Sisters of Heart and Snow

by Margaret Dilloway

  “It’s my service animal.” The boy has a sly smile. He could be Tom Sawyer with those freckles.

  Drew squints at the boy. Honestly, she has to tamp down her impulse to use a bad word. “How the heck is that your service animal?”

  “It sticks out its tongue if I’m going to have an anxiety attack.” He demonstrates by sticking out his own tongue.

  She leans forward. “I don’t believe you.”

  He pets the iguana gingerly. The spines on its ridge look sharp. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Alexander. I must draw the line at iguanas,” a deep voice, tinged with a British accent, says from behind her.

  “Come on, Mr. Tennant.” The boy picks up his iguana. “I swear it’s true.”

  The voice tsks. “Take Iggy home before something bad happens to him. You know better than that.”

  Alexander picks up Iggy and sticks the unfortunate lizard into his backpack before sauntering off.

  “I’m so very sorry.” The man moves in front of Drew. She sees khakis, an argyle sweater vest, and a smile hovering above it. He has deep-set dark brown eyes with crinkling lines in the corners and a closely shaved face. A thin, well-shaped nose with thick eyebrows. Strong jaw. He doesn’t look like a librarian, Drew thinks. He doesn’t even have glasses. But what’s a librarian’s supposed to look like? She’s staring like she needs to memorize his features for a police sketch and forces herself to blink. “Ever since we had this law passed about not being able to ask for pet assistance identification, we’ve had this kind of thing happening. We don’t want to be sued.”

  Drew swallows and closes her mouth, which she only now realizes is hanging open. “Oh.” She clears her throat. He continues to stand there, as if he’s waiting for her to say something else, his head cocked to the side. His shock of light brown hair falls into his eyes and he brushes it back impatiently.

  She wants to say something flirtatious, but this pops out of her mouth instead. “Whatever happened to being quiet in a library?”

  He laughs softly, the sound reminding Drew of a saxophone, and sits in the chair opposite her. He laces his hands together. His knuckles are bigger than his fingers, his hands strong, and he’s not wearing a ring. He lowers his voice to a whisper. “I suppose it’s my fault.”

  Drew raises an eyebrow. “Really? I thought the British were very proper.”

  He leans forward. “In my quest to be American, I may have gone a bit too far. Now it’s all gone to the dogs, as it were. You see, these kids had nowhere to go after school to do homework. Their own school library isn’t open. I want to keep the library relevant. They asked if they could do study groups. I said of course. But the noise level went up and up and up.” He shakes his head. “Now it’s irretrievably broken.”

  Drew glances around at the kids. A few tackle their homework, but they’re mostly playing video games. “I guess it’s free childcare, basically. Doesn’t anybody come in here to study?”

  “A few.” He holds out his hand. “I’m Alan Tennant. The head librarian.”

  “Drew Snow.” They shake hands. Drew’s hands are hardly tiny, given her height, but his still dwarfs hers, envelopes it pleasantly. They shake for a second too long.

  It’s awfully warm in here. Drew has to restrain herself from flapping her shirt. She looks around for Chase and sees him standing by the encyclopedias, talking to a redheaded girl wearing a basketball jersey that says “Browning High.”

  “Is that your brother?” Alan inclines his head toward Chase. “Chase, right? He comes in here a fair amount.”

  “No. My nephew.” Drew studies Alan. Surely he can’t think she’s that young. She figures he’s about her age, maybe a bit younger. She glances at the circulation desk and sees a model-pretty librarian with long black hair and teeth that glow white even from this distance, helping out a student. They must hire librarians from the local modeling agency here. She figures he’s dating that girl, or somebody else, ring or no. Because nobody this good-looking, with an accent like that, can be single for long. She imagines single mothers bringing their toddlers to storytime, dropping and picking up books while wearing short skirts.

  “Ah. Are you a teacher?” He shifts back in his seat and regards her.

  “No. Why would you think that?” She cocks her head.

