20 Chapter 20

Second try, here we go. I propped up my arms on the corroded car’s roof and stared at him, sharpening my eyes with determination. “Here’s the deal. There’s something odd going on, and we think it might have something to do with this reading outburst that seems to be spreading around school, which brings us to you.” I gave a short nod. “I know all of this sounds weird, and funny maybe, but it’ll be really helpful if you could tell us what drives you to read so much.”

With the old scrap of metal between us, hiding more than a half of his lanky frame, watching his feet wasn’t visually possible. But I knew the question had made him uncomfortable, and that he was shifting the weight on his feet back and forth. “Sorry, but last time I checked reading wasn’t something weird. Maybe it is to people who’ve never picked up a book in their life.” He pulled up his eyebrows and looked away.

And he’d felt attacked, too. “Wait, I didn’t mean it like that—what’s your name?”

“Daniel—Dan.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Dan. I just…” Why was this so hard to explain? Ugh. Maybe because it does sounds kind of stupid, Dafne.

This time, Linda came to the rescue. “Okay, we got off on the wrong foot with this.” She held up her splayed hands. “We tried to do this undercover but…it’s not working, Dafne.” She glanced at me, pressing her lips tightly. I shot her a puzzled look. “See, we have to write this article for a, uh, blog site on the motivations behind reading. What propels a person to read? What pushes people to a library?” she said, sounding like a reporter on the verge of inspiration. “And you my friend have those answers.”

“This is just for an article?” Dan narrowed his eyes and looked at me, waiting for a confirmation.

“Uh, yeah, yeah. It just seemed more genuine and spontaneous talking to you instead of doing an interview—because, you know, the answers tend to be less open when you’re under study.” I told him with a small smile and glimpsed at Linda. She’d nailed it with this one. The fear and confusion and edginess weren’t contorting Dan’s face anymore. He looked reassured.

“Well, I…don’t know. I mean, I’ve always loved to read, and I don’t really need a reason to do it, but I guess it’s a cool way to escape from all the hassle and work and stuff like that.” He shrugged and placed his hand on the corner of the open door.

“But don’t you think it’s kind of too much to bring a book to school and take it out whenever you have a chance to breathe from classes? Isn’t that a bit obsessive?”

He frowned. “I don’t take it out whenever I have the chance. These last two weeks there’s been a couple of book releases I’ve been waiting for, and all of them have been so good that it’s been really hard to put them down, but it doesn’t happen all the time. It’s not that I’m obsessed or anything.”

“Oh, I totally get you,” Linda said, pressing her hand to her chest. “That happened to me when I bought the first two seasons of Prison Break last Christmas. Every time I stopped watching it, all I could think of was how to sneak back to my room and ponder the ways they could use to escape. It was so exciting and frustrating.” She sighed.

I’d always thought Linda was a walking anomaly of a writer. She loved spending time in front of her laptop with her fingers glued on the keyboard, creating heart-racing stories and dialoguing with characters in her mind. She breathed the written word, but on its half extension. As much as she enjoyed writing, she couldn’t bring herself to take pleasure in reading a book, which was utterly paradoxical. What was the point in being a writer if you didn’t like to read? It made no sense. She liked watching TV and movies better than plucking a book from a shelf.

But that didn’t interfere with her skills. She had inherent talent. She was a natural. Her stories could make one laugh, cry, gasp and sigh—a cocktail of emotions wrapped in a cocoon of pages. I didn’t like to read either, but her flawless mastery of words could turn even the worst literary agnostic into a fervent devotee. She was that good.

And Dan seemed to think so, too. The shy smile he was giving her and the deep look in his eyes said tons. How interesting.

“Dan,” I said, getting an idea. “I need to do some stuff for the article and Linda needs to be at her house in time to pack her bags. Could you give her a ride? It’s not that far from here.” I wasn’t going to get any information from him, anyway. I would have to go and look for other resources on my own. Besides, he was cute, in a shy-nice-smart cute way. He was perfect for Linda, and why not start the heart healing process now? Why wait until she got on board of that hulking pleasure-bent ship?

“What?” She snapped her head back to look at me. “You don’t have to go any—I mean, I promised I would go with you to do that stuff, remember?”

“No, I don’t.” I said, smiling inwardly. She was so going to kill me. “But it’s okay, I’ll go alone. You’re leaving tonight for Florida. You should get ready.”

“I can give you a ride,” Dan said, scratching the back of his head bashfully, the brown curls foaming beneath his fingers and kicking his cuteness up a notch. His hair was adorable, silky and untamed. “I really don’t mind,” he added, looking at Linda from under his eyelashes.

