Crazy About You

Chapter 2

Chapter 2Devante woke with a start, the sound of clattering bowls in the kitchen cutting through his sleep. It took a minute of blinking befuddlement before he realized the reason he could hear his father cooking was because he had fallen asleep on the couch. He grimaced, rubbed his neck, and pushed himself to his feet.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” he grumbled, stumping into the kitchen and dropping into his chair at the table.

“I did,” Carl retorted. “Chocolate chip or blueberry?”

“Blueberry,” Devante said. “Then why was I still on the couch?”

“Because when I woke you up, you told me you wanted to sleep there, and to leave you alone.” Carl sprinkled a handful of blueberries into the pancake batter in the bowl in front of him, and started pouring it out onto the griddle. “You talk s**t in your sleep, kid.”

“Sorry.” Devante rubbed his neck again, and then carefully patted his hair to test the damage. Not too bad, he ascertained. Luckily half the throw pillows on the couch were satin.

“Enjoy it,” Carl grumbled, flipping the pancakes. “Five years, you won’t be able to pull a stunt like that and walk the next day. You’ve got young bones. Get the syrup.”

Devante stood and went to the pantry, coming back with both the syrup and the butter bell. There were no plates or silverware on the table yet, so he got those too; not a full proper table-setting, but enough for breakfast.

Then he ran to Carl’s bathroom. He never had gotten to pee when he got home the night before.

When he came back, the pancakes were done, piled onto a serving plate in the middle of the table. Carl was tucking into one, napkin tucked into the collar of his shirt to guard against errant syrup. Devante dealt with the risk by hunching entirely over his plate. “Won’t be able to pull that either, in a few years,” Carl observed. “Bad for your back.”

“Better than looking like a toddler,” Devante mumbled. Carl kicked his ankle under the table and grumbled.

Like always, Devante did the dishes while his father got ready for work. Carl was painfully economical with his dishes, so there wasn’t much, just the batter bowl, the spatula, the griddle, and the plates and silverware they’d eaten with. By the time he’d dried the last fork, he could hear his father pulling his shoes on in the living room.

“Have a good day at work!” he called, opening the cabinet above the sink and putting the clean, dry plates away.

“You too,” came Carl’s deep rumble, and then the door opened and shut behind him.

Devante didn’t have to catch his own bus until 11:15 A.M., 11:30 if he was willing to risk being a few minutes late to work, which he tried not to do very often. He spent the time watching television on his laptop on the couch, refreshing his course software in the background just in case his grades had been posted already.

At 11:10, showered, shaved, and dressed in black slacks and a button-down pattered with colorful fireworks, Devante locked the front door behind him and made for his bus stop at the end of the block.

Twenty minutes on the 66 and twelve on the 65, and then five minutes on foot, put him at the front door of the Brighton Public Library, where he worked eight hours on Thursdays, four on Fridays, and three on Mondays. “Afternoon, Miss Carla,” he said, walking up to the circulation desk and then around behind it.

Carla, a prim and proper Black woman in her fifties, shook her head. “You’re two minutes early, Devante. Still morning.”

“Well then, good morning, Miss Carla,” he said, giving her a bright smile.

She laughed and stood up from the rolling chair at the circulation computer. “Give me your bag,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’ll put it in the back.” Devante swung his messenger bag over his head and handed it to her, and she tottered off toward the staff area.

He lowered himself into the chair, reaching under the seat to adjust the height. Carla was much, much shorter than he was. He’d been working at the Brighton Public Library for almost a year, though, and he knew by feel when the chair was at the right height for his long legs.

There were no patrons at the desk; a few kids were clumped around one of the computers in the front, and a middle-aged white woman was perusing the new releases. Carla came out of the staff room, wrapped in her paisley shawl despite the heat of the early summer afternoon. “Busy day?” Devante asked as she made her way past him.

“Naw,” she said, shaking her head. “Should be a quiet shift, if this morning was any indication. Good luck, Devante.”

“Have a good day, Miss Carla.”

“And Devante?”

“Yes, Miss Carla?”

She winked at him. “Give my best to your father, now.”

She wobbled out the front door, on wedges she never could seem to get the hang of walking in despite wearing them every time Devante had ever seen her. He turned his attention back to the computer and pulled up the Simmons University Library Science course website.

He spent the first half hour of his shift perusing the required reading lists for his last-ever grad school courses. Some books, some articles; he placed Interlibrary Loan requests for the books through the Boston Public Library website, setting Brighton as his pickup location, and then logged onto Simmons’ library website to pull up the first article through their databases.

