Free The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler Page A

shells.
    “Simon?”
    “Can we do this here, Janice?”
    She looks uncomfortable, her eyes maybe even a little shiny. Tears?
    “It’s easier if we talk in my office.”
    “If it’s all the same, I’d rather not walk by everyone again.”
    A small parting of the lips, an ah . “I understand. Absolutely.” She begins the speech detailing how hard she fought, how if there was a way to scrape by without letting me go she’d have found it. I can’t listen, not even when she launches into how much she’s enjoyed working with me, seeing me grow. Pretending to listen is a favorite mask that wears comfortably.
    “Reference will suffer for it,” she says.
    Even if she means it, which she may, it rings of pity. There, by the periodicals, a thick red braid. Oh, hell. Alice gets to hear me get fired.
    “I’m terribly sorry about this. There’s just nothing else to do.”
    I hear myself agree to two weeks. Janice offers to make phone calls on my behalf. “Okay,” I say. Now I’m thanking her for letting me go, which is its own humiliation.
    Fixing a broken gutter is pointless when there’s no money for the rest. With the passage of a few minutes both my homes are gone.
    Janice is wrong; I’ve been here twelve years, not ten. Twelve years of solitary work—stacking, sorting, scanning, cataloging, researching, letter and grant writing, fund begging, and book repairing. I’ve become part of the papers. They were mine, twelve years of pages and volumes. Now I have a single book.
    Alice walks toward me. We’ve been trying to stay apart at work. Libraries are hotbeds of gossip—everyone knew about Marci’s husband’s drinking almost before Marci did. We’ve been carefully professional, talking to each other only when we need things, when I want the schedule for a room, or when she wants visuals for a speaker, or has to reach something. How will anyone reach things when I’m gone? She rounds the 300s, her sensible brown pants brushing against an oversized volume. I see it: pity. It’s in the tight set of the mouth. It’s in the slightly lowered eyelids, which on Alice makes her eyelashes catch the light. It’s a look that pairs with I’m so, so sorry. The second so is the kicker. The potential for a second so is horrible. She catches my eye. Mouths an Are you okay? I shrug, because what else can I do? She’s by the photocopy machines when an older man taps her on the shoulder. Comfortable shoes, white socks, tissue-thin button-down, shorts, old man knees. Old men love Alice. Thank God for that. I can’t talk to her just now, not until I’ve tried to do something. I pick up the phone and dial Millerston Library.
    “Leslie? Hi. It’s Simon Watson at Grainger.”
    Forty-five minutes later and I’ve spoken with or left messages for the directors at nearly every library from Babylon to Mattituck. Gina at Comsewogue was kind enough to tell me that Janice had called on my behalf.
    “She’s heartbroken. You’d think you were her son. We’d take you on if we could, but we’re in the same crunch. The best I could offer would be volunteering until you could transition into part-time once the summer kids head back to school. It would be an insult.”
    Pinching the skin at the top of my nose may not change the situation, but the pain makes the conversation easier. It’s worse with Laura at Outer Harbor.
    “Wish I could help, but I’m looking for me. I talked to Janice two weeks ago hoping you guys had wiggle room. Don’t you get funds for the whaling collection?”
    “Not enough.”
    When I hang up, nothing’s changed but the hour. A book club meets in the armchairs by the front windows and a group of kids climb the stairs. Books need lending, shelving, mending. I still need to finish the grant application for the digital catalog funds. That will continue without me. I start working through the website Liz Reed sent, sifting through links. The New York section is filled with jobs in the city—digital