The Map of Tiny Perfect Things by Lev Grossman

Author:Lev Grossman [GROSSMAN, LEV]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2021-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

We couldn’t start out before midnight, because of the cosmic nanny effect, but we agreed that at the stroke of midnight we would both leap out of bed and she would immediately book us flights on Turkish Airlines to Tokyo, leaving Logan Airport at 3:50 a.m., which was the earliest flight to somewhere really far away that we could find. Margaret had to be the one to do it because she had a debit card, because she had a joint bank account with her parents, which I didn’t. I promised I would hit her back if it worked.

Then I snuck out into the warm, grassy-smelling night to wait and be attacked by numberless mosquitoes. There was no moon; August 4th was a new moon. Margaret came rolling up with the lights off.

It felt close and intimate, being in her car with her in the middle of the night. In fact it was the most boyfriendy I’d ever felt with Margaret, and even though I was not in actual fact her boyfriend, it was a thrilling feeling. We didn’t talk till we were cruising along the empty highway, surfing the rolling hills on the way into Boston, under the indifferent, insipid orange gaze of the sodium streetlights.

“If this works, my parents are going to think we ran away together,” she said.

“I didn’t even think about that. I left mine a note saying I caught the bus into Boston for the day.”

“I’m just picturing my dad saying over and over that it’s okay if I’m pregnant, he totally understands, he just wants to talk about it.”

“The Tokyo thing’s going to be the weirdest part. Like, where did that come from?”

“I’m going to say it was your idea,” Margaret said. “You were tired of reading imported manga; you wanted to go straight to the source.”

“It’s cool that you’re so supportive of my enthusiasms.”

We were joking, but I knew—really knew right then—that I was in love with Margaret. I wasn’t joking, I was completely serious. I would have run away to Tokyo with her anyway, like a shot, for no reason at all. But I told myself I wasn’t going to say anything, I wasn’t going to do anything about it, till the time thing was fixed. I didn’t want her to feel like she was stuck with me. I wanted it to count.

Also, yeah, I was terrified. I had never been in love before. I had never wagered this much of my heart before. As badly as I wanted to win, I was even more scared of losing.

Gazing out the car window at the black trees against the light-pollution-gray sky, I thought about how much I would miss August 4th, our day, if this worked. Mark and Margaret Day. The pool, the library, the tiny perfect things. Maybe this was crazy. After all, I had time and I had love. I had it all, I had everything, and I was throwing it away, and for what? For real life? For getting old and dying like everybody else?

But yeah: everybody else.

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