Read Online Electric City: A Novel by Elizabeth Rosner - Free Book Online

“Good morning,” barely looking up from her desk. Sophie was certain she loved her job so much she didn’t want anyone to know it, so she frowned most of the time and kept her bifocals pushed down at the tip of her nose.
    The cart of BOOKS TO BE RESHELVED squealed a complaint when Sophie began pushing it toward the Science section. Behind that sound, she could hear the soothing tempo of rain on the library roof. Here were a few of the customers she saw on a regular basis, all taking predictable refuge from the vagaries of the weather outside. She madeup private names for some of them: Mr. Wallace Street, who read every column of the daily newspaper; Father Time with his weekly magazine; Mother Goose with her dwarfs, who sprawled in the children’s area and preemptively shush ed each time the librarian looked in their direction.
    When Sophie started reshelving a series of books on astronomy, she noticed someone vaguely familiar: a brown-skinned young man whose face was mostly hidden by the curtain of his black hair. A stack of books perched on a small table next to his chair, and several piles stood on the carpet near his feet. It wasn’t until she got a look at him from another angle that she recognized him from homeroom at school. She even knew his name, Martin Longboat. The Quiet Guy, she had already called him.
    He always nodded when roll was called, but suddenly the memory that came to her was from the morning of the blackout, when he had been sent to the principal’s office for refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance along with the rest of her homeroom. He had stayed in his chair, like some of the antiwar protesters now appearing more and more frequently on the news, the ones who sat in the street until being dragged off and arrested. Mr. Turner hadn’t touched him, though. Just pointed to the door.
    She saw it all again: Martin gathering his notepads and books and leaving the room, never looking at anyone on his way out. The students all resumed the routine of saying the Pledge, with various sideways looks at each other, and a few low-voiced curiosities muttered when the bell rang to mark the end of homeroom. When Martin returned the next morning, he stood up when it was time to address the flag, but Sophie observed that his lips never moved.
    This memory stayed with her as she returned to the checkout desk, as her hands continued their tasks of opening books to the DATE DUE page and pressing the stamp into its box. She noted a certain satisfactionabout getting the numbers perfectly lined up without smudging the ink, although she could see that the other library workers tipped the dates at various angles.
    Martin, now coming out of the men’s room, looked straight at Sophie and raised his chin very slightly. She felt herself reddening as she nodded back. Then he tilted his head to one side, regarding her for an uncomfortably long moment, and smiled.
    As if that weren’t confusing enough, Mrs. Richardson summoned her and pointed at the telephone, whose red light was blinking.
    “A call for you,” she said, frowning even more deeply than usual. “Don’t forget to keep your voice down.”
    Going pink-faced all over again, Sophie picked up the phone and punched the blinking button, assuming it was her mother calling to say she’d be late. But it was Henry.
    “Wow,” she said, without meaning to.
    “Is this okay?” he said. “I mean, calling you at work?”
    During their talk yesterday, Sophie had mentioned her job, but it hadn’t occurred to her that Henry was paying such close attention.
    “I’m supposed to be whispering,” she said.
    He whispered back. “Oh, right. It’s the library.”
    “You don’t have to on your end,” she said.
    He laughed, and his voice came back at full volume. Sophie pictured his eyes again, blue as the sky. “Listen. I’m calling to ask if you want to see a movie with me.”
    Her heartbeat, already racing, picked up even more speed. She grinned into the