The-Lucky-List-Rachael-Lippincott

I slide the warm sweatshirt on gratefully, and a wave of her ocean smell and the balmy scent of
sunscreen surround me. “You always smell like a day at the beach,” I say as I squeeze my head through
the top and shimmy my arms through the open holes, the sleeves continuing on long past the tips of
my fingers.
Blake raises her eyebrows, amused, and I realize just how weird that sounded.
Why can’t I be normal around her? Have I seriously lost all my social skills in just a few weeks of exile?
Luckily, Blake doesn’t make it weird. “Soon I’ll smell like a day in Huckabee!”
“Oh God,” I say as I throw open the door, the metal hinges squeaking noisily. “Let’s hope that never
happens.” I pull the hood of Blake’s sweatshirt up and hop out, the two of us laughing as we run
together through the rain.
The inside of O’Reilly’s is exactly like I remember it.
e smell of old paper wraps around us the second we step inside, warm and comforting. ere are
piles and piles of books everywhere, tucked onto towering wooden bookshelves and stacked on top of
tables, tiny signs tacked to the ends of aisles to guide you to what you’re looking for. e lighting is
dim, and some of the corners are thrown into darkness, faded red and blue and brown spines barely
peeking out at you from their hiding places.
“Go find it, Emily.”
Suddenly, I am back here with my mom, grabbing her hand tightly as I peer into the dimmest,
spookiest aisles, afraid of something coming at me from the darkness.
Hearing her ask me, “Find a book with gold writing on the cover,” or, “Find a cover with a dragon on
it.” She made me fall in love with the place, dark corners and all, by coming up with little games to play.
Pretty soon I didn’t need the games anymore. We’d come almost every weekend, just the two of us.
She’d browse the romance section, while I’d wander back to young adult, the two of us finding our way
back to each other as we worked our way across the store.
It feels wrong to be here without her.
I don’t turn, but I feel Blake standing just behind me, and feel some small comfort that I’m not here
completely alone.
“Emily Clark!” a voice says. I turn my head to see Mr. O’Reilly is propped up on a stool just behind
a tiny, worn wooden counter, a pair of glasses perched on the edge of his nose, a red cardigan tucked
around his narrow shoulders. He reaches up to tug at the corner of his mustache as the door closes
noisily behind us. “It’s been a while. What brings you in today?”
“Hi, Mr. O’Reilly,” I say, diing around in my bag for the book. “I know it’s a bit of a long shot, but
I’m looking for…” I pull the book out, still tucked in a Ziploc bag. “This.”
He holds out his hand and I give it to him. Blake shis excitedly from foot to foot next to me, her
eyes wandering around the shelves like she’s determined to find it first.
“Ah,” he says, studying the cover. “Camus. is is an older one. Nineteen fiy-four, I believe.” He
stands, teetering o through the store, Blake and I following eagerly aer him. “I might just have a
copy.…”
We weave down an aisle and around the corner, the sloped wooden floor giving way to science