by Annie Spence
Most of the books I truly love aren’t even on my shelves, because I loan them out to other people or get them from the library and have to return them. I foolishly had Jonathan Safran Foer sign a copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close to a boyfriend who wasn’t able to attend the reading, and then when we broke up I let him keep it. Even my favorite authors—the pride of my collection—their copies are scruffy paperbacks with dog-eared pages. My Karen Joy Fowlers are so worn from use that you can no longer read their titles from their spines. My Faulkners look pretty good, though.
But you. You’re an inspiration. You’ve really thought yourself out. Your pink shelf, especially. Valley of the Dolls, a Marie Antoinette bio, and Chanel and Her World. Beauty and controversy—I think that’s what you’re saying there. Is that what you’re saying? Or is it like in college when you went to a creative writing workshop and everybody’s going on about how postmodern a story is, but it turns out the printer just collated the pages out of order?
9:00 P.M.
Can I set this gin fizz on you? I’m going to put it right next to The Great Gatsby so I’ll remember where it is. Drinking joke!
But seriously, I can’t go overboard with the alcohol because I tend to pontificate about reading and the social significance of the public library when I get drunk. Two drinks: funny work stories. Poop in the dropbox, Lady with the Face, the guy whom we caught looking at porn and eating a big can of sardines and we didn’t know what to be more offended by … that kind of thing. But if I morph into telling inspiring patron stories, look out. I can give a rousing/annoying lecture on the benefits of getting your library card. I’ve shouted, “I disseminate information to the masses!” while being helped into a cab before. It’s not pretty. Oh, do you have Let Me Tell You, It Wasn’t Pretty by Diane Keaton? I don’t see it. I’m going to go tell the host she should get it. That would look really good on you.
Where’s my drink?
9:45 P.M.
I asked the hostess where she got the ceramic horse on top of your stack of white books with bronze lettering and she just said, “Europe.” As in “I’m not even going to get into what country I was in because you don’t look intelligent enough to know about the names of countries in fucking Europe.”
I bet it’s—do you mind if I pick this up?—biiitttch, it’s from Target.
10:30 P.M.
—so then I said, Do you even have a library card because if you did you could donate all those goddamn design books and you could go look at them however you want—I mean whenever you want—and then you would be also doing a service to the public. And that’s what I do. I’m a PUBLIC SERVANT. I fucking serve the public. Serve it up. Whatever they want, if they want to repair their car or get into Wicca or sing “Love Me Tender” to me over the phone, I’m like: go ’head.
11:00 P.M.
And you can sit there with your pink books and your European Target horses but what I want to know is … hold on … what I want to know is. Do you ever get touched? You need to get read! Not dusted! And also, let’s just be honest here. Where are you hiding your, like, your Janet Evanovich paperbacks? Huh? Where’s Stephanie Plum? Where’s your self-help books that your owner bought on Amazon when she was upset and a little stoned and felt like her neighbor’s Wi-Fi being temporarily unlocked was a sign that I had to get my life together. I mean she.
Oh, I’m so sorry, I guess I’m talking out loud. Excuuuuuse me for talking to a bookshelf.
I’m so glad I didn’t get invited to this party.
THE MORNING AFTER
Dear Fancy Bookshelf,
I apologize for getting angry and rearranging your books into nonuniform colors and also for putting your ceramic animal decor into compromising positions on top of Animal Farm. I was asked to leave after I got caught looking under the hostess’s bed for the “real” books. My friend had to take me home and leave the fella she was macking on. Turns out I really Mr. Darcy’d it.
No Hard Feelings?
ATHLETICS—Jackson, Bob
—Motor Sports—Safety
—Spiffy
Dear Street Biking: How to Ride to Save Your Hide,
Listen, don’t tell anyone, but you can stay around here if you want to. I wouldn’t mind. I know you’re older and a little scruffier than the other books. Maybe you don’t use the fanciest language. Maybe you use the words “neat” and “spiffy” abundantly and nonironically and you caption your pictures with sentences like “It’s a special feeling when man and machine are both enjoying it.” That, coupled with the fact that you’re a book about motorcycle safety that hasn’t been updated in thirty-five years may turn some girls off. But I’m not some girls. I like a bit of danger.
