But as long as Carol was around, Tomas began to realize, things would not really get any better, and he continued to struggle with the long-term implications of Lydia’s new friendship. He didn’t understand, in a cosmic sense, of all the kids whom Lydia could latch on to, why it had to be the one who brought a rash to his skin. It just didn’t fit— And then, later that week, he met Dottie O’Toole, Carol’s mother, and the world revealed its perfect symmetry.
Of course Tomas had noticed Dottie before she walked into the library that Tuesday afternoon, but before that day he hadn’t known she was Carol’s mother. She’d only been the starlet from afar, the soft-skinned redhead whose hips swayed when she entered the school gymnasium and whose every tendency seemed designed to disarm those around her. Dottie was in her early thirties, with a swirly bob and sticky lashes and blue shadow that rose from her eyes like wings. The few times Tomas had seen Dottie at school events, she’d been wearing short-sleeved sweaters in colors and patterns he’d only seen on couches—pumpkin orange, aqua green—and always they had a triangle of cleavage cut below the neckline that reminded him of an unzipped tent.
And here she was, close enough for Tomas to smell her pi?a colada perfume. She reached her hand across the circulation desk and introduced herself.
Tomas hadn’t been on a date since Rose’s death and he was never good at reading the so-called signs anyway, but he was pretty sure that Dottie was clutching his hand for longer than was appropriate. In a moment of pure panic, he offered to give her a tour of the disheveled library. She automatically clasped his forearm with both hands—amazingly—and said in a terrible French accent, Lead the way, Monsieur Librarian. He half-expected her to snap her gum.
In the library basement, Tomas was embarrassed to find Carol and Lydia on the carpet, their faces six inches apart, with women’s magazines fanned sloppily around them. In their shared collapse they seemed the embodiment of parental neglect, a judgment only made worse by the uncomfortable proximity of a man reading nearby who smelled as if he’d sprayed himself with bathroom air freshener in order to disguise his must. The man’s sneakers were tumbled next to his bare feet. When Tomas and Dottie arrived, he squinted grumpily over his Asimov paperback.
—Are they troubling you? Tomas asked him.
—Them? the man said. They’re okay.
—You sure?
—They’re okay.
—Girls, put the magazines back and we’ll meet you upstairs.
To Tomas’s great relief, the girls did as they were told.
—Is it really okay for them to hang out here like this? Dottie asked.
—Sure, as long as they’re quiet and polite and clean up their messes.
—No, she said, I mean all these sad men reading. It’s like a Lonely Hearts Club in here.
When Tomas cocked his head to study her—half-alarmed, half-amused—she was picking at a painted fingernail, apparently finished with the topic. In other circumstances, he might have told her that he’d personally encouraged these sad men reading to make the library their diurnal home. And he might have told her that he’d recently been reprimanded by some city bureaucrat who’d discovered the impromptu food bank that he ran out of the library’s back door. Libraries were havens for everyone, he might’ve told her, not just the clean and productive. But his explanation faded under the commotion of Carol and Lydia clambering up the stairs behind them. Maybe he’d have a chance to explain himself another time.
One damp afternoon a few days after this introduction, while picking up Lydia at the Little Flower gymnasium, Tomas spotted Dottie leaning against a tan brick wall and smoking a cigarette. He opened the door to go inside but she stopped him.
—How’s Mr. Librarian today?
They spoke of small things, the Broncos’ popularity and the arrival soon of ski season. She offered him a stick of gum and laughed when he folded it in thirds before putting it in his mouth, as if sliding a letter into an envelope.
—Your husband, he said. He’s the plumber, right?
She cocked an eyebrow.
—I’ve seen his truck, he added.
—You’ve seen it at the library?
—Just around the neighborhood. He works a lot.
—He’s never home, Dottie said, but at least he takes Carol on the job with him sometimes. If she had her way, she’d drop out of fourth grade and take over the family business.
Tomas smirked. He couldn’t tell if Dottie was staring deep into his eyes or studying the flecked lenses of his horn-rims. Either way, he was nervous.
—At least there’s good money in being a plumber, he said.
—Not good enough.
Tomas laughed a little and chomped his gum. Before he went inside to find his little girl, he turned and watched in awe as Dottie pressed the tip of her tongue delicately into her lip.
CHAPTER SEVEN
In her kitchen, Lydia nibbled the crust from her honey toast and waited impatiently for her overworked coffeemaker to finish gurgling. When she looked up, David was there in his towel, red from his shower, smelling of menthol shaving cream. He peered into Joey’s milk crate, which sat in the center of their breakfast table, where Lydia had left it the night before.
“More books?” he said, picking up Joey’s dusty Victorian story primer and turning it over in his hands.
“Can’t ever have too many,” she said lightly.
“Seriously. I like your whole book thing. Just having them around makes me feel smarter.”
“Now, if we could just get you to read them.”
“No need. It’s like free IQ points in every room. On every conceivable surface.”
“Glad to help.”
“Some would call you a hoarder,” he said. “But not me. I call you a collector.”
“That’s the spirit,” she said.
Lydia looked up the length of David’s arm and saw his clean, damp hair and the remnant glow of his shower, and felt the desire to rest her hand on his.
“They’re from Joey,” she said, nodding at the crate on the table. “The books.”
The coffeemaker wheezed and David poured her a cup. She hummed self-consciously, feeling grateful as she sipped. David tilted up the lip of the milk crate and peered at the tumbled titles inside.
“Joey the BookFrog?” he said, and sat in the chair next to her.
“The one and only.”
“And his buddy hasn’t shown up yet?”
“Lyle? Not yet.”
“Fishy?”
“Fishy,” she said, then patted the edge of the crate. “Then there’s this. Gathered from his apartment. My inheritance, apparently.”
“His last good deed,” David said, nodding. “It’s kind of sweet. He obviously knew you’d appreciate them.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” she said.
“I’m guessing his apartment wasn’t paradise?”
“More like the inferno. Listen, I know you need to go, but . . .” She told him about visiting Joey’s apartment the night before, and about the books he’d left to her in death and the strange fact that the books had holes cut out of them.
“Holes?” he said.
“Little windows,” she said.
“Why would he do that?” he said in that same cerebral tone he used when describing the way he’d cracked a coding problem at work or figured out which sensor in his car was causing his engine to misfire. “I mean, what’s the point of giving them to you if they’re all cut up?”