You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(8)

Um, do you realize that this guy only saw the Missed Connection because he goes on Missed Connections? Think about that. How sad is that? I mean, it’s kind of pathetic if you think about it, and beyond that…a smiley face?

“Yoo-hoo. Is it possible to get some service?”

Great. Just what I need right now. A customer. “Sorry for the wait, sir.”

He drops his Clive Cussler on the counter. I tell him it’s a good one. He grunts. “In my day, we had our feet on the ground and our eyes on the world, but you kids…Mark my words. Those computers will be the death of you.”

I laugh like the loser I am, the idiot who makes a smiley face. “Have a good one.”

“Impossible,” he mutters. “The good ones are all behind us.”

The second the door closes, I check my Hotmail, but it’s cold. Ice-cold.

My Portnoy is twitching. I look at the door. Why didn’t you just come back? Sure, you put yourself out there, but you got to hold on to your fucking dignity. You got to be anonymous. Me? I blew my wad. I came too fast. I lost my privacy and my dignity. You pursued me in the most beautiful, gutsy way and I made a joke of it. A smiley face. A smiley face.

“Joe!”

“Coming!”

Oh, that’s right. It’s another problem about us, as if there is an us. Mr. Mooney is all I have, and he hated you—you didn’t buy a book and you left the light on in the bathroom—and how does this work? How do we fall in love if the two of you hate each other?

I knock on the office door, and he says it’s open, and I brace for impact. It will never not kill me. The hypocrisy. The man loves books. The man smokes cigars…in a bookstore. He smirks.

“What’s that face, Joseph?”

“Nothing.”

“What did we learn about lying, Joseph?”

“Sorry,” I say. “Just a bad salad.”

He nods and sighs. He hates salad. It was a good lie. I’m learning. Let him grumble about the evils of carnivores eating leaves. But not for too long. The more he whines about salad culture being the downfall of civilization, the more I want to meet you. I get it now. If I don’t at least try to have a girlfriend, I’m gonna end up like Mooney, watching the security footage, wanting to be robbed, because I like to be angry more than I like to be sad.

I hold my stomach again and wince. He rolls his eyes. “Don’t be a pansy, Joseph.”

“Sorry.”

Pansy and this is the opposite of a pep talk. I bet you don’t like me, not anymore, and I want to unsend my pathetic message and take hot pokers to the eyes of the fucking smiley face—WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME—and I blew it, didn’t I? Mr. Mooney is right about a lot. Maybe I am a pansy.

“Anyway,” he says. “I reviewed our stock as well as our sales.”

“Okay.”

“You lied to me again.”

I did. “I didn’t.”

“That’s number three and it’s not even six p.m.”

I hang my head. It’s been about four months since I fucked up and let a girl walk out of here with a rare, signed Catcher in the Rye. He put me in the cage. I swore I learned my lesson. Don’t lie. Don’t be na?ve. Don’t let women get away with murder.

“Joseph,” he says. “We have six Complaints in this shop. Which means we did not sell one in the month of December, which is no surprise, as people have no taste, particularly young women in capes and combat boots.”

It’s dark kismet. Bad magic. WHY DIDN’T I BUY A FUCKING COMPLAINT?

“Right,” I say. “But she seemed nice, and sometimes…”

“Joseph.”

He’s picking up his keys, the keys to the basement, to the cage. I don’t want to go in there, not on his terms. I want to fucking live.

“You’re right,” I say. “She was a cunt.”

We’re not even together and already I betrayed you. You wouldn’t like me if you saw me right now. And maybe on some level you didn’t come back because you did see me, even though you wanted to project all this good stuff on me. Maybe you’re having second thoughts. You’re probably at work—you seemed older in a way where you probably have a checkbook and a 401(k)—and I bet you read my email and realized that I’m not a hero. I’m just a dumb kid. A runaway pansy who sleeps in an extra-long twin bed in a cardboard fucking box of a fake bedroom. You can’t call it a room. There is no window, and if you think about it, it’s just another cage because of Dumb and Dumber on the sofa watching their big fat TV. I am cute, but not cute enough. I come too fast, and I wrote too fast—I should’ve made you wait and yearn—and Mr. Mooney snaps his fingers.

“Wake up.”

“Sorry.”

All at once, my flaws come barreling at me. I apologize too much. I read too much. I think too much. I do a lot of things too much. I am not “Too Much” by Dave Matthews, which is only annoying to some. I am annoying to all. Nobody loves me. Not my parents, not Mr. Mooney, not the one girl from the one time. Not even Dumb and Dumber. They don’t invite me to watch football with them, and why should they? I live in a room that isn’t even a room. No closet. No lock on my “door.” Just a body in a makeshift box to help them cover the fucking rent.

“Don’t be sorry, Joseph. Be smart.”