Louisiana Saves the Library (5 page)

C
HAPTER
5

T
rish was sobbing next to the library science department copier when Louise walked in. There was no reason for Trish to even be in the office. She and Sylvia had given birth only two weeks apart, and Sylvia hadn't set foot on campus since. Louise checked her friend's mailbox every day and threw out the junk—flyers from presses, desperate letters from the writers of self-published books, glossy brochures from pseudo-academic institutions promising online degrees.

Louise briefly considered sneaking away and pretending she hadn't seen Trish, but she couldn't do it. Even though her colleague might be a fussy snob who hadn't talked to her since the miserable baby shower, Louise felt a surge of pity. Trish's blond hair was uncharacteristically greasy with dark roots, and her sweat suit had a variety of different colored stains.

“Louise! What am I going to do?” Trish held out her arms.

“What happened?”

“The university declared exigency. We might get shut down!”

“I know,” Louise said. Sylvia, who checked her e-mail at all hours, had called that morning while Louise was trying to convince Max to open his mouth so that she could brush his teeth. She'd been too distracted for the news to really sink in. Even though no layoffs in the library school had been announced yet, the possibility was real. They might lose their jobs. Trish's breakdown made Louise's head ache with the weight of the truth.

“We'll be unemployed, Louise. I just had a baby. I'm still on maternity leave.”

“I know.”

“It's horrible.”

Louise touched Trish's shoulder lightly, trying to project a calm that she didn't feel. “Why don't you go home and get some rest? You don't need to worry about this right now. You have a baby to take care of. Anyway, we won't know anything for a few weeks.”

Trish covered her face with her hands. “I had to come and get my mail. Look, I brought little Aubrey.”

Aubrey? She'd actually named the poor boy Aubrey? He'd be doomed to a life of junk mail perfume samples and gender misidentification. “He's beautiful.”

“Thank you. He stays up all night, though. I'm so exhausted. I mean, Frank tries to help, but he still wears me out.”

“It'll get better,” Louise said. “Go home and get some rest.”

“I know I shouldn't be here, but I was so worried about the department.”

Adwell strolled into the office. Either he didn't notice Trish's puffy eyes and smeared makeup or he decided to ignore it. In the face of strong emotions, Adwell generally made jokes or simply walked away, sometimes both. “Hello, ladies. I see you have the little one.”

“Yes,” Trish said. “Aubrey.”

“Oh, that was my grandmother's name. Lovely woman. She drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney. Lived to be ninety-two.” Adwell's voice was its normal mechanical drone, but he recited the speech without any awkward pauses, a sure sign he'd given it before.

Trish's smile looked pained.

“Come on,” Louise said. “You really should go home and take it easy.”

“Yes,” Adwell said. “You sure don't want to be around here. Everyone is overreacting to the university president's ill-conceived comment.”

“What did he say?” Louise asked.

Adwell snorted, reached into his mailbox, and tossed the contents into the recycling bin. “Something about how the university will be just as deep but not as wide after the cuts. Everyone takes that to mean that they are going to close programs.”

“Oh, no,” Trish said.

“Well, we don't really know anything,” Adwell said.

“We know we're one of the departments that might be eliminated,” Louise said, mentally giving herself a forehead slap. Why was she antagonizing the freaked-out new mom?

Adwell studied the ceiling tiles. “We might.”

Trish's face crumpled again. “I'll see you all later. I need to go home.” She pushed the stroller out of the office, head bowed.

Louise checked her box. Brendan had finally sent the previous month's child support check. Two weeks late. She waited until Adwell left before opening the envelope. It was fifty dollars short. Brendan had enclosed a note in his disgustingly neat handwriting. “This amount is what was left over after I paid off the joint credit card. I closed the account.”

Louise clenched her teeth, crumpled the note, and tossed it in the trash. She wanted to do the same with the check, but she couldn't afford to. She tucked it into her purse instead.