Eventually New Releases Woman came up with a stack of plastic-coated bestsellers. She smiled at Devante’s shirt, and he smiled back at her, scanning her card and checking the books out to her. “Enjoy,” he said, pushing the stack back across the counter to her. She thanked him, tipped the pile into her tote bag, and went on her way. Devante went back to his schoolwork, taking notes into a Google Doc.

His supervisor, Ethan, arrived at four, waving at him and settling into their desk behind circulation. “Any problems?” they asked.

“Nope,” Devante said, popping the p. “Slow day.”

“Good, good.”

At five Mr. Smythwick, one of Devante’s regulars, came by with a bag of returns. Devante scanned each one back in, then turned to the hold shelf. “Only four today,” he remarked, pulling Mr. Smythwick’s holds off the shelf. He opened his mouth to say, “Big ones, though,” and then remembered that he wasn’t allowed to remark on books unprompted and shut it again.

“Don’t be fooled,” Mr. Smythwick said, shaking one bony, hairy finger at Devante. “I’ll be back up to my regular numbers next week. Interlibrary Loan is just being difficult about finding some of the rarer stuff.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Devante said. “Carrying your books back and forth is my arm workout.”

Mr. Smythwick cackled like a banshee, and, when Devante had carefully scanned all four of his check-outs and printed out his receipt, staggered away again, his rickety, elderly frame somehow holding up the weight of the books. Devante shook his head ruefully and sat back down in his chair.

“I saw you remember about the privacy rules,” Ethan said, coming up and leaning on the counter next to him. “Well done.”

“Thanks.”

“Can you put together a cart for the morning? Shelvers are in bright and early.”

“Sure thing,” Devante said. Ethan nodded and went back to their desk.

Devante grabbed a cart and started arranging the day’s returns onto it in call number order. It was good practice; if he ever got the job of his dreams, he’d be in charge of his own shelving.

By the time he was finished, it was five minutes past six, and Mike was walking in the front door, a bag of food in his hand, his backpack slung over one shoulder. “Evening,” he said breezily, walking up to the desk.

“Evening,” Devante said. He turned back to Ethan. “Mike’s here.”

Ethan nodded and made their way up to the circulation desk. “Enjoy your break,” they said. “Evening, Mike.”

“Hey, Ethan,” Mike said. At Devante’s beckon he came around the desk and followed Devante to the staff room.

Mike set the food on the table and dropped his backpack into a chair, wrenching it open as Devante pulled paper plates out of the drawer by the sink and ripped two paper towels off the roll on the counter. “One chicken burrito, no lettuce, and a ginger ale,” Mike said, setting a foil-wrapped cylinder from the bag and a green bottle from his backpack in front of one chair at the table. “And one quesadilla and a Diet Coke for me,” he said, arranging his own food. He moved the backpack to the floor and sat down, accepting one plate from Devante and opening his quesadilla container.

Devante sat down, cracked open the ginger ale, and took a pull. He tapped at his phone, Venmoed Mike ten dollars for the food, and set into his burrito.

“How’s your day been?” Mike asked around a mouthful of tortilla, cheese, and beef.

Devante swallowed to set a good example before saying, “Not bad. Pretty slow, but I’ve got a lot of prep work done for next semester. You?”

“Grand,” Mike said, grinning. “Did a solid five miles on the treadmill before my lab.” Mike had the sort of exercise regime, and the body to show for it, that ordinarily would have made Devante nervous about eating in front of him. But Mike had always been decent, never commenting on what Devante ate beyond saying it smelled good, and he never seemed to judge Devante for being able to put away a whole burrito from La Catrina in one sitting.

“How’s your crabs?” Devante asked solicitously, before going in for another bite.

Mike rolled his eyes. “Are you ever going to get tired of phrasing it like that?” Devante shook his head. Despite himself, a smile tugged at Mike’s mouth. He worked in a lab researching the humble horseshoe crab. Nobody in The Friend Group ever missed a chance to make the obvious joke. “They’re healthy,” Mike said. “And as happy as we’re able to tell, anyway. I’ll tell them you said hello.”

“Please do!”

They descended for a few minutes into eating, nothing but the sounds of chewing and swallowing. When Devante was about halfway through his burrito, Mike said, voice sly, “You and Preeda looked pretty cozy last night.”

