pants. We all laugh—except Paul, of course—at the threat the whole town has heard before. “I’ll show ya.”
Even Ophelia Lennon laughs. She laughs like songbird.
“She laughs like a donkey,” Lilly says. She doesn’t mean anything by it, really, she just forgets sometimes.
“Shut up, Lilly,” I say. This is very, very not us. But none of us are us here. This building is not us. It is me. I understand Lilly, but I do not sympathize. “Shut up and go—I mean it.”
“Sorry,” she says. “Um, you’re not coming with us, I take it.”
“Catch you later,” I say, and they go without fight. Pauly never does show us.
I’m alone with Ophelia Lennon. Almost. There is Teddy in his U.S. Postal Service uniform, sleeping at the newspaper rack. But he really doesn’t count. I’m alone with Ophelia Lennon.
Not that I really do much about it. I watch her restack books. I watch her make herself her regular four-fifteen cup of banana tea, then watch her dunk her anisette toast into it. I watch her dust and sweep the room because, as I said, she is responsible for everything about the Whitechurch Library. On days when Ophelia Lennon is sick, the library doesn’t even open.
There is no need for me to pretend to be reading or researching or doing a single damn useful thing with my time. Because nobody is watching. Nobody is watching, as the winter wind bounces off the thin windowpanes, trying to get in. Teddy is there, but he’s Dead Ted, and you couldn’t wake him if you drove a semi through the room pulling on that honky air horn.
So nobody’s watching me watching Ophelia Lennon move her body through her day. Except Ophelia Lennon. She’s watching me watching, and it’s all right with her and it’s all right with me. Only if another somebody comes in does she make me get a magazine or something, so it all doesn’t look weird.
Then there’s nothing left. It’s time to close up the library, and Ophelia Lennon does that. There’s a power to it, the way this building, this quiet smart domain of hers, bends, gives to her. She has the keys to the doors, she turns the heat down. And she turns the lights off, one at a time, when it’s five o’clock and very dark.
By the time we have to wake Teddy and get him out, there are only two dull lights burning from the vaulted ceiling of the old mahogany room, the two lights Ophelia Lennon keeps on when she leaves. The glow from those small yellow bulbs seems to come from nowhere when it lights you up. Seems to come, rather, from inside you, inside your skin. When I approach Teddy, the light seems to come from under his denim-blue flap-hat. When Teddy is up and toddling out and I’m turned back looking at Ophelia Lennon again, the light is burning up from under her collar.
“What?” she says, and tilts her head in a quizzical way that makes me worry what kind of look I’m giving her.
“I didn’t say anything,” I say.
Ophelia Lennon nods, then starts to gather up her stuff, her going-home ritual.
“Can I help with anything?” I ask. “Books to reshelve, windows to close …”
She sighs, comes close to me with her coat over her arm.
“People are going to start to talk,” she says sweetly.
“Cool,” I say in return.
“Well, no. Oakley, when are you going to stop doing this? Hmm? This is not a good thing. You once spent a great many wonderful hours here, and now you spend too many pointless ones. Do you remember that you could recite big bites of Wordsworth by the age of seven? Do you remember that? ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud/That floats on high o’er vales and hills,/When all at once I saw a crowd,/A host, of golden daffodils.’ Do you remember?”
It is out of respect that I let her finish, though it is the sound of a car wreck to my ears.
“And ‘The Raven.’” Ophelia Lennon is swept up in something now, nostalgia or mania or whatever. But she comes up, intimate-close, and pokes me lightly in the chest. “Every word, by the
Even Ophelia Lennon laughs. She laughs like songbird.
“She laughs like a donkey,” Lilly says. She doesn’t mean anything by it, really, she just forgets sometimes.
“Shut up, Lilly,” I say. This is very, very not us. But none of us are us here. This building is not us. It is me. I understand Lilly, but I do not sympathize. “Shut up and go—I mean it.”
“Sorry,” she says. “Um, you’re not coming with us, I take it.”
“Catch you later,” I say, and they go without fight. Pauly never does show us.
I’m alone with Ophelia Lennon. Almost. There is Teddy in his U.S. Postal Service uniform, sleeping at the newspaper rack. But he really doesn’t count. I’m alone with Ophelia Lennon.
Not that I really do much about it. I watch her restack books. I watch her make herself her regular four-fifteen cup of banana tea, then watch her dunk her anisette toast into it. I watch her dust and sweep the room because, as I said, she is responsible for everything about the Whitechurch Library. On days when Ophelia Lennon is sick, the library doesn’t even open.
There is no need for me to pretend to be reading or researching or doing a single damn useful thing with my time. Because nobody is watching. Nobody is watching, as the winter wind bounces off the thin windowpanes, trying to get in. Teddy is there, but he’s Dead Ted, and you couldn’t wake him if you drove a semi through the room pulling on that honky air horn.
So nobody’s watching me watching Ophelia Lennon move her body through her day. Except Ophelia Lennon. She’s watching me watching, and it’s all right with her and it’s all right with me. Only if another somebody comes in does she make me get a magazine or something, so it all doesn’t look weird.
Then there’s nothing left. It’s time to close up the library, and Ophelia Lennon does that. There’s a power to it, the way this building, this quiet smart domain of hers, bends, gives to her. She has the keys to the doors, she turns the heat down. And she turns the lights off, one at a time, when it’s five o’clock and very dark.
By the time we have to wake Teddy and get him out, there are only two dull lights burning from the vaulted ceiling of the old mahogany room, the two lights Ophelia Lennon keeps on when she leaves. The glow from those small yellow bulbs seems to come from nowhere when it lights you up. Seems to come, rather, from inside you, inside your skin. When I approach Teddy, the light seems to come from under his denim-blue flap-hat. When Teddy is up and toddling out and I’m turned back looking at Ophelia Lennon again, the light is burning up from under her collar.
“What?” she says, and tilts her head in a quizzical way that makes me worry what kind of look I’m giving her.
“I didn’t say anything,” I say.
Ophelia Lennon nods, then starts to gather up her stuff, her going-home ritual.
“Can I help with anything?” I ask. “Books to reshelve, windows to close …”
She sighs, comes close to me with her coat over her arm.
“People are going to start to talk,” she says sweetly.
“Cool,” I say in return.
“Well, no. Oakley, when are you going to stop doing this? Hmm? This is not a good thing. You once spent a great many wonderful hours here, and now you spend too many pointless ones. Do you remember that you could recite big bites of Wordsworth by the age of seven? Do you remember that? ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud/That floats on high o’er vales and hills,/When all at once I saw a crowd,/A host, of golden daffodils.’ Do you remember?”
It is out of respect that I let her finish, though it is the sound of a car wreck to my ears.
“And ‘The Raven.’” Ophelia Lennon is swept up in something now, nostalgia or mania or whatever. But she comes up, intimate-close, and pokes me lightly in the chest. “Every word, by the
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