— The Last Bookstore on Earth —
Lily Braun-Arnold

CHAPTER THREE

I still haven’t figured out what to do with the batteries, so I’ve been carrying them around with me for two days. That way, I can’t lose them. That way, they can’t magically disappear the moment that I look away like most things normally do. Right now, they’re lined up in a row on the checkout counter like some sort of weird domino set.

That’s a bad habit of mine, leaving things for later. My dad used to say it was one of my worst habits. It drove him nuts. He used to find my half-eaten packages of peanut butter crackers littered on the kitchen table and toss them. Then I’d come back from work looking for those same peanut butter crackers, and they’d be gone, and I’d be sad and hungry, and Dad would be upset about the crumbs on his kitchen table. Naturally, I’d get myself another package of peanut butter crackers, eat a couple, start my statistics homework, and once again forget about my crackers, causing Dad to throw out the abandoned package. It was a vicious cycle.

Still, I leave the batteries on the counter and peer out the front window one last time, just to make sure that no one is walking down the road toward me. I know no one is. Visits are somewhat randomly spaced, but it’s rare to have more than one every couple of days, and someone came through just this morning. My dwindling customer base is loyal, if nothing else. It was a familiar face, as they often are—a kid I knew from high school, Isaac, who has grown even taller in the past year, a feat that I didn’t think was possible for a towering twenty-year-old. He’s been living in the basement of a RadioShack, two miles away, the building above his sun-less room almost entirely collapsed. His skin was a deep gray, almost fully devoid of color from the lack of sunlight, but he swore it was better than trying to move into one of the still-standing homes that dot suburbia. Homes mean people. People mean death, and rot, and memories we try too hard to keep out.

When he left he took my prized copy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, pages dog-eared from overreading and highlighted in all my favorite places, but he left an unopened bag of jerky in return and enough conversation to tide me over until the next person came through. That seemed well worth it to me. He swore up and down that he’d return it, and he even offered to pinkie swear on it, but I know that it’ll probably never come back. They rarely do. People tend to hold close the things that they have nowadays.

The bookstore is on the bottom floor of a two-story building, with an apartment unit on top, connected to the shop by a narrow hallway and a set of stairs. On the other side of that narrow hallway are the stairs to the basement, but the basement is creepy and prone to flooding, so I tend to avoid it entirely. The hallway is dark, with off-white walls tarnished slightly from all the times I’ve bumped into them carrying pointy things that leave dents. The staircase is no less sad, with small, sagging steps that creak each time I walk up them.

I didn’t know the guy who lived in the apartment above the bookstore before The Storm, because I never saw him. Sure, I heard his speakers sometimes as we were closing up shop, blasting songs with obnoxious bass levels that shook the ceiling. And sure, we had to deal with his misdelivered Amazon packages, but I never saw him. Not in person, anyway. I liked to imagine him when it was slow at the shop, always picturing him as young and in love. Someone who rode a motorcycle and shaved part of his head and said cool things like enigmatic and inconsequential.

When I went up to the apartment for the first time after The Storm and knocked on the door, no one answered. Whoever lived there was gone before I got to say hello. There wasn’t a body, so I still have hope that he survived. But it’s a bit of a pipe dream. I know there are plenty of places to die. We don’t all die in our homes, surrounded by the things we love.

What I do know, now, is that his name was Greyson. He really liked the Matrix movies and had posters on his wall of each one. He had a girlfriend with bright pink hair and an awesome smile. At least, I assume it was his girlfriend. I found her picture propped up on his desk, right in the middle, right where he could see it every single day. I’ve decided that meant they were in love.

I didn’t keep his photos. I didn’t think I could. When I left my home for the last time, after it happened, I brought only one picture with me. I don’t like the idea of anyone finding the photos I left behind, so I couldn’t very well keep his. The picture I took is of my family: me and my twin sister and my parents. I was nine. In the photo, my parents sit on yellow chairs, holding hands. My sister and I sit on their laps, looking up at their bright faces. At the time the picture was taken, it was the only way life could be. Happy and mundane and normal.

