Caroline Kepnes - You

Thank you for downloading this Atria Books eBook.

Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Atria Books and Simon & Schuster.

C LICK H ERE T O S IGN U P

or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

We hope you enjoyed reading this Atria Books eBook.

Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Atria Books and Simon & Schuster.

C LICK H ERE T O S IGN U P

or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

For you, Dad

First of the day, God willing, see you tomorrow.

Harold Samuel Kepnes,

January 29, 1947November 13, 2012

YOU walk into the bookstore and you keep your hand on the door to make sure it doesnt slam. You smile, embarrassed to be a nice girl, and your nails are bare and your V-neck sweater is beige and its impossible to know if youre wearing a bra but I dont think that you are. Youre so clean that youre dirty and you murmur your first word to me hello when most people would just pass by, but not you, in your loose pink jeans, a pink spun from Charlottes Web and where did you come from?

You are classic and compact, my own little Natalie Portman circa the end of the movie Closer , when shes fresh-faced and done with the bad British guys and going home to America. Youve come home to me, delivered at last, on a Tuesday, 10:06 A.M . Every day I commute to this shop on the Lower East Side from my place in Bed-Stuy. Every day I close up without finding anyone like you. Look at you, born into my world today. Im shaking and Id pop an Ativan but theyre downstairs and I dont want to pop an Ativan. I dont want to come down. I want to be here, fully, watching you bite your unpainted nails and turn your head to the left, no, bite that pinky, widen those eyes, to the right, no, reject biographies, self-help (thank God), and slow down when you make it to fiction.

Yes.

I let you disappear into the stacksFiction FKand youre not the standard insecure nymph hunting for Faulkner youll never finish, never start; Faulkner that will harden and calcify, if books could calcify, on your nightstand; Faulkner meant only to convince one-night stands that you mean it when you swear you never do this kind of thing. No, youre not like those girls. You dont stage Faulkner and your jeans hang loose and youre too sun-kissed for Stephen King and too untrendy for Heidi Julavits and who, who will you buy? You sneeze, loudly, and I imagine how loud you are when you climax. God bless you! I call out.

You giggle and holler back, you horny girl, You too, buddy.

Buddy . Youre flirting and if I was the kind of asshole who Instagrams, I would photograph the FK placard and filter the shit out of that baby and caption it:

FK yes, I found her.

Calm down, Joe. They dont like it when a guy comes on too strong , I remind myself. Thank God for a customer and its hard to scan his predictable Salingerthen again, its always hard to do that. This guy is, what, thirty-six and hes only now reading Franny and Zooey ? And lets get real. Hes not reading it. Its just a front for the Dan Browns in the bottom of his basket. Work in a bookstore and learn that most people in this world feel guilty about being who they are. I bag the Dan Brown first like its kiddie porn and tell him Franny and Zooey is the shit and he nods and youre still in FK because I can see your beige sweater through the stacks, barely. If you reach any higher, Ill see your belly. But you wont. You grab a book and sit down in the aisle and maybe youll stay here all night. Maybe itll be like the Natalie Portman movie Where the Heart Is , adapted faithlessly from the Billie Letts bookabove par for that kind of crudand Ill find you in the middle of the night. Only you wont be pregnant and I wont be the meek man in the movie. Ill lean over and say, Excuse me, miss, but were closed and youll look up and smile. Well, Im not closed. A breath. Im wide open. Buddy.

Hey. Salinger-Brown bites. Hes still here? Hes still here. Can I get a receipt?

Sorry about that.

He grabs it out of my hand. He doesnt hate me. He hates himself. If people could handle their self-loathing, customer service would be smoother.

You know what, kid? You need to get over yourself. You work in a bookstore. You dont make the books. You dont write the books and if you were any good at reading the books, you probably wouldnt work in a bookstore. So wipe that judgmental look off your face and tell me to have a nice day.

This man could say anything in the world to me and hed still be the one shame-buying Dan Brown. You appear now with your intimate Portman smile, having heard the motherfucker. I look at you. You look at him and hes still looking at me, waiting.

Have a nice day, sir, I say and he knows I dont mean it, hates that he craves platitudes from a stranger. When hes gone, I call out again because youre listening, You enjoy that Dan Brown, motherfucker!

You walk over, laughing, and thank God its morning, and were dead in the morning and nobody is gonna get in our way. You put your basket of books down on the counter and you sass, You gonna judge me too?

What an asshole, right?

Eh, probably just in a mood.

Youre a sweetheart. You see the best in people. You complement me.

Well, I say and I should shut up and I want to shut up but you make me want to talk. That guy is the reason that Blockbuster shouldnt have gone under.

You look at me. Youre curious and I want to know about you but I cant ask so I just keep talking.

Everybody is always striving to be better, lose five pounds, read five books, go to a museum, buy a classical record and listen to it and like it. What they really want to do is eat doughnuts, read magazines, buy pop albums. And books? Fuck books. Get a Kindle. You know why Kindles are so successful?

You laugh and you shake your head and youre listening to me at the point when most people drift, go into their phone. And youre pretty and you ask, Why?

Ill tell you why. The Internet put porn in your home

I just said porn , what a dummy, but youre still listening, what a doll.

And you didnt have to go out and get it. You didnt have to make eye contact with the guy at the store who now knows you like watching girls get spanked. Eye contact is what keeps us civilized.

Your eyes are almonds and I go on. Revealed.

You dont wear a wedding ring and I go on. Human.

You are patient and I need to shut up but I cant. And the Kindle, the Kindle takes all the integrity out of reading, which is exactly what the Internet did to porn. The checks and balances are gone. You can read your Dan Brown in public and in private all at once. Its the end of civilization. But

Theres always a but, you say and I bet you come from a big family of healthy, loving people who hug a lot and sing songs around a campfire.

But with no places to buy movies or albums, its come down to books. There are no more video stores so there are no more nerds who work in video stores and quote Tarantino and fight about Dario Argento and hate on people who rent Meg Ryan movies. That act, the interaction between seller and buyer, is the most important two-way street we got. And you cant just eradicate two-way streets like that and not expect a fallout, you know?

I dont know if you know but you dont tell me to stop talking the way people sometimes do and you nod. Hmm.

See, the record store was the great equalizer. It gave the nerds power Youre really buying Taylor Swift? even though all those nerds went home and jerked it to Taylor Swift.