Fullepub 
Fern
FERN
At 6:15 P.M. sharp, I open Rose and Owen’s white picket gate and walk down the red brick pathway. I have dinner with Rose on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, unless Rose is traveling or working late, in which case we forfeit. Attempts to reschedule to another night have not gone well, historically. These cornerstones to my routine are what keep me calm and grounded. Rose and Owen have a lovely house, the kind that looks like it should feature in the pages of House & Garden magazine, even though the lawns aren’t as neat as they were before Owen went away. Owen used to mow and edge the grass every other week during the winter months and weekly during the summer, but he has taken a job in London now. Still, the lawn is the only blight on the place. The verandah is swept and oiled, and there’s a wicker basket next to the door for umbrellas. There’s also a shoe rack bearing an upturned never-been-worn pair of shiny red gum boots. Rose takes great pride in keeping house, something she says is a direct response to our childhood home, which was chaotic to say the least. I too have adopted a high standard of order and cleanliness in my home, but I stop short of keeping my house to the standard of a magazine spread.
I take Rose’s three front steps in one leap. As I open the front door, I’m greeted by Alfie, whom I kneel to pat. Even the dog is picture perfect, with his glossy coat and a ridiculous red kerchief collar around his neck.
“Hello, Alfie,” I say as he leaps into my lap. When I stand again, he runs along at my ankles delightedly. When Rose and Owen got Alfie, Rose had insisted that he was going to be an outside dog. (“How many cavoodles do you know who are outside dogs?” Owen had whispered to me. “None,” I’d replied, “but I don’t know any cavoodles other than Alfie, so your survey is flawed.”)
In the kitchen, Rose squats in front of the oven with two oversize oven mitts on her hands, watching a chicken under the grill.
“I’m here!” I announce.
Rose startles, almost falling forward, into the oven. “Fern! You scared the life out of me!”
She stands, frowning at me. Rose is an excellent frowner. Even when she laughs, two little vertical lines remain between her eyebrows, as if her face is afraid to have too much fun. Owen used to say it was because she’s always worrying about everyone. I know she is worried about him. I can tell because whenever she talks about his job in London, she smiles extra brightly and then quickly changes the subject. Rose also worries about me a lot. I once heard her say to someone on the phone that I’d turned her hair gray (even though her hair isn’t gray and, besides, stress doesn’t actually turn hair gray, though stress can trigger a condition called telogen effluvium, which causes hair to shed up to three times faster, so while I could cause her to go bald, I couldn’t turn her hair gray).
“Did you get the milk?” Rose asks me. She’s wearing a white shirt, black leather pants, and bare feet. Rose is always in some variation of black and white, with the occasional flash of tan or beige. (If you ask me, her outfits could use a few diamantés here and there.) Rose is an interior designer, but “the type who designs office spaces, not the type who chooses scatter cushions.” I gather from the regularity and conviction with which Rose says this that this distinction is important to her. For this reason, I have never mentioned that scatter cushions are among some of my favorite things in the world.
“The milk?” she repeats when I look blank. “I called you half an hour ago. You said you’d stop at 7-Eleven on your way?”
Interesting. I have no recollection of this. For someone as fastidious as I am, I can be staggeringly absentminded. It’s strange. I have a photographic memory for names and faces, I can find any book in the library with only a character name or cover description, but I will regularly walk out of the house in the morning and leave the front door wide open (Mrs. Hazelbury from next door has taken to just closing the door again, after calling me at the library the first few times, in fear that I had been burgled). Rose says my absentmindedness is part of my charm, but I find it highly irritating. I hate the feeling of not knowing my own mind, not trusting myself, even if the fact is that I’m not to be trusted.
“Never mind,” Rose says with a smile. “I’ll get some after dinner.”
Rose retrieves a preprepared quinoa salad from the fridge and places it on the table. “So,” she says. “Tell me something about your day!”
