Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness

by Jennifer Tseng

  The second thorn was more difficult to isolate. Perhaps it was his dark eye darting up to meet mine or its swift flight down to the card; perhaps I had taken subconscious note of his anxiety or had harbored the recognition all along. Regardless, what pierced me was knowledge: I had gained his attention. His hand trembled slightly as he held it out to take the new card. With that, I went flying off track like a boy’s slot car, only to find myself being lifted up and placed onto another track. Though I could sense the dangerous curves and revolutions looming ahead, I drove on, cleaving like a magnet to the new track, powered by a hidden electricity that I can only describe in retrospect as joy.

  As soon as the door shut behind him, shamelessly, in a fever, I related the incident to my co-worker Nella, whose untidy desk was nearby. She had been the only other librarian to see him. I appealed to her in much the same way that a mourner, once her loved one has departed, appeals to the living for anecdotal information, anything that might keep the memory of her loved one alive. Though unlike such mourners I was ecstatic. For my beloved—far from being dead—had just been born. When at first I asked Nella for her opinion of him she yielded nothing. It was only when I pressed her further that she finally surrendered in a disinterested voice that he reminded her of Var—a disappointing remark that was of no use to me.

  While Nella was on break, I accosted my supervisor Siobhan (the quiet, sardonic head of circulation with whom I was quite close) and described, in painfully hushed tones, the scene afresh for her. I pulled the young man’s record up so that she might see his lovely, hyphenated name in full and so that I might receive the thrill of seeing his name being seen by another. Such were my dessert-like pleasures in the beginning.

  Siobhan’s first reaction to my news that I had developed a “patron crush” was a dubious question: “Is that legal?,” her face flushed a little by the possibility. I answered promptly in the affirmative and carefully framed my narrative so as to underscore its element of pure fantasy. Mine was a fantasy I wouldn’t dare pursue and what I told then was the truth.

  Here I must add that Siobhan had always been a moral compass on the staff. Though far from hindering me, this fact somehow heightened my sense of excitement in telling her. Virtuous as she was, Siobhan was no miser with affection; there was in that upright heart of hers a tendency toward openness, her heart so dense with compassion that I nicknamed her Pema. (She later retaliated by calling me The Lowly Lady Nabokov, never guessing how very lowly I had become.) When I came to the bit about the young man’s voice, she let out a little gasp. We shared an appreciation of the same film star! Her open heart opened further still.

  The procuring of a sympathetic audience was perhaps my first misstep. Though at the time my logic ran counter to that: Wouldn’t I, by revealing myself to others, be ensuring my own accountability? Surely I wouldn’t dare approach a young man in broad daylight under my co-workers’ knowing, watchful eyes! Such logic dictated the more co-workers I told, the better. There were only three out of eight librarians to whom I failed to confess. One was a man whose sad eyes, in the presence of children, shone with a pedophilic twinkle and who wore, but did not activate, a hearing aid that resembled a doll’s liver; he was a man who might have understood all too well my predicament but with whom it was difficult if not impossible to discreetly share secrets. Another librarian had a schedule whose shifts rarely overlapped with mine, though if our shifts had coincided I might still never have confessed, for my feelings towards her were cool and it was always with heat and affection that I spoke of the young man. The last was someone I was quite fond of, someone to whom I often considered confessing but whose sense of propriety won out in the end. She became, for me, an emblem of Reality (Moral Implications, Possible Jail Time etc.) incompatible with my Fantasy, whether lived out or not. All the rest knew and I rather think they enjoyed themselves as I brought them along for a ride on my shiny black track.

  A week passed. Every morning I left the apartment at 9:00 under the pretense that my shift began at 9:15 when in fact it began at 10:00. The senior librarians prepared the library for the public and I was merely expected to arrive before the doors opened. During Maria’s infancy this omission had seemed the easiest way to procure time for myself and once I had built the time in, it was difficult to give up. Not once did Var question me about it. (What a pleasant change it was from our usual battles over time! What freedom my small deception afforded me!)

  I walked in my cross-trainers down the state road. (I had become the kind of woman who walks to work in hideous yet comfortable shoes and changes into another slightly less hideous, considerably less comfortable pair when she arrives, the kind of woman who ensures that she has something, however trifling—a stroll in comfortable shoes while reading a novel by twilight—to look forward to at the end of every day.) Most mornings, instead of going to the library, I turned left on Music Street then left again on a small dirt road that led to the woods.

  The trail in was tunnellike; the trees on either side arched to meet one another. It was a private trail leading to private land. As soon as I set my foot upon it two large dogs barked distantly yet viciously in response, giving the torpid ox of my pulse its daily whipping. The NO TRESPASSING sign nailed to one of the trees gave me a start as well, though I had once been warmly invited by the owner to walk there for the purpose of showing Maria the “magical fairyland.” Still, I felt I was violating an unspoken agreement. The owner had never said outright that I could visit it alone. I speculated hopefully that if the woman had a sliver of a heart (surely people who used the phrase “magical fairyland” were endowed with at least that), if she had known the extent to which her forbidden preserve daily drew the iron weight of my body out of bed like a restorative magnet, she would have forgiven my trespasses.

