“Can it really be called fan fiction if the author clearly isn’t a fan?” I say.
“Has she sent you more? Does it get smutty? Lots of fan fiction gets smutty.”
“Again,” I say, “not fan fiction.”
Libby cackles. “Maybe Dusty’s got a crush.”
“Or maybe she’s hiring a hit man as we speak.”
“I hope it gets smutty,” she says.
“Libby, if you had your way, every book would end with an earth-shattering orgasm.”
“Hey, why wait until the end?” she says. “Oh, right, because that’s where you start reading.” She pretends to dry heave at the thought.
I stand to rinse my plate. “Well, it’s been fun, but I’m off to track down Wi-Fi that doesn’t make me want to put my head through a wall.”
“I’ll meet you later,” she says. “First, I’m going to spend a few hours walking around naked, shouting cuss words. Then I’ll probably call home—want me to tell Brendan you say hi?”
“Who?”
Libby flips me off. I loudly kiss the side of her head on my way to the door with my laptop bag. “Don’t go anywhere from Once in a Lifetime without me!” she screams.
I cut myself off before Not sure those places even exist can spew out of me. For the first time in months, we feel like the us of a different time—fully connected, fully present—and the last thing I want is some uncontrollable variable messing things up. “Promise,” I say.
10
AFTER PAYING FOR my iced Americano at Mug + Shot, I ask the chipper barista with the septum piercing for the Wi-Fi password.
“Oh!” She gestures to a wooden sign behind her reading, Let’s unplug! “No Wi-Fi here. Sorry.”
“Wait,” I say, “really?”
She beams. “Yep.”
I glance around. No laptops in sight. Everyone here looks like they came straight from climbing Everest or doing drugs in a Coachella yurt.
“Is there a library or something?” I ask.
She nods. “A few blocks down. No Wi-Fi there yet either—supposed to get it in the fall. For now they’ve got desktops you can use.”
“Is there anywhere in town with Wi-Fi?” I ask.
“The bookstore just got it,” she admits, quietly, like she’s hoping the words don’t trigger a stampede of coffee drinkers who would very much like to be un-unplugged.
I thank her and emerge into the sticky heat, sweat gathering in my armpits and cleavage as I trek toward the bookstore. When I step inside, it feels like I’ve just wandered into a maze, all the breezes, wind chimes, and bird chatter going quiet at once, that warm cedar-and-sunned-paper smell folding around me.
I sip my ice-cold drink and bask in the double-barreled serotonin coursing through me. Is there anything better than iced coffee and a bookstore on a sunny day? I mean, aside from hot coffee and a bookstore on a rainy day.
The shelves are built at wild angles that make me feel like I’m sliding off the edge of the planet. As a kid, I would’ve loved the whimsy of it—a fun house made of books. As an adult, I’m mostly concerned with staying upright.
On the left, a low, rounded doorway is cut into one of the shelves, its frame carved with the words Children’s Books.
I bend to peer through it to a soft blue-green mural, like something out of Madeline, words swirling across it: Discover new worlds! Off the other side of the main room, an average-sized doorway leads to the Used and Rare Book Room.
This main room isn’t exactly brimming with crisp new spines. As far as I can tell, there’s very little method to this store’s organization. New books mixed with old, paperbacks with hardcovers, and fantasy next to nonfiction, a not-so-fine layer of dust laid over most of it.
Once, I bet this place was a town jewel where people shopped for holiday presents and preteens gossiped over Frappuccinos. Now it’s another small-business graveyard.
I follow the labyrinthine shelves deeper into the store, past a doorway to the world’s most depressing “café” （a couple of card tables and some folding chairs）， and around a corner, and I freeze for a millisecond, midstep, one foot hovering in the air.
Seeing the man hunched over his laptop behind the register, an unimpressed furrow in his brow, is like waking up from a nightmare where you’re falling off a cliff, only to realize your house has been scooped up by a tornado while you slept.
This is the problem with small towns: one minor lapse in judgment and you can’t go a mile without running into it.