“I…uh,” she glanced at me and widened her eyes, as if demanding I do something.

“Really, I don’t have to be anywhere,” he insisted. Maybe he liked the idea of driving Linda home more than I did.

I swallowed back a smile.

“I…okay,” she said finally and glimpsed at me with fire in her eyes. I knew she couldn’t turn him down. Dan’s expectant face was too sweet, and she couldn’t fight sweet. Her heart was downright tender.

He flashed a charming smile and circled around the car to open the door for Linda. He faltered a little when he got near her, but pulled it open after clearing his throat. It was like watching two people at their first date, only that one of them wasn’t entirely aware of what was going on.

“Um, thanks,” she told him, staggered, certainly because of the chivalrous manners Dan was showing. And she wasn’t the only one. Secretly, deep down inside, that gesture had warmed my stomach, as if mild honey of a golden sunny color had been poured down in it. Yearning blossomed in me, and for a few heartbeats, I wished I could be the one being treated that gently.

“Thanks,” I said as he snapped the door shut. I was starting to like this guy a lot.

“No problem.” He shrugged and smiled. “Good luck with the stuff for the article. Oh, and have a nice spring break,” he said with a small wave of his hand and headed to the driver’s door.

I reached Linda’s window, which was already rolled down, bent forward quickly and found her fuming face. “What are you…”

I pressed my finger to her lips. “Shh, just listen. I need you to talk to him and see if you can find out something. He’ll open up more if he’s with a friend. It’s only for a few minutes.” I pitched my voice to a lower tone as he slipped next to her. I bent closer. “Please, it’ll be of great help. If you wanted to do something before leaving to Florida, this is your chance.” I pulled back and stared down at her.

The tightness in her eyes loosened. “I’ll talk to you later.” She said over the purr of the engine. And with that, I knew I’d been forgiven.

The old scrappy car eased back, turned to the left, and rushed out of the parking lot. Mission accomplished. I sighed. Though a second later a pang of worry squeezed my stomach. I hoped the vintage look of Dan’s four-wheeled machine wasn’t that “vintage” on safety. It looked pretty sturdy, but one couldn’t stop feeling distrustful about its shielding abilities on the road.

Oh, God, I was acting like Linda, worrying over everything like a Mom. I shook my head and stepped inside the Mini. Or should I have called it Mini-sauna? It felt as if a stream of molten lava was running underneath. I could barely breathe. My nostrils almost burned from the hot air trying to pass through my tightened throat. I pushed the keys into the ignition and sparked the car to life. I shoved my hand to the air conditioner button and stopped midway, remembering Linda’s slap on my wrist last summer for turning it on right away. Apparently, the car’s dashboard and seats emit a carcinogen toxin called Benden-whatever that boosted up whenever a car was parked under the sun—especially under a skin-melting sun like this one—with windows closed for a long time. It exposed one’s body to deadly diseases. Linda said it was better not to risk it, that the air conditioner could wait a couple of minutes. And I remembered how badly I’d wanted to kill her for putting me under such sweltering sufferance.

But it’d worked in the end. The warning was seeded in my subconscious now.

As I opened the front windows with sweat snaking down my temples, I made a mental note about killing Linda for real this time for telling me these things. Images of dry deserts and torrid safaris steamed through my mind. In that moment, Africa didn’t seem so far away.

I pulled out from the sizzling parking lot, letting the balmy breeze blow on the droplets dotting the top of my forehead, and thrust the Mini onto the road that would lead me to my first stop: the Campus library. Though I didn’t like going to the West side of this town (where that preppy university was), that library held valuable information for this crazy search I’d embarked on.

I already knew there was something going on in my high school, but now I needed to know if there was something going on with college students as well.

Of course, if I’d known I would have to walk miles—at least it’d felt like that—to get to the freaking library with the giant orb of searing light in the heavens, I would’ve thought it twice. Crazy search be damned. The streets had been crowded with cars, as if narrow trains of mismatched wagons of different polished colors were bordering the pavement. There hadn’t been a single space to park nearby, so I’d driven around in circles, waiting like a hawk to snatch the first empty spot my eyes caught. I’d been searching, hoping, and rolling by small foreign restaurants and coffee shops with colorful doodles on the windows and apartment buildings, until a lonely alley behind an Indian market had provided me some space.

And now I was walking with this black shirt, soaking up all the sunlight and thinking insulation might be in my near future.

Really, didn’t people study here? They were all out, wearing flip-flops, shorts, and nearly eighty percent of them sporting the university’s logo.