C
HAPTER
6

T
he Bouncing Crawfish Party Center was filled with inflatables of all kinds—castles, slides, miniature jungles. Zoe refused to go in any of them. She played with a Hula-Hoop instead while Louise sat on the metal bleachers with Sylvia and baby Madeleine. Louise didn't know where the boys were, but she'd seen Max climbing up one of the big slides a few minutes earlier, so she wasn't worried. She dreaded the upcoming gift ritual most of all. The modest Play-Doh set she'd sloppily wrapped would pale in comparison to the expensive Legos, remote-controlled helicopters, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures.

“Come on, these are the kids from Max and Jimmy's class, you know that,” Sylvia said. “There's Ethan and his dad, Toby. Mahalia is at the top of the slide there, and her mom, June, is sitting at the table. Josie, Lindsey, and Martin are jumping in the ball pit.”

“How do you keep all these characters straight? It's like reading a Russian novel, except that all the dialogue is about whose kid is already reading and which one is still sleeping with a pacifier.”

“I like Tolstoy. Besides, I pay attention.” Sylvia adjusted Madeleine's swaddling.

At one month old, the baby spent most of her time sleeping. She was incredibly calm compared to Max and Zoe, who had done nothing but cry and nurse at that age. Though, to be fair, the worst part of their babyhoods was Brendan and his disappearing act. Seeing Madeleine and smelling her sweet baby scent brought back the good memories of cradling the children and staring at their tiny faces in rapture. Sometimes, Louise wished she could go back and rewrite that period of her life, replacing her ex-husband with a more likable character.

“Even without a newborn I don't have the mental energy to keep up with what day of the week it is,” she said. “Saturday, right?”

“Shut up,” Sylvia said. “I'm starving. When do you think they're going to do the cake?”

“They don't pass out the sugar bombs until the end. We only got here fifteen minutes ago.”

“Yeah, but we were half an hour late.”

“True.”

Zoe dropped the hoop and climbed on a rubber horse. She bounced up and down. “Horsey!”

The other parents congregated in groups, laughing and talking. They were way too upbeat. Clearly none had been up half the night with kids who took turns having nightmares and demanding snacks and drinks. Louise yawned. Starbucks needed to open a store inside Bouncing Crawfish. Right away. “Kids' birthday parties are worse than junior high dances,” she said.

“Hey, I had fun at those things. Girl, you are such a grump.” Sylvia gave Zoe a finger wave.

“Please. At least in junior high, there was always some cute boy with a skater haircut to make it exciting. Here we don't have anything but a bunch of moms and a cardboard pizza. Speaking of which, I'm tired of kid food. I want a mocha latte with extra caffeine, a nice sandwich, and a piece of pie.”

“Let's make friends.” Sylvia shifted Madeleine to her shoulder and grabbed Louise's arm.

“Hey, wait!”

Under Sylvia's strong grip, Louise felt like a kid being dragged to the principal's office. But she gave in to the inevitable and allowed herself to be guided off the bleachers.

Sylvia approached a group of women standing near one of the inflatables. They were all wearing skinny jeans, baggy A&M sweatshirts, and high heels. They looked impossibly young, rested, and beautiful. Louise glanced back at Zoe, still bouncing happily.

“Howdy, y'all.” Sylvia unleashed her best “Hey, gals” smile.

“Is that your child?” a woman wearing fake-fur-trimmed heels asked, pointing at the top of the slide.

Max was trying to push the birthday boy out of his way. Luckily, Josh was nearly a year older than Max and outweighed him by ten pounds. He shrugged it off and continued down the slide.

Louise put on her authoritative voice. “Max, you do not push. If you push anyone again, we're leaving, do you hear me?”

Max looked in his mother's direction, but said nothing. He went down the slide, crashing into Josh at the bottom. They both laughed crazily.

“They're just being boys,” Sylvia said.

None of the other women answered. They affected identical expressions of disapproval. The woman with the fur heels ran to the end of the slide and caught Josh by the arm. “Don't let him do that to you. If he pushes you, push him back.”

