Bookish and the Beast

by Ashley Poston

  I give a start. “How did you…?”

  “Annie called me at work,” he replies. “Told me that you got fired.”

  “I quit, actually,” I reply nobly.

  He sighs and waves the menus at me, deciding to drop the argument. Which means he isn’t that upset with me. “What do you want to eat?”

  “I’m not really hungry,” I mumble in reply, taking out my laptop from my bag, and I open it up to the Word document, and the title, WHY I SHOULD BE CONSIDERED FOR NYU. The rest is still, unsurprisingly, blank.

  Because honestly? I am not all that remarkable. I’m just known as the girl whose mom died last year, and I don’t want to write about that. I don’t want to remember how the hospital smelled so sterile, and how Mom’s hand was so cold, and her breath so shallow. I don’t want to remember the last words she said to me (“Be good, Rosebud”), and I don’t want to remember that I had to leave the room. I don’t want to remember walking to the soda machine at the end of the hallway and getting an Orange Crush when I asked for a Diet Coke.

  I don’t want to remember the slow walk back to her room. Dad standing at the door. Tears dripping down his face. The Orange Crush forgotten on the ground. The swell of grief that seemed to root all the way down into my toes.

  No, no, no.

  The moment that changed my life was the moment that ruined it, and I’m sure no college wants to read about that.

  I wave my hand at the menus. “You pick.”

  He sighs, raking his hands through his gelled hair to dishevel it. It’s somewhere in the range of silver, the sides darker to fit his natural color. When he started going gray a few years ago, his barber convinced him to just go full silver, so he now dyes it. He hasn’t gone back since. He says it makes him feel cool, and honestly the silver hair makes it easier to spot him in a crowd. Dad used to be in a punk band in the ’90s. There are a few pictures floating around of him on the dark web, but the less people who know that my dad used to tour with the likes of Green Day, the better.

  He scrunches his nose and says, “How about sushi? From Inakaya?”

  “Whatever you’d like,” I reply with a wave.

  “Two Californias and a salmon?”

  “And a few spring rolls?”

  “Spring rolls it is.” He pulls his cell phone out of his back pocket and calls in the order. The restaurant knows us by name, we order out so often. It’s also the only sushi place in town that has remotely fresh fish. When you’re in backwater nowhere, it’s hard to find anything that isn’t flash-frozen fast food.

  Then he downs the rest of his drink, and as he sets his empty glass on the table he asks, “So what was it like?”

  I glance up from the mesmerizing blinking cursor. “What was what like?”

  “The book. You know, before it took a dive.”

  The book.

  The Starfield extended-universe books have been out of print for a number of years, but you can still find one floating around at a used bookshop, dog-eared and spine-broken. Mom had a whole collection of them. They were her pride and joy.

  I smiled softly. “It smelled like old pages.”

  He gave a wistful sigh. “They all do.”

  As he says this, a thought occurs to me, and I sit up a little straighter. “Wait a minute, do you think Mom’s books are in that library?”

  “Oh, no,” he replies, rocking his glass of bourbon from side to side. “Remember, we sold all of hers to some collector in LA. I doubt those are hers. But it was a good thought.”

  My heart sinks down into the pit of my stomach. “Yeah. That would’ve been impossible, I guess.”

  “The world’s filled with impossible things, Rosebud,” he replies after a moment, and gives a shrug. “Maybe I’m wrong.”

  But we both highly doubt that.

  As I try to find something to write about—the only moment that changed my life is the one moment I don’t want to ever think about again—Dad goes to change out of his work clothes. He’s been trying to get the director of the library to make their work attire more flexible for years, but alas his campaigning has been for naught so far, so he stands at the circulation desk every day in pressed trousers, a button-down, and a bright neon tie, and tries not to look too grim-lovely. (The director also tried to get him to take the gauges out of his ears, but while you can take the punk out of the band, you can’t take the punk out of the punk.)

