Underhill The In-Between Bookstore

A whimsical, time-bending debut about identity, memory, and what we'd say to our younger selves if we had the chance
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-83501-237-6
Verlag: Bedford Square Publishers
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 336 Seiten

'Underhill's tender, innovative debut is the smartest take on this trope I've ever read' Jodi Picoult, #1 Sunday Times bestselling author 'Underhill skilfully employs a clever set-up and a queer lens to explore the deep changes we all experience in growing up' Steven Rowley, New York Times bestselling author of The Guncle A whimsical and healing novel about a trans man in New York who - almost 30, laid off, broke - moves back to his small Illinois hometown, walks into the bookstore he worked at in high school... and slips through time to come face to face with his pre-transition, teenage self. If you had one chance to talk to your younger self... would you? What would you say? When Darby left Oak Falls for university in New York City, all he wanted was to get as far away as possible, find a community where he could start afresh -- and finally forget about his childhood best friend Michael, and just how painfully their friendship ended. Now, about to turn 30, Darby suddenly finds himself unemployed. With no better alternative, and questioning where he really belongs, he moves back to his hometown. But the changes in Oak Falls make him feel off balance. And Michael's still there, their relationship still distant and strained. One thing is familiar: In Between Books, Darby's refuge growing up and high school job. When he walks inside, Darby feels an eerie sense of déjà vu - everything is exactly the same. Even the newspapers are dated 2009. And behind the till is a teen who looks a lot like Darby did at sixteen... a teen who just might give him the opportunity to change his own present for the better - if he can figure out how before his connection to the past vanishes forever.

Edward Underhill grew up in the suburbs of Wisconsin, where he could not walk to anything, so he had to make up his own adventures. He studied music in college, spent several years living in very small apartments in New York, and currently resides in California with his partner and a talkative black cat. He is the author of several young adult novels including Always the Almost and This Day Changes Everything, and The In-Between Bookstore was his first book for adults.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Underhill, Edward

Leseproben

ONE

AUGUST 12

The Lower East Side of Manhattan is not the sort of place where bars are guaranteed to have signs. If you can’t find a bar without a sign (or, occasionally, any obvious entrance), chances are you aren’t cool enough to be in that bar to begin with. You should probably go back to Midtown with the rest of the tourists.

I’ve lived in New York City for twelve years, but I’m still not cool enough to find the incognito bars. Maybe part of the problem is that the only time I go out is with my friends, and Olivia is always the one deciding where we go. I wouldn’t have put it past Olivia to throw her birthday bash in a bar with no sign, which is why I’m relieved when I spot the neon letters in a window slightly below street level, spelling out speak easy.

Olivia insists on finding a new-to-us establishment for her birthday party every year, solely because Ian made some offhand remark, five years ago, about how eventually we’d all get old and settled, and start going to the same places over and over and over again… and Olivia can’t back down from a challenge. Ever. Especially not on the night she turns thirty – which, I’m pretty sure, is what Ian-from-five-years-ago would have defined as ‘old.’

Back when he made that remark, we all laughed. Why would you ever go to the same place over and over when you’ve got all of New York City right outside your door?

But here I am, about to turn thirty myself, and honestly, I’d take old and settled. Part of me would really rather be sitting on my bed watching a baking show on my laptop right now.

Although maybe that’s because today was shit. Maybe if today hadn’t been shit, I could summon a little more enthusiasm for Speak Easy.

I really need to stop dawdling on the sidewalk.

Deep breath. Run a hand through my short but stubbornly wavy hair, which is probably waving in all the wrong directions thanks to the sauna that is Manhattan in August. Push my glasses up on my nose, because I’m sweaty and sticky and they’ve been sliding down ever since I left the RoadNet office. For the last time.

I hoist my heavier-than-usual messenger bag up on my shoulder and head into the bar.

The air conditioner above the door is on full blast, and it sends a welcome shiver down my back… for all of five seconds until I’m out of its range and into the crowd. It’s almost six thirty on a Friday, happy hour is in full swing, and everyone in the city is desperate for AC. The whole bar is a cacophony of talking and laughing and slightly distorted but lively jazz music filtering over the speakers. Speak Easy is clearly leaning hard into the Prohibition vibe. The fringed chandeliers are dimmed, the walls are panels of deep mahogany wood and red velvet, and the bartenders are all wearing waistcoats.

The patrons, by and large, are not, but there are a lot of black jeans, tattoos, and piercings that perfectly toe the line between cool and classy. Questionable but undeniably hip facial hair. More than one guy unironically wearing suspenders. It’s peak Lower East Side. Half these people probably went to art school or at least want to dress like they did.

I am definitely not cool enough for this bar. I might have multiple degrees in Literature No One Cares About, but I don’t have a single tattoo, the holes in my ears closed up about ten years ago, and I’m wearing a light-pink polo shirt.

‘Darby!’

At the grand height of five-foot-four, I take a minute to spot Olivia through the crowd, waving from a booth set back in one corner. She’s wearing a party-store tiara with the number 30 on it in plastic bling.

‘Excuse me. Sorry…’ I duck and weave through the crowd to the booth. ‘Hey, guys. Sorry I’m late.’