Devante froze, then deliberately resumed chewing until he could swallow his mouthful. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Sure,” Mike said, sounding like he didn’t mean it. “Seriously, Dev, when are you gonna make your move already? It’s getting unbearable.”

Devante wiped his mouth with his paper towel, suddenly uncomfortable. “I don’t know what you mean,” he repeated.

Mike rolled his eyes again. “You’re seriously telling me there’s nothing there? When the two of you can’t stop disappearing into your little side convos at every get-together?”

Devante squirmed in his chair. “We’ve made out a few times,” he admitted quietly.

They’d done a good deal more than make out, but that wasn’t something he was up to admitting right now. Not to Mike.

Mike pumped his fist in the air triumphantly. “I knew it!” he crowed. “Deets, immediately.”

“No,” Devante said firmly, shaking his head. “I didn’t tell you to gossip about it, I only said because you asked. It’s between her and me.”

“Alright, alright,” Mike said, holding his hands up peaceably. “I’m just saying, you gotta lock that s**t down.”

“Why do you care so much?” Devante snapped, covering his irritation in another bite of burrito, which now tasted kind of ashen in his mouth.

Mike shrugged. “It’ll affect the dynamic of the whole group, you two getting together properly. I’m invested in the dynamics of the group.” He bit off another chunk of quesadilla, chewed, and swallowed. “Also, you’re, like, my friend, and I want you to be happy and shit.”

“Thanks,” Devante murmured. The serious possibility that being with Preeda, properly, would not make him happy, he kept to himself. Mike meant well, but there were some things Devante didn’t want to tell him.

Thankfully, Mike changed the subject to sports after that. Devante honestly knew very little about sports, but it was a topic Mike could talk about for hours without requiring more than the occasional noise to indicate Devante was listening. They finished their food that way, Mike chatting between bites about the end of the hockey season, and the uncomfortable knot in Devante’s stomach had almost fully eased by the time his break was over.

Devante walked Mike as far as the circulation desk, ushering him out of the staff-only area and relieving Ethan at the desk. “Thanks for dinner, Mike.”

“You know it’s my pleasure, Dev.” Mike saluted him. “See you at drinks tomorrow?”

“See you.” Mike left. Devante pulled up the browser window he’d left open and dove back into his grad school articles.

There was only an hour left on his shift, and the latter half of that was filled with check-outs, people packing up after a day spent in the library choosing books, or rushing in to return something due and check out something new. Ethan locked the door at eight and did the closing checks while Devante powered down the computer. “See you tomorrow,” Ethan said when Devante slung his messenger bag across his torso.

“See you tomorrow,” Devante said. He pushed the chair under the desk and left for the five-minute walk to his bus stop.

He spent the two bus rides leaning his head against the window, trying not to think about Preeda, and Mike, and the dynamics of The Friend Group, and why it felt like it was all coming to a head much sooner than he was prepared for. Trying not to think about it, and failing.

Preeda was nice. She was sarcastic and cutting, sure, but she was always nice to him, and she was pretty, with her shining dark hair always pulled back into a bun and her dark wrap dresses and her mid-brown skin. They had a lot in common, too, grad school and fantasy novels and bad soap operas that neither of them would admit why they started watching years ago and kept up with until now. She’d make any man a perfect girlfriend, Devante included.

Quickly he tore his mind away from how that thought made him feel.

Carl, as always, was installed in his armchair when Devante got home. “You eat?” he grunted when Devante came in and kicked off his shoes.

“Yes, Dad,” Devante said patiently. “You know Mike brings me dinner on Thursdays.”

“Just checking.” Carl turned the page of his paper. “Brought you a doughnut. ‘S in the kitchen.”

“Thanks!” Devante padded into the kitchen to find a bag from Dunkin on the table. He checked inside—old fashioned, his favorite. He grabbed a paper towel to catch crumbs and brought it out to the living room, sinking onto the couch. “How was your day at work?”

“‘Nother day teaching snot-nosed brats how to run,” Carl grumbled.

Devante snorted. Carl loved his job, and he loved all his students, especially the ones who didn’t come in knowing how to run properly. The more he grumbled about his day, the better it was. “Glad to hear it.”

“You?”

“Quiet. Got a lot of work done.” Devante gave his father a sidelong smirk. “Miss Carla says hello, by the way.”

Carl rumbled something indistinct under his breath and turned the page a little more forcefully than was necessary. Devante laughed and applied himself to his doughnut.