"Why's he come here on his own?" I asked, interrupting him.
"I don't know? The library?"
"What? There's a library here?" I had been upstairs and down and I had definitely not seen a library.
Jeremy sighed, annoyed. "Yes, there's a library. Which I thought you'd find, but apparently you're daft."
"I'm not daft. Show me the library."
"You're really demanding, you know that?"
"I'm not demanding!" Perhaps I was a little demanding. "Please, Jeremy? I'd like to see it."
"I don't even know you," he said, teasing me. "Why should I show you it? For all I know he specifically doesn't want you seeing it." With feigned reluctance, he added, "Tell me something about yourself and maybe I'll agree to show you."
"What do you want to know?"
He thought about it, but only for half a second. I assume he'd wanted to ask this all along, but was waiting for a good time to do it. "Why you?" he asked. "Why did Asher bring you back here? I don't understand. He won't talk about it. I know that... things... but why?"
"I don't know if I'm supposed to tell you," I whispered. "He might get mad."
"Right. Just like I don't know if I was supposed to tell you that I wouldn't do anything if you refused to come with me, or how I don't know if I'm supposed to tell you where the library is, or the fact that I don't know if I'm supposed to tell you I talked to him on the phone earlier and he definitely didn't sound very happy."
"Oh," I said. "Is he mad? Do you think... um... I should leave, shouldn't I? I know that I..."
"Shut up. Yes, you probably should leave, but you didn't before so why do it now? Maybe this sounds like I'm trying to start trouble, but I kind of want to see what happens."
"That's really mean, you know?" I said.
"It's not mean, it's honest. He told me to tell you that I'm here to take you home again, so if you want to go, let's go. Otherwise you might as well tell me. I'll show you the library and you can leave a crumb on the rug or something."
"I'm going to pretend," I said, huffy, "that you're trying to help me instead of hoping I'll cause some disaster so you can watch."
"Look." Jeremy sighed. "I can't say I'm helping you, because I don't know if I am. I just don't really know if Asher actually wants you to leave or not. He's strange, alright? Now, if you're trying to do something like embarrass Beatrice and ruin Asher's life, then I'm not going to let you, but..." He gestured to the tissue in the waste basket next to the bed. "All you're doing is this, so I can't say I'm too worried."
"Fine," I said. "I'll answer your question. But you can't tell him any of this."
Jeremy grinned. "No, of course not."
"Asher asked me..." I paused. Did I want to do this? I did, so desperately, because I felt like this might be a way to fix things, except that made no sense when I thought about it logically. I was being mean to get Asher to accept my apology? I lowered my voice, despite Jeremy and I being completely alone in the guest house with no way of anyone hearing us. "His wife—" I knew her name now, but I found it awkward to say. "She went to a doctor and he said she's infertile. They can't have children together. Asher asked me if I would consider being... being an egg donor, and, um, well he doesn't think she'd want to carry a child to term, either, so I'd be a surrogate mother, too."
"What," Jeremy said, blinking, barely intoning a question.
"I know it sounds strange, but..."
"So, wait, basically he asked you if you'd be the mother of his child?"
"It's not really like that. Beatrice would be the mother, I guess, but it would be my egg and..."
"And you're the one who gets to be pregnant. Sounds great," Jeremy said sarcastically. "Why go through all that hassle? Why don't you both just have sex?" He chuckled.
"That's what I said!" Quickly, I added, "I didn't mean to say it, but it slipped out."
"No way. You didn't, did you? Maybe that's why he's so upset. I can understand, really."
"No, I said that before he was upset."
"What?"
I told Jeremy most everything. I left out our intimate encounter in Asher's office, because I still didn't know what to think of it. Punishment, Asher said, but I don't know if he believed that or not. I did mention the book, though, how I destroyed his collector's edition of Dante's Inferno during my temporary job cleaning Asher's office. How he took the phone call from the doctor while I was there, and then he broached the subject with me. His request, out of nowhere but like he talked about this with everyone every day, of surrogacy and egg donation and then our lunch and the subsequent photo session and...
"Woo boy. So did you have sex?" Jeremy asked at the end.
"I don't think I'm supposed to tell you that," I said.
He ignored me. "That's so strange. I can't say I'm surprised, though. Asher is... strange."
"How is he strange?"
"I'm not going to tell you how he's strange. You either figure it out on your own, or not at all."
"I told you things!" I protested. "I don't see why you won't tell me anything."
"I am going to tell you something," he said. "I told you I'd show you the library, and that's exactly what I plan to do."
"I suppose," I muttered.
"Anyways, before we go, I should ask this again. I was supposed to come here to bring you home. Are you coming?"
"Shut up," I said. "No. I won't. Where is the library?"
"You're demanding," he said, laughing. "You're nothing like Beatrice."
...
