Page 49 of The Librarians
She waves. “Okay. See you then.”
And because Conrad still hasn’t stopped gawking, she acknowledges him with a slight nod as she makes her way toward the door.
Then she stops and slowly, very slowly, turns around.
This time, she studies Conrad as if she were a conservation biologist and he a species long thought to be extinct.
“Conrad?” she murmurs, her tone uncertain. She takes a step toward him. “It’s you, isn’t it? Madeira, twelve years ago?”
A look of wonder comes over her—wonder, astonishment, and no small measure of melancholy.
“I think so,” answers Conrad, his voice low and hesitant.
Youthinkso?marvels Jonathan.You don’tknow?
At least five-nine, beautiful, stylish, and articulate. Asian. Mysterious.
That’s why he thought the words fitted Hazel to a T! A plastered Conrad had been describing none other.
And now they’ve found each other. After more than a decade.
Perhaps Hazel has just realized the same thing. She smiles, a smile that grows and grows until it reaches Julia Roberts–level wattage and the dingy interior of the noodle shop is suddenly a few thousand lumens brighter.
Jonathan had no idea that Hazel came with a more exuberant setting. No idea that she could radiate such hope and joy. Something catches in his throat at this flash of pure happiness.
“Are you busy? Can I buy you lunch—assuming, that is—” Her expression sobers. “Assuming that it won’t lead to any misunderstandings for you at home.”
“I live with a gay man,” says Conrad. “There will be no misunderstandings.”
The way they continue to stare at each other, as if the other person might evaporate at any moment—Jonathan’s chest constricts with a futile longing.
“Ah,” says Hazel, smiling again. “Let’s go, then?”
“Sure.” Conrad turns to Jonathan. “See you later.”
They leave. Jonathan’s name is called and he goes to the counter to get his bowl of tomato-and-egg noodle soup.
To eat by himself.
Chapter Fifteen
Madeira, off the northwest coast of Africa
Twelve years ago
It was raining hydrangea petals. Flights of white doves crisscrossed the sky. Hazel’s silk scarf streamed in the breeze, a long gossamer ribbon sparkling under the sun.
It was nothing of the sort, but it might as well have been.
What does Hazel actually remember of that day, a third of her lifetime ago? What was real and true, and what has been photoshopped in by her mind in the long years since?
The steep gradient of the streets was real—confirmed by Google Earth. The seemingly endless upward slant was real enough—she’s never encountered other residential lanes that climb with such steady ferocity. San Francisco’s got nothing on Funchal, Madeira.
The early October weather was lovely. Hazel was comfortable in her T-shirt and cargo shorts, her face shaded by the giant visor that is part of the stereotypical Asian Auntie travel uniform. Her mother would have shaken her head at this getup—Lillian Kuang has never once in her life looked like a tourist, not after she returned to Singapore, in any case. But Nainai always had on her visor and Nainai was a lot cooler.
Hazel is also sure that during the long ascent to the Jardim Botânico, she was thinking of her father. Crazily tilting neighborhoods were asentimental favorite. She lived the first ten years of her life in such a neighborhood at the edge of Texas Hill Country. Some streets there were so steep they were scored diagonally across to provide traction in bad weather. Dad walked up those streets for exercise; he liked to have her with him, and he was always happy to hoist her onto his back when her little legs protested.
When she left, he was a bawling mess. She was the one to reassure him, through her own tears, that she would be back every summer and every Christmas. But the only time she ever returned to her old house was four months later, to attend his funeral and pack up all the remaining memories of her American childhood.
