Anything You Can Do I Can Do... Eventually

I started reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo last year when a friend assured me I would love it and loaned me the whole series. But I only read a few pages of the first book before I gave up. I didn't read far enough to cross the threshold from not-that-interested to can't-put-it-down, and so I put it down and returned the novels.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, my older brother Brandon told me he was reading the book.

"I'm almost done," he said, excitedly. "It's such a good book. You gotta read it."

And he was right. Suddenly, I did have to read it--if only so he didn't read it before me.

All my life, I've recommended books to Brandon. Except for Calvin and Hobbes, which he wouldn't let me touch until he finished, I always read whatever it was first and then passed off my dog-eared copy, content that I already knew everything he was about to know. It was some small compensation for the fact that he already knew four and a half more years of life than I knew and always would.

The next day, Tiffany and I went to Target. We had exactly 30 minutes to shop before we had to be somewhere else. We got our normal bulk supplies--toilet paper, Dr Pepper, detergent--and then, on our way to check out, I stopped in the middle of the aisle.

"Can I go to the book section?" I asked.

"What?" she cried. "We have no time. Come on!"

I didn't move. My feet were bolted to the floor.

"Ohhh," she said, nodding her head. She knew exactly what I was thinking. "You're insane. Fine, go get it."

"Thanks!" I screamed, darting away. "It's just... he's almost done! I have to catch up!"

Even my mom unintentionally rubbed salt in my wounds. She called one night as I was tearing through the pages (it really is good).

"How's the book?" she asked. "Brandon was so excited that you started reading it after him."

Try as I might (I read while I ate my oatmeal in the morning and after Tiffany fell asleep at night), my brother beat me. He beat me so bad that by the time I finished, he had already seen the movie and started the second book.

"He finished," I said to Tiffany one night after he and I got off the phone. "It's over."

Then I remembered the remaining two books in the series.

The next day I made us drive 15 miles out of the way to get the second book.

"Here we go," Tiffany said, rolling her eyes.

"What?" I grinned. "Best two out of three."