Forever, Interrupted(29)

My boss, Lyle, was convinced that this was some sort of terrorist act, meant to make us here at the Los Angeles library really think about the role of religion in modern government. I was more of the mind that the act was harmless tomfoolery; the World Religions section was the nearest to the back wall, the furthest from view. I’d caught a number of couples making out in the library in my few years there, and they had all been in the World Religions section.

No one else was working that day, but Lyle told me that if I chose to come in and re-sort the World Religions section, he’d give me a day off some other time. This seemed like great currency to me, and since Ben was going to have to work that day anyway, I came in. I tend to like alphabetizing, which I realize makes absolutely no sense, but it’s true nonetheless. I like things that have a right and a wrong answer, things that can be done perfectly. They don’t often come up in the humanities. They are normally relegated to the sciences. So I’ve always liked the alphabet and the Dewey decimal system for being objective standards in a subjective world.

Cell phone reception is terrible at the library, and since it was empty, I had a spookily quiet day, a day spent almost entirely in my own mind.

Around three, as I found myself pretty much done piecing together the World Religions section like some three-dimensional puzzle, I heard the phone ring. I had been ignoring the phone the few times it rang that day, but for some reason, I forgot all that and ran to answer it.

I don’t typically answer the phone at work, I’m often with people or filing or working on larger projects for the library, so when I answered this time, I realized it completely slipped my mind what I was supposed to say.

“Hello?” I said. “Uh. Los Angeles Fairfax Library. Oh, ah. Los Angeles Public Library, Reference Branch. Fairfax Branch, Reference Desk.”

By the end of it, I’d remembered there was no need for me to answer the phone in the first place, making this that much more of a needless embarrassment.

That’s when I heard laughing on the other end of the phone.

“Ben?”

“Uh, uh, Fairfax. Reference. Uh,” he said, still laughing at me. “You are the cutest person that ever lived.”

I started to laugh too, relieved that I had embarrassed myself only in front of Ben, but also embarrassed to have embarrassed myself in front of Ben. “What are you doing? I thought you were working today.”

“I was. Working today. But Greg decided to let us all go home a half hour ago.”

“Oh! That’s great. You should come meet me here. I should be done in about twenty minutes or so. Oh!” I said, and I was overcome with a great idea. “We can go to a happy hour!” I never got out of work in time to go to a happy hour, but the idea had always intrigued me.

Ben laughed. “That sounds great. That’s kind of why I’m calling. I’m outside.”

“What?”

“Well, not outside exactly. I’m down the street. I had to walk until I could get service.”

“Oh!” I was thrilled to know that I’d be seeing Ben any minute and drinking two-dollar drafts within the half hour. “Come down to the side door. I’ll open it.”

“Great!” he said. “I’ll be there in five.”

I took my time heading to the side door, passing the circulation desk and front door on my way back there. I’m glad that I did because as I passed the front door, I heard a tapping on the door and looked up to see Mr. Callahan standing sad and confused, with his hands cupped around his eyes and fixed against the glass.

I walked up to the door and pushed it open. It was an automatic door turned off for the holiday, so it gave great resistance, but I got it open just enough to let Mr. Callahan in. He grabbed my arm with his shaking, tissue paper–like hands and thanked me.

“No problem, Mr. Callahan,” I said. “I’m going to take off in about ten minutes and the library is closed, but is there something you wanted?”

“It’s closed?” he asked, confused. “What on earth for?”

“Martin Luther King Day!” I answered.

“And you still let me in? I am a lucky man, Elsie.”

I smiled. “Can I help you get anything?”

“I won’t be but just a minute, now that I know you’re in a hurry. Can I have a few minutes in the Young Adult section?”

“The Young Adult section?” It wasn’t my business why, but this was out of character for Mr. Callahan. The fiction section, sure, new releases, definitely. World Wars, Natural Disasters, Sociology. All of these were places where you could find Mr. Callahan, but Young Adult was never his style.

“My grandson and his daughter are coming this week and I want to have something to read with her. She’s getting too old to find me particularly entertaining, but I thought if I got a really good yarn to her liking, I could convince her to spend a few minutes with me.”

“Great-granddaughter? Wow.”

“I’m old, Elsie. I’m an old man.”

I laughed instead of agreeing with him. “Well, be my guest. It’s over to the left, behind the periodicals.”

“I’ll only be a minute!” he said as he headed back there, slow like a turtle but also just as steady.

I headed to the side door to find Ben wondering what the hell I’d been doing.