  I’m just about done with my homework when the delivery guy knocks on our door and Dad answers it in his neon-orange gym shorts and a MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK T-shirt. Dad fist-bumps the delivery guy, Wes, and they talk for a moment about his first semester at the local tech college, before Wes heads on his way. Dad takes the bag of sushi and tips him. “Thanks, man. Safe driving!”

  Then he closes the door, and sometimes I have to wonder how he’s so friendly to literally everyone he meets. It’s second nature to him, as easy as breathing. I can barely talk to one person without slipping up and blurting out things I’ll later send myself into a panic spiral over.

  Dad holds up his bounty as he parades it into the kitchen. “Dinner has arrived! It makes miso happy.”

  I stare at him. “Dad.”

  “I know, I know,” he replies dramatically, and he sits down opposite me again. I close my laptop—it’s wishful thinking that I’ll be able to write that essay tonight—and shove it to the far side of the table. He begins to unpack the food from the bag. “I’m soy awesome you can’t stand it.”

  “DAD.”

  “I’m on a roll.”

  I begin to melt under the table.

  He smiles and hands me a pair of chopsticks. “Okay, okay. But you gotta let me have a little fun sometimes. Some people would kill for my pun skills.”

  “Yeah, they’re to die for.”

  He jabs a chopstick at me. “A-ha! See! Aren’t they fun?”

  “Whatever.” I tear open a packet of soy sauce and pool it in a corner of the plastic sushi tray. Dad takes out the spring rolls, putting one on his plate and giving another to me.

  He slides the last one to the third seat at the table, and there is a quiet moment.

  “Hey, Dad?”

  “Yeah?” He pulls out a pair of cheap chopsticks.

  “I love you.”

  He smiles. “I love you too…and dim sum.”

  “Ugh.” I roll my eyes and throw a chopstick at him. It clatters across the table, but he catches it before it rolls off and hands it back to me in a truce.

  THE ROOM IS TOO BRIGHT because for some godforsaken reason all of the curtains have been pushed back, and it makes my headache sharper. Who in the bloody hell opened them? The culprit soon becomes clear. Elias stands to the side of my bed, waiting patiently. I snarl against the light and press the palms of my hands against my eye sockets.

  “For the love of God, please close the curtains.” I groan.

  He shakes his head defiantly, hands on his hips. “It’s a beautiful morning and you will leave your room today.”

  “Whatever for?”

  He opens his mouth, and then closes it again. “Because…it’s a beautiful day?”

  I grab the covers and pull them over my head. “Good night. Close the curtains as you leave—”

  “Vance.” He tries to stop me.

  “Elias, what? I’m here, okay? I am here, in the middle of nowhere, wasting away. I don’t exist. So let me bloody well not exist.” I grab my pillow and pull it onto my head.

  He sits at the edge of my bed, and he says softly, “Your mother called.”

  Of course she did.

  “She wants to speak with you.”

  Oh, she wants to speak with me now, but she had nothing to say when my stepfather banished me here?

  That’s rich.

  She tried to confront me before I left last week, and we ended up havi
ng a row. She said some nasty things. I said some things back. That was when it was decided that my stepfather’s best friend, Elias Rodriguez—my godfather, essentially—would look after me in the interim. My stepfather certainly wouldn’t. He paid more attention to the movies he produced than to his own son.

  Tragic, I know.

  It’s just so hard being Vance Reigns, heir to Kolossal Pictures, prince of Hollywood, et cetera, et cetera.

  Whatever.

  I figure if I ignore Elias long enough, he’ll leave, and finally he does and closes the door behind him. If I never talk to my mother again, it will be too soon. She can leave voice mails all she wants.

  I don’t care whether it’s a beautiful day. I don’t care what I’ll be missing. I don’t very well care about any of it. I just want to exist here, do my time out of the media, and leave. It’s not as though I wanted any of this to begin with.

