3
Sylvie
The first time Sylvie Peacock saw Simon Rampling’s name, he had posted a poem on the Checkoutmyshelves app, a sort of Instagram for book lovers. Every time one of her contacts posted a new book cover, Sylvie’s phone made a trilling sound that gave her a dose of dopamine. Sylvie rarely hit the double-heart icon that signaled the book lover should get in touch, but Simon had intrigued her from the start.
The poem he’d posted was called “Recess! Oh, Recess!” by Darren Sardelli:
Recess! Oh, Recess!
We love you! You rule!
You keep us away
from the teachers in school.
Your swings are refreshing.
Your slides are the best.
You give us a break
from a really hard test.
Sylvie recognized it immediately—it was fromGalaxy Pizza and Meteor Pie,one of the books checked out most often from her library.Published in 2009 by Laugh-A-Lot Books, the book was out of print, and Sylvie had repaired the library copy a few times already.
She was inside her cramped office, preparing to help supervise the lunchroom, when she saw Simon’s post. On a whim, she double-hearted it, then left her phone on her desk and went to the cafeteria, wearing her apron with the scissors in the pocket so that she could cut open kids’ yogurt tubes and packages of gummy fruit snacks. Her apron also contained a plastic knife to open banana tops.
After lunch duty, during which she opened endless containers of chocolate milk, stopped children from standing on their chairs and/or screaming, and helped custodians wipe up spills, Sylvie returned to her desk. She unwrapped her egg salad sandwich and peeked at Checkoutmyshelves. Simon had double-hearted her latest post, a stack of her favorite detective novels.
Before Simon, Sylvie had dated. But when a guy finally said, “You havewaytoo many issues,” Sylvie had to agree. She was a child from a rough homeanda young widow. It was a lot.
Sylvie scrolled through Simon’s account. He often tagged the Miami Public Library, posting covers of books of bird paintings, cookbooks, literary fiction (Ann Patchett and Alice Munro), books about travel (Pico Iyer’sThe Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyotoand Paul Theroux’sDark Star Safari), and many, many murder mysteries.
A reader! Sylvie had been searching for a reader. Checkoutmyshelves was filled with men who postedInfinite JestandCloud AtlasandGravity’s Rainbowwith comments like “Can’t wait to discuss!”
First of all, they didn’t want todiscuss,which implied they wanted to listen to someone else and not just tell their date about what they believed to be the key takeaway ofInfinite Jest:that the woman who kills you in this life will be your mother in the nextlife. And none of these people had readThe Pale King,which was Sylvie’s favorite David Foster Wallace novel (her favorite essay was obviously the one about the cruise ship, though “Consider the Lobster” was awesome, too). When she read David Foster Wallace, Sylvie found a sacred space. His words had reached her during her anguish after Alexander’s death. But she didn’t want to share this space, to decimate it with idle chitchat.
Sylvie didn’t want todiscussbooks. She wanted toread,and was happy to hand a book over when she was done with it, but she was in it for the escape, the loss of her pained self, the silencing of her brain as she inhabited others’. Who cared what the themes were? It was all in the feeling.
In life, Sylvie was ill at ease. Sure, in her library she sometimes felt OK, but only while reading did Sylvie feel peaceful. She yearned for this feeling; she craved it. Often she spent her waking days waiting for the moment that she would be on her couch, a book open, her dog beside her. The spell of reading felt like coming home. Her childhood had been sharp with secrets, scary at times, poisoned with hidden emotions. As soon as the words on the pages of Nancy Drew mysteries began transforming into a blanket of oblivion, Sylvie had understood that reading was her getaway car.
The pleasure of submersion, embraced by the stories of a great writer—this was her addiction. A great plot with OK sentences was adequate. Poised, elegant sentences were her favorite, whether or not they hurtled her along a gripping narrative arc. If the sentences were lean and smart, Sylvie would follow them anywhere. She had no problem with speed-reading, either, if the mood struck her. She didn’t want to reflect. She just wanted to read and be loved by someone who would sit next to her and shut the hell up. A reader. She yearned for arealreader, and otherwise, she’d just as soon be alone.
But here was Simon.
They messaged back and forth all afternoon, Sylvie taking breaks to do her job, reading to her kids in the Book Nook andthen helping them find books, checking them out with her special wand and its satisfying beep.
In her library, all children were equal. Not all the students spoke English at home, but this didn’t matter when they exclaimed over bright pictures of pirates (J 904.7), dinosaurs (J 567.9), or Halloween crafts (J 745.594). Some parents remembered library day each week—sliding the plastic-clad books into monogrammed backpacks—and some children looked at Sylvie with genuine fear when they’d forgotten. She had a loose policy and usually hit “Override” when a kid was blocked from overdue fines. Her library’s treasures were meant to be held close, brought home, paged through, loved…maybe even lost.
Every year she had to pay for missing hardcovers, spending a glorious day going wild at Books & Books. She couldn’t think of a better use for the dregs of her tiny salary.
Late in the day, on the day she first met Simon, he sent a long note, telling her he was a wildlife photographer, originally from Northern England. His full name was Simon Bettencourt Rampling, and Sylvie immediately pennedSylvia Peacock Ramplingin calligraphy across her mind. This was a childhood habit and completely ridiculous—humiliating, even.
That said, Sylvia Peacock Ramplingdidhave a nice ring to it.
Simon was leaving Miami in the morning to head to the Santa Ana bird sanctuary on the south Texas coast (it was golden-cheeked warbler season). Shooting a feature forAudubon,he would be gone for three weeks.
Although Simon was the first man Sylvie had wanted to talk to in a while, she felt a bit relieved that he was headed out of town—it took the pressure off. As the days went by, they messaged about books, then began to open up to each other about other things—his divorce and sadness about his young daughter, Penelope, moving with her mother to New York; Sylvie’s widowhood. The poem “Recess! Oh, Recess!” was Penelope’s favorite, asit turned out. It was remarkable how quickly Sylvie and Simon grew close—she began calling him in the evening as she walked Willie, eager to hear about his day photographing birds on the swampy Gulf Coast. His accent was entrancing. When he said he’d like to fly home and have her over to his place for dinner, it didn’t even seem weird.