So I put my photo in the middle of the desk, sliding it into the frame over Greyson’s girlfriend, right where I can see it every day. When I look at us, happy and together, it’s like everything is okay. It’s like I didn’t screw everything up. I can pretend we still exist, together, in that moment. Forever. When I look at it, I can forget the guilt that constantly simmers in the far-off reaches of my brain. For a moment, it’s gone.

The apartment itself is small, though the kitchen is big enough to hold one of those oversize refrigerators with two doors and a built-in freezer, but too tiny to fit a real table. The bedroom is a bit of a mess, the solitary desk shoved into a corner with a now-useless lamp hovering above it. My mattress is stacked in the other corner, deep red covers rumpled, balled up and tossed out of the way. My pillow looks a little worse for wear and a little thinner than I might like it to, but it’s home. It’s what I have and it’s all I need, although I don’t think I’d be super upset if someone came in and decided to trade me another pillow for a book.

I grab a spare notepad from the desk, flipping frantically past horrible doodles and half-written poems, and begin writing a list. One that I have to complete so that I won’t die sad and alone when the next Storm comes. If it even comes at all.

To-Do List (of utmost importance)

1. The roof

The roof is a disaster. Most of it was blown away by the original Storm, and in my infinite laziness I’ve managed to only half fix it by nailing a tarp to what remained of the outer walls. It’s kind of like camping, but shittier. Every time there’s even the slightest bit of breeze, the makeshift roof flutters back and forth, sounding like an overworked banshee. When the sun shines hard enough, the entire room is enveloped in an eerie shade of blue, like some low-budget science-fiction movie. It wouldn’t do in a regular storm, not to mention the type with rain that could burn through your skin.

I swing open the kitchen cupboard with a bang. The shelves are dangerously empty, but I don’t stop to think about it, because there’s absolutely nothing I can do that will make more cans appear. The nearest food store was ransacked a long time ago. It sucks. Right now, my dad would tell me to have agency. Then I’d narrow my eyes and clench my jaw and tell him that he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. I eye a can of baked beans, disgusting yet available, which I’ll likely have for dinner. Just like the night before. And the night before that.

I twist open the faucet, partly to test the water pressure and partly so I can have something semicool to splash onto my face and lower my body temperature even slightly. I wait there, arm outstretched, seconds slowly passing, before I realize that absolutely nothing is coming out.

I stare at the faucet as it starts to make a low, guttural hissing noise, which grows louder and louder until the entire sink shudders and heaves and a quick shot of gunk bursts forth from the spout, landing with a splash in the basin. Then the sink is silent again. Thick, brown water swirls to the drain. So much for drinking water. Unlike with the beans, I cannot sweet-talk myself into drinking water that would probably give me some horrible disease that comes only from gross faucets in New Jersey. I’m not that brainless.

I’m lucky it even lasted this long, I think as something acrid twists through my insides. But I’ve seen too many survival movies to not realize what this means. Fresh water is life, right? There’s a reason why people hallucinate water in the desert and not something more exciting, like a meatball sub or a car to ferry them to safety. Without water, none of that matters. Without water, I’m screwed. Sure, I might have enough squirreled away in bottles around the bookstore to last me for a day or two, but that’s not something to rely on. My tongue adheres itself to the roof of my mouth, feeling like sawdust and clay. I add it to the list.

2. Water

I decided to underline that one, just in case. I leave the rest of my bedroom behind, trotting through the open doorway and into the kitchen. I look at the crack in the top right windowpane. And the one that’s missing completely below it, the gaping hole covered by duct tape and the dust jacket from a copy of Wonder. Not going to cut it.

3. Kitchen windows

I continue downstairs, into the actual bookstore, still devoid of people and full of dust. I stacked some old milk crates against the wall in the back of the store, carefully placed to hide the damage Eva and I caused when we accidentally knocked over a bookcase filled with hardcovers. The falling shelf made a gaping hole in the plaster, and I can see the pink, pillow-like insulation seeping out from the wall.