I appreciate Rose’s choice of words. Most people ask, How was your day?, which is so frustratingly intangible. Telling someone something about your day, on the other hand, is specific. I contemplate telling Rose about my interaction with the possible vagrant at the library, but as there is a high possibility that this would lead to a flurry of questions, I select a different item to report instead. “I found out who’d been crossing out the swear words in the books,” I say.
Rose tosses the salad. “Oh, yeah? Who?”
“Mrs. Millard,” I say. “From the retirement community. She’s the one with the mole on her cheek with the hairs growing out of it. She returned a book through the slot after their book club meeting and I happened to be standing there. I saw the crosses and confronted her. She didn’t deny it. I told her she had to pay to replace that copy and if I saw any more copies that had been scribbled on, she’d have her library card suspended!”
“Good job, Officer Castle.”
Technically, she should have said “Constable,” but I understand what she means. “No one defaces library property on my watch,” I say.
Rose smiles. Rose is very pretty. Petite with a round face, huge eyes, and nut-brown hair. We don’t look like twins (lots of people tell us that). I am tall with a narrow face and reddish-blond hair. In fact, the only physical thing the two of us have in common is the color of our eyes. A very pale blue, like seawater in the shallows of a white sandy beach (an old boyfriend of Rose’s said that once, and I thought it the best description I’d heard for the color).
“It’s nearly ready,” Rose says, getting out her lancet device and blood-glucose strip.
Rose has type 1 diabetes, which means her pancreas produces little or no insulin, which the body needs to function. To compensate for her lack of insulin, Rose has to give herself twice-daily insulin injections, test her blood sugar up to ten times a day, and strictly control the type of food she eats as well as the time of day she eats it. It’s a lot of work but she never complains. Now, as she prepares to prick her finger to test her blood sugar, she looks up to warn me and, as always, I set off on a lap of the house (blood makes me queasy).
The house feels empty without Owen, even after all these months. I am fond of him despite his many disagreeable qualities, such as his penchant for throwing an arm around my shoulder at unexpected times, and his refusal to call me by my given name, preferring instead to use uninspired versions of it: “Fernie,” “Fernster,” “the Ferminator.” It’s always struck me as one of the great mysteries of life, who you are fond of. As I wander back toward the kitchen, I nearly stumble on the open suitcase on the floor, partially filled with shoes and a folded garment bag. At the sight of it, my stomach clenches slightly.
Rose is going to London on Friday for four weeks to visit Owen. One full lunar cycle. I know Rose is excited about it, so I’m trying to be excited too, but Rose and I haven’t been apart for four weeks before—not even when Rose and Owen got married, because they had a destination wedding in Thailand followed by a “group honeymoon” that all the guests (including me) attended. I try not to think about what could go wrong while she’s away, and that, of course, makes me think about what happened that night and then, suddenly, I can’t think of anything else. I don’t want her to go.
“Dinner’s ready!”
I tuck the edge of the garment bag back inside the case. That’s when I notice the bottle. A white pill bottle with a pink label, showing the midsection of a woman, with full breasts and a curved abdomen. I pick up the bottle and read the label: ELEVIT. TO SUPPORT YOU THROUGH THE DIFFERENT STAGES OF PREGNANCY.
“Fern? Dinner!”
I stand. “Are you pregnant, Rose?”
It wouldn’t be ridiculous, I suppose. Rose is twenty-eight, which is an appropriate age, more or less. I have watched television programs about the way fertility dwindles after the age of thirty. Apparently, doctors were recommending that partnered women who wanted children should start as early as possible. Once the surprise of it fades, I feel something akin to excitement hit my system. A child. I’ve always been partial to children. Their lack of complexity, their proclivity for speaking directly, without subtext or agenda. Of course, I’d long accepted that I couldn’t have a child of my own, but Rose having a child would be the next best thing.
