Читать книгу I'm Your Girl - J.J. Murray - Страница 16

There’s hardly anyone in the main downtown library today. No wonder I found a parking spot so close to the building.

It’s the day after the day after Christmas. No one’s reading today. The batteries are still good.

True.

I stop at the circulation desk, where a tan woman—check that—a light-skinned black woman is reading a trade paperback. I slide the books onto the counter, and she looks up briefly before scanning the bar codes on the books and looking at a computer screen.

“These books are very late, sir.”

“I just found them today in my son’s room.” I look at her name tag: Diane. “He was, um, hiding them from me.”

She squints at the screen. “The fine on these will be…sixteen-fifty.”

“Ouch,” I say, and I dig into my wallet for a twenty.

“For ten dollars more, you could buy all three,” she says, reaching over and taking the twenty.

“I could? Here.”

Diane finally looks at me, blinking her brown eyes once. “Oh, no. I meant you could buy these at a store for ten more than your fine.” She gives me my change, her fingers lightly brushing my palm.

“Thank you,” I say, as my palm tingles. “Um, where is your, um, African American section?”

She looks up, again briefly, before looking at the books on the counter. “The nonfiction section is—”

“I need fiction.”

She blinks once, and was that a sigh?

It was a sigh.

“In the fiction section, sir,” she says softly.

Oh, yeah. How stupid of me.

You said it.

“Right.”

I walk away toward the fiction section, feeling foolish. Where will my book be?

In the fiction section.

I messed up. I hope I didn’t hurt Diane’s feelings.

I’m sure you did.

I’ll bet she gets stupid questions like that a lot.

And she’s just hung a “Stupid” sign on you.

She has to have a lot of patience to deal with stupid people like me all day.

I’m sure you made her day.

I look back. Her eyes are buried in that trade paperback again. Here I am, a writer of African American fiction, and I ask a stupid question like that.

Then I realize…that librarian…Diane…touched me. Her fingers grazed my palm, when she was giving back my change.

Don’t read anything into it.

She’s the first person to touch me since the funeral.

But she thinks you’re stupid.

And she thinks I’m stupid.