4. Insulation

5. Water stain on ceiling?

6. Door doesn’t lock

7. Broken windows *again* (downstairs)

When I look at my ever-growing list, my pulse quickens, especially considering that I haven’t yet looked at the building from the outside. That’ll add at least another three entries. My stomach lurches. I don’t know how to fix insulation, or replace windowpanes, or repair giant holes in the roof. I didn’t think I would have to. My expertise probably ends at noisy hinges. I always assumed that Eva would be here to help once things got bad.

When I make it outside, I look at the half-gone roof and the clogged gutters and the cracked windowpanes. I notice the way the small oak tree is leaning toward the building, as if one gust of wind could send it toppling. I would add that to the list, but I don’t know what I could do about that. I hate that I don’t know what to do.

When I was younger, really young, I used to have every single thing planned out. Like, as a fifth grader, I wanted to go to Dartmouth and become a surgeon. I wanted to go to Dartmouth because my best friend’s dad went there and told me that during the winter they drank beer and ice-skated and jumped over barrels. To me that seemed “fun” and like “what cool people would do.” I wanted to be a surgeon because I had memorized the names of fifty bones and thought that was all I needed to know. I would go around offering people the most incorrect medical advice in the world. I decided to not become a surgeon when I realized that I would have to go to medical school for four years, plus a residency, which would cause me to miss my prime Broadway-performing years. I wanted to do it all.

High school forced me to face reality. My school guidance counselor put an end to the color-coded spreadsheets that dictated every aspect of my future. She introduced me to things like “acceptance rates” and “common applications.” After that, everything was out the window. I was no longer good enough to do everything at once.

Well-meaning adults would ask, “Now, where do you want to go to college?” or “What are you planning to major in?” and I’d just smile and say, “I have a couple of top choices” or “I’m deciding between English, music, and biochemistry.” They’d nod and reply with “That’s nice,” and I’d die inside a little bit. I hated not knowing what I wanted and knowing that I’d have to figure it out sooner rather than later. I had a future, but I didn’t want one. Now I miss the future I never had. Joni Mitchell would have a field day with my predicament.

I look back toward the leaning tree and stare at its dead limbs. Not a single green leaf clings onto its branches. It’s been dead and gone for a long time, and I didn’t even notice—though I suppose it’s easy to miss when the streets are covered in bits of buildings and the shops you used to visit on Fridays after school are half reduced to ruins. My world has crumbled around me, and I’m still trying to hold together the pieces that are left.

CHAPTER FOUR

JANUARY 14: BEFORE THE FIRST STORM

The Christmas decorations are still up, even though January is halfway over. School is in full swing. There are no more bogus preholiday class periods wasted away with study times or barely relevant documentaries.

My mom hates taking the Christmas decorations down. I’ve pointed out to her that she doesn’t have to spend so much time putting them up and staring at them and adding little cardinals and jingle bells to the roping. The fake greenery from the ACME uptown does the same job, and I don’t have to vacuum up a forest’s worth of pine needles when I should be working on my English essay. Still, Mom refuses to change her ways. We have to drive into New York every year to tie a particular tree to the top of our car and buy roping from the hole-in-the-wall florist shop on the bottom floor of a building that should have been condemned years ago. Mom doesn’t appreciate my commentary.

So I don’t say anything about the Christmas decorations or the pine needles stuck in my wool socks as I make my way to the dinner table. Dad has warned me that I have a bad habit of ruining dinner conversation before the meal has even begun, as I tend to be the one to bring up the most uncomfortable topics. Sometimes I don’t even notice I’m doing it, the words slipping out of my mouth like it’s my god-given duty to remind my family of the state of the world. But I’m trying to keep my streak of unruined dinners going. I’m up to six.

My sister, Thea, is sitting in my seat, but I don’t say anything. I am not going to ruin dinner.

The newspaper is sitting on the kitchen counter, its headline barely visible. I’m sure that it says something about snow, and melting ice caps, and god knows what else. But I don’t comment on it, because I am not going to ruin dinner.

In fact, I am so focused on not ruining dinner that I do nothing except stare at my limp asparagus and meat loaf. I shove my macaroni around on my plate with the tip of my fork and wait for someone else to speak first.