  The last bit of tunnel was downhill and at the bottom the trees gave way to a large rushy pond upon whose surface there was often, gliding serenely, a glossy profusion of ducks that then fled in a frantic green and black flapping. A wooden bridge carried one over the pond’s edge, over the top of a waterfall. One could follow the trail down to a stone bench at the base of the falls or follow it deeper into the forest and cross over a series of modest bridges—most of them single planks of wood or flat stones, all of which crossed the small river that traversed, like a black artery, the body of the forest, bringing fresh blood to some remote, unseen heart.

  The owner had set out candles and wind chimes along the way, presumably for the enjoyment of children and/or romantics. The long series of bridges ended with one very long plank that led to a wooden deck complete with wooden bench, large candle, and stone statue of the Buddha, a place where such visitors could give thanks for their good fortune.

  When I visited the fairyland alone, I rarely got as far as the Buddha or even the planks and the stones. I walked from the top of the waterfall down to the stone bench where I sat, (suddenly Buddha-like myself), and watched the water flow. What bliss! What aananda! I could have stared at the waterfall for hours though I typically had seven minutes before it was time for me to report to the library, my fear always that, while I sat bathing in oblivion, my watch would stop and I would unwittingly be late.

  * * *

  By the time the young man came in again he had incurred fines totaling $12.00. I had the sorry job of informing him that he had exceeded the $10.00 limit and would not be permitted to check out materials until he paid. He was attempting to check out Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which struck me simultaneously as trash and (for a boy his age) a cult classic. (Queer how trash that endures comes to be regarded as classic.)

  As gently as I could I said, “The limit on fines is $10.00. You could pay $2.00 and bring food in for the food pantry for the rest next time.” Eager to give him a way out, I realized too late I had offended him.

  “I have money,” he announced and quickly withdrew from his pant pocket a black leather billfold, the sort that fathers carry. His nail-
bitten fingers shook as he slid the crisp ten and two ones from the wallet and handed them to me. The bills looked as if they’d earlier been removed from the inside of a child’s birthday card.

  “Thank you,” I said, feeling already a pang of guilt. “You know we don’t charge fines for books,” I teased. “So if you ever check out a book, you won’t need to worry about fines.”

  He half smiled and said slowly—he almost always spoke slowly—in a voice that brought to mind a chain being dragged through a gravel pit on a dark night, “We have so many books in our house, I can’t imagine ever needing to borrow one from a library.” He looked down at the green book request cards and a wave of hair fell like a small curtain over his eyes.

  Did I detect a bit of defensiveness in his reply? Had I overestimated my own power? I thought for the first time of the sociology of illicit affairs between adults and minors, parents and children, teachers and students, employers and employees. The term power differential returned to me from textbooks I had read during my college years. It seemed that I had intimidated him simply by being who I was, the vision of myself as “a middle-aged librarian” suddenly clear to me as the now familiar lump under his lip. (Was I really middle-aged?! If I lived to be one hundred, technically I wouldn’t reach the middle until fifty.) If only he knew I was the last woman on earth who might be impressed by the existence of money in his wallet. Not for a moment had I doubted his capacity to produce such an emblem of maturity. Nor did I doubt his level of literacy or care if he ever checked out a book. If only he knew that I had complete (though completely unfounded) faith in his intelligence. This was an essential part of what drew me to him: my profound sense of the person he was, the person I would certainly discover if only I had the opportunity.

  And yet clearly this intuiting was not mutual. On the contrary he perceived me as someone to whom he must say: I have money. I read books. Was this the much-writ about power differential at play or was it merely one young man’s insecurities? It was impossible to tell, so I resolved to try to be more sensitive the next time. We hadn’t even touched hands and I was beginning to learn that one of the virtues of having a much younger lover is that one is poised to be patient. One enjoys the kind of loving tolerance one has for one’s child. The awareness that he or she hasn’t lived, and so can’t possibly know, underlies everything. Before we had uttered one another’s names, the power differential bred mercy.

  * * *

  The young man began visiting the library approximately once a week, a frequency that, it occurred to me later, likely corresponded to the avoidance of fines if it corresponded to anything. At first, to my anxious, inquisitive mind, he seemed to alternate between Mondays and Thursdays, but in truth there was never a perfect pattern. His only fairly reliable habit was that he nearly always arrived five or ten minutes before closing, so that there was never as leisurely a feel to our interactions as I would have liked. Between encounters, I would pine openly for a glimpse of him with certain of my co-workers. When he happened, inauspiciously, to visit the library in my absence, Siobhan would discreetly let me know and bring his record up so that together we might view his current items and comment upon them.

  I confess I watched the door, my black head swerving like a tire each time it opened. I avoided being assigned to the children’s room and the basement, for these were sections of the library he never visited. It was difficult enough when I was assigned to the main room to somehow ensure, without drawing attention, that it was I who helped him and not another librarian.

