The Girl He Used to Know(21)

“Yes. I just need to grab my things.” She walks off and doesn’t turn around to make sure I’m following, but of course I am.

In her office, I lean against her desk as she shuts off her computer and gathers her things. A stocky, unattractive woman with frizzy black hair stomps into the room. “Did you leave your cart in the reference section, Annika? Someone abandoned theirs and it’s blocking the row.” She stops talking when she realizes there’s someone else in the room.

“No,” Annika says. “Mine is back where it belongs.”

The woman studies me and smooths her hair. “Hi. I’m Audrey. Annika’s superior.” She thrusts out her hand and her chest.

“She’s not my superior,” Annika says. “I don’t report to her.”

Audrey gives an embarrassed smile with a touch of irritation carefully hidden underneath.

But I notice it.

“Jonathan.” I shake her hand quickly.

Audrey shoots Annika a pointed look. “So that’s who you were leaving the message for the other day, Annika.” She turns back to me, coy. “And you are…”

That’s not really any of your business. “Annika’s college boyfriend.”

Audrey’s eyes get big.

I look at Annika, warmly. “I was her first love.”

“He was my first everything,” Annika says matter-of-factly.

“And now you’ve reconnected?” Audrey asks. She can barely contain her curiosity.

I smile cryptically. “Something like that.”



* * *



“I don’t like Audrey,” Annika says as we make our way toward the exit.

“I can’t say I blame you.”

“She isn’t very nice to me, and the more I try to stand up for myself, the worse it gets.”

It makes me sad that Annika still has to deal with this kind of crap after all these years, but I see it every day at my own workplace. The jockeying for power. Behavior more suitable to high school than the business world.

“Do you know how sometimes you think of the perfect rebuttal but by the time you come up with it, it’s hours later?” she asks.

“Sure.”

“That’s how it always is with me and Audrey.”

“I bet you can hold your own,” I say, but she shrugs and looks down at the ground.

We grab a cab outside the library. I’d asked Annika if she liked the food at Trattoria No. 10 and told her I’d booked a table. “But I can change it if you’d rather go someplace else.”

“I love the food there,” she’d said. “Especially the stuffed shells.”

“How was your day?” I ask once I’ve given the cab driver our destination.

“It was good. Busy. I spent most of the day weeding.”

“Weeding?”

“Our collections are like our gardens and we go through them looking for damaged or outdated books. I take my cart and pull off a big section to make sure the selection is something my patrons would like. I would never just leave my cart in the row,” she mutters.

It’s nice to see her so passionate about her job, and even more than that, so comfortable with me. Her demeanor has changed significantly, and for the better, since our coffee date. She’s not the only one who seems more relaxed, because Annika has always had that effect on me. Currently, there are very few people in my life I can be one hundred percent myself around, but she’s always been one of them. I don’t have to put on a show or try to impress her the way I did with Liz. It’s very liberating.

“How was your day?” she blurts a bit loudly and unexpectedly, as if she just realized she should ask and is trying to make up for it with urgency and enthusiasm. It startles me a little.

“Also busy.” I should still be at work, toiling away in my office until midnight so I can complain about it the next morning the way my peers will, for the sole purpose of making sure everyone knows how late we were there. The dog and pony show we all have starring roles in drives me insane, but choosing not to participate really isn’t an option.

The cab pulls up to the curb, and I pay and follow Annika into the restaurant.

The hostess greets us with an unusually big smile and an enthusiastic “Hello!” She comes around from behind the podium and walks toward Annika, arms outstretched. I tense for a second, because Annika doesn’t like it when strangers touch her, but she’s smiling and flapping her hands at the hostess. “Claire! Hi!” They hug.

“It’s so good to see you. It’s been a while.”

Annika nods her head. “I know. It has.”

“We have a reservation for two under the name Hoffman,” I say.

Claire checks my name off the list and leads us to a cozy table for two. “I’ll send Rita over with your drink,” she says to Annika.

Annika sits down, beams like a child at Claire. “I’ve been looking forward to it all day.”

“Still cherry?”

“Yep.”

I’m not entirely sure what Annika’s connection is to this woman, but I’m starting to formulate a few theories.

“For you, sir?” Claire asks.

“Gin and tonic, please.”

“Right away.” She squeezes Annika’s shoulder and heads back toward her podium.