I return to the kitchen and give Rose a once-over. She doesn’t appear to have gained any weight. Then again, if common wisdom is to be believed, morning sickness could ward off weight gain in the early months. Perhaps she’d been feeling off-color these past few weeks, having aversions to food she’d previously enjoyed, but keeping it secret, waiting for a special moment to announce it? But Owen had been gone for months. What would it mean as far as he was concerned?
“I guess you found the Elevit,” Rose says after a beat. “My doctor advised that if I was going to try to get pregnant, I should start taking them. Unfortunately,” she says, “it hasn’t happened yet.”
“So … you’re trying to have a baby?” I ask.
Rose picks up the plates and carries them to the table. “I didn’t want to tell you until, well … I hoped I’d be able to tell you when we had something to announce. Turns out, getting pregnant isn’t as easy as I’d hoped.”
“Oh.” I sit at the table. “Because of your diabetes?”
“Actually, no. It turns out I have a condition called POA. Premature ovarian aging.”
She offers me some dressing. I shake my head.
“Premature ovarian aging,” I repeat. In my mind’s eye, I see a row of eggs with gray hair and wrinkles and tiny walking sticks. “What is premature ovarian aging?”
“Basically it means I have the eggs of a fifty-year-old woman,” Rose says. “The quality isn’t great and there aren’t many of them. We could try IVF, but that relies on me having a good egg to harvest. At the moment, they’re not sure that the eggs will survive the process.”
Now I picture the eggs in a row of hospital beds, their deathbeds. A row of my potential little nieces and nephews. “That’s sad.”
Rose puts her fork down. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, it is, isn’t it?”
“So … if you have this … condition, does that mean I have it too? Because we’re twins?”
“No,” Rose says. “I mean, it’s possible, but not likely. You could get tested if you were worried.”
But of course I’m not worried. I am in excellent health, something I take very seriously. My personal maintenance routine encompasses an annual checkup with my GP, twice-yearly checkups with the dentist, biennial Pap tests and breast checks. My exercise routine entails walking to work and back each day, a five-kilometer round trip. I also do karate twice weekly. In addition to karate, I do vinyasa yoga for thirty minutes each morning—for its many benefits, which include muscle stretching and a calm mind. So premature ovarian aging isn’t something I need to feel concerned about at all. Besides, I have no plans to get pregnant; I’ve never been pregnant. I’ve only ever had sex three and a half times (the half was the first time, and half is more than generous). All three and a half times were with the same guy—a medical student named Albert whom I’d dated for four months a decade ago, and only if “dated” meant spending our weekends studying together, playing the odd game of sudoku, and, of course, sex. I will admit I’d been curious about sex before I’d met Albert, but I was disappointed to find it strange and not particularly pleasant. Albert seemed to enjoy it slightly more than I did, but neither of us had reached anything like the euphoria I’d read about in romance novels. Still, I’d enjoyed our games of sudoku and he appeared to enjoy them too, so I’d been confused when, four months in, Albert abruptly stopped returning my calls, and started keeping his head down when I saw him in the library. When I talked to Rose about it, Rose counseled me that men could be fickle, and if American teen television programs were anything to go by, that seemed to be the truth, so I let it go. I stopped bothering with men after that and I certainly never worried about babies.
I’m not capable of raising a baby and that’s that. I’ve made peace with it. But suddenly my interest in babies is piqued. If my eggs do turn out to be youthful … maybe there could be a use for them after all? This could be my chance to pay Rose back for everything she’s always done for me.
I don’t sleep well, in general. It bothers me excessively. Especially as I’ve read all the literature about good sleep and applied all the wisdom. I go to bed at the same time each evening, I exercise regularly and avoid screens and caffeine of an afternoon. And yet my problem remains. Like some kind of cruel karma.
I tend to fall asleep all right, it’s the waking that’s the problem. Once, twice, sometimes three times a night. I wake abruptly, my body rigid and my breathing ragged. Generally, I’m twisted sideways with my hands tangled in the sheets, a death grip, as if I’m trying to strangle them. Usually it takes at least an hour of deep breathing before I can calm myself enough to drift off again.