Asher frowned. He dutifully stayed for the entirety of his meeting, as necessary, but wondered the entire time. Distracted, annoyed, why wouldn't she leave? What was he supposed to do if she remained at his house the entire day, and was there when he came home? Of course he could ignore her, but what kind of message did that send? She couldn't just stay at his house, but he felt badly about forcefully removing her, too. Not that he had to do anything more than make a phone call or two, but he didn't think Jessika deserved that.
Except, why not? He planned on never seeing her again, so what did it matter?
His annoyance only grew when he checked his text messages during a lull in the business meeting.
"She's staying," Jeremy wrote. "Sorry, boss. I tried."
...
Jeremy had shown me where the library was. It looked like a closet from the outside, tucked under the staircase to the second floor, unimposing and ordinary. Instead, it was a door to the cellar, which wasn't a cellar so much as a completely furnished basement transformed into a library. Jeremy opened the door, walked me downstairs, laughed as I gaped, then left.
It was so big! Wall to wall bookshelves filled with books, and a massive table in the middle covered with more books. The ones on the table weren't in any particular order, and were just left laying around for whatever reason. In the far rear of the library, there was a massive, cushioned chair with an ottoman, and a couch next to it. Both had blankets heaped on top of them.
The lights in the ceiling were extravagant and reminded me of the lighting in old, classic architecture style libraries. I'd never been to one myself, but I'd seen pictures on the internet whenever I had a fit of wanderlust and wanted to sate it by doing an image search on Google. Not quite the same as going to these places, but I could imagine I'd gone. Sitting on my couch, turning off every light in my apartment except for the one lamp I moved to the top of my coffee table, I liked to curl up with a book and read and pretend I was at the Angelica Library in Rome. Or the Athenaeum in Boston... or the Cogrington Library in Oxford...
I stepped towards the table and looked at the books there. Five, total: a second edition copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the paperback version of A Storm of Swords, Pride and Prejudice, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and The Time Traveler's Wife. I stared at the zombie book, dumbfounded. Was that really a book?
Finding a piece of paper and a pen on the table, I went around to each of the books and opened them. Or I opened all of them except the Lewis Carroll book, because it scared me somewhat. Regardless of my plans, I really didn't want to repeat what I'd done the other day with Asher's copy of Dante's Inferno. Each book had a bookmark inside. I opened the book, plucked the bookmark loose, then wrote the corresponding page number on the paper I'd found. One, two, three, four.
Placing the bookmarks in a neat pile, I left them on top of the library table. Then I decided that wasn't good enough, so I scurried upstairs and put them on the kitchenette table, then rushed back down. And, why was I leaving them in a neat pile? I went back upstairs, threw them on the table so they scattered around, disorganized, then I went back downstairs.
I pulled his blankets off his chair and couch and tossed them at the foot of the basement stairs, too. I briefly contemplated moving books around on their shelves and putting them out of order, but I didn't want to go too far, so I stopped. And, as a final act of defiance, I went upstairs again, found the loaf of bread Jeremy had used to make toast in the morning, pulled off a corner, and dropped it onto one of the stairs as I went back into the basement.
There!
And I waited.
And worried.
For all I knew, this was a terrible idea. I don't actually know why I did any of this. It seemed... wrong? Yes, well, definitely wrong, which was the point, except what was the point of my point? I couldn't really figure that one out. I sat on the couch, contemplating this. When I'd decided that nothing I did made any sense and I should fix it and then leave, or wait and maybe write down some heartfelt apology to Asher, I...
Footsteps. Upstairs. I heard them, soft thuds on the ceiling as someone walked around on the first floor of Asher Landseer's guest house. If it was Jeremy, I doubt he would have done that. He probably would have called out my name, maybe knocked on the door first? That's what he'd done the other times he came. So, no, this was someone else.
They walked around upstairs, slowly, inspecting the place. My breath quickened, heart raced. I felt like I was in a horror movie. The villain, some insane man with claws in place of fingernails, would walk down the basement steps any moment and find me sitting on the couch, easy prey for the taking.
The person upstairs walked towards the staircase leading to the second floor. I heard brief sounds of their ascent, then nothing. I should leave, hurry away, run outside and beg Jeremy to take me home, but for some reason I couldn't move. The footsteps thudded down the stairs again, across the living room floor towards the basement door, and then down those, too.
I stared, wide-eyed, at the foot of the stairs all the way across the library room from where I sat. I saw feet first, in polished leather shoes, then immaculate dress slacks, a smooth suit coat, and finally Asher's somber, solemn face. He stared at me and I stared back at him. I tried to breathe, but the air felt too heavy to my lungs.
"Jessika," Asher said. "What are you doing?"
I didn't answer him; I couldn't answer him.
He kicked the blankets away from the bottom of the stairs and stepped towards me. In his hand he held the four bookmarks. Hidden in my chemise blouse sleeve, I'd tucked the piece of paper with notes on which page he'd marked in which book, but he couldn't have known that. Walking to the edge of his table, he checked each of the books.