  “It’s the teachers who want me to do something about it, usually.” He ducks his head. “The parents are merely glad that their children have someplace to go.”

  The noise level crescendos as the toddler class lets out. A middle school boy shouts at another, computer to computer. Drew grits her teeth, momentarily forgetting about Alan. She’s neither teacher nor parent, but she can’t take it anymore. “Good Lord. You know what?” She has an idea. “I’ll bet you I can make this whole library go quiet.”

  “Yelling won’t help.” Alan settles back, his keen gaze on her. “Believe me. I’ve tried it.”

  “No yelling involved.”

  He leans forward and his eyes flash wickedly. He lowers his voice so much Drew’s sure he’s about to proposition her. “I’ll bet you—”

  Drew holds her breath.

  “A cup of coffee.” He holds up a hand. “Not that you’re obligated to accept.”

  Drew grins. Why not? Having coffee with an English librarian would be the most interesting thing that’s happened to her in, oh, about a year. She holds out her hand and shakes his again. “Deal.”

  She looks around at all the music cases until she finds the likeliest suspect. “A viola?” she asks the girl sitting at the computer. The girl nods, squinting suspiciously at her. “May I please use it?”

  The girl shrugs and glances at Alan. “I guess. Don’t break it.”

  “I won’t.” Drew takes it out. It’s a student model, inexpensive, but Drew still handles it carefully. She draws the bow over the strings, tunes it. She’s aware of Alan watching her from the table. The library chatters on.

  Drew closes her eyes. What to play? A classical song? Her mind goes through what she knows. One of the songs she wrote? They won’t recognize it. No—they need something they’ve heard.

  A melody settles in her head. “Somebody That I Used to Know,” by Gotye.

  She plays the first few notes to make sure they’re okay. Afraid of being rusty. It’s been a long time since she’s done a proper performance, like this, in front of live people. No retakes allowed.

  Drew climbs up onto the chair. Now the library goes quiet, anticipating something. “Can I get you guys to clap your hands?” She gives them a beat. “Do it all through the song—I don’t have a drummer.” Only Alan and the other librarian and one mother do it. The students stare, stone-faced.

  She smiles at all of them radiantly anyway, feeling a burst of excitement. Her skin tingles. She starts out by plucking the opening notes, as if she’s playing the guitar. The kids murmur excitedly as they recognize the song. Quickly she lifts the viola to her shoulder. Her wrist bows with perfect grace and the song bursts out of her viola. She plays with abandon. Acting as if she’s onstage before an audience of thousands, instead of in a tiny public library full of rather stinky teens.

  She plays as she has forgotten how she could play.

  When she lifts the bow off the viola, it is so quiet that she can hear the hum of the fluorescent lights above. She opens her eyes.

  The library bursts into applause. “How’d you do that?” “Can you do another?” “Can you play the Big Butts song?”

  Smart-aleck. “I actually can, but I’m not going to.” She plays the first few bars just to prove it. The kids whoop louder.

  Drew takes a little bow. Alan’s standing up, sunbursts radiating out from around his eyes. “Well done!” he says.

  “Now, kids,” she says. “This is a library. That means quiet. If you want to be noisy, go to the park. Nobody will stop you.” She points to t
he kid on the floor. “That means you, too—there’s plenty of grass to lie on outside.” The boy sits up but doesn’t budge. Oh well. Alan will have to handle it.

  She looks around for Chase, but he’s not in the corner where he was.

  Hastily, she returns the viola to the girl, who has been paying the least attention to this performance because she’s got her headphones on. Drew walks to the place where he’d been. No Chase. She does a sweep of the room, but he’s nowhere.

  She goes to the bathrooms and knocks at the men’s room. No answer. She peeks in. A single stall—empty.

  Shoot.

  She exits the library and looks across the parking lot to the wide grassy area between this building and the pool. There, partially obscured by a tree and part of the pool fence, is Chase. With the girl in the high school jersey. Very close together. Drew moves a little closer. Oh shit. They’re making out. Not just a little bit, either—Chase’s hands move up and down inside the girl’s shirt.

