“Now, when you find a ripped page like this,” she says to me, “don’t use regular tape to fix it. We have special tape.” She opens a drawer and takes out a square orange box that says “Filmoplast” on the side. As she pulls out a length of the adhesive, she continues speaking. “For a tear this size, we wouldn’t charge a fee, but if the damage was extensive—coloring on the pages, water damage, a lot of ripped pages—then you’d want to show it to somebody—me or Maryann—to assess the cost of repair or replacement.”
Maryann is the library director, the woman who called me two days after I ran into Madison H. and had started to convince myself that the encounter didn’t actually happen—that it was a figment of my overactive imagination, or that the library had found someone more qualified, with actual work experience. Turns out, they hadn’t.
I nod, my head swimming with the numerous instructions I’ve already been given regarding the computer system, late fees, reshelving books, the finicky printer that has to be at least half-full of paper or it won’t work properly, and how to assist patrons, which are not high-end library donors, as I first thought, but what they call their regular customers. She also gave me a rundown of Maryann’s Commandments, rules like Never leave the circulation desk unmanned and Always smile when you’re greeting patrons. But that’s all nothing compared to how overwhelming the library is in general. It’s not a large space—just a one-story brick building—but to me it’s cavernous. And sitting behind the circulation desk, I feel like I’m on display. The Hope Diamond in the center of the room, except I’m not encased in glass. I’ve spent most of the morning glancing behind me, even though there are only three or four people milling around the stacks and none of them are anywhere close to the circulation desk.
“Oh, good,” Louise says under her breath, rolling her eyes. “The pillow golfer is here.” I follow her line of sight and see a man wearing sweatpants and carrying a pillow with a floral case toward the computer carrels.
I look back at Louise. “Real name’s Michael. Thirtysomething,” she whispers. “Unemployed. Been coming in here every day for the last six months with that same pillow. He sits on it while playing some computer golf game. Guess the chair gets uncomfortable after a while. One time I swear he didn’t get up to even go to the bathroom for eight hours straight.” She laughs, and I turn to take him in once again, feeling a bizarre kinship with this stranger. He’s probably just lonely—a feeling I’m intimately familiar with. “I don’t know if Maryann mentioned to you, but we get all sorts in here. The job is really only about sixty percent books. The other forty percent is community service. Mostly mental health.”
My eyes widen at this. Books, I can handle. Checking in, checking out, shelving. But people?
“Don’t worry,” Louise says, patting my gloved hand. I flinch at the contact and jerk my hand back. Louise looks up at me, her eyebrows slightly raised. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but you’ll get the hang of it. Really.”
For the rest of the day, I make sure I stay at arm’s distance from Louise.
Just in case.
RIGHT BEFORE THE end of my shift at four, I’m finishing up some new-employee paperwork when I get to this question in the insurance information section: Do you have any preexisting conditions? I hesitate, and then check the box next to “allergies,” just as Louise appears behind me, pushing a cart of reference books. “Take these to the back,” she says. “Row nine forty-six, and reshelve them according to the numbers on their spines. Think you can do that, dear?”
I nod again, and realize I haven’t spoken out loud once since I arrived that morning. I wonder if she thinks I’m mute.
I step out from behind the circulation desk and my legs tremble. I grab the edge of the metal cart for support. The enclosed space of the circulation desk has become my home for the day, my safe haven. But now I have to step out into the aisles. Where the people are. And who knows what might happen?
Even though I have this fear of leaving the circulation desk and walking through the library, I deeply and completely accept myself.
Though I feel a little ridiculous thinking it, the phrase does give my feet the impetus they need to start moving forward. But I still glance to my left, my right, and sometimes behind me as I make my way to the back of the library, searching for the people I could swear are drilling holes into me with their powerful lines of sight. Louise isn’t. She’s looking down, busying herself with tidying up the circulation desk. Her lips are moving slightly and it looks as though she’s muttering to herself.
The cart has one wobbly wheel that lightly whines in protest. When I arrive at row 946, the sound mercifully stops, but instead of silence, the noise is replaced by something else. Some kind of shuffling, as if a raccoon is trapped in the stacks and trying to make its way out. A very heavy-breathing raccoon. Who giggles.
My heart pounding, I quietly pad to the next aisle and peer around the corner, not quite sure what will greet me.
And then I stop, my feet blocks of cement, unable to move forward or backward. At the end of the aisle are two bodies so entangled with each other, they are literally one. They are a jumble of hands, exposed throats, mouths. It’s a Klimt painting come to life. And though I know I shouldn’t be staring, I can’t look away. It’s so raw. And fumbling. And kind of a mess.
And it makes my throat close up and my body flush with that feeling that wakes me up in the middle of the night. That hot hunger and yearning and burning humiliation.
A small scream pierces my eardrums and I realize the two faces that were once buried in each other are now trained on me. I’m shocked by their youth. The girl has braces and flushed cheeks. The boy a smatter of pimples on his jawline.
“You perv,” the boy says, his eyes burning with the testosterone coursing through his veins.
And though I know I should say something, admonish them in my adult voice, I still can’t move. They uncouple, like train cars disengaging, and the girl quickly rearranges the buttons on her shirt, while the boy continues to glare at me.
I feel a presence come up behind me and then Louise’s voice loudly in my ear. “Brendon! Felicia! I’ve told you twice now—the library is not the backseat of your car. Last warning. Next time I’m calling your parents.”
They both drop their gazes to the ground, and Brendon grabs Felicia’s hand, leading her out of the stacks.
When they squeeze by me, Brendan whispers just loud enough for me to hear: “Like what you saw?”
I flush deeper and stare at the row of reference books in front of me, concentrating on the numbers.
Then the kids are gone. Louise mutters, “Horny teenagers,” and heads back to the circulation desk, and I’m left with a cartful of heavy books, waiting to be put in their rightful place.
Everyone is moving around me, going about their business, but my feet are nailed to the spot of worn carpet I’m standing on.
All I can think about is Donovan.
And the way his mouth felt when it was on mine.
six
ERIC