  On one occasion, I was on the phone and saw him coming. I worked to extinguish the conversation so that I might be released to greet him. He was still a fair distance from the desk and walking at a moderate pace. There was no reason why I shouldn’t be free in time. I persisted in keeping my answers clipped, my tone final, but there was no end to the maniac’s list of questions. I considered hanging up. It is physically painful to be torn between one’s professional obligation to a disembodied voice and the desire to move closer to one’s approaching Adonis. I felt the pain in my chest. As if a high pitch was being struck; my glass heart threatened to shatter. Heroically, with a smile on my face, I fought to end the conversation and was about to emerge victorious when the library director, stylish, effective (though, unaware as she was of the young man’s special status, tragically ineffective for my purposes), smiling broadly, held out her hand to take his card.

  The unrelenting caller chattered on. I gave up, it was too late anyhow, so I surrendered to being a receptacle for his words and used the phone pressed to my ear as a cover, a perch from which I might surreptitiously watch the young man as he waited in fidgety silence for the director to check out his films. In the end, this mishap proved beneficial for I saw that he was tensely aware of me for the duration. His dark eyes glanced sideways in my direction as I held the phone and at last crept up to meet mine. We smiled hello. We were too far away to be in conversation.

  The director remarked, referring to the comedies he was borrowing, “I bet you’ll have fun with these!” We were friendly librarians. Whether or not she was being flirtatious, whether or not she found him attractive, I couldn’t be sure, but it was difficult to believe otherwise. That she was happily married to a stone butch by the name of Tony and old enough to be the young man’s grandmother did nothing to alter my blind vision of him as universally irresistible. (Biologically speaking, I too was old enough to have accomplished such a feat, though I would have had to have been a very early bloomer and I had been nothing of the sort. Perhaps this, I thought with satisfaction, had been the reason all along for my retarded development. Of course boarding at the Hatfield School for Girls hadn’t helped.)

  This incident provided me with yet another reason to disseminate my secret to the staff. After he’d gone, I lightly informed the director—who was a playfully good sport—of the young man’s special status. She apologized extravagantly and promised in typical mensch fashion that next time she would leave him to me (assuming she would recognize him, which, as it turned out, she would not). The well-meaning director’s oblivion aside, my colleagues (Nella in particular, who could easily have had a second career as an air traffic controller so strict was her visual command of the front walkway) were immensely helpful during this initial phase of the relationship.

  Despite my daily vigils I was surprisingly slow to detect his approach. I was a worker who tended toward engrossment regardless of the frivolity of my task. I was easily captivated by the filling out of forms, the slicing of paper into squares, the placing of books in their proper order. And I was so intent upon the thought of his arrival that I often missed the actual moment he arrived. More often than not, it was Nella who alerted me as she glanced out the window over her blue-stemmed glasses, a slight frown on her face, “Your prayers have been answered.”

  Imagine my alarm when a week later it was I who saw him approach through the picture window, accompanied by, of all people, his mother (Siobhan had been quick to identify her as such just a few weeks before). I was at once overjoyed to see him and mortified by the prospect of encountering him in the presence of someone who would be a walking, talking reminder of the chronological chasm between us, a woman who would have every right to hate me if she knew my thoughts.

  “My God,” I said to Nella under my breath, “he’s with his mother.”

  She looked coolly at the winsome pair and then at me without expression. Firmly, she pressed the bridge of her glasses into place as if to say: Everything’s fine. Don’t panic.

  Before I had time to think further, Mother and Son were in the front door. I needn’t have worried about those first few minutes of contact for as they passed the front desk the young man kept his head down like a convict while his mother managed a strained smile and said hello. She was very pretty (one could easily trace the lineage) though discrepantly ill at ease, exuding as she did an odd combination of beauty and unhappiness (shades of Rachel Ward’
s bone structure displaying the tentative, agony-shaped sulk of Emily Dickinson—any heterosexual priest with a pulse would have found her appealing). It was the first time I had seen either of them in the company of another. As they made their way toward the DVDs, I stifled an urge to run out of the building. I suppressed my mounting anxiety in an effort to quickly reason out the best way to handle our impending encounter.

  They were lovely together. Both dark-haired and dark-eyed. I felt the inappropriate urge to photograph them. She stepped up to the counter and he hung back a bit. I was reminded of the way a mother is tied to her infant in the early days; when the infant cries, the woman’s insides contract. The thread was still there between them, I could see it in the way she led and he followed, the relief with which he allowed himself to be released from the obligation to speak. It surprised me that he was clearly more relaxed in her presence than he had been alone. One hears stories of teenagers estranged from or embarrassed by their parents. In this respect, he was more like a younger child who constantly tracks the mother for comfort and is on edge when she is out of sight. He seemed, if anything, grateful for her protection, for the opportunity to be in proximity to me without the pressure to converse, near me and yet safe from my advances.

  They spoke in soft, teasing murmurs.

  “You haven’t seen this?” he laughed, pointing to one of the films.

  “You know I don’t sit around all day watching stuff.” She seemed to be hinting at the fact that he did, but either he didn’t notice or he didn’t mind.