‘Yeah, we were starting to wonder…’ Olivia waves her hands at Joan, who scoots out of the booth so Olivia can get out and wrap me in a hug.

From the other side of the table, Ian says, ‘Where have you been?’

Moping on a bench in Washington Square Park for twenty minutes, trying to get it out of my system. ‘Just… got held up.’ I manage a grin. ‘Happy birthday.’

‘Thanks, babe.’ Olivia scoots back into the booth while I hug Joan and then slide in next to Ian, stashing my messenger bag under the table.

‘Okay, we’ve got Darby, so’ – Ian gives Olivia a very intense look – ‘can we please order food? I’m about five seconds away from eating this.’ He picks up one of the single-page menus from the table and waves it. Ian is a freelance video game designer, only puts on pants when he leaves his apartment, and frequently gets so buried in whatever he’s doing that he forgets to eat lunch. Practically every time we go out, he shows up hangry with no idea why.

Olivia rolls her eyes. ‘Yeah, yeah, let’s order.’ She grabs the menu away from Ian.

Now I feel a little guilty. I should have texted. Invented some excuse about train delays if I couldn’t fess up to moping. I’m usually chronically early. I have absolutely no chill. ‘You guys didn’t have to wait for me.’

Olivia just waves a hand. ‘We needed everybody to vote.’ She turns the menu around, face out. ‘Are we doing sexy fries or sexier fries?’

Ian blinks at her, like this is not getting through his hangry fog. ‘What?’

‘It’s the whole reason she picked this bar,’ Joan says, looking at her phone. I have a strong suspicion she’s checking her email. Joan Chu joined our friend group when she started dating Olivia three years ago, and she has the most adult job of any of us – she’s a lawyer. She works in housing law, on the good side, which means she doesn’t get paid fancy money, but she does still go to court, in slacks and an actual blazer. She also checks her email constantly, even when she’s solidly Queer Punk Joan, with her hair up in a bun to show off her shaved sides and wearing a genuine motorcycle jacket – because Joan genuinely rides a motorcycle.

She fits right in at this bar.

‘No, I thought this sounded like a cool place,’ Olivia says defensively. She pauses. ‘But also, I looked up the menu online and was like, I have to find out what sexy fries are.’

Ian squints at the menu. ‘Okay, well, sexier fries are the gay version of sexy fries, right? I mean, that’s the only logical explanation…’

‘I think the actual difference is cheese,’ Joan says, without looking up from her phone.

‘So it’s basically poutine.’ (Ian grew up in Toronto.) ‘Let’s get both. Now. Food.’

‘Okay, okay.’ Olivia sweeps her long braids over her shoulder. ‘Sexy fries, sexier fries, and a pitcher for the table?’

‘We have cocktails,’ Ian says, pointing at his half-empty glass.

‘And beer and fries are classic,’ Olivia says. ‘Anyway, if we let Darby have a cocktail, he’ll get shit-faced. Remember Joan’s birthday last year?’

Well, that’s slightly unfair. ‘That was a cocktail and a half,’ I say. ‘And I didn’t get that drunk.’

‘Fine,’ Ian says. ‘Beer and fries. Whatever. Just get me calories.’

‘On it.’ Joan scoots out of the booth, sticking her phone in her pocket and disappearing into the crowd, headed for the bar counter.

Olivia leans on her elbows, looking at me. ‘So did you get stuck at work again?’

Crap. I knew this was going to happen. Train delays. Why didn’t I just say train delays?

But now it’s too late, because if it had really been train delays, I would’ve shrugged and said it easily. Now I’ve waited too long, and Ian’s eyebrows are disappearing into his strawberry blond hair because he knows something’s up.

I rub my hands on my jeans. My palms are sweating. ‘I… kind of got fired.’

Olivia stares at me. So does Ian. If this was a movie, there’d be dead silence right now. But it’s a Manhattan bar IRL, so Louis Armstrong’s gravelly voice keeps right on crooning, and someone lets out a loud peal of laughter nearby.

Which feels about right in its own way.

‘You got fired?’ Olivia’s the first one to recover.

‘Shit,’ Ian says. ‘What happened?’

‘All right, order’s placed.’ Joan reappears at the table. ‘Who got fired?’

‘That was fast,’ I say. A desperate attempt at a subject change.

Joan doesn’t fall for it. ‘Yeah, I get noticed. Did you get fired?’

I’m really starting to regret using the word fired. ‘Well, it was more like… I got laid off.’

‘Did they lay off anyone else?’ Joan looks deadly serious. ‘I mean, if there’s any chance it’s because you’re trans… I know I’m in housing but I got this friend who handles discrimination cases—’

‘No, no, it had nothing to do with that.’ I’m handling this all wrong. ‘I don’t think anybody at RoadNet even knows I’m trans. And it’s not just me. The whole company’s folding.’ I’ve got that feeling in my stomach again – the same one I had when Greg Lester, the CEO of RoadNet (although he preferred the title Lead Thinker), told me the news this afternoon. Like I’m suddenly plunging down a roller coaster. ‘So everybody’s laid off. It’s done.’

Now they’re all staring at me.

‘They didn’t give you a heads-up?’ Olivia looks ready to hunt Greg Lester down and pop his head off like a Ken...