Page 92 of The Librarians
Jonathan stands up.
“Coffee, anyone?” says Conrad. He looks a little better than Hazel, but not by much. Whatever shocked and dismayed her got to him too.
As everyone follows Conrad into the kitchen, Jonathan sidles up to Hazel. She smiles wanly at him. Conrad opens a cabinet and pulls out a barista machine that looks a little banged up. Ryan takes everyone’s coffee orders and retrieves a ceramic canister from the pantry.
“Ryan,” says Hazel, her voice low but steady, “I already apologized to Conrad, but I owe you an apology too, for intruding on you tonight.”
For a moment, Ryan looks surprised that someone is actually addressing the elephant in the room. Then he says, rather seriously for him, “Not gonna lie—I love apologies. But I’d like an explanation too, if you’re in the mood to offer one.”
Jonathan fidgets—Ryan has been very patient in not demanding that explanation from him.
Conrad takes the canister from Ryan and glances in Hazel’s direction—he looks at her as if he can’t help himself, not because he means to.
“Of course,” says Hazel, speaking to Ryan, seemingly unaware of Conrad’s attention. “I believe Jonathan consulted you on the death of one Mr. Perry Bathurst?”
“That’s right. One of the librarians was tangled up in it, but I didn’t think that was you.”
“No. Or at least, at the time, none of it seemed to have anything to do with me. But I recently learned that my late husband owed Perry three million pounds, and Perry died while trying to recoup that sum.”
Ryan has been pulling out coffee cups from a glass-front cupboard; Jonathan, trying to be useful, has been rinsing some of the dishes Ryan brought back from the TV room. Now they both go still. Only Conrad remains in motion, pouring roasted beans into the grinder at the top of the espresso machine.
The rich, nutty aroma of freshly ground coffee fills the kitchen.
Hazel stands with her back to the shelf of old cookbooks and carries on with her narrative. Jonathan is sure she has trimmed it down to bare bones, but still he is overwhelmed. He scarcely notices Conrad bustling about the kitchen, except when Hazel asks him to provide a missing piece of the picture, or when she relates how she found out about his connection to Perry.
After Hazel describes Astrid’s ordeal the night before, Conrad hands her a cup of mocha and Jonathan a cappuccino. Jonathan belatedly realizes that they are at the beginning of a possibly sleepless night and that coffee is being offered out of not just hospitality but necessity.
Hazel swirls a spoon in the thick foam atop her mocha and finishes her account, which includes the events of the past couple of hours.
“I am beyond grateful nobody shot anybody,” says Ryan, sipping his own cappuccino. “I’m not the sort of doctor you’d want in an emergency.”
Everyone chuckles, but the underlying tension in the room remains unbroken.
“I’m also grateful to be included in your confidence,” Ryan continues, his expression now grave. “But as much as I’m always telling everyone to spill the tea, this is way more tea than I can handle. So…I’m guessing you need something from me?”
“We do,” says Conrad. He turns around from the stove, flips a beautifully golden-brown quesadilla from the pan in his hand onto a plate, and then cuts it with a few rolls of a pizza knife—while Jonathan and Ryan have stood in place, transfixed by Hazel’s account, Conrad has not only made four cups of espresso-based coffee, but cooked up a meal besides. “We need to know how Perry Bathurst and Jeannette Obermann died.”
Ryan nods. “Let me go double-check everything for you guys.”
Jonathan watches Ryan until he disappears. When he looks back, both Hazel and Conrad are studying him, the former sipping her mocha, the latter biting into a wedge of quesadilla.
Jonathan vows to work on his chill.
In the meanwhile, he clears his throat and casts about for something to take the focus off his unrequited sentiments. “We’re lucky you happen to live in Austin, Conrad. There’s so much stuff we never would’ve learned if it weren’t for you.”
Conrad washes down his quesadilla with half a cup of black coffee. “I didn’thappento be in town. My cousin left this house to my mum. My mom was going to sell it, but I asked to have it for a few years—Hazel once told me that she lived in Austin.”
The walls of Jonathan’s chest expand in an oddly painful yet oddly gratifying way. He’s been worried that Hazel had invested too much in Conrad—the way she looked at this house on their first visit, it was as if she stood before a magic mirror that had lost its ability to transport and was now only a beautiful piece of furniture, nothing more.
But this confession from Conrad? The man basically said,When I had no realistic chance of ever seeing you again, I still planned and prepared, in the hope that miracles might happen.
Jonathan glances at Hazel, who seems to have eyes only for her mocha.
“Did I?” she responds after a few seconds. “I don’t remember mentioning Austin at all.”
“You also said your name was Meimei,” says Conrad drily.
“That’s right,” says Hazel. “Meimei Pickfair is my porn name.”