Why don’t you all use a uniform instead? Jeez. It was the last day of classes before break, though, so I guessed the not-studying part was understandable. And a sunny day like this, after months of bone-chilling cold weather, excited everyone—almost everyone. To me, this sun was way out of bounds, and the weather way too crazy.

Once I stepped into the library, through the cool glass façade, I had to restrain myself from kissing the floor. It was like finding a heavenly oasis in the middle of the Sahara, only with dry scents of worn-out pages and rich wood, like a log cabin in winter. I paused for a moment, enjoying the coolness indoors, and watched with wonder the wide staircase leading to a brightly lit second floor. I walked to the desk on the left and found a bosomy woman in her mid-thirties behind it. She was wearing a white polo shirt, a rather tacky flower scarf around her neck—oh, Buffy would’ve loved this one—and some retro cat eye glasses.

“Hello, dear.” She glanced at me, unstitching her small round eyes from the computer. “How can I help you?”

Here we go again.

“I was wondering if you could help me with some research I’m doing for an article.”

“Sure. What is it about? We have a great collection of books in every…”

“Uh, no.” I cut her off with a polite smile. “I'm not looking for books. I just need to ask you some questions. Is that okay?”

“Oh, then, go ahead. You’re lucky this isn’t a crazy day. The last few have been quite a…phenomenon.” She shook her head in amazement. “It surely has been an interesting week.”

I frowned. Maybe I didn’t need to go out of my way to find what I needed. Though finding information this easy kicked up my guts to Happy Land, my heart plummeted to the dark, shivery grounds of Dread Land. If things had gotten too obvious, then the eye of the storm was near. “A phenomenon?” I asked, pressing my palms against the rounded edge of the wooden table. Expectation and worry tightened my stomach.

“Yes, normally around this week—you know, for midterms—we get students looking for all kinds of textbooks, and a small part still looks for fiction lit, but this year…” She shook her head again, her bun loosening from the chopsticks holding it. “You have to see this.” She beckoned me to follow and led me to the fiction section a few feet away. I’d expected to see people reading around the tables on the way, but it’d all remained as a mental picture. A good sign.

When we got there, however, I stopped with widened eyes. I didn’t know if the shelves always looked like this or if the sight was meant to be revealing. I moved into another hall, and then the next and the surprise increased. It was, indeed, meant to be revealing. I spun and looked at the bosomy woman.

“This is the new books section,” she held up her arms, glancing at the shelves around us.

The word ‘vacant’ pounded in my head. “Where are the books?” The shelves in this section were practically empty. Bare slabs of wood greeted us.

“Like I told you…a phenomenon,” she said with an amazed smile playing on her full lips. “People have been coming in a lot over the last few weeks—even to lend out movies.” She glanced at the glass enclosure on the corner where the DVD’s and video games filled black racks. No, actually they weren’t filling the racks. I narrowed my eyes and focused. Had the place been robbed?

“This week though, has been the big winner,” she continued, offering an answer to my muted thoughts and walked to the tall alphabetized bookcases. I trailed behind her with a frown that refused to leave my face.

“People have finally realized how wonderful and stirring reading is.” She stopped in front of a wide wall of books and glided her fingers on the empty space absently, as if taking great pride in the lack of written material in these shelves—and many others.

Never in my life had I seen anything like this. Not that I frequented libraries on my free time, but the numerous holes in the jagged rows of books weren’t normal. There was nothing normal about this. How could anyone not notice it? How could anyone take pride in it?

I rested my eyes on a large bookcase in the middle of the hallway only to deepen the pucker between my eyebrows. “How many books is someone allowed to take out?” I asked, eyeing the blank spaces. If the limit was high, the amount of readers could’ve been low. So less people to worry about.

“Hmm?”

I turned to look at her and repeated the question.

“Oh, um, two books for a maximum of two weeks.”

I felt as if a pot of ice-cold water had been dropped onto my head, freezing the blood flow in my face. Definitely not good news.

“I'm sorry I distracted you with all of this. You must be in a hurry to get the information for your article and be done with it—spring break rush,” she added with a knowing smile.

Still on a brain freeze, it took me a while to answer back. “No, it’s okay. I, uh, need to get back to my house. I forgot something.” I lied.

She cocooned her hand around the other one and flashed me an understanding smile. “No worries. I’ll be here until eight if you need me.”

I half smiled and walked to the doorway, all my neurons gathered in one particular thought. I was right. I wasn’t blowing things out of proportion. And with it came another idea.

Yes, I still had one more place to visit.