EIGHT
I’m pretty sure I know the exact tile art in Grace’s photo. If you zoomed out, you would see a marvel of blues and greens forming the image of a wildly growing plant. There’s a striking blue vase at the plant’s base, but it can’t contain all the curving leaves, or the bright yellow flowers sprouting at the vine-y tips.
It’s a vivid portrait of life contained in a small space, in this series of tiles.
Every inch of the Los Angeles Central Library is crammed with these beautiful details—it is absolutely packed to the brim with hidden and not-so-hidden art. And I know all the corners of the place, each of its nooks and crannies, thanks to my addiction to gigantic Japanese folklore tomes. I still check them out by the stack.
I’m on a mission to get to the tile art from the photo, striding into the building with purpose. But before I can complete my mission, Henry grabs my arm.
“Hey, uh . . .” He gestures to the library gift shop. “You want to get a baseball cap or something?”
I stop in my tracks, crossing my arms over my chest and cocking my head at him. “Why? I live here. I don’t need a souvenir of our visit. Is my hair too . . .” I brush away a reddish tendril that keeps flying in my face—the glints of red in my hair get especially bright and brassy in the summer, and I’ve always been self-conscious about that. I tried to dye my hair straight black when I was younger, but that annoying red always pokes through somehow. Maybe it’s offending his precious celebrity eyes.
“No, no,” he says quickly. “I, uh . . . I like it.”
Um, what?! But before we can linger on whatever that was, he barrels on.
“I just . . .” He hesitates, his eyes returning to the gift shop. There’s something going on under all that breezy confidence again. Like there’s A Thing he wants to say, but he knows saying it will make him sound like a mega-douche.
“Sometimes . . .” He pauses again, then gives a little shrug, as if trying to reclaim some of his bravado. “When people recognize me, they take photos or post on social media and—”
I can’t help but laugh. “Are you serious? You’re worried about getting recognized? At the library?”
He gives me a smile that’s a tad too close to a smirk. “You’d be surprised. Anyway, I’m not so much worried for myself as I am for you—all the photos and stuff are particularly intense when I’m out with . . . a person. Hence the camouflage.” He taps the brim of his baseball cap.
“I don’t need camouflage,” I say, rolling my eyes and sweeping a hand through the air. “I’m not famous. And I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself should we meet”—I lower my voice, make it extra dramatic—“your public.”
“Fine,” he says, his smirk widening. Whatever oddness was lurking underneath that easy confidence has vanished now. Maybe it was never there in the first place. “So where are these tiles?”
I lead him to the escalator, and we go up to the second level. I’ll admit, I kind of take him the long way, making sure we go through the crown jewel of the building: the rotunda. I’m gratified when he stops for a moment in that glorious airy open space—craning his neck to drink in the beauty that’s all around him.
“Whoa,” he says softly, taking in the impossibly high curving ceiling, the endless tiled murals that cover the walls. Even the floor is a sea of marbled tiles. My favorite part, though, is the fixture that hangs from the very center of the ceiling, a globe encircled by a ribbon of lights. It looks like absolute magic, suspended midair.
And somehow, this beautiful space is always perfectly quiet, even though the library’s status as a very historical, very beautiful building makes it a prime tourist attraction. Today there are three different tour groups, chattering softly among themselves, being walked around the rotunda by enthusiastic guides.
I gaze at the lit-up globe and feel the quiet and the sheer bigness of this place deep in my bones. When I’m tired of being in the real word, when the shadows of Little Tokyo aren’t enough, I know I can come here and feel utterly transported.
“Not bad, eh, New York?” I murmur to him.
“Are the tiles from Grace’s photo here somewhere?” Henry asks, his voice reverent.
I try to hide my smile. “You’d think so, but no. Those particular tiles are somewhere slightly less, um, epic. Come on.”
I lead him to the side of the rotunda—past the Teen’Scape library-within-a-library, with its comfy couches and lovingly curated displays of YA books—to one of the little nooks I know so well. It’s where the tile art of the wild plant is, displayed over—
“A drinking fountain?” Henry says, his voice skeptical.
“This whole building is stuffed with art,” I say, trying to sound all superior even though that was kind of my reaction, too, when I first saw these tiles. “Not every display can be as majestic as the rotunda. Doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful.”
He leans in, scrutinizing the tiles more closely. They’re set back in a recessed part of the wall that serves as a little nook, a colorful backdrop for the drinking fountain—close enough to admire, far enough away that you have to lean quite a bit to touch this precious art. “So what should we do now? Just stare at this until it gives us more clues?”
“I . . .”
Hmm. That’s exactly what I was planning on doing. But it sounds ridiculous when he says it out loud like that. I buy some time by leaning over the fountain and brushing my fingers against the tiles, like I’m trying to communicate with them. I lean so far, things get a little precarious, me hanging over the fountain—but I really want to see . . .
“Rika.” Henry’s fingertips graze my waist, trying to steady me as I nearly lose my balance.
