Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,103
I veered the subject in a new direction again, conscious of the two freshmen girls getting ready to check-out. They’d been here twice a week since September, and each time they brought a new attempt to befriend me or glean information about my brief stint in Hollywood.
Graham caught the direction of my stare and chuckled. “Scared they’ll try and coerce you into giving them your boyfriend’s phone number?”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” I stepped around him, grabbing the book cart before pushing it towards the closest cluster of shelves.
The irony that I’d spent so much time running from a book only to become employed in a library wasn’t lost on me. Encased by the tall rows, there was no anxiety over my surroundings. The books sheltered me, always quick to offer a new hiding place, muffled from the real world.
My life in North Carolina was so much the same and so different at the same time. The news of my identity had spread, but instead of outright acknowledgment, I had been met with covert interest. Fascination lingered around me like a persistent cloud. Where California had tried to suffocate me with attention, at UNC, it almost acted as a buffer. People wanted to look, but not touch.
I went about my normal life undaunted. It almost reminded me of someone whose bad reputation had followed them from high school. Only instead of a sex tape or cameo on a Girls Gone Wild episode, I had two famous ex-boyfriends. My peers gave me a wide birth, and if I could ever get used to the stares, I was sure I could just pretend like nothing was abnormal at all.
***
At the end of my shift, I hurried down the steps outside, pulling my coat tighter around me to battle the dipping temperature. My dorm was only a five minute walk, but it was dark and I didn’t linger. I was in such a rush I almost didn’t notice the gigantic man leaning against a sleek town car in the loading zone in front of the dorm.
His intimidating bulk should have frightened me, but I’d only known one person to maintain such size and grace. I recognized him immediately.
“Alfred? What are you doing here?”
“Giving you a ride,” he replied gruffly.
I was out of practice with his humorless mask, and for an instant, his grim delivery sent an unintended shiver of fear down my spine. Alfred would have made a great mobster. One look from him and I would’ve tied the cement block to my own leg.
“I didn’t realize I was going anywhere.”
“That’s why it’s called a surprise, ho’omakamaka,” he said, softening on the native word.
It was the closest he’d ever come to making a joke around me, and that was almost enough to tempt me into the car with him. The straps of my bag dug into my skin, a not so subtle reminder of the literal weight on my shoulders. I had books to read and essays to bullshit. I didn’t have time for surprises.
I was pulled to the car anyways, like some invisible magnet was drawing me forward.
“I assume this surprise doesn’t involve you telling me where you’re giving me a ride to.”
He had no reaction to my submission, like he’d never once doubted my willingness to jump into a car with him with no explanation. Was I really so predictable?
The first fifteen minutes of our drive were spent in silence. I wasn’t the only predictable one. The day Alfred got chatty with me was the same day I agreed to star in my own reality show.
The quiet didn’t bother me. I’d grown to appreciate Alfred’s temperament over the summer. Being around him was as close to meditating as I’d ever come. My curiosity was a whole other matter though. When thirty minutes passed and we showed no sign of turning off the interstate carrying us Northwest, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Madeline didn’t ask you to kidnap me and drive me all the way back to California, did she?”
“Yes,” he said somberly before his eyes flickered with a diminutive hint of jest. “But that was months ago, and I told her the likelihood of us getting away with something on that scale was slim.”
“You’re a real comedian, Al. Is that your side job when Madeline lets you off your leash?” I said dryly, though I kind of enjoyed his attempted sarcasm.
“We were in Charlotte on the press tour –.”
“Charlotte! That’s more than two hours away!” I was outraged. I didn’t have four entire