Sylvia raised her eyebrows, but Louise ignored her. Her stomach hurt, and it wasn't the smell of overspiced pepperoni coming from the party room. Max had been better about playing rough lately. She was terrified that he was relapsing and they would have to avoid all birthday parties and playgrounds for the foreseeable future. She'd been bullied herself as a child, so her child couldn't torment other kids. It was unthinkable.

The group of women resumed their discussion about the relative merits of different birthday party places. Louise had been planning to have Max's party at home, apparently only an acceptable option if you rented a bouncy house or hired a clown. She watched Max out of the corner of her eye. He clambered up one of the slides, following a girl in a pink dress. Louise prepared to intervene, but he didn't touch the girl, just slid down after her, laughing.

Sylvia's phone binged. She handed Madeleine to Louise and fished it out of her purse. The baby stirred for a moment before falling back asleep. Louise kissed her head lightly.

Sylvia stared at her phone as though it had bitten her. “I just got fired. Over e-mail.”

After checking that Max was still behaving, Louise carried Madeleine back to the bleachers and sat down with Sylvia. They traded phone for baby, and Louise skimmed the e-mail. None of it made sense except for the line “termination effective January 15.” Her whole body went numb. The worst had happened.

Zoe left her bouncy horse and perched next to Sylvia. As usual, she seemed to sense that something was wrong.

“Do you want to check your e-mail?” Sylvia said. “See if you got the same message?”

“Not really. I can't imagine why I wouldn't have.” Louise hugged Zoe and brushed back the hair from her sweet face. She pulled away and returned to the horse.

 

An hour later, Louise was sitting at Sylvia's kitchen table. Her house was a scaled-down plantation home with five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a parlor area that no one ever used. It was seventy years old, and remodeled in such a way as to retain what real estate agents like to call “character.” One of the bedrooms was a permanent guest room, and another had been designated as Jake's office, where he could hide out from the kids. The house was luxurious, a giant step up from Louise's little ranch house. Sylvia said that it sometimes seemed too small.

Louise sipped her wine and admired the living room/kitchen area. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto the landscaped backyard complete with pool and playscape. Built-in bookshelves and a flat-screen TV filled the other wall. Two couches with soft, inviting cushions were positioned around a coffee table crowded with books and toys.

Sylvia bounced Madeleine in the crook of her arm as she watched the boys playing with action figures. “Right now, deciding not to breast-feed doesn't seem like such a good idea.”

“I don't blame you. I don't understand the women who love nursing so much. All your clothes smell like sour milk, and you're stuck in a chair while the older kid asks embarrassing questions and searches the house for matches.” Louise wouldn't have shared her ambivalence to one of the most cherished aspects of motherhood with just anyone. But Sylvia wasn't just anyone. Louise had known that the first time they'd met. That day, Louise had been sitting at her new desk in her disappointingly run-down office, feeling more tired and lost than she ever had. She was doubting her ability to handle two small children on her own and publish enough to earn tenure while also teaching two large classes of undergraduates. Sylvia had come in bearing a bottle of wine and a plate of cheese and crackers. By the time the bottle was empty, they were both laughing so hard that their sides hurt.

“I might have tried to put up with the breast-feeding a little longer if I knew we were going on the breadline. Formula costs a hundred dollars a month,” Sylvia said, switching the baby to her other arm.

“We have jobs until after Christmas. What about Jake?”

“They gave him two months.” Sylvia drank the rest of her wine and refilled her glass. “He'll get unemployment, but we won't.”

“Of course we will. Why wouldn't we?”

“State of Louisiana doesn't pay into it for their employees. We have no social security. No unemployment. Girl, I've been here my whole life and it never ceases to amaze me just how effed up this state is.”

Zoe climbed up on the chair next to Louise and looked at Madeleine. “Baby.”

“That's right. That's a baby. You used to be a baby, did you know that? My life was actually easier then,” Louise said.