Mom takes the bait, using a thin finger to push her blond hair behind her ear.

“Elizabeth,” she chides. “I worked hard on this meal.”

It takes me a second to realize that she’s talking about the macaroni and not the fact that I’ve come down to dinner in slightly stained sweatpants.

“It’s not meant to be offensive, I swear.”

“You know how she has that weird thing about different foods touching,” Thea adds, her just-as-blond hair pulled back into a slick ponytail.

Dad clears his throat, looking up from his plate to smile at me. I got my looks from him. His hard eyes and square jaw. “She likes to compartmentalize, honey.” A pause. “Right, Liz?”

“Sure.”

Dad chuckles, letting his fork rest on the side of his plate.

Mom has always cared too much about how she sets the table. The napkins match the tablecloth. The cutlery is always adorned with overly intricate metalwork. It’s all picked up from yard sales, and it’s all vintage. Her philosophy is that you can forget about all the shitty little things that happened today if your dinner table looks like it was stolen from an episode of I Love Lucy. Dad encourages her, and so I’ve never experienced a night when the Flannery family hasn’t dined by candlelight. Even if we’re eating takeout.

“When you were little, you used to tell us that you had different compartments in your body, for different foods,” Dad says.

“I know.”

And I do know, because I hear this story about once a week, whenever I dare to refuse seconds of Mom’s spaghetti.

Thea shakes her head, turning to meet my glance. “What? Is your macaroni compartment full? Poor thing.”

“Woe is me. God always gives his toughest soldiers his toughest battles.”

“Yeah, macaroni and college essays,” Thea fires back.

At those two golden words, Mom perks up, pulled out of her macaroni-induced trance and back to the present.

“Any college news, girls?” she asks, her dangling earrings swinging back and forth as she pivots her head between the two of us. We’ve entered interrogation mode.

“It’s January,” I answer.

“What about early action?” Dad adds, picking up his fork once again.

Thea huffs. “I’ve heard from all of those already. Nothing new.”

“Me too,” I add.

But Mom ignores me, instead focusing on my sister. “Really, Thea?” She leans back in her chair, crossing her arms. “There’s nothing that you’d care to share?”

It’s as if my mom doesn’t even realize how much her questions irk my sister. But her recent string of rejections has caused Thea to be more than prickly, whether my mom has noticed or not.

“No,” Thea replies, sighing. “It doesn’t matter anyway, right?”

I can’t help but smile. I’m sure she’s just trying to goad Mom, but I appreciate the effort. I’m used to being the resident cynic in the family, and so I scooch my foot toward Thea under the table and nudge her slightly. A love tap, as Dad would call it. She gets the message, and she blushes slightly.

“Don’t say that,” my mother says as she hunches over her macaroni, turning beet red.

“Let her speak, Ivy. We raise independent thinkers in this household.”

But Mom shakes her head. “Not if she’s going to say things like that.”

I can see the discarded newspaper out of the corner of my eye. Thea sees it too.

“It’s true!” Thea protests, pushing her plate away from her. “You can’t be that oblivious.”

“I’m not oblivious.”

And the staring contest begins. Like mother, like daughter. My dad looks at me, as if to say, Please do something. I can’t watch World War III break out right now.

“It said in the Times that we have until next January before things get to the point of no return,” I offer. “That’s long enough to start college.”

“Not helping, Liz,” Dad mutters, his eyes suddenly like daggers. Apparently that wasn’t what he was looking for.

“She’s not wrong,” Thea fires back.

Mom isn’t one to surrender, though. “There’s no such thing as the point of no return. They keep saying that, but it never happens. They were saying that before you two were even born.”

Thea doesn’t bat an eye. “It hasn’t happened yet, you mean.”

Dad takes a long, deep breath. I watch his chest rise and fall as his eyes scan the three of us. I know what he believes. He doesn’t have to say it. I know that if Mom weren’t here, he would say, You’re right. But he’s a peace broker. So he swallows and puts on a brave face.

“Your mother worked hard on this dinner. Let’s not ruin it.”

“Thank you, David.”

I say nothing, watching as pine needles fall from the roping by the stairs.