I never wake screaming like they do in the movies. In a way, the silence is the worst part. It reminds me of that silent night by the river when I was twelve, when I did that terrible thing.
Most days at work, I break for lunch for half an hour, during which time I eat a honey sandwich and a muesli bar at my desk in an attempt to eschew lunchtime conversation with my colleagues (it rarely works). But Fridays are different. On Friday lunchtimes, most of my colleagues at the library go down to the Brighton Hotel for lunch. Today, among the group are Gayle, Linda, Bernadette, and Trevor. The “social ones.” One of us is required to stay back to “hold the fort” and, week after week, I happily oblige. I enjoy the peace and quiet. Still, I’ve come to enjoy the ritual of being asked followed by the quick, unoffended “No worries” that precedes my colleagues vacating the building. All seems to be going to plan today. I offer my usual “No, thank you,” but instead of replying “No worries,” Carmel says, “You might enjoy it if you came along, Fern.”
Carmel is my boss. With a thin stern face, she resembles a humorless boarding mistress from an old English novel. She has coffee breath, and whiskers on her chin, and spends most of her shifts pushing her cart around, huffing at people who ask for a recommendation. Carmel says our job is to stack books and help people with the photocopiers. (“Libraries aren’t just about books,” Carmel said to me once, and I laughed out loud. At least, unlike boarding school mistresses, she has a sense of humor.)
My old boss, Janet, had a round, smiling face, and an enormous bosom, and resembled a kindly matron looking after soldiers in a postwar infirmary. Janet had read every book in the library and told staff that our job was to be a frontline soldier in the war against illiteracy and lack of imagination. I told Carmel this once and she frowned at me as if she was trying to work out a complicated maths puzzle.
“Fern?” Carmel prompts. “Would you look at me, please?”
I keep my eyes on my computer and start typing quickly, as if I’m doing something so urgent I can’t possibly be interrupted, not even to respond to Carmel. This technique is successful about fifty percent of the time. Not great odds, but I do find it cathartic, bashing at the keyboard, filling up the silence and expectation hovering over me. The silence stretches on until Gayle comes to my rescue: “Right! We don’t want to miss our booking, do we? Linda, grab Carmel’s bag.”
I keep typing. In my peripheral vision I see that Carmel keeps watching me for several seconds, but then, mercifully, Gayle sweeps her up in the flurry of people exiting and she is gone.
It is quiet in the library for the next hour, leaving me with some free time to do some research on the computer. I am an avid book enthusiast, but even I can admit that when it comes to research, you’d be hard-pressed to find a tool more useful than the internet. It’s been three days since Rose confided in me about her fertility issues, and twelve hours since she boarded a plane for London. I’ve used that time to conduct a thorough investigation into what is involved in having a baby for your sister. As it turns out, there are numerous options available. You can be a surrogate, which means you use your own egg … or you can be a gestational carrier, which means you are implanted with an embryo conceived using a donor egg. If you are using your own egg, you can become pregnant using artificial insemination, where the sperm of the intended father is inserted into your body … or you can use in vitro fertilization, where the pre-fertilized egg is implanted. In some cases, the surrogate has sexual intercourse with the intended sperm donor, but this is exceedingly rare, which is an enormous relief. As fond as I am of Owen, and as much as he’d likely prefer his own sperm to be used, the idea of having intercourse with him is startlingly unappealing.
After thinking long and hard and making a spreadsheet of the pros and cons of each option, I conclude that the simplest way to have Rose’s baby would be to become pregnant naturally by a man who isn’t Owen. This method would have no prohibitive costs, no medical treatment, no need for Rose or Owen to be involved at all. In fact, if I were to become pregnant quickly enough, I could even surprise Rose with news of my pregnancy upon her return from her trip to London! What a happy homecoming that would be! I would, of course, require a man to have intercourse with, but that shouldn’t be too difficult. By all reports, men are desperate for intercourse. Apparently, they can be found at nearly every bar and club, prowling for women to have no-strings-attached intercourse with. Unfortunately, I don’t go to bars or clubs. But surely men congregate in other places too.