It will be our little secret. Then someday I might come by and check out your chapter about sidecars, let you show me around the streets of Tucson, Arizona, circa 1980. That’d be “neat.”
Readin’ ’N’ Ridin’,
JUVENILE FICTION—Lobel, Arnold
—Spirit Animals
—Self-Help
Dear Frog and Toad Storybook Treasury,
I’ve been with a lot of books and had other characters who’ve imprinted themselves on my heart. But your main character Toad is my spirit animal.
For starters, we are both pear-shaped. But it’s so much more than body types. Toad’s very character aligns so closely with my own that I find myself going to some of your stories for advice. What would Toad do, I ask myself, when faced with a challenge. Would he go home and sleep or make some food? Either way, it’s excellent counsel.
Here are a few ways your character really spoke to me:
“Blah, said a voice from inside the house.”
“After I put on my bathing suit, you must not look at me until I get into the water.”
“Toad tripped over a rock. He bumped into a tree. He fell in a hole.”
“Frog, said Toad, let us eat one very last cookie, and then we will stop. Frog and Toad ate one very last cookie. We must stop eating! cried Toad as he ate another.”
“Toad ran home. He made sandwiches.”
“I am worried, said Toad.”
“I will do it tomorrow, said Toad.”
“Then Toad fell asleep.”
It’s almost like you’re writing ABOUT me.
I know you’re usually into younger readers, but I really think that you and I are soul mates. You bring such joy into my life. Something about you makes me want to ignore all of my adult responsibilities and sit around having tea and cake, waiting for the mail to come, which, every once in a while, I can do. I want to live in a tiny forest house and take walks with a best friend who is always kind to me, even though he is obviously way smarter and less erratic than I am. And really, minus the forest, I do. For all his worrying, Toad is living the dream. And actually, when I think about it, so am I.
Dammit, Swami Frog and Toad, you did it again! F the Self-Help section. You’re where it’s at! How have you never been on Oprah’s book list? Do you see how we’re on the same wavelength? It’s undeniable. We’re made for each other.
Lots of Love,
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY—NORTH AMERICA—U.S.—ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION—EISENHOWER TO CLINTON—JACK KENNEDY
—Whew
Dear Killing Kennedy and Killing Lincoln and just all of the Killings by “Bill O’Reilly,”
Don’t get your panties in a twist—we aren’t getting rid of all of you—just some of your duplicate copies. We’ll never discard you. You guys and the Mitch Albom books have dominated the nonfiction bestseller lists for years and show no signs of slowing down. Sometimes, I fantasize about putting you and Mitch together, throwing up a “Things Aren’t What They Used to Be” sign, and being done with it. With an end-cap display of authors under sixty called “Kids These Days: The Worst.”
I’m getting off topic. This note is just to say you’re strong-arming the biography section and taking up a lot of space, so we have to remove a few of you. The Kennedy section, especially, r
esents you a bit. All those book-spine pictures of Kennedys frolicking on the lawn and/or looking pensively over their shoulders seem to be willfully ignoring you. There is a copy of Letters to Jackie directly above your place on the shelf so that Jackie O’s picture is—there’s no other way to say this—looking down at you.
You’re upsetting the patrons as well, or rather, I am upsetting them by not putting all of the Killings next to each other. But I must stand firm. The biography section is organized in alphabetical order by the subject of the book, not the author. Yes, even if the author’s name appears in a larger font than said biography subject. If we did it for you, we’d have to do it for everyone and then there would just be panic. Where would the Suzanne Somers books go? Health and Beauty? Memoir? Poetry1? Isaac Asimov has written a book for EVERY SECTION OF THE DEWEY SYSTEM, Killing. We can’t open ourselves up to that kind of chaos in the stacks. Next thing you know, we’re alphabetizing the entire collection by title, which is a proposition we receive in the suggestion box at least once a year.
No. Better that you remain next to Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye and just stop riling people up. Don’t worry about your extra copies. They will get snapped up at the book sale. I do wish the best for you, unless the best is more famous political figures dying.
