The Truth About Forever(79)

After the magazines were done, I sat facing the wall outside my window, knowing that the time was ticking down to his arriving. Any minute now, I kept thinking, that door will open and something will happen. I just didn't know what.

Beside me, Amanda and Bethany were busy practicing their conversational French for a school club trip they were taking at the end of the summer. All those guttural sounds on top of my anxious mood were about to drive me crazy. Which was probably why, when they finally, abruptly, shut up, I noticed.

Oh, God, I thought. Here we go. One moment Amanda was saying something about the Champs élysées, and the next, they were both staring at the library's front entrance, speechless.

I looked up, already picturing Jason in my mind. But it wasn't him. It was Wes.

He'd just come in and was standing by the front door, looking around as if getting his bearings. Then he saw me and started toward the desk with that slow, loping walk that I knew so well.

As he approached, I could hear the wheels of Bethany and Amanda's chairs moving; they were pushing up closer, arranging their postures. But he came right to me.

"Hey," he said.

I had never been so happy to see anyone in my entire life. "Hey."

"So look," he began, leaning over the desk, "I was—"

"Excuse me?" Bethany said. Her voice was loud, even.

Wes turned and looked at her. As he did so, I watched his profile, his arm, that little bit of the heart in hand peeking out from his sleeve.

"We can help you over here," Bethany said to him. "Did you have a question?"

"Um, sort of," Wes said, glancing at me, a mild smile on his face. "But—"

"I can answer it," Bethany said solidly, so confidently. Amanda, beside her, nodded, seconding this.

"Really, it's fine," he said, then looked at me again. He raised his eyebrows, and I just shrugged. "Okay, so—"

"She's only a trainee, she won't know the answer," Bethany told him, pushing her chair over closer to where he was, her voice too loud, bossy even. "It's better if you ask me. Or ask us."

Then, and only then, did I see the tiniest flicker of annoyance on Wes's face. "You know," Wes said, "I think she'll know it."

"She won't. Ask me."

Now it wasn't just a flicker. Wes looked at me, narrowing his eyes, and for a second I just stared back. Whatever happens, I thought, happens. For the first time, time at the info desk was flying.

"Okay," he said slowly, moving down the counter. He leaned on his elbows, closer to Bethany, and she sat up even straighter, readying herself, like someone on Jeopardy awaiting the Daily Double. "So here's my question."

Amanda picked up a pen, as if there might be a written portion.

"Last night," Wes said, his voice serious, "when the supplies were being packed up, what happened to the big tongs?"

The sick part was that Bethany, for a second, looked as if she was actually flipping through her mental Rolodex for the answer. I watched her swallow, then purse her lips. "Well," she said. But that was all.

I could feel myself smiling. A real smile.

Wes looked at Amanda. "Do you know?"

Amanda shook her head slowly.

"All right," he said, turning back to look at me. "Better ask the trainee, then. Macy?"

I could feel Amanda and Bethany looking at me. "They're in the bottom of that cart with the broken back wheel, under the aprons," I said. "There wasn't room for them with the other serving stuff."

Wes smiled at me. "Oh," he said, shaking his head like this was just so obvious. "Of course."

I could hear wheels squeaking as Bethany and Amanda pushed themselves farther down the counter. Wes watched them go, hardly bothered, then leaned over the counter and looked down at me.

"Nice co-workers," he said under his breath.

"Oh, yeah," I said, not as quietly. "They hate me."

The chairs stopped moving. Silence. Oh, well, I thought. It's not like it was a secret.

"So anyway," I asked him. "What's going on?"

"Typical Wish chaos," he said, running a hand through his hair. "Delia's freaking out because one of the coolers broke last night and everything in it's gone bad. Kristy and Monica are at the beach, so now she and Bert and I have to make five more gallons of potato salad on the fly and work this job with just three of us. Then, I'm on my way back from a mayonnaise run when Delia calls up, hysterical, saying we have no tongs and I should come here and ask you." He took a deep breath, then said, "So how's your day so far?"

"Don't ask," I said.

"Has the boyfriend shown up yet?"

So he did hear, I thought. I shook my head. "Nope. Not yet."

"Well, just think, it could be worse," he said. "You could be having to make potato salad. Just imagine being up to your elbows in mayonnaise."

I made a face. He was right, this wasn't a pretty picture.

"The point is, we could really use you," Wes said, running a hand over the counter between us. "It's too bad you can't get out of here."

A moment passed, during which all I could hear was the silence of the library. The ticking of the clock. The slight squeak of Bethany's chair. And after everything that had happened, from the first day until the last five minutes, that was the last straw.