The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V. E. Schwab Page 0,37
sign over at five to six, and goes through the motions of closing up the shop. The Last Word isn’t his, but it might as well be. It’s been weeks since he saw the actual owner, Meredith, who’s spending her golden years traveling the world on her late husband’s life insurance. A fall woman indulging in a second spring.
Henry scoops a handful of kibble into the small red dish behind the counter for Book, the shop’s ancient cat, and a moment later, a ratty orange head pokes up over the chapbooks in POETRY. The cat likes to climb behind a stack and sleep for days, his presence marked only by the emptying dish and the occasional gasp of a customer when they come across a pair of unblinking yellow eyes at the back of the shelves.
Book is the only one who’s been at the bookstore longer than Henry.
He’s worked there for the last five years, having started back when he was still a grad student in theology. At first it was just a part-time gig, a way to supplement the university stipend, but then school went away, and the store stayed. Henry knows he should probably get another job, because the pay is shit and he has twenty-one years of expensive formal education, and then of course there’s his brother David’s voice, which sounds exactly like their father’s voice, calmly asking where this job leads, if this is really how he plans to spend his life. But Henry doesn’t know what else to do, and he can’t bring himself to leave; it’s the only thing he hasn’t failed out of yet.
And the truth is, Henry loves the store. Loves the smell of books, and the steady weight of them on shelves, the presence of old titles and the arrival of new ones and the fact that in a city like New York, there will always be readers.
Bea insists that everyone who works in a bookstore wants to be a writer, but Henry’s never fancied himself a novelist. Sure, he’s tried putting pen to paper, but it never really works. He can’t find the words, the story, the voice. Can’t figure out what he could possibly add to so many shelves.
Henry would rather be a storykeeper than a storyteller.
He turns off the lights and grabs the ticket and his coat, and heads over to Robbie’s show.
* * *
Henry didn’t have time to change.
The show starts at seven, and The Last Word closed at six, and anyways he isn’t sure what the dress code is for an off-off-Broadway show about faeries in the Bowery, so he’s still in dark jeans and a tattered sweater. It’s what Bea likes to call Librarian Chic, even though he doesn’t work in a library, a fact she cannot seem to grasp. Bea, on the other hand, looks painfully fashionable, as she always does, with a white blazer rolled up to her elbows, thin silver bands wrapped around her fingers and shining in her ears, thick dreads coiled in a crown atop her head. Henry wonders, as they wait in the queue, if some people have natural style, or if they simply have the discipline to curate themselves every day.
They shuffle forward, presenting their tickets at the door.
The play is one of those strange medleys of theater and modern dance that only exist in a place like New York. According to Robbie, it’s loosely based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, if someone had filed Shakespeare’s cadence smooth, and cranked up the saturation.
Bea knocks him in the ribs.
“Did you see the way she looked at you?”
He blinks. “What? Who?”
Bea rolls her eyes. “You are entirely hopeless.”
The lobby bustles around them, and they’re wading through the crowd when another person catches Henry’s arm. A girl, wrapped in a tattered bohemian dress, green paint flourishes like abstract vines on her temples and cheeks, marking her as one of the actors of the show. He’s seen the remnants on Robbie’s skin a dozen times in the last few weeks.
She holds up a paintbrush and a bowl of gold. “You’re not adorned,” she says with sober sincerity, and before he can think to stop her, she paints gold dust on his cheeks, the brush’s touch feather-light. This close, he can see that faint shimmer in the girl’s eyes.
Henry tips his chin.
“How do I look?” he asks, affecting a model’s pout, and even though he’s joking, the girl flashes him an earnest smile and says, “Perfect.”