Peace,
FICTION—Mosley, Walter
—Detectives, L.A.
—Blue Dress, Devil in A
Dear Easy Rawlins Mystery Series by Walter Mosley,
This is all moving so fast. It isn’t like me. I don’t even like mystery series. Somehow, though, I just can’t get enough of you.
God, I love wandering down dicey alleys with you, roughing people up if they need it, experiencing two decades of Los Angeles, the ’40s through the ’60s in all their jazzy, turned riotous, turned flower-child grandeur. Cruising down the strip when I should be in bed with nothing but my favorite PI, Easy, and the desert air on my face. But seriously, I should be in bed. I have to be up by six tomorrow.
My infatuation with you, paired with my fanatic Moonlighting viewing (more private eye-ing, this time shitty ones in ’80s L.A., with young hunk Bruce Willis, so I’m getting the whole range of the genre), is seeping into my real life. The one where I’m a Midwestern mom burning oatmeal and forgetting to pay bills on time because I stayed up all night reading (and watching) crime noirs.
What’s worse is that I’ve begun thinking of myself as one of your characters. I’ve started wearing dark sunglasses and popping my collar when I’m in public, looking furtively over my shoulder every few minutes, which makes the other playgroup moms nervous. I can tell. They’ve stopped offering me their extra Luna bars.
When my oldest sister called to ask if I was coming to Thanksgiving, I sniffed at her and said, “Who wants to know?” And the other day I tucked a dollar bill in my coworker’s shirt pocket while telling him I’d sure be interested to know if there were any hammie sammies left after Gene’s retirement party. You make sneaking and subtle bribes look easy for Easy, but I make it look … unstable.
If you could mellow out on the thrills, the dark dialogue, the fascinating historical details, I could handle it. But it’s too much. As much as I’d like to, I don’t have time to lie back with a stiff drink and fly through all fourteen of you at once. I’ve got a toddler to wake up with and laundry up the ass, and then also I have to figure out on what board to hide all my Bruce Willis pictures on Pinterest so no one discovers my disconcertingly abiding love for him. It’s my own hard luck life, but somebody’s got to live it.
Until I catch up on my breath, my bills, my sleep, I’ve got to leave you behind and go underground. I’ll be your latest missing persons case.
Signed,
(See how I left it blank there, like I’m already gone? I’ve picked up a few pointers, eh, ehhhhhhh?)
AMUSEMENT AND RECREATION—Cosgrove, Frances
—The Stage
—Thespians, Am I Right?
Dear Scenes for Student Actors,
The scene is a public library. ANNIE sits next to a toppling pile of books. She is a charming, attractive, and well-poised librarian. She picks up the first book in a series, SCENES FOR STUDENT ACTORS, a voluble set of volumes, to say the least.
ANNIE: Can we talk?
SFSA (criminal with Italian accent): “… Just let’s talk, what do you say? I haven’t talked to anybody so long I’m full of gab.”
ANNIE: Okay. You see—you’ve been here—quite some time now—
SFSA (bending over and smelling the ham): “Pshaw, Deenie, there’s no harm in that is there?”
ANNIE: It’s Annie, actually. We think you’re great. But you haven’t been checked out in ten years. I know the Theater section moves a little slower in general—
SFSA: “You see, it’s not an easy job selling to people who want to get out of the shop without buying anything.”
ANNIE: Well, that’s kind of the deal here. Everything’s free. People can take whatever they want home with them. But they don’t seem to want to take you. (pregnant pause) Ever.
SFSA (with sudden passion): “[…] No. It ain’t that! It’s sump’n else. I don’t understand it. I’m afeard. I’m too young.”
ANNIE: You are eighty years old.
SFSA: “… she wasn’t no kid, like the DA said she was. She was over sixteen. You seen her pictures.”
ANNIE: Yeah. Anyway, so since you’re old, we need to get some new stuff for the student actors to read. So—
SFSA: “You daren’t look me in the eyes […] D’you think I don’t know why? You—a gentleman! Insolence, ignorance, and dirt! Your sport the cockpit and bearpit, gambling, and obscenity, making a beast of yourself with drink and debauching.”
