Chapter One ONE Eight Months Later Alex Marks sees her reflection in the door of the Bluebird Diner as she approaches. She steers clear of mirrors most days, but she can't avoid herself now, the wavy brown hair and small pointed jaw. The dark eyes, deeper set than she'd like and on the small side. The dire clothes--a pair of track pants and a V-neck T-shirt--are something she tries not to dwell on. She pushes through the door into the restaurant, breathing in the familiar smells of toast, bacon, and syrup. "Well, look who it is," Raymond calls out, raising a piece of buttered toast in greeting as she makes her way down to the end of the L-shaped counter. "Alexis, I saved your seat." "You know Alex doesn't go by that name," Janice scolds him as she brushes past, her wide arm loaded with plates of pancakes and omelets like some sort of breakfast-themed circus performer. Alex smiles at the Bluebird's head waitress as she slides onto the empty stool. "No name for a young woman," Raymond grumbles. "I'll call her by her given name, no offense, Alexis." Alexis is not her given name either, but she doesn't correct him. Despite his many shortcomings, Raymond will have been sitting there vigilantly saving her spot next to him since the diner opened at seven. And who else could she say did anything like that for her? Nobody. "Usual?" Janice asks, not pausing for an answer. Though Alex has been coming to the same counter every day for nearly seven years, Janice has only recently accepted her. You have to put your time in at the Bluebird to be deemed worthy of having a usual. Alex is proud of the accomplishment. "Yes, please," Alex says. The usual being a sesame bagel toasted with cream cheese and raspberry jam. "Don't know how you eat those things," Raymond mutters. "It's truly a tragedy. Not how bagels are meant to be consumed." He's right. It's nearly blasphemous. And the Bluebird's are not even close to being the best bagels in the city or even the neighborhood, but the combination reminds her of her childhood. Of mornings getting ready for school and the smell of bread in the toaster, sticky knives left out on the counter. Of the way things were before she left everything she grew up with to come to a place where she knew not a soul. Raymond is eating his early bird special of scrambled eggs and home fries at a glacially slow pace. He will now be on his third, possibly fourth cup of coffee. His hand trembles ever so slightly as he lifts it to his mouth. Ol' Gray Hair, Janice calls him with only a very small sprinkling of affection. Janice's own wiry hair is dyed a deep, unnatural red and pulled into a bun the size of a gumdrop on the top of her head. She glides by Alex now, dropping off a thick porcelain mug of black coffee. "I'll have some more toast, too, please, Janice." Raymond pushes his empty plate away and shakes open his copy of the Daily Press . "I don't know how you read that tabloid garbage," Janice says, stationing herself in the crook of the counter as she pours him a fresh cup. "The Daily is a New York institution," Raymond says, not lifting his eyes from the front-page photo of some politician drinking beer from a keg under the headline What Does She Really STAND For? "At least the Herald is respectful," Janice argues, bringing up the Daily 's rival, the venerable New York Herald . "Back when we were young the news was unbiased. Walter Cronkite. Not whatever garbage this is!" "You think the Herald is unbiased?" Raymond says, his voice rising. "You don't think that they are in the Democrats' pockets with all their politics? And don't get me started on how they covered those protests last year." "Oh, right, because you were a cop they must all be good." Janice rolls her eyes. "I was a detective , Janice, and I didn't say that." "Bah!" Janice isn't having any of it. Oh boy. Alex leans back with her coffee mug and ignores them. It's an argument they have at least weekly. She takes a bite of her bagel. The work she will have to do later is already weighing on her. Her copywriting job is so boring sometimes it makes her want to cry. "You wouldn't understand nuance, Ray," Janice says. "Not if it came up to you and bit you on the ass." Her red-polished fingernail taps the counter for emphasis. "So I want to be entertained, sue me!" Raymond says, exasperated. The two of them know exactly how to rile each other up. "More toast, please." "More? You've just had four slices." Janice narrows her eyes. "What, are you the toast police now? Last I heard this was a free country where a man could order as much toast as he can pay for!" Raymond pushes his plate forward. Alex watches warily as Janice's lips tighten. To her relief, the shriek of a fire truck outside interrupts them. By the time it passes, Janice has moved back toward the kitchen and Raymond seems to have calmed down. Alex picks up her mug, settling into the hum of the diner, appreciating the whir of the coffee makers and clatter of silverware. It may not be perfect, but there are things you need to keep grounded when you live in a big city. Routines that you create for yourself, the small town you make of your daily movements. These mornings at the Bluebird had kept her from collapsing with