  Yes, I like a little bit of chaos. And yes, I might have gotten into some easily preventable trouble more often than not. I mean, wouldn’t you want to shake things up now and again if everything you ever did was watched over, quite meticulously, by not only your overbearing mother but also hundreds of thousands of fans?

  I suppose I could have called a taxi for Elle after the Starfield: Resonance wrap party. I could have just ignored the paparazzi. I could have not lost control and careened my Tesla into a small reservoir half a mile from where Elle wanted to be dropped off.

  But I’d be out of my mind to think that was the tipping point. It was an amalgamation of all of it—the late-night parties at the flat, the clubbing, the revolving door of men and women throughout my dating life. The stunt with Jessica Stone last year at ExcelsiCon didn’t help matters, either.

  Everyone loves the allure of a bad boy. They love him right up until he crosses that invisible threshold. They cheer him on, they fall in love, they protect him—

  Until, suddenly, they don’t.

  And then they become the villain. The cautionary tale.

  In other words: me.

  ANNIE AND QUINN ARE WAITING FOR ME outside Quinn’s house at the end of a beautiful tree-lined street. We’ve all been together for as long as I can remember. One day we all sat on the same tire swing in kindergarten, the one under the big oak tree in the corner of the yard, and—well—that was it. History was made and the bonds of friendship forged, and we didn’t even have to go to the summit of Mount Doom to do it.

  I can’t imagine a single day of my life without either of them.

  My best friends wait at the edge of the driveway as I pull up. “Hurry, hurry, hurry!” I say as Quinn and Annie climb into the back seat. I lift the drink carrier with two coffees over the passenger seat and hand it to them. “Java Hutt took way longer this morning.”

  Annie pulls her springy red hair back into a scrunchie and buckles up. “Can we blame Java if we miss homeroom?”

  “I’d rather miss first period,” Quinn says, taking the two coffees. They hand one to Annie. Quinn is one of the best-dressed people I’ve ever met. They’re stylish and cool, the kind of person you wish you could dress like. For instance, today they’re rocking plaid straight-legged pants, suspenders, and a Starfield T-shirt. They pull a lock of their short teal bob behind their ear. “I didn’t do the reading for Gunther’s class.”

  “Oh, the one on microorganisms?” Annie asks. “I can give you my notes.”

  I scoff, pulling out of the driveway. “There are more doodles on your notes than actual notes.”

  “I get bored!” Annie shrugs, then leans up behind the driver’s seat. “And don’t think you can just get away with not telling us what happened last night. I tried calling you for hours and it went straight to voice mail! We thought you’d died.”

  “I was already writing the eulogy,” Quinn agrees. “What happened to you? Annie said you got fired.”

  “I did. And it’s…complicated.”

  I watch my two best friends exchange a look in the rearview mirror, and both of them lean forward between the seats, prodding me to go on.

  “You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”

  Quinn takes a long drink of their iced Americano before they say, “Try me.”

  Last night, as Dad and I were leaving, Mr. Rodriguez did ask us to keep this arrangement to ourselves. Which, I mean, we will. Annie and Quinn are basically an extension of myself, aren’t they? Best friends always are.

  I trust them with my life.

  “You have to promise not to tell anyone,” I said gravely, and my two best friends exchange another look.

  Annie says, “I think we’re going to be late to homeroom.”

  To which Quinn says to me, “Go on.”

  I start with Vance’s dog, Sansa, running out in front of my car, and how I followed her into the castle-house. How I found the library, and the book, and how I ended up in the pool and having to owe over a thousand dollars because of my sticky fingers. And then I told them about Vance, and Mr. Rodriguez, and our agreement. I go the speed limit as I tell them, knowing the exact ten-minute drive to my paid parking spot.

  The high school is smack in the middle of town. Down the road is the middle school, and the elementary school sits at the end of Main Street like a hundred-year-old spooky remnant of ye olden days. I mean, the high school looks just as ancient, but at least it was built in the ’50s and has central AC. The elementary school still has window units. I shiver, remembering this past summer.