I am still researching when the rest of the staff return from lunch, smelling of beer and garlic and talking several decibels louder than before they left. I continue my research a little longer, as, judging by the way everyone makes themselves scarce, they aren’t bothered by what I’m doing. Even Carmel and her ever-present cart are nowhere to be seen for most of the afternoon. Thus, I am knee-deep in research about an online dating app called Tinder when a patron appears at the desk.
“I’m having some trouble with the printer.”
I hold back an eye roll. Ninety-nine percent of front-desk queries are about the printers and the photocopiers. The photocopier inquiries are the worst, as each patron is required to load up a beastly little card with coins and connect this card to their account, a process that precisely no one, including myself, knows how to do successfully. As such, I prefer not to engage with those kinds of queries. Not only do I not understand them, they bore me in the most indescribable way. Lately, whenever a patron has a query about the printers or the photocopiers, I pretend I hear someone calling me and excuse myself. I am about to do exactly that when I recognize the person’s accent and perfect enunciation.
“Wally!” I cry.
He smiles, albeit a reserved sort of smile, and I find myself taken by his teeth. Straight, white, and even teeth. There are no bits of food stuck around the gum line … he appears to care for his teeth the way he does his fingernails. If I had seen these teeth the other day, I would never have mistaken him for homeless (though he is still wearing the hat and the ill-fitting jeans).
“Still wearing the hat, I see.”
Wally pauses, touches the hat, as if checking it’s still there. “Er … yeah.”
His tone indicates mild offense. It’s astonishing what can be offensive to people. For example, apparently it is the height of rudeness to ask someone his or her age or weight, which makes absolutely no sense. Why be mysterious about something that is quite literally on display for all to see? And yet, these rules exist, and everyone seems to understand what they can and can’t ask. Everyone except me.
“You’re American,” I say, hoping that this is a) not offensive, and b) a distraction from the hat comment.
Wally merely nods. His gaze, like last time, lands just over my left shoulder. I actually don’t mind this. Some people can be so hungry for eye contact, it’s a relief to be able to look away.
“What brings you to the land of Oz?” I ask. I’m quite pleased with the casual whimsy of the comment, but Wally does not look charmed.
“My mother was Australian,” he says. “My father is American. I’m a dual citizen.” He pushes his glasses up his nose. He’s quite handsome, in an odd sort of way. It’s not a surprise that I’ve only just noticed—it often takes me a while to realize someone is handsome. Rose laughed herself stupid recently when I commented that Bradley Cooper wasn’t bad looking in A Star Is Born. (“You’ve only just noticed this?” she said, wiping her eyes. Frankly, I thought it was far more laughable the way most people made snap judgments without taking time to consider why they felt that way.)
Gayle chooses this moment to arrive at the desk beside me and ask Wally if there’s anything she can do to help. Usually I am very grateful when Gayle comes to my rescue, but today I am frustrated, because it reminds the man why he approached the desk in the first place.
“Ah, yes,” he says, directing his inquiry to me once again. “The printer.”
“Have you tried pressing Print?” I am unable to conceal my boredom.
“Yes.”
“And have you checked you are connected to the correct printer? Each one has its number printed on a laminated document on the wall.”
“I have.”
I toy with the idea of saying The network has gone down. It happened a few weeks back and it was the most glorious catchall for every printer or photocopier inquiry that came my way. Sadly, it hadn’t remained “down” for long. I am about to give this excuse a go when I notice Carmel hovering nearby, watching us. I sigh. “Fine. Let’s take a look, shall we?”