ANNIE (incensed): Hey! There is NO need to bring up my drinking. I’m just trying to—
SFSA: “My moral art avoids your tidy little mind altogether until it has fed your blood.”
ANNIE: Jesus, you’re taking this really personally.
SFSA (bitingly): “That’s just it. Here I am the one person who could save this House and you bind my hands. You couldn’t condemn a man to such a purgatory, Morell.”
ANNIE: My name is ANNIE. And if you would just listen to what I’m trying to tell you—
SFSA: “This pain!… this pain!… All the words in the world cannot appease this pain! (louder) This pain! (crying out) This Pain!… There are flames, there is a fire within me!… Where then … where is the means to put it out?”
ANNIE: I hate weeding the thespians.
SFSA: “Say it ain’t so, dearie, say it ain’t so. (is now vigorously powdering her ample bosom again)”
ANNIE: It’s not so! Just be quiet for a minute and let me—
SFSA: “You’ve done a terrible thing: you opened my eyes and heart—and you never touched me. It hurt—every bit of it hurt—how could it not hurt, it was so beautiful!”
ANNIE: All right, you made me do this: SHHHHHH! We’re not getting rid of you! We just bought some updated plays and we have to shift you to make room. That’s what I’ve been trying to say.
SFSA: “That’s the nicest thing you ever said to me, Mary.”
ANNIE: My. Name. Is. Annie.
SFSA: “I suppose you feel kind of lost … You mustn’t feel lost, though. I mean, that will wear off. Life isn’t going to be empty from now on. It’s going to be fuller than ever! And richer! For both of us, Sam! Think!”
ANNIE (fatigued): You know what? Stay here. I don’t care. I just want to get the hell out of the 792s and move on with my life.
SFSA: “Still I don’t know. Sometimes, I think maybe it’s just the way I play the saxophone. Tell me, it isn’t that, Bill. Tell me, I’ve got to know. Tell me, it isn’t just the way I play the saxophone?”
ANNIE: That makes absolutely no sense. (Exits.)
SFSA: “Hello? Hello? (sniffling…) She—she never considers me. It never occurred to her to kiss me goodbye.”
HOME ECONOMICS—Jackson, Carole
—Clothi
ng, Fashion, and Relationships
—Colors!
Dear Color Me Beautiful,
Maybe there are other people who’ve forgotten about the most important revolution of the ’80s, but I remember. The Color Revolution. As in, doing your colors. As in, “Banish anything navy in this house immediately! We’re dyeing everything that ends up next to my face deep rose! I’ve just discovered—I’m a Summer!”
Even my mother can’t remember and she’s the one who bought you. (She’s a Spring. PS: but you’ve got her pencil markings so you already knew that.) But I’ll never forget. My beauty ideals are rooted in between your pages.
My mom and sisters didn’t keep magazines around the house when I was little. We all wore hand-me-downs from the ladies in my dad’s office, who knew he had four daughters and piled the back of our station wagon with garbage bags full of pantsuits and “silk-like” blouses. As a young child, when I wasn’t wearing a forty-year-old woman’s suit jacket and the Save the Rainforest culottes my mom made me (special occasion), I could usually be found in an oversize Boblo Island T-shirt with no pants (casual). What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t have a ton of style inspiration at my fingertips. I coveted the hair accessories on Kids Incorporated, but we only got the Disney Channel on free weekends. It was hard to keep up with trends.
But there was you. With your color photos and charts, quizzes and makeup tips. I sat for hours with you determining my Color History. It actually doesn’t take that long to evaluate your history when you’re seven, but I was still sounding out words back then. I came to a sure and enduring conclusion: I’m a Winter. Just like Sally Field. How glorious.
We’ve grown older together. And I can tell you this. In the twenty-odd years since I’ve read you, I have NEVER worn tan or terra-cotta red. That’s loyalty. Could your makeup suggestions use an update? Sure. There’s not a lot of smoked-teal eye shadow happening today. But your revolution remains relevant. I’ve noticed that J-Lo only wears, like, four different colors—she’s an Autumn. She may not say it, but you know she’s got a copy of you somewhere in a vault with her vials of goat-placenta potions and diamond cream.