“She’s out sick today. I’m subbing for her.”
“Oh, okay.” Whit felt like he was talking to a ghost. He prayed that the front-desk women weren’t on their way to check on him. He couldn’t bear to be seen standing here, delusionally holding court with the empty air. And—oh—the realization suddenly hit him that they’d been trying to save him from this awkward interaction, trying to tell him Mrs.Pryor was out today, and he had ignored them.
“Well,” he said, defeated, “I’ll just come back.”
“No,” the disembodied voice said, “don’t go to the trouble. I can take whatever it is—I’ll see her later today.”
Whit waited, but the rummaging continued.
“I’m actually under strict orders to hand-deliver it to her,” he explained, beginning to hate this moment and this interaction. He was tempted to turn and leave, hoping the substitute librarian would be too slow standing up to catch him. But then he thought of the front-office ladies again, and their unbearable, hungry pity—how they seemed to imagine he was too enfeebled by grief to have a normal human interaction. No, thank you.
“I’m telling you,” the voice said, “whatever it is, I’ll get it to her.”
“I really can’t—”
There was a greatbangbelow the desk, followed by a creak and a noise like whimpering wood.
“Everything okay down there?” Whit asked the disembodied voice, bewildered and embarrassed as he stared instead at the nearest dangling star.
“No,” the voice moaned, and then it broke into a bevy of words like a roller coaster slowly cresting a hill before barreling forward. “These kids just cram books in here, but it’s not really their fault, because the book drop is narrower than you’d expect, and kids’ books can be so weirdly shaped. I mean, I’m looking at a picture book about root systems that is the size of a cafeteria tray, and I’m just wondering, which teacher allowed their student to shove this enormous book through the book slot?”
Another bang, a crack, and the sound of many books sliding over one another, followed by another, more human thud. Whit stretched over the desk again, and now the woman was on her back, laughing with her head awkwardly plonked against the back wall. She held the root systems book high.
“Got it,” she said, more to herself than Whit. Then she saw him and seemed to remember she had been speaking to someone just ten seconds before.
“Are you all right?” he asked as she straightened up into a sitting position and then stood. She had green-framed glasses and the kind of sloping bangs Whit had always liked, and he was just noticing her wide hips and thinking that this was the first time he’d talked to an unfamiliar woman this close to his age in he didn’t know how long, when he noticed the lanyard around her neck dotted with a few pins. One was a kestrel with a spoon in its beak. Ah. So she was a fan of Helen’s books.
“I’m fine,” she said eventually, as she placed the large book on the desk in front of her and began fiddling with the computer, presumably to check it back in.
“Now,” she said to the computer, “tell me about this mysterious package only my mother can receive.”
“Oh. Your mother.” Something about that made sense. Thiswoman did not look like Mrs. Pryor, and she certainly didn’t dress like the older woman, who was always draped in shawls and long beaded necklaces like a retired soprano. But there was something about her, a kind of quietly frenetic energy. Like her mother, she didn’t seem obnoxious or loud, but you got the sense she could perform, in some necessary way, at a moment’s notice.
“Yes,” she said, looking at him for the first time, “my mother. I just moved to town, and already she has me subbing for her. Child labor.”
She said it lightly, like a joke her mother could actually hear. Then her eyes were back on the computer again, and Whit felt like the least interesting person in the world.
“So you see,” she continued, “whatever it is, you really can give it to me.”
Whit passed the package from one hand to the next. He moved his booted feet up and down, up and down. Helen would never know, of course. And this woman—her name tag saidms.pryor, substitute—was a very close second to her mother, who was out sick for who knew how long. Whit certainly wasn’t going to ask.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Well. It’s—here it is. She thought...”
He trailed off, placing the package gingerly before him on the desk and patting it once with his hand. Then, after bringing his interlocked fingers to rest at his waist, he thought better of it and slid the package all the way across the desk to Ms.Pryor.
She looked at him like he had just performed the macarena sans accompaniment. “Thank you,” she said, repressing a laugh.
“It’s a gift from my wife. She thought the library might like to have it, display it somewhere.”
Ms.Pryor was still watching him, nodding and smiling like a babysitter humoring a talkative child.
“Okay,” he said again, turning to leave. “But, oh,” he added, raising a finger and turning back as he remembered Helen’s other proviso, “she was totally okay with the school selling it or puttingit up for auction or whatever, if they needed money for, I don’t know, a new gym. But surely there are other ways to make money at a place like this, right? And come to think of it, a gym would be sort of depressing. A new art room, maybe. An orchestra room. Orchestra hall? You get it.”
He was babbling now, and whatever Ms.Pryor had been doing before, going on about the books in the book drop, that was different. Those were her inner thoughts, articulated like a soliloquy for whichever audience happened to hear it. His rambles, Whit knew, were more like the nervous ravings of a sad widower: a character he did not enjoy playing and one that, for some reason he couldn’t understand, felt particularly disagreeable to him now.
“All right,” Ms.Pryor said, and it was then that she finally looked down at the package. He knew the words she was reading, because they had ridden around in his front seat for months:For the most magical library there is, with all my affection and appreciation. Cheers, Helen.
The substitute librarian slowly began to unwrap the package, her short fingers treating it with delicacy and care, like she was someone who handled books (itwasa book) reverently and often.