  Drew bounds across the asphalt like it’s a bed of coals. As her feet pound, one thought echoes. Rachel is going to kill him.

  Or her.

  “Hey!” Drew shouts. “Chase!” The girl adjusts her jersey, pulls it down over her belly, and Chase lifts his head sleepily. No time for niceties. “Get over here. Now.”

  Chase finally looks properly startled. He straightens and lifts his hand in farewell to the girl, who pretty much sprints in the opposite direction. Drew’s never yelled at him in her life. She hasn’t been around enough to have the privilege. Chase lopes over to her.

  When he gets close enough, she leans in. “Just what in hell do you think you’re doing?” She’s bursting with anger and fear, something she’s never felt together. She wants to both shake him and lock him up forever. She motions for him to come to the car.

  “I was just talking to my girlfriend.”

  “Talking. Right. She’s your girlfriend?” Drew peers after the girl, who’s heading away from them, toward the pool, in her high school jersey. “Are you allowed to have a girlfriend? Is she in high school?”

  Chase blushes. “Yeah. So?”

  “What grade?” Drew tries really hard not to shout, but it’s not working.

  Chase won’t meet her eyes. “Junior. We played club water polo over the summer. Look, I have to get my backpack from inside the library.”

  A junior. Holy smokes. “What is she, sixteen? Seventeen?”

  “The second.” Chase stuffs his hands in his pockets, heads to the building. “She just turned seventeen.”

  Seventeen. Lord. This kept getting worse. A girl in high school should have her own peer group dating pool, not scavenge the middle school for a boyfriend. Something’s wrong with her. “Does your mother know?” Drew stops so suddenly. “You didn’t need a book at all. You were going to meet her.” Is that how Alan knows him?

  Chase stops moving and sighs, turning to look at her. Christ. He’s so tall. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “From where your hands were, I’d say it was.” Drew squinches her eyes shut. Should she tell her sister, or keep it quiet? On the one hand, she doesn’t want Rachel to strangle her only son. She can just hear Rachel’s voice. You should have been watching him instead of trying to impress the hot librarian. You’re unfit for aunt-hood.

  But how could she possibly have predicted this? Maybe she can tamp it down herself. That’s all that matters. That he doesn’t do it again. “Listen.” Drew’s face heats. “Do you know about birth control? Two forms at all times. Don’t believe the girl if she says she’s on the Pill. You need proof.” A boy from inside the library emerges and stares. Drew doesn’t care. She glares back at the stranger. Maybe he could use a lecture, too. Bring it on.

  “Aunt Drew.” Chase covers his face with his hands. “Oh. My. God. Please stop talking.”

  She leans into him. “I’m serious, Chase. You’re old enough. You could get her pregnant.” Scare him straight. That’s what she’ll do to him. “How would you support a baby?”

  “Do you think I’m going to do it with her right in the open?” Chase takes his hands off his face, his face a mottled red. “I’m not some kind of degenerate.”

  “Okay.” She holds up her hands.

  “We’re in a relationship.” He says the word like it means something to him. “She’s important to me.”

  “How? You’re fourteen. In middle school. I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to date. In fact, I’m a hundred percent sure. Three years is a huge age difference when you’re fourteen, Chase. She should know better, even if you don’t.”

  Chase sighs and looks at the sky. “I’m not going to do it with her.”

  Right. Maybe not at the park, but at someone’s empty house? Drew jerks her head toward the building. “Get your backpack.”

  Chase goes into the library. Drew leans against the car and waits. Chase returns and gets in, slamming the door so hard it hurts Drew’s eardrums. She gets in, too.

  They’re silent for a while. Then Drew says, “You know it can go too far really fast, right?”

  Chase closes his eyes. “I will get out of the car if you keep talking.” He grips the handle. “I swear to God, I’ll roll out onto the street.”

  Drew clicks the lock. “Stop being so dramatic.”