I follow Wally to his computer. The last time I saw Wally I’d thought of him as lanky, but as I trail along behind him now, I notice he is more athletic than I gave him credit for. His stature reminds me a little of those golfers I enjoy watching on the television during the Presidents Cup. Wide shoulders, narrow torso, firm buttocks. I enjoy this view until we make it to Wally’s laptop, when, again, I’m instantly bored. I try pressing Print, and when that doesn’t work, I fiddle with a few of the settings. I figure I can do this for a few minutes before declaring it a mystery and suggesting he come back tomorrow. In the meantime, in case Carmel is looking, I frown intensely at the screen as if I’m deep in thought. And I am. About Tinder. Apparently, I’ll need to set up a profile with a photo, which shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ll ask Gayle to take the photo. Then I’ll have to vet the suitors. Someone handsome would be good, for the baby obviously. Someone with a few brain cells. Good health.
“What on earth are you doing?” Wally asks, which is annoying, as Carmel is still within earshot.
“What does it look like?” I snap. “I’m trying to print your document!”
I press another button, and a document pops up on the screen. “Rocco. Ryan,” I say, reading the name printed at the top of the document. I scan the rest of the document. It looks like a proposal of some sort. There is a list of credentials on the screen. I scan them, then turn to him, aghast. “You’re a computer programmer?”
“I am.”
“And you’re asking me for computer advice!?”
“I’m not asking for computer advice,” he says. “I’m asking about the printer.”
“Pat-ay-ta, pot-ah-ta.”
“Right.” Wally exhales. “I don’t think we’re getting anywhere here.”
Anywherrrrre. Herrrrrre. Despite my irritation, I find the cadence of Wally’s voice pleasant. The neutral mouth movements, the distinct pronunciation of each syllable, the way he holds onto his r’s—it’s lovely. I close my eyes. “Anywherrrrre…”
“Excuse me, miss,” the old man seated across from us says. “I’m having some trouble with my computer.”
I open my eyes. “Don’t ask me! He is the computer programmer.”
The man looks at Wally, who rolls his eyes but then squats in front of the man’s computer. Within a minute, the man is thanking him profusely and Wally is saying “Sure thing” in his gloriously American way. Surrrre. Thaang. The man beams at him and Wally nods.
The interaction gives me an idea.
“Are you looking for a job? You could work here! Printer and photocopier specialist! Do you live locally?”
He pushes his glasses up on his nose. He seems to do this with astonishing regularity. “I guess.”
“You guess?” It will never cease to amaze me the way people understand things in an instant. I, on the other hand, need to take my time, consider the statement from all angles, and if possible, put it back to the person by way of a question to make sure I’ve interpreted accurately. In the back of my mind, I’m always aware that I can get it wrong, and the consequences of this, I’ve learned, can be disastrous. “What do you mean you guess?”
“I live in my van. Which, currently, is right outside. So … I guess that’s local.”
“You live in your van,” I say, taking in this peculiar piece of information. “So … you are homeless?”
“I’m not homeless.”
“But you don’t live in a house? Doesn’t that make you homeless?”
I feel oddly victorious. I’d been unsettled by the idea that I’d wrongly assumed he was homeless. I know I have a tendency to get things wrong, but if I can spare myself yet another example of my not being able to trust my own judgment, it’s a definite win.
“Technically, I’m houseless,” Wally says. “But the van is my home. And for your information, there are many virtues of van living.” He uses his fingers to allocate each virtue. “Vans are affordable.” (Thumb.) “They have a low carbon footprint.” (Pointer.) “They allow for freedom…” (Middle.) “… travel…” (Ring.) “… and it means I can work freelance, choose my own hours.” (Pinkie. Replaces hands in pockets.) “So thank you for the job offer, but I prefer to do freelance work.”
I try to focus on the words he is saying, rather than the accent, but it’s difficult. “You mean you … choose to live in your van? And other people choose it?”
“Sure. Look on Instagram under the hashtag ‘vanlife.’ A lot of people my age are doing it.”