loneliness when she first arrived in the city. Alex remembers herself then, shy and skittish. When she first moved into the apartment above the nail salon on Eighty-Sixth Street, she didn't venture far. The Bluebird was convenient, right across the street, a place from which she could retreat quickly if needed to the safety of her shoebox of an apartment. All she wanted to do then was to be a part of it all, to be one among those millions in the swirl of Manhattan's streets. And she thinks, taking a sip of weak coffee, that she has probably succeeded. No one really knows her here. Except for Janice and Raymond, she is nearly invisible. It's part of the magic of New York, Alex often muses, that you can be completely anonymous while also feeling so interconnected to the people and places around you. "Oh, look, Alexis, isn't this that advice columnist you loved?" Raymond says as he turns the page in his paper. "Frannie? The one who was murdered?" "Francis?" Alex's heart jerks in her chest at the thought of her hero, Francis Keen. "That's the one, yeah. Looks like they are trying to replace her." "What? No!" Alex yanks the paper from his hands. "They wouldn't dare." "Grabby, grabby," Raymond tuts, letting go of the pages. Alex smooths the paper out onto the counter in front of her, her heart pounding. In the photo Francis Keen is standing behind her desk at the Herald. She wears a white shirt rolled up at the sleeves, her gray-blond hair loose around her shoulders. A chain of heavy gold links glitters below the V of her collar. She smiles at the camera so warmly that you'd think she knows the photographer. Through the window behind her, Midtown Manhattan gleams geometrically. It's the same photo they ran last year when Francis's body was found on the floor in her beach house. The headline reads: For the Herald's Beloved Advice Column Dear Constance, Attempts at a New Beginning after Tragedy "Well, it's not like she can write it herself anymore, can she?" Raymond says. "Why not give someone else a chance? People loved that column, didn't they?" Alex shakes her head. "You don't understand, Ray. She was the best. There's no one who can give advice the way Francis Keen did." Since she first picked up a copy of the Herald , Alex was a religious reader of Dear Constance. She doesn't know how anyone could not be drawn to Francis's column. That special way she had of perceiving things about people by reading between the lines, things that they probably didn't even know about themselves. Despite her ability to understand what a person should do in any given situation, her advice was never preachy, never condescending. Francis's words felt like those of a true friend, one who innately understood you, who would do whatever was in her power to make sure you succeeded. Nothing could make you feel like you weren't alone in the world like reading one of her columns. After Francis's death Alex had looked for comfort in other advice columns, but the magic just was not there in any of them. The advice was staid and unimaginative and often just plain bad. It left her with a cold, sad feeling. "I still can't believe they never caught the person who killed her," Alex says, shuddering. Francis Keen's murder was so unexpected, so terrible and violent and senseless, that Alex had felt off-kilter for weeks after. "It was a bad detective on that case," Raymond grumbles, his fingers shaking as he tries to open a single-serving creamer cup. "That Delfonte twit. I knew him back in the day. Spoiled brat who never wanted to work for anyone." Raymond's tremor has gotten worse lately, Alex notes, watching out of the corner of her eye as he struggles to find a grip on the creamer's paper tab. "Oh, and you would have solved her murder single-handed, I suppose?" Janice swoops by with the long-awaited toast, clearly skeptical. "I would have," Raymond insists, still grappling with the plastic container. "There's a reason I was a good detective, Janice. There is a logical order to these things, you have to be methodical and patient." His fingers fumble again with the creamer and he smashes it onto the counter in frustration. "That sounds like you, Ray," Janice says dryly. Alex takes the creamer from him and peels the lid back. He gives her a silent nod of appreciation and tips it into his mug. "I should go," Alex says, feeling suddenly agitated. "Off to sell drugs?" Raymond snorts as she slides off her stool. "Girl's gotta eat her bagels," Alex replies, dreading the copywriting she'll be doing today for the pharmaceutical company that employs her. But she is grateful for the work, or tells herself she should be. "Can I take this?" Alex asks, already folding up Raymond's paper and putting it into her purse. "Sure, sure. I was done with it anyway." Raymond waves her off. "Wouldn't want to rot my brain with all that celebrity news in the back." "See?" Janice says. "Good start, Ray." Alex walks toward the door, the murmur of their banter receding behind her. She doesn't hear it though; all she can think about is Francis Keen. Excerpted from I Need You to Read This: A Novel by Jessa Maxwell All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. 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