never cared for them, especially roses. It’s not the rose, per se, it’s
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You love who you love, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, she noted. Love is love.
To my mother, image is everything. If she had a gay daughter, which she didn’t, she’d make damned sure of that, but if she did, how was that going to look? What would the people at church think? What would her siblings think? What kind of parent was she, where did she go wrong? I had another thing coming if I thought I was going to bring shame down on her.
Her eyes met mine for a second and I quickly looked down. Gathered my books together, stood up, pushed my chair in, and made my way to another table, way beyond the view of the doors. Out of sight, out of mind. I didn’t need to see her flirting with Calvin Klein models.
“I bought it for you. Like I said, it’s a gift.”
It was as if the sound of Mr. Harris’s voice was a needle bursting a silent bubble around us. As if the rest of the library, and all the people in it, came rushing in to fill the vacuum. It seemed painfully loud, the shuffling, the turning of pages, the low whispers. It wasn’t, of course, it was just as quiet as always, but for those few minutes, none of these people, none of their noises, had existed at all.
when she moved to my side and placed her hand on my shoulder, her fingers resting at the base of my neck. “How about you Beth? Is there anything I can get for you?” “No...I, I’m going to walk out with…uh…um…,” I twirled my hand through the air. Mike raised his arms, palms facing up, looking offended. “Mike. My name’s Mike.”
I noticed she always turned at the sound of the doors when I walked in to the library, but never when I was already there.
Having her attention focused solely on me, even if just for another thirty minutes. I’d take every second I could.
Her smile, her perfume, her touch.
If I had thought I was falling in love with her before tonight, I was sure of it now.
Books should be your windows on to the world.”
“Beth.” “Did you see that? Tourists.” “Beth.” “Yeah?” “Are you and Kim dating?”
Like my father said. Sometimes you meet someone and you just know. I just knew.