  Barbaric, putting snot-nosed kids through the armpit of hell. As I recount last night, I honestly can’t believe it happened myself. It sounds like something out of a rom-com—and I guess it would be, if the hunk hiding out in the castle was anyone other than Vance Reigns.

  “I can’t believe General Sond is here,” Annie mutters in disbelief. “Do you think I could get an autograph? A selfie? A letter from him to put on my stan Tumblr?”

  “You still keep up with that thing?” Quinn asks, perplexed. “Even after he got into all that trouble?”

  “Don’t police my morals!” Annie playfully elbows them in the side, and adds, “But seriously, can I get an autograph? I know the perfect fanart he can sign.”

  “Not the one with the—”

  “Oh yes, that one.”

  I massage the bridge of my nose. Now I remember why, last night as I lay awake in bed, I debated on whether to tell my best friends, and how much to tell them. I turn into the school parking lot as Quinn tries to talk Annie out of getting Vance to sign that fanart (not like he’d sign anything, but I don’t want to ruin their fun yet), until Quinn pops up between the passenger and driver’s seat and says, “So, theoretically, you could still have that video.”

  “Video?” I ask as I pull into my assigned parking spot.

  “You know, if your phone still works.”

  “Oh my God—the video! I’d die to see it. To see him in all of his bad-boy glory,” Annie adds with a heavenly sigh. “I wonder how sexy he is?”

  Too sexy, I think, hesitating, before I take my phone out of my pocket and pull up the video. I hit play and hand it to them. The video goes through my adventure through the dark of the house, to the pool, and then—a little garbled since my phone is old, but still clear enough—I hear Vance say, “What are you doing here?” and then I shriek and make a run for it, and then he shouts, “Wait—stop!”

  Right before I slam my elbow into his nose and take a dive into the pool.

  The video ends there.

  My best friends stare at my phone for a moment longer. Then Annie takes a sip of her caramel macchiato with soy and says, “Garrett’s going to lose his mind when he finds out.”

  I quickly take the phone back. “He’s not going to. And you two can’t tell anyone!”

  “But—” Annie begins.

  “Promise? Pinky swear?” I add, lifting my pinky.

  Grumbli
ng, Annie hooks her pinky to mine, and then Quinn does. They’ve never tattled on any of my secrets before—not about Dad and me losing the house after Mom passed, or having to sell her Starfield collection to pay for the funeral costs, so I don’t think twice about them blabbing here. They’re not the type.

  Even when it seems like it physically pains Annie to keep quiet.

  “We better get going, Bob’s heading for us,” Quinn observes, glancing out the back windshield at the man in the golf cart weaving through lines of cars to get to us. His sole job is to write up anyone who tries to sneak out of school in the middle of the day, or students who come in tardy. His silence is easily bought with a breakfast sandwich, but I don’t have a peace offering today.

  I grab my bookbag from the passenger seat as we hurry out of my car and make our way into the school through the breezeway. Homeroom’s already started and the hallways are almost entirely empty.

  “Speaking of Garrett Taylor,” Quinn says, cocking their head up at one of the TVs in the lobby playing the morning announcement. Garrett Taylor is on-screen, and behind him is the theme for this year’s Homecoming dance.

  GARDEN OF MEMORIES.

  “And I’m announcing, along with these other fine students, I’ll be running for Homecoming King! And if I win, I’m taking Rosie Thorne to Homecoming with me! So c’mon, friends, help me make true love happen!”

  I nearly drop my books out of my locker. “I never said yes to that!”

  “Or better yet,” he adds, and leans in toward the camera, “write her in as my queen.”

  I stare at the TV, my mouth agape, as I run through my conversation with him last night. Under no circumstances did I tell him that I’d go to Homecoming with him. There has to be some mistake. He can’t honestly think—why would he—why would he think I—

  Quinn slides up beside me and says, “You said no, huh.”