All the People in the World

Chapter 3: How to Sit Still on Dates with Narcissistic Bartenders

I took her to an old bookstore I had found by accident during fall semester the year before. She said it didn't count as a library if you had to pay for the books. I said it was close enough.

We spent several weeks like that, sitting in that bookstore on the corner which smelled like mold and elderly people. I had never minded or even noticed much when it was just me, but it was hard for me not to become critical when showing off something that I loved but knew wasn't perfect. What if they destroyed it and I could never love it the same way I had? But she never said anything about the smell. She came and existed amongst the mildew and raised no complaints. For that, I was grateful.

I liked the way the light came in through the upstairs windows and fell, streaming down on top of those below and exposing the dust in their air. In the center of the store, was a circular space, with a square rug separating the lounging chairs from the oak wood floor. It was there that we sat. No one else came in really, perhaps because of the dust, perhaps because of the smell. She would sketch figures for class and I would prepare for my dissertation in a field of study I had no particular interest in. Ava could only sit for so long before standing and stretching, rattling off questions in hopes of making me join her in her restlessness. I could sit still for hours, but I always indulged her. I liked it when she did this. It reminded me that, for all her striving to appear polished and appropriate, the dirt child was still somewhere inside her, wreaking havoc. She could cross her legs and dress in dull clothes all she wanted, but it would never change.

"How can you do this for hours?" she asked one day. Groaning in frustration she had thrown her pencil to the ground. She stood in fury.

I looked up from Machiavelli to her. "Do what?"

"I can't draw forever. I can't do anything forever. I wish I was like you."

I shook my head and went back to my book. "You don't want to be like me."

"Yes I do!" she insisted. She wrapped her arms around her head and raised her face to the sunlight, squeezing her eyes shut. "I never used to have this problem. Ask Maeve- in college I was a machine." She looked down at me suspiciously. "Maybe it's you."

I grinned, eyes still in my book. "I make it hard for you to focus? I apologize."

"That's not what I mean." She snatched the book out of my hand. I frowned at her.

"Yes? Then what did you mean?" I pushed her.

"I mean..." She took a pause to think it over. " I mean your incessant passion for what you do is annoying- and disheartening to those around you."

"I do not have an incessant passion for Italian Renaissance literature," I said laughing.

"Well then why are you studying it, doctor?" She smirked. She knew what she was doing.

I squirmed, folding my hands in my lap. "I don't know. I'm good at it."

"Is that all? Oh, Vincenzo." She clicked her tongue at me like I was a child who'd snuck a piece of candy before dinner.

"What?" She was scaring me.

"I can see your midlife crisis now."

"Hush, you." I snatched my book back and opened it.

She walked around the backside of my chair, running her hand along the top near my neck. I begged her hand to graze me. It didn't. "I'm good at plenty of things, that doesn't mean I'm going to get a Phd in it."

"Oh yeah, and what sort of things are you good at?"

She grinned and leaned down close to my ear. "Wouldn't you like to know?"