“Baby.” Zoe climbed back down and found a truck that one of the boys had abandoned under the table. She made sputtering sounds as she drove it along the rug. “Truck.”

Louise poured a little more wine into her glass. No job, no unemployment. Her fragile facade of independence was crumbling. She would have to ask someone for help. She couldn't get a loan from her mother. Her older sister was in the process of trying to find a nursing home she could afford. Louise had been the late-life surprise, not necessarily unwanted but a stretch to her parents' budget. Even as a child, she had worried about money, ordering the cheapest item on the menu on the rare occasions when her family ate in restaurants. She'd felt guilty for every penny she cost them. Her father's salary as a schoolteacher wasn't enough to support four children. For some reason, her mother never worked. She'd filled her time volunteering, cooking, and cleaning. Louise had sworn she'd never be like her. Now, she was in a worse situation, dependent on a man who wasn't even her husband anymore. She would have to ask him, no matter how much it hurt her pride.

Across the room, a battle erupted.

“Mine! That's mine!” Jimmy screamed, pointing at a car that Max was driving along the coffee table.

Max stopped and looked at his friend like he'd turned into something unrecognizable but not very interesting. Jimmy grabbed the car, and Max wrestled it back. Jimmy gave up and picked a dump truck from the mound of toys. He smashed his vehicle into Max's. “Crash!”

“What was with Josh's mom?” Sylvia said. “Telling her kid to fight Max? Is she nuts?”

“She has lousy taste in footwear,” Louise said. She didn't want to think about the incident again. During Max's period of hitting other kids, she'd felt like she was holding a live grenade. She was terrified that he would hurt Zoe or some other child. If his sister grabbed one of his toys, he would push or hit her. She couldn't leave them alone together, even for a moment. Playgrounds were even worse because the potential victims were other people's children. After he pushed another boy in the sandbox, she stopped taking him altogether. Either her constant punishments, lectures, and rewards for good behavior were finally working or he'd grown out of the stage because lately his behavior had been better. Until today. Louise felt like a black hole had opened in front of her. Max the bad kid again. Her job gone.

“I mean, geez, the kid is four. What is wrong with her? I'll tell you what, I'm not inviting him to Jimmy's birthday party. Not that I'll be able to afford one anyway.” Sylvia put Madeleine in her baby swing. “So, what's your plan?”

Louise drank some wine, hoping that it would stop the frantic thoughts taking over her mind. “I don't have one. I don't want to move across the country again just to get a job in a public library.”

“We're staying. Jake and I talked about it in case this happened. Our families are here. Besides, it's not worth moving for a library position, even if I can get one. He'll apply for jobs. If he gets something really good, maybe we'll move then.”

“That makes sense.” Louise finished her wine and pushed the glass away. She wished she had such an easy solution to her problems or even just a husband to talk them over with. She shook her head. She'd had a husband and he'd been no good at discussing anything. Arguing was more his style. She didn't need a man. She needed a job.

“So here's my idea. My sister-in-law told me about two openings in the same library. We could work together. At least for a while. If we hate it, we can always quit. But it'd be something. A little money coming in. They're so desperate, they practically hired me when I called to ask about the job. And they'd let us start after Christmas break.”

“What is it?”

“Alligator Bayou Parish Library.”

“He hit me. Max hit me!” Jimmy yelled.

Max was calmly playing with the toy car. He didn't even seem to realize that Jimmy was upset.

Louise squatted down in front of him. “Did you hit Jimmy?”

He nodded.

Louise closed her eyes for a moment. This couldn't be happening. She couldn't deal with losing her job and Max hitting again all at the same time. She took a deep breath. “We don't hit people. Tell Jimmy you're sorry.”

“I'm sorry, Jimmy.”

Jimmy grabbed a Mr. Potato Head and ripped off its arms.

Louise walked back to the kitchen area. She couldn't decide which was worse—that Max had relapsed or that Sylvia had just suggested that they work at the pathetic rural library. “Did you eat too many of the special jelly beans? Alligator Bayou?”