Page 6 of The Wrong Track

“I guess I am tired,” I told Selma. “Big night, last night.” She smiled at me again and said something about being young.

Which I was: twenty-one. I’d turned on the day after Christmas, the twenty-sixth, which might have been the worst date ever for a birthday. That had been a very, very big deal for me when I was a kid, but this year, I’d hardly noticed the day going by. Christmas had been the same way, then New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. I hadn’t even realized that they were happening except that Hazel had brought me a present and invited me to celebrate with them, but I’d declined.

I left the gift shop but stopped once I was outside on my way to the car—not my car, but the one that had been loaned to me by Hazel’s boyfriend because they all felt so damn sorry for me. I didn’t feel sorry for myself, though, because for one thing, I knew that whatever happened now was well-deserved. But more than that, it almost felt like I was watching my life happen to a stranger. Like I was in the audience watching a play, maybe. I’d been in a high school production when I was a freshman and it had been fun, although I was a terrible actress. I’d sucked even as Village Woman #3 because I’d seen my friends in the audience and kept breaking character and smiling at them. I remembered smiling a lot back then.

Now I was in a new play:Remy, Frozen in Michigan.

Scene:an icy parking lot under a dreary sky. Snow is in the forecast; temperature dropping. Winter is endless.

Enter woman from stage left.

Remy:I hate this and I’m moving to Texas.

I almost made myself laugh but the sounds caught in my throat and I coughed instead, and I stood there coughing and wheezing for a while before I continued walking to the car. I’d have to figure out how to get to Texas, or Arizona, or wherever I was going to go, because I wasn’t going to be able to use this borrowed machinery. So instead of turning left, back to the cold townhouse, I turned right and drove to the library to do some research. Because I really was going, I definitely was. I would get out of here and everything would be better.

“Hi, Remy!” the librarian greeted me when I walked in. Beth Ellen gestured with her fingers to come closer. “We got new books and I saved a few for you.” She lifted a small pile of paperback volumes from behind her desk and I felt myself actually get excited when I saw pink writing and exposed male bodies on the covers. I loved these books and I’d read my way through the selection at this library pretty quickly.

“Thank you,” I told her, and I meant it. I found my library card in my backpack, one issued to Remy Gill. Mrs. Gill had been my math teacher and I had really, really liked her.

“You know, there are some others you might try. Older books, but very romantic,” the librarian said. “Have you ever readJane Eyre?”

I seemed to remember that on a book report list—tenth grade?—but no, I never had read it, and she had other recommendations for me and showed me where to find them. I chose about twenty more.

Beth Ellen smiled. “You read so fast!” she said. “I watch you when you’re in here and I’m amazed at how quickly you turn the pages.”

“I like books,” I answered, and I guessed I did read fast. That had been a huge asset for me when I’d been in school, when academic stuff had been so important. I put the books safely into my bag, which got very heavy, and asked for the sign-up sheet for the computers.

“Oh, well, there’s a little problem in the media room right now,” Beth Ellen said, and sighed. “One of the guys who comes in here pretty regularly is very upset and is refusing to leave. He made a mess, too.” She sighed again. “He’s usually fine, but when he gets worked up, I get concerned. The police are on the way. They know him and they can usually talk him down when I can’t. I’m not letting anyone in there until he’s gone, sorry.”

I sat at a desk and waited for the guy to clear out, because I had nothing else to do and I didn’t want to go back to the townhouse. I chose one of the books that Beth Ellen had suggested and got very caught up in the story of Manderley and all the weird and bitchy crap happening there, and I only looked up when the commotion in the media room reached a level of loudness totally not normal for a library.

“I won’t!” a man yelled, and then someone answered him very calmly with words that I couldn’t make out through the glass walls. A police officer, and next to him was another one. Then the first guy turned a little and I recognized him under his uniform coat and hat. It was Tobin Whitaker again.

I watched him deal, still very calmly, with the very upset man. And that guy gradually relaxed until I saw him nodding, even, and together they straightened the room a little, picking up the overturned chairs and returning a tray of scattered paper to the counter. The partner, the other officer, stood near the door and carefully observed all of it. Tobin and the guy who’d been so angry then shook hands and the three of them walked out together.

Tobin’s eyes flicked over to me as they left, and I raised my hand but he didn’t answer except for a very brief nod, so I went back to reading about Manderley. I kept part of my attention toward the front of the library where he and the man were talking again. As soon as they were really gone, Beth Ellen came over.

“I’ll clean more and then you’re welcome to use a computer. Wasn’t that great? Officer Whitaker has such a nice way about him. He’s so patient,” she said, and she had a funny, dreamy look which I easily recognized from my long-term study of romance novels and from watching Hazel when she talked about her boyfriend. “He just seems like a nice person. And he’s such a cutie, I could eat him up. Those cheekbones? Those lips?”

“What about them?”

“They’re so kissable,” she said, and laughed. “More like, if he kissed you with them, you’d feel it.”

I figured that Tobin was in his mid-twenties and Beth Ellen wasn’t old enough to be his mother, but there was a definite gap there. She was right that he was good-looking—a realization which surprised me. I’d never really thought about his looks because I’d only seen him at very, very low points in my life, points at which I wasn’t really into examining him physically. Like, he’d been the one in the emergency room with me after Kilian had been arrested, because Hazel had called him and they’d allowed him to go back and sit next to my gurney. Of course, he’d been the one who’d told me that Kilian was dead, too. I thought of that moment, the relief but also the horror, and felt myself breathe harder.

“I guess it’s not appropriate for me to say that about him,” Beth Ellen mentioned, gauging my reaction.

“It’s fine. You should go for him,” I recommended. He did seem like a nice person and even if he was hung up on Hazel, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t be open to screwing someone else. In my experience, no matter what they might vow about eternal devotion or whatever, men didn’t ever say no to physical contact with whichever body was the closest.

“Me?” She sounded shocked. “I’m old enough to be his…let’s say his big sister. And I’m married.” She held up her hand and showed me a gold band, but she stuck out her tongue at it. “We’re in a rough patch,” she explained, and then pointed at my book. “Like the first de Winter marriage. Did you really read that far already?”

I helped her as she finished clearing away the disorder in the media room and we talked more about books. I hadn’t read many of the classics and Beth Ellen had even more recommendations.

“I can email you a bunch of lists,” she said, her eyes shining. The woman was definitely in the right profession. She got very, very enthusiastic when she described a plot.

“No thanks.” But when she looked disappointed, I explained, “I don’t have email.”

“Am I the last person using it and I’m even older than I thought, or are you the Luddite here?”

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