The Bookish Life of Nina Hill - Abbi Waxman Page 0,76
think it’s stars that align, not fates.”
Polly frowned at her. “Does it matter?”
“I suppose not.”
“Are you going to see him again?”
Nina nodded. Then shook her head. Then nodded again. “I imagine so. We got on pretty well to not see each other again.” She thought about it. “Of course, he is a guy, so who knows. I may never hear from him again. Or he might send me a picture of his penis any minute.”
“Well then,” said Polly, “keep checking your phone.”
Nina’s phone buzzed, obligingly. She picked it up but shook her head. “It’s not him; it’s Archie.”
“Oh, now, his penis I’d be totally open to seeing.” Polly leaned over to look, but Nina held the phone away.
“Excuse me, that’s my married brother you’re salivating over.” She looked at the text. “And it would be pretty weird of him to send his sister a dick pic.”
“Good point.”
“He’s wondering if I’m around for lunch. He says he’s bringing a friend he wants me to meet. Do you want to come? Maybe the friend is single.”
“How can I join you? Liz isn’t here. Are you suggesting we close the store?”
“Oh yeah.” Nina laughed. “Who knew you would turn out to be so responsible?”
“Not me.” Polly walked away. “I think it’s your terrible influence. I used to be carefree and disorganized, and you’ve ruined me. The other day I was able to put my hand directly on something I was looking for. It threw me off for the rest of the day.”
“Sorry,” said Nina.
“You should be,” Polly replied, heading into the office to grab some paperwork.
Archie’s friend was nothing like Nina had expected. She was only four feet tall, for a start.
“This is Millie,” said Archie. “She’s your sister.” He paused. “Mine, too.”
Millie wasn’t a redhead, but there was still something familiar about her. She looked more like her mom, Eliza, the woman who had attempted to stop Lydia’s tirade the other day, but there was still plenty of her dad in her bone structure.
She stuck out her hand. “Hi, Nina. It’s nice to meet you.”
Nina shook her hand. What a formal child. “I didn’t realize you two hung out,” she said.
The three of them found a table at the back of the restaurant, and Vanessa came over to take their order.
“More family?” she asked. She looked at Millie. “Do you want a kids’ menu?”
Millie looked up at her, thoughtfully. “Is there coloring on it?”
“Yes, and a word search.”
“Well then, yes, please.” She looked at Nina. “I love a word search.”
“Who doesn’t?” said Nina. “And Mad Libs.”
“Yeah!” said Millie, clearly tickled to have found a kindred spirit. Word geeks love to discover one another. Come upon. Identify. Recognize. Etc.
Archie cleared his throat. “Actually, we don’t usually hang out. Eliza reached out to me after the meeting at the lawyer’s a couple of weeks ago, and we decided it might be fun.” He looked at Millie and then back at Nina. “I brought her to lunch because I can’t talk about books anymore. I’m exhausted. I thought you could take over.”
Millie smiled at him and patted his hand. “It’s OK, you knew quite a lot about Harry Potter.”
“And if you’d read The Hunger Games, I would have been able to talk about that, too.” He grinned. “But your mother is a sensible woman.”
Nina said, “The Hunger Games is great, but maybe a little bloody for a . . .”
“Ten-year-old,” said Millie. She took a sip of the lemonade Vanessa had delivered. “But I wanted to talk to you about Daddy, anyway.”
Nina’s smile faded a little. “You know I never met him, right? I didn’t know him at all.”
Millie frowned. “You didn’t?”
Nina looked at Archie, who shrugged. “No one even knew I was alive before your dad died. He was never my dad, really.”
Millie was silent, processing this. “He wasn’t married to your mom at all?”
Nina shook her head. “You know the other families, though?”
Millie turned the lemonade glass around slowly on the table. “A bit. I’ve met Archie before, at the holidays, but I wasn’t paying all that much attention, honestly.” She looked up at Nina, her eyes clear. “I mean, I’m a kid; it was Christmas.”
“I came to see you in the hospital when you were born,” said Archie.
Millie smiled. “You did?”
Archie nodded. “I was a teenager, so I was pretending to be really cool about it, but you were deeply ugly as a baby.”
Millie giggled.
“Your mom kept asking if I wanted to hold you, and I kept saying no. I was worried