“I would,” I said. “But please don’t feel obligated.”
“I’ll make her a copy after dinner, and she can read it later. Is that okay?” he said to Booker.
“It’s your poetry,” Booker said. “No one can tell you what to do with your own art unless you let them.”
“Is your teacher still teaching?” I asked Lex, trying to change the subject because I was beginning to feel sorry for him. Booker was obviously pushing all of us into situations we weren’t ready for.
“Which teacher?”
“The one who gave you my book, she means,” Booker said.
“Yeah. She is.”
“Lucky you,” I said.
“The teacher who gave you the book we shall not name isn’t?” Lex asked.
“Nope. I scared him away,” I said, surprising myself.
“What did you do?”
“I don’t know,” I lied, suddenly realizing what an uncomfortable conversational road I was going down. When Lex squinted at me and cocked his head to the right, I added, “I was just kidding.”
“How’s the food?” Booker asked, changing the subject once more, only for my benefit.
Little Lex and I both raved about the meal, even though it was cold and tasteless. We pushed it around on the plates a little and ate all of the warm, heavily buttered crusty bread, and then suddenly Booker was washing dishes in the kitchen and Lex and I had little cups of espresso in front of us, and the lights had been dimmed and the chocolate-covered strawberries were in our bellies.
“So you hang out with Booker all the time?” Little Lex asked.
“He’s sort of like the grandfather I never had. Well, I actually have two grandfathers, but I never see them. What about you and Booker?”
“He’s been writing me these letters. I have a hundred and four in a shoe box at home. Put them all together and you have enough words for another Booker novel. Although I’ve been forbidden to show anyone what he’s written, of course. He actually said I’d ‘die a slow, painful death if I ever break my solemn vow.’ I’m pretty sure he’s serious, because he’s sent me pictures of his secret samurai sword collection.”
We both laughed, and then Little Lex said, “My teacher gave me The Bubblegum Reaper after some bad stuff happened.”
I made a note to ask what happened to Lex but let him continue. The caffeine had him talking more and with great speed.
“When I came in raving about the read, she told me to write Booker a fan letter, and then somehow Booker and I were writing almost weekly.” He looked over at the kitchen doorway, lowered his voice, and said, “I was sort of worried at first, like maybe he was after something, because why would he take the time to write a kid like me? Although I couldn’t figure out what he could possibly want. Now I think he’s just a lonely old man. Maybe he would have started corresponding with anyone who wrote a fan letter.”
I lowered my voice, too, and said, “He is lonely. But I don’t think he would write many people, actually. I think he only interacts with people who are like Wrigley and whichever Thatch twin talks to turtles.”
“Maybe.”
Little Lex was a big, heavyset guy with hunched shoulders, but somehow he carried his weight well, and he had thick, rich hair and bright eyes and a kind smile. What I liked most about him was that he didn’t seem to be trying to prove anything at all—no pretense.
“So why do they call you Little Lex?” I asked in my regular speaking voice, thinking I knew the answer.
He scrunched up his face like he had just tasted something sour. “It’s not a very happy story.”
“So.”
“You really want to know?”
When I nodded, he reached down into his leather briefcase and pulled out a worn notebook and some tracing paper. Next, he furiously traced something—his pencil dancing with great speed for several minutes, his brow wrinkling and unwrinkling—while I watched and wondered. Then he folded the sheet of tracing paper up into a small square and slid it toward me.
“A poem?” I said.
“Yeah. Don’t read it in front of me, okay? Not even Booker has read this one. He wanted me to read poetry to you tonight. But I—I just can’t.”
I picked up the folded piece of paper, stuck it in my pocket, and said, “So why do you think Booker set us up like this?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask him to. I just wanted to meet him after writing so many letters.”
“So this is really, truly the first time you’ve met him?”
“Yeah. I tried before, but Booker used to say our friendship was ‘pure’ because it was all through words and that meeting face-to-face would mean risking it all, which made me want to meet him even more. Also, I just got my driver’s license and a car. So this was the first time I could visit without asking for a ride from my dad. And Booker doesn’t drive, as you know.”
“Why didn’t you want to ask your dad for a ride?”
“I guess I just want to keep my worlds separate.”
I nodded because I knew exactly what he meant. Spending time with Booker was becoming an addiction, mostly because it was the only part of my day when I felt like I could be myself—or maybe like there was one person in the world who didn’t want me to become something I didn’t want to be or to act a certain way or to go along with everything that others pushed into my life. I kept my parents away from Booker, too, because I was afraid they’d infect him with their ideas for my future—their vision for who I should be. Half the time I spent with Booker, my parents thought I was hanging out with my teammates.