I frown at him. Wally looks to be about my age, perhaps a few years older. It feels astonishing that a person of around thirty years old—a computer programmer!—would choose such an unorthodox way to live.
“Well … what kind of van is it?”
“A kombi. I have a bed, a kitchenette, a table where I can sit and eat. I use public facilities for showers, like here at the library. I use the laundromat for laundry. And I have pump water to clean my dishes. It’s really not as difficult as people think.”
I am still dubious. “Where do you keep it?”
“Right now, it’s in the parking lot outside. At night, I park it at the Uniting Church on Wilson Street, they let people park there all night. During the day, I try to find all-day parking, or I move it every two hours.”
“Sounds … tedious.”
“It’s a lifestyle choice,” Wally corrects.
“Oh-kay.” I nod, making my eyes wide to indicate that I have not been convinced. “Well, I’m afraid I can’t be of any help here. Unless you are looking for a book recommendation?” My mood is immediately buoyed. “What do you like to read, Wally?”
He frowns. “Oh. No, thanks.”
“No thanks?”
“I don’t really … read.”
I blink. “You don’t really read?”
I’m aware, of course, that there are people who don’t read. There are those who insist they are far too busy to read and who instead spend their time watching Netflix and scrolling social media on their iPhones or Androids. Those who say they read so much for work that they couldn’t possibly come home and read any more. Those who cannot read. But, judging from the document on the screen, Wally can read. Hence my confusion.
“Do you know how to read?”
Wally looks affronted. “I have an IQ of a hundred and forty-one.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I used to read when I was a child,” he says, almost thoughtfully now. “I stopped at some point, I guess.”
“What were your favorite books when you were a child?”
He appears to think about this. “Let’s see, well, I enjoyed The Outsiders. The Chocolate War. To Kill a Mockingbird—”
“I have the perfect book!” I say, cutting him off and heading toward General Fiction, where I snatch up a copy of Jasper Jones. “This will reignite your love of reading,” I say upon my return. “It’s won several major awards and been short-listed for half a dozen others. And it was made into a film in 2017.” I place the book on top of his notebook, which is next to his laptop. “And if you need me to set you up with a library card, I’d be happy to do that.”
He regards me for a longer than normal moment. Then something softens around his eyes. “I apologize, I didn’t catch your name?”
“Fern. Fern Castle.”
“I’m Rocco.”
He extends his hand as if to shake mine; I cross my arms in front of my chest.
“Oh, I prefer not to touch people if I can possibly help it. Did you know that we carry an average of thirty-two hundred bacteria from a hundred and fifty species on our hands at any one time? This includes fecal bacteria! If I shook hands with everyone I met at the library, I’d be constantly ill, not to mention contaminated with god knows what.” I reach for my travel-sized antibacterial spray, which is attached to my overalls by a handy carabiner, and pump it into my hands. “Would you like some?”
“Oh no, it’s okay.… Oh, er, okay, thanks,” he says, and I administer a squirt to his palm. He rubs his palms together. “So, shall we see if we can do something about this printer, then?”
Carmel is in the children’s section now, watching Linda making recommendations to a mother of four sons who look like they’d much rather be kicking a football than be in the library (perfect candidates for Paul Jennings or Andy Griffiths, or any book with “Fart” in the title, if you ask me). As such, I know now is the time to make my exit. I’m preparing to tilt my head, frown into the distance, and declare that I can hear someone calling me when I have an epiphany.
Wally is handsome, in an odd sort of way. If his IQ is to be believed, he has a few brain cells. Which means there’s only …
“How is your health, Wally?”
The softness in his eyes is replaced with suspicion. “It’s excellent. I jog every morning, ten kilometers.”
I smile. For once, the library computer service has brought me some good fortune. He smiles back at me a little uncertainly, until I pose my next question.
“Would you like to go on a date with me?”
His smile falls away.