  Chase turns his head away. “Are you going to tell Mom?”

  “Do you think I shouldn’t?” Drew backs out and heads onto the street, bumping the undercarriage on the sidewalk.

  Chase shakes his head. “My mother will freak out. She’ll lock me in my room until I’m eighteen. Please. You know how uptight she is.”

  Drew thinks about Rachel and their father and how she got kicked out. “She might be more understanding than you think, Chase.” They stop at a light, watching a stream of kids heading to the convenience store pass in front of them. The girls are in middle school and all of them in this group wear tight clothes, low cut, short—the kind of clothes Drew would have worn to a club in her twenties. It makes her feel old and sort of judgmental to think this, but really. She wants to yell at them to have some self-respect. When did this happen? She feels desperately sorry for Rachel and Tom, raising kids now.

  “Please.” Chase grabs Drew’s arm. “I know her better than you do. You haven’t been around.”

  Drew ignores the sting. Maybe he does know her sister better. “I know I can’t control you, Chase. But.” Drew thinks of the promise she wants to extract. She can’t put a chastity belt on him. She can’t track down the girl and order her away. “I won’t tell Rachel, if you cut it off with this girl. Don’t see her anymore. Don’t talk to her anymore. Don’t text. Agreed?”

  He sucks in air, thinking. Drew thinks she even sees relief flicker across his face. Maybe it was too much for him, and he’s glad he got caught. He crosses his heart. “Okay, Aunt Drew.” The light changes to green.

  • • •

  In the evening, I snuggle up under a blanket on the sectional and pick up The Tale of Genji. It’s considered the first true novel ever written. A noblewoman, Murasaki Shikibu, wrote it in the eleventh century. It’s one of the background books Joseph recommended.

  “How is it?” Drew sits and opens up her laptop. “Intriguing?”

  “It’s kind of dense. She only uses titles instead of names, so it’s hard to follow. Plus, everybody tries to talk in verse, which apparently was what people really did try to do.” I flip through it. For the first time in my life, I consider just getting the SparkNotes version. Even in high school, even at my laziest lowest point, I’d been too stubborn to stoop to anything like that. This book is very long. “It’s about Genji and the Japanese court and all the romances he had. He’s a son of the emperor, but he’s no longer royal and has to take the name Minamoto.”

  “Minamoto. Like the clan name in the Tomoe Gozen story.” Drew’s face lights up. “I remembered today, Rach
el, that Mom told me we’re descended from samurai.” She taps away. “Oh.” She purses her lips. “Mom’s name was Sato. That’s like Smith in Japan. But maybe she was talking about her mother’s maiden name.”

  “I don’t know.” I tilt my head, curious. “When did Mom tell you that? You never mentioned it.”

  Drew waves her hand. “She said it during an argument. I forgot—I was more focused on being mad at her.” She smiles ruefully. “It was pretty much the most personal thing she ever told me.”

  “Mom was more about action than words.” I lean over to Drew, who’s gone from happy to downcast in one sentence. Preoccupied. It’s Mom. And probably Drew’s lack of a job. I wonder if she needs a loan. “Are you okay?”

  She nods.

  “If you need to go back to L.A., I totally understand.” I smile at her, trying to convey that I really don’t mind if she stays longer.

  “Well. You know what they say about fish and houseguests.” She sinks farther down and clicks on her laptop. “I’m thinking about moving down here.”

  “Really?” I purse my lips, considering logistics. “What neighborhood? What would you do?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Her tone is terse. “I just thought of it. I mean, there’s nothing keeping me in L.A. I can drive up there if I get a music job.”

  “Okay,” I say simply. I don’t want to offend her. “You can stay here as long as you like. You’re not a houseguest—you’re earning your keep. Thanks for getting Chase.”

  She nods once, focusing on the screen.

  I swallow. Sometimes we just seem to be from two different planets, speaking some version of English neither of us quite understands. “Hey.” I change the subject. “I stopped by the post office and got airmail stationery. Shall we write to Hatsuko?”