Fangirl

Lincoln felt a lot more like a small town than Omaha. There were still movie theaters downtown and little shops. Cath walked by a Thai restaurant and the famous Chipotle. She stopped to walk through a gift shop and smell all the essential oils. There was a Starbucks across the street. She wondered if it was Levi’s Starbucks, and a minute later, she was crossing over.

Inside it was exactly like every other Starbucks Cath had ever been to. Maybe with a few more professorial types … And with Levi briskly moving behind the espresso machine, smiling at something somebody was saying in his headset.

Levi was wearing a black sweater over a white T-shirt. He looked like he’d just gotten a haircut—shorter in the back but still sticking up and flopping all over his face. He called out someone’s name and handed a drink to a guy who looked like a retired violin teacher. Levi stopped to talk to the guy. Because he was Levi, and this was a biological necessity.

“Are you in line?” a woman asked Cath.

“No, go ahead.” But then Cath decided she may as well get in line. It’s not like she’d come here to observe Levi in the wild. She didn’t know what she was doing here.

“Can I help you?” the guy at the register asked.

“No, you ca

“Hey,” Cath said, rolling her eyes. She hadn’t thought he’d seen her.

“Look at you. All sweatered up. What are those, leg sweaters?”

“They’re leg warmers.”

“You’re wearing at least four different kinds of sweater.”

“This is a scarf.”

“You look tarred and sweatered.”

“I get it,” she said.

“Did you just stop by to say hi?”

“No,” she said. He frowned. She rolled her eyes again. “I came for coffee.”

“What kind?”

“Just coffee. Grande coffee.”

“It’s cold out. Let me make you something good.”

Cath shrugged. Levi grabbed a cup and started pumping syrup into it. She waited on the other side of the espresso machine.

“What are you doing tonight?” he asked. “You should come over. I think we’re go

“I’m going home,” Cath said. “Omaha.”

“Yeah?” Levi smiled up at her. The machine made a hissing noise. “I bet your parents are happy about that.”

Cath shrugged again. Levi heaped whipped cream onto her drink. His hands were long—and thicker than the rest of him, a little knobby, with short, square nails.

“Have a great weekend,” he said, handing her the drink.

“I haven’t paid yet.”

Levi held up his hands. “Please. You insult me.”

“What is this?” She leaned over the cup and took a breath.

“My own concoction—Pumpkin Mocha Breve, light on the mocha. Don’t try to order it from anyone else; it’ll never turn out the same.”

“Thanks,” Cath said.

He gri

Levi moved on to the next person, smiling as wide as ever.

*   *   *

Cath’s ride was a girl named Erin who’d put a sign up in the floor bathroom about splitting gas back to Omaha. All she talked about was her boyfriend who still lived in Omaha and who was probably cheating on her. Cath couldn’t wait to get home.

She felt a surge of optimism as she ran up the steps to her house. Somebody had raked the leaves—people who stayed up all night making mountains out of mashed potatoes rarely had the presence of mind for leaf raking.

Not that her dad would actually do that, the mashed potato thing. That wasn’t his style at all.

A fireman’s pole to the attic. Spur-of-the-moment road trips. Staying up for three nights because he discovered Battlestar Galactica on Netflix … That was the MO to his madness.

“Dad?”

The house was dark. He should be home by now—he said he would come home early.

“Cath!” He was in the kitchen. She ran forward to hug him. He hugged her back like he needed it. When she pulled away, he smiled at her. Sight-for-sore-eyes and everything.

“It’s dark in here,” she said.

Her dad looked around the room like he’d just got there. “You’re right.” He walked around the main floor, flipping on lights. When he started on the lamps, Cath switched them off behind him. “I was just working on something…,” he said.

“For work?”

“For work,” he agreed, absentmindedly turning on a lamp she’d just switched off. “How do you feel about Gravioli?”

“I like it. Is that what we’re having for di

“No, that’s the client I’m on.”

“You guys got Gravioli?”

“Not yet. It’s a pitch. How do you feel about it?”

“About Gravioli.”

“Yeah…” He tapped the middle fingers of his left hand against his palm.

“I like the gravy? And … the ravioli?”

“And it makes you feel…”

“Full.”

“That’s terrible, Cath.”

“Um … happy? Indulgent? Comforted? Doubly comforted because I’m eating two comfort foods at once?”

“Maybe…,” he said.

“It makes me wonder what else would be better with gravy.”

“Ha!” he said. “Possible.”

He started walking away from her, and she knew he was looking for his sketchbook.

“What are we having for di

“Whatever you want,” he said. Then he stopped and turned to her, like he was remembering something. “No. Taco truck. Taco truck?”

“Yes. I’m driving. I haven’t driven in months. Which one should we go to? Let’s go to them all.”

“There are at least seven taco trucks, just in a two-mile radius.”

“Bring it on,” she said. “I want to eat burritos from now until Sunday morning.”

They ate their burritos and watched TV. Her dad scribbled, and Cath got out her laptop. Wren should be here with her laptop, too, sending Cath instant messages instead of talking.

Cath decided to send Wren an e-mail.

I wish you were here. Dad looks good. I don’t think he’s done dishes since we left, or that he’s used any dishes other than drinking glasses. But he’s working. And nothing is in pieces. And his eyes are in his eyes, you know? Anyway. See you Monday. Be safe. Try not to let anyone roofie you.

Cath went to bed at one o’clock. She came back down at three to make sure the front door was locked; she did that sometimes when she couldn’t sleep, when things didn’t feel quite right or settled.

Her dad had papered the living room with headlines and sketches. He was walking around them now, like he was looking for something.

“Bed?” she said.

It took a few seconds for his eyes to rest on her.

“Bed,” he answered, smiling gently.

When she came back down at five, he was in his room. She could hear him snoring.

*   *   *

Her dad was gone when she came downstairs later that morning.

Cath decided to survey the damage. The papers in the living room had been sorted into sections. “Buckets,” he called them. They were taped to the walls and the windows. Some pieces had other papers taped around them, as if the ideas were exploding. Cath looked over all his ideas and found a green pen to star her favorites. (She was green; Wren was red.)

The sight of it—chaotic, but still sorted—made her feel better.

A little manic was okay. A little manic paid the bills and got him up in the morning, made him magic when he needed it most.

“I was magic today, girls,” he’d say after a big presentation, and they’d both know that meant Red Lobster for di

A little manic was what their house ran on. The goblin spi

Cath checked the kitchen: The fridge was empty. The freezer was full of Healthy Choice meals and Marie Callender’s pot pies. She loaded the dishwasher with dirty glasses, spoons, and coffee cups.

The bathroom was fine. Cath peeked into her dad’s bedroom and gathered up more glasses. There were papers everywhere in there, not even in piles. Stacks of mail, most of it unopened. She wondered if he’d just swept everything into his room before she got home. She didn’t touch anything but the dishes.