“I don’t know who that is, either,” says the boy. “I’m Professor X.”
This name means nothing to me, and I guess my face reveals that.
“From the X-Men?” he says.
“Oh, that movie,” I say, now remembering seeing commercials for the blockbuster that had a woman painted in blue, a kind of fox guy with talons, and the older, bald man who—oh right!—is in a wheelchair. That must be Professor X.
His eyes get big and he looks stricken, as though I’ve deeply offended him. “The comic books,” he says, enunciating each word, as if I’m the child and he’s the adult.
“Well, it was very clever of you to choose a character that also uses a wheelchair,” I say.
The man beside him inhales deeply and then lets his breath out—a long stream of air—before he says: “He’s not disabled.”
“Professor X?” I ask, confused.
“No, my son,” he says, nodding at the boy.
“Oh.” I’m not sure what to say then. I look down at the boy, who smiles up at me, and I’m struck, not only because it’s the first time he’s smiled, but because it lights up his entire face. I can’t help but grin back at the large, protruding teeth that are occupying the place where his lips used to be.
“I didn’t think it was quite . . . appropriate, but he insisted, and . . . ,” the dad is mumbling, and then he cuts himself off. “It doesn’t matter.”
He sets his armload of books on the counter in front of me as if signaling that the conversation is over and it’s time to get on with the checking-out process.
I tear my eyes away from the boy and oblige, picking up the first book on the stack. It’s Breaking Dawn, the fourth book in the Twilight series. I glance at the boy once more—surely he’s too young for this book? But then again, he does seem rather precocious and he has a wealth of knowledge about serial killers. I scan it and set it aside.
Next is The Virgin Suicides. It’s one of my favorites and I let out a small, involuntary gasp.
“Excuse me?” the dad says.
I look up at him. “Oh, nothing. Sorry. I just love this book.”
He furrows his brow at me, giving me the same intent stare that unnerved me during the children’s reading circle. “You do?”
I look away from him, letting out a quick “yes,” and move on to the final two books: Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Nicholas Sparks’s The Notebook. Strange picks for both an eight-year-old boy (even if he is mature for his age) and a grown man.
After scanning them, I take his proffered keys out of his hand and scan the library card that he has on his key chain. I look at the screen and a name pops up: Eric Keegan.
I print out the receipt; stick it in the middle of the top book, which is now The Notebook; and heft the stack up on the counter in front of the man. “These are all due back in three weeks, Mr. Keegan,” I say. “November twenty-first.”
He nods and then looks down at the boy. “Let’s go,” he says. When the boy starts to maneuver the wheelchair with exaggerated effort, the dad sighs again. “Can’t you just get up and push it? The costume event is over.”
“Professor X couldn’t just get up,” says the boy. “And neither can I.”
In a burst of energy, the boy rams the chair directly into the circulation desk, with enough force to knock over a pen jar in front of me.
“I told you to wear your glasses,” the dad mumbles.
“Professor X doesn’t wear glasses,” the boy replies.
“Sorry,” the man says to me as I busy myself picking up pencils and pens and putting them back in the overturned jar. I want to tell him it’s OK, but I can’t push the words out of my mouth. It feels like too much, this man with the intense gaze, this entire conversation—which might be the longest one I’ve had in years—this day. My fingers find my wrist and I start drumming, willing my heartbeat to step in line with the rhythm.
The man grabs the handles of the chair and helps turn the boy around, toward the exit. “There,” he says. Finally, I think, glad to see the man isn’t a complete jerk. I lift my head to watch them go, but as soon as I do, he glances back at me.
Embarrassed to have been caught studying them, I avert my gaze to the computer.
“Thanks,” he says. And then after a moment, he adds: “Emily.”
Shocked, I jerk my head back up at him, but he’s already turned around, slowly pushing the large wheelchair and his son toward the door.
Louise comes up behind me and says under her breath, “Told you they were weird, didn’t I?”
I don’t respond, still a bit stunned from the whole exchange.
“Dad seems like kind of an asshole, if you ask me,” she continues.
I nod slowly. He was a bit . . . stern. But then, he also knew Emily Dickinson by heart, and to be honest, I’m just not really sure what to make of that.
Beside me, Louise sighs loudly, then says under her breath: “All the good-looking ones are.”
eight
ERIC
MY MOTHER LOVED that poem, “?‘Hope’ Is the Thing with Feathers.” A cross-stitch of it hung at the end of our hallway and even though I saw it every evening on my way to bed, it’s one of those things that I stopped noticing because I was so used to its being part of the landscape.
But then I heard the opening refrain, and I remembered it. And I knew right away that that librarian was dressed as Emily Dickinson.
Doesn’t really explain her wild hair, though.
Or the gloves.
Or why, when I looked at her, I couldn’t stop looking at her, as if her face were a magnet and my eyes were made of steel. Maybe it was because she had this strange quality about her—almost feral. Like a back-alley cat that jumps at sudden movements and runs in the opposite direction of people. To be honest, she looked a little like a mental institution patient in that getup.
But later that night, as I crack open Breaking Dawn and her face flashes in my mind for the third time, unbidden, I have to admit—she is quite possibly the most beautiful insane woman I’ve ever seen.
PART II
I dwell in possibility.
Emily Dickinson
(Twenty years ago)
* * *
* * *
The New York Times
(continued from page 3B) Back in 1947, 42 years before Jubilee Jenkins was born, a scientist named Dr. Frank Simon conducted a small study to discover if human dander could be the cause of some cases of eczema—particularly infant eczema. His results were positive. Five patients developed atopic dermatitis when they came into contact with the skin cells of other people. The study, published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, attracted little notice, seeing as how atopic dermatitis was a mild skin reaction and was known to be caused by any number of environmental allergens—now, thanks to Dr. Simon, other human skin cells included.
But Dr. Simon’s work did not go unnoticed by Dr. Gregory Benefield, an allergy expert who received his undergraduate degree at Johns Hopkins in 1967 and did his graduate work and residency at Mount Sinai.