But the pay was good, thepaywasgood, thepaywasgood. (If that sounds like a mantra, it’s because it is, itis, itis.)
Plus, the way I figured it, someone had to be an under-achiever so that all of those overachievers out there could feel superior about what they’d achieved. In a way, I was performing a social function here.
When I had originally declared my intention of becoming a librarian, I got this from my mother: “A librarian?” Like I wanted to be a welder or something. “I sent you to the best schools so you could become a librarian?”
“It’s not like I’m going to be selling crack. I will get to use my mind there.”
“I didn’t name you Scarlett so that you could grow up to be a librarian.”
“Oh, yeah, right. And I’m sure if I became a lawyer named Scarlett, I’d just get a ton of respect.”
“Maybe not.” She’d shrugged. “But the pay is good.”
Seven years into what was now my twelve-year stint at the library (four weeks vacation a year! The pay is good, thepayisgood, thepayisgood!), I’d run into an old high-school boyfriend at a party at Pam’s.
“So what do you do?” He’d leered at me over the vodka punch.
“I’m a librarian.”
“A librarian?” He’d gaped at me as if I’d just sprouted a bun or something.
“Why? What’d you think I’d grow up to be—a welder? a nurse? a stripper?”
“I don’t know,” he’d confessed, looking slightly sheepish. “It’s just hard to picture you behind the reference desk.” His gaze settled on my chest. “It just seems…I don’t know…wrong somehow.”
“Call me when you grow up,” I’d said, walking away.
“He always was a dick,” Pam had said when I found her in the kitchen.
“Yeah,” I’d sighed, “but he was always such a good-looking dick. Too bad he’s so narrow-minded.”
Pam, of course, had never been narrow-minded about my career choice. No, in Pam’s case—Pam, who really was a lawyer—it was downright hostility.
“You have a great brain, Scarlett. So what if your breasts get in the way a little bit? You could do what I do.”
Duh.
(Sometimes, I can’t believe I’m thirty-nine and still saying “duh.”) “Okay, so maybe you couldn’t do exactly what I do— I mean, with those breasts, you could hardly be in litigation—but you could certainly be a tax attorney. Hell, if you became an entertainment lawyer, you’d probably clean up!”
I didn’t even want to know what she meant by that.
“Really, Scarlett, I’m sure that if you just put your mind to it, you could become one of us.” The “us” referring to Pam herself and T.B. and Delta, the two other women that made up our quadrangular friendship.
“I suppose I could,” I conceded, “except for one small fact.”
“That being?”
“I’m not one of an ‘us.’ I’m one of a ‘me.’”
“So you say. I just think it’s a shame that you feel the need to waste this brain that God gave you.”
I tried the same not-a-crack-dealer line I’d used on my mother, but Pam wasn’t having any.
“It’s a waste, Scarlett, I don’t care what you say, it’s a waste. Locking that mind of yours away in a library is like winning the lottery and then just putting it all in the bank for the rest of your life, it’s like some kind of brain-cell chastity or something.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Don’t get defensive. But, I mean, come on. Wouldn’t you like to find out what you could really become in life, if you weren’t so downright weird about the career world taking you at breast-face value?” Then she’d given a heavy sigh. “You’ve always been so pretty, though, with everything handed to you because of it—why would you ever have to know what it’s like to have to maintain the drive to go after something in life and earn it on sheer merit alone?”
You’re probably wondering right around now just exactly why this woman, this woman who could be considerably more hostile than she’s being here, was considered by me to be my best friend. Well, I did feel sorry for her a lot, and she did have some endearing qualities that are perhaps not so easy to see.
Plus, when I’d first met her and T.B. and Delta, Pam had made a point of—no other word for it—courting me. Like a second-string center on the football team with broken black glasses held together by masking tape, Pam had called and e-mailed me virtually every day, as though hoping to win a date for the prom. Finally, the will in me crushed under a deluge of daily questions along the lines of “So, what are you making for dinner tonight,” I’d caved and, muttering “uncle” under my breath, conceded, “Okay. Fine. You can be my best friend.”
Actually, though, Pam was my default best friend. But, like my breasts, that would take a lot of explaining, far too much explaining for right now.
So there I was, on a lovely Wednesday in July, hiding in plain sight behind the reference desk at the Danbury Public Library. I’d just dispensed with a patron who wanted books on pursuing a writing career, having led her to the 888s, and was hoping to sneak in a couple of reviews in the latest Publishers Weekly, which had just arrived. Besides, all working and no sneak-reading make Scarlett a very dull librarian. But this was not to be…
“Excuse me?”
“Hmm…?” I stashed the PW away. Damn! I was never going to learn what it had to say about the latest Anne Perry.
The excuser was a harried-looking woman, around my age, with a toddler in a stroller and a girl in tow. The girl looked to be about ten years old, her black hair cut in an old-fashioned pageboy that would have been more suitable on a woman sixty years ago than on a young girl today. Despite that handicap, you could tell she had pretty-potential, what with her warm brown eyes and wide smile, whenever she forgot to be self-conscious and just let one rip. More hampering than the hair was a mild case of premature acne. Poor thing. She was probably going to get breasts early, which would lead to much teasing at school from both the nonbreasted girls and the prepubescent boys, something I knew much about. Any day now, she’d have too much hair on her legs, her mother wouldn’t let her shave yet, and the other kids would all start calling her Monkey. I was sure of it.
Harried Mom put her hand proprietarily on the girl’s shoulder. “Sarah here needs to get some books from the summer reading list.”
“That’s great,” I said. “Much better than waiting until the end of summer like so many of the kids and then having to cram it all in at the last minute. Just go upstairs to the Juvenile Library—”
“Oh, no.” Harried Mom cut me off. “I want you to recommend specific titles from the list.” She handed me the list. “I don’t want her reading just anything.”
“Yes, but upstairs—”
“Please?” she pressed, then she looked up at the sign over my head: Information Desk—Reference. “This is what you’re here for, isn’t it?”
Well, she kind of had me there. Although I still would have said that upstairs was where she should go for help.
I looked at the list. “Well,” I said, “you can never go wrong with A Separate Peace or The Great Gatsby.”
“She