A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel #1)(29)
“It is just as boring,” Delphine says sadly. “What are you even doing?”
“Ah!” I say. “I’m so glad you asked. I’m making digital surrogates for any books in here that haven’t been digitized yet. I’m more or less doing it concurrently with cataloging because I don’t have all the things I need to go hard with the cataloging yet, but eventually I think I’ll have to pick one or the other to focus on.”
Hiss goes the glass plate coming down. Pulse goes the light.
I glance back and Delphine looks sadder than ever. “Oh, Poe,” she says. “I hope this doesn’t hurt your feelings, but I think you should know how boring that sounds.”
My feelings aren’t hurt in the least. The magic of Delphine is that she can say things like this and it doesn’t feel hurtful—if anything, it feels like she’s trying to help you. Plus, she looks even prettier when she’s sad.
Hiss. Pulse. “I completely understand why you feel that way,” I tell her. “My ex had a ‘no library talk’ policy after dinner. She was getting her grad degree in film studies, though, so, you know.”
“I don’t think I do know,” Delphine says politely.
I squint down at the latest page to make sure I’m not seeing a mold spot. “We fundamentally disagreed about the value of each other’s mediums.”
Delphine straightens a little bit; I mistakenly think this is because she might have an opinion on different mediums herself, but then she scolds, “You should have posted your girlfriend more on your Insta.”
It’s not mold, just some kind of ink blotch from its printing. I hit the scan button. “That wouldn’t have ruined my brand?” I joke.
“Your brand is a mess,” Delphine says, and I laugh, but when I look back at her, she’s giving me a very solemn look.
“Well, I mean, I don’t really need a brand,” I say, flipping a page. “I’m not selling anything.”
I hear the sound of adorable ankle boots kicking a table leg in frustration. “It’s not about selling things. It’s about building a presentation of yourself that you can use for anything. For potential employers or potential lovers or potential friends. It’s a place where you can compile the most salient expressions of yourself—expressions that you choose, you curate—and create a living biography. A testament to your life and the space you deserve to occupy.”
I stare at her, speechless.
I like Delphine and I definitely think about kissing her sometimes, but I have to admit I didn’t think she was capable of whipping out a word like salient in everyday conversation.
“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” I say, turning back to the scanner to hide my surprise.
I hear her boots kicking against the table, slower this time, as if she’s thinking. “For a long time, I was the only fat girl in my circle,” she says pensively. “Or even in the circle outside of that one. I started the Instagram account because I needed to feel like all the parts of myself were real, and that they were real all at the same time—that I was well-dressed and interesting and cultured and fat.”
She takes a breath. “It sounds so shallow, like needing pictures of yourself to self-validate is weak. But the truth is that I only saw pictures of people who looked like me in the worst possible ways. Headless bodies for news stories about obesity or as the butt of a joke in a cartoon. So why should I be judged for creating something positive on social media? The one medium I can control? It seems unfair to me.”
Delphine is so effortlessly beautiful, so at home with money and stylish clothes, that I’ve never thought of her as having anything other than total confidence about her body. Even as a girl, nothing ever seemed to discompose her princess-like bearing, not even the cruel words of the village kids. But of course she’s had to grapple with this, and in a moment of shame and epiphany, I realize that if Delphine with her money and whiteness and traditionally feminine beauty has been hurt, then how many others without those things have been hurt even worse?
“I’ve been unfair to you too, Delphine,” I admit. “I assumed there was something narcissistic about people who post themselves a lot, but I never considered . . . well, I guess I never thought that there could be real work to be done with it. That it was contributing something.”
Delphine waves away my apology. “I’m used to people not understanding.” She gives me a warm smile; a dimple appears in one perfect cheek. “It was nice of you to own up to it, though.”
The scanner lights pulse again and I go back to flipping pages. “It was generous of you to explain it to me.”
“Anyway,” Delphine says, as if I’d purposefully pulled us off topic. “You only have pictures of coffee and books on your Instagram. They’re over-filtered and repetitive. You need pictures of yourself—and the people in your life.”
“I’m too preoccupied being with the people in my life to take pictures,” I say.
My “being in the moment” doesn’t seem to impress her. “Be less preoccupied then.”
“You’re bossy.”
“I know. Look, your bio is excellent: ‘queer Sagittarius librarian.’” She says the last part in such a way that I know she has her phone out and she’s looking at my account. “I want to get to know her. Not her coffee.”