What Happens Now(15)

“We make sure it holds together,” I said.

“Just until the glue dries.”

“I always think of it as Velcro. When things do come undone, we can easily stick them back on.”

“See, Ari. If you didn’t work here, you wouldn’t be allowed to use craft metaphors so freely.” Richard scooped up the catalog along with some others and headed toward the back room. “I have some ordering to do,” he called over his shoulder. “Holler if you need me.”

It was a slow morning. Art students from a summer college program buying jumbo drawing pads. A mother and her son looking for a Batmobile model car kit, their joy at finding the last one as if we’d saved it especially for them. An elderly woman spending over twenty minutes trying to decide between two fancy journals—you know, the kind you can’t actually write in because they’re too beautiful—then eventually putting them both back on the shelf and walking out.

God, it was going to be a long summer. The next time the door chimed, I really had to force myself to look up and do the HiCanIHelpYou smile.

Camden’s friend Max was standing in the vestibule, unstrapping his bicycle helmet.

Something in my throat now. A sandpaper-wrapped grapefruit, perhaps, or aquarium rocks. Whatever it was, I had to swallow it down if I wanted to keep breathing.

This was what always happened the summer before, seeing Max or Eliza. I’d have some kind of physical event, because it meant Camden might be nearby. I grew to know the backs of their heads as well as I knew the back of Camden’s. It’s an unsettling side effect of being infatuated with someone. The infatuation bleeds into everyone surrounding the person, and the sphere of things that make you feel sick with longing grows dangerously wide.

Max saw me at the register and it took him a moment to figure out why I was familiar.

“Oh, hey!” he said. “The lake, right?”

“Yes.” My voice caught.

“Are you . . . Millie?”

“Oh. No. Millie’s dead. My stepdad bought the store from her daughter, so I guess he’s Millie now.” I sounded weird to myself. High-pitched.

“I was kidding.”

“I know,” I lied. “Can I help you find something?” That was better.

“I. Um. Am supposed to find yarn.”

Move, Ari. Act normal. Human, at the very least.

I stepped out from behind the counter and motioned for him to follow me down an aisle.

“We have some, but not very much.” I glanced at Max and he smiled at me, and I realized he was only a guy looking for yarn. And that was odd, yes, but not exactly intimidating. “There was a business feud for a while,” I added. “Between Millie and the lady who owns the knitting store down the street. They worked it out. We honor the treaty.”

Max looked at our selection of yarn, then shook his head. “I need a super-specific color. It needs to match this.” He held out a fabric swatch.

“Agnes at Knit Your Bit. She’s your woman.”

He shook his head again sadly. “I was hoping to avoid that. Let’s just say, Millie wasn’t the only one she had a feud with. We’re sort of banned from shopping there.”

I didn’t know who “we” referred to, but the more appropriate thing for me to ask was: “What do you need it for?”

“My girlfriend, Eliza . . . she’s making me a scarf.”

“In the summer?” Also, Girlfriend + Eliza. Processing that.

Max gave me a look, and although I didn’t know him, I could tell it was supposed to be a meaningful one. He held out the swatch again, so I looked at it again. Really looked at it.

Then I understood. There was a character on Silver Arrow named Bram, a tall alien with silver hair. And he always wore a scarf that was this color.

Eliza was making a Bram Scarf (on the fansite message boards, the real Arrowheads referred to it with one word, a Bramscarf).

Girlfriend + Eliza + Bramscarf. Still more processing needed.

“I can order the yarn for you,” I said. “But don’t tell anyone. You know, because of Agnes.”

“No problem there. Agnes scares the shit out of me,” said Max, who then leaned in closer because apparently this had become some shady deal. “How long would it take to come, if you ordered it?”

“Probably two days.”

Even though I could pick the color out of a lineup from thirty feet away, I snapped a picture of the fabric swatch and took down Max’s phone number.

“I’m really curious about why Agnes banned you from shopping at her store,” I said, feeling more confident now.

“That answer would also involve my girlfriend. She has, you know, artistic vision. It’s pretty strong. She wants what she wants and sometimes she gets a little crazy—I mean, intense about it. That’s why she sent me today. She didn’t want to piss anyone else off.” He looked at me and smiled. His two front teeth were crooked, parted like a tiny curtain. “If she’d known it was you working here, she would have come, I’m sure.”

“I’m here for all your Silver Arrow needs.”

Max laughed hard, as if I’d said more than I’d thought. “Will you be at the lake today?”

Max asking felt like Camden asking. That mammoth lump in my throat again.

“I might.” It came out as a croak. “Will you?”