by Sarah Title
“There’s a whole box of them?”
Liz hesitated. “There are several.”
Bernie put her head back on her desk. If she couldn’t go to the bathroom to cry, she could at least pretend she was hiding.
“Sweetie, I’m so sorry. We won’t use them. I didn’t plan on using them. They’re . . . they’re not great.”
“It’s fine,” Bernie mumbled as she tried to get her shoulders to stop shaking.
“It’s not fine, but I’ll take care of it. But what does this bookmark have to do with the reporter?”
Nothing. Everything. Just her life spinning totally out of her control. Well, at least now her life matched her facial expressions.
“I guess that means you’re not going to ask him out.”
Bernie snorted at Liz’s suggestion, in spite of herself. “Even if I wanted to . . .” She let the rest remain unspoken: that Colin Rodriguez was hot, and hot guys didn’t go out with women who spent less than fifteen minutes getting ready for work. Besides, he wrote for a fashion site. He was probably gay.
Of course, gay men didn’t generally sneak looks at her cleavage.
“Even if you wanted to what?” Liz asked, and Bernie felt a comforting hand on her crooked arm.
“Never mind. He’s a jerk.”
“What did he say?”
Bernie lifted her head and wiped her eyes. She couldn’t help but smile at Liz’s protective tone. “Slow down, Mama Grizzly. He just wants to do a story on me.”
“On the meme?”
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
Bernie took a deep breath. “I mean he wants to do a story where I get a makeover. And then he suggested that he would set up a bunch of dates for me to prove that even the Disapproving Librarian is not undateable.”
Liz’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline, then she burst out laughing.
“What? You think I can’t do a makeover?”
“No, no. I’m just imagining how you must have eaten that poor man alive when he suggested it. You’re very protective of your aesthetic.”
“I don’t have an aesthetic.”
“I know, and you’re very protective of that.”
Bernie waved Liz’s teasing away. “Anyway, I’m not getting a makeover, and I’m not going on dates. He just wants to capitalize on this stupid meme, and I think we’ve probably done enough of that.”
Liz winced. “I can’t believe those bookmarks.”
“Well, if it gets Dean off our backs for finals week . . .” It was just her pride. Nobody died from losing their pride, right?
“Did you know he wants to start a policy review?” Liz asked, swooshing right past Bernie’s broken pride and into professional indignation. “Every single one of our policies.”
“Well . . .”
“I know, I know, you kids and your rethinking libraries. But he wants us to do it this week.”
“This week?”
“Or next. Whichever is more convenient.”
Bernie dropped her head to the pile of papers on her desk. At least she’d be too busy to worry about a little thing like public humiliation.
“I suggested he come work at the reference desk for a few shifts to help us manage the time,” Liz said.
“And he said yes, sure, that would be wonderful?”
“I believe it was more along the lines of, ‘Let’s make this project a priority, blueprint it, and let me know your timeline.’”
“Blueprint is not a verb.”
“Right? But who cares? We’ll fight about policy over the summer. Are you going to do it?”
“Sure, I guess. I’ve been wanting to look at our loan periods—”
“No, the article.”
“What? No! I can’t think of anything more humiliating.”
Liz arched her elbow toward the bookmarks.
“I’m hoping this will just go away soon. You know what will not make it go away? An article that follows me on a month of humiliating, unsuccessful dates.”
“An article?”
And there was Maxwell Dean, hovering in her doorway. Great. Now everyone was here. If she tried, she could probably get her parents on a conference call from Ohio.
“Oh, I’m glad you’ve got some more,” he said, reaching out for the stack of bookmarks on the corner of her desk. “The ones outside are all gone.”
They weren’t really gone, per se. They just hadn’t been put out yet. Bernie watched in fascination as Liz’s gaze narrowed on Dean’s outstretched hand. She thought for sure it would go up in flames. Maybe it would take the bookmarks with it.
“So, tell me about this article,” Dean said, making himself comfortable in the other uncomfortable chair in front of Bernie’s desk with an unburned handful of bookmarks.
Oh, it’s not an article, it’s a series of articles that focuses on all of my physical shortcomings, then another series on the shortcomings of my personality that make me completely repellent to men, Bernie thought. “It has nothing to do with the library,” Bernie said, with a little more heat than she meant to. Dean was an idiot, but he was her boss. Well, her boss’s boss. But she supposed the boss of her boss was still her boss. Either way, she could not, in the interest of keeping her job, tell him that he was an idiot.
“Oh. Can we make it about the library?” he asked.
“No,” Liz and Bernie said together. At least Liz had her back, even if Dean wanted to pimp her out to the city. The idea was ridiculous. The idea that anything good could come of this disaster was even more ridiculous.
So ridiculous.
So why did she get a twinge in her gut whenever she thought about rejecting Colin outright?
It was probably just a twinge of righteous victory. Because there was no way that rejecting his stupid dating idea was anything less than absolutely the right thing to do.
“Well, any exposure is good exposure, right?” Dean said. “Just think, Melissa, you could be our first celebrity librarian.”
Bernie’s eyes went so wide, she thought they’d pop out of her head. Celebrity librarian? That was so not what she signed up for. That was not what anyone who went into librarianship signed up for. Was a celebrity librarian even a thing?
“The article really has nothing to do with the library,” Liz insisted.
“What is it? Maybe we can brainstorm a way to bring it back to our core message.”
Good God. Now her boss’s boss was trying to use her sex life as a way to sell library services. She blinked, hard. No way was she going to cry in front of him. The problem was, when she got frustrated or angry, she cried. The Hulk turned green; Bernie cried. It was humiliating, and she’d had just about enough of that this week. This whole thing was spiraling out of control. It was just a stupid meme.
“You okay, Melissa?” he asked.
Bernie pursed her lips and nodded. She would not cry in front of her director. She would do it in the bathroom, like a normal person.
“Bernie and I were just talking about how she hasn’t taken a vacation in, what, a year or so?”
Liz seemed to be shooting Bernie an encouraging look. Trouble was, Bernie had no idea what Liz wanted her to say. “I’ve never taken a vacation,” she said. Which was mostly true. She hadn’t used any of her leave time since she’d started at Richmond. She just took short weekend trips to the woods when she needed a break. Then, when she came back, her face was plastered all over the Internet.
She blinked again, hard. She would not cry. Once per day was her professional limit.
“Really? Never?” Dean looked surprised. “That’s not healthy.”
“No, it’s not,” Liz agreed. “That’s why I’m encouraging her to take the rest of the week off.”
“The rest of the week?” she squeaked. Next week was finals week. It would be nuts in the library, and there was a lot to do to prep for that. There was no way she’d leave Liz alone to deal with it, no matter how many dumb self-ies she had to take with students.
She felt something wet on her cheek. She hoped the ceiling was leaking. But it was probably a tear.
“That’s too bad. I was hoping to . . .” Dean waved the bookmarks around vaguely. “But I guess if this was already scheduled.”
“Already scheduled and booked,” Liz said. “We were just talking about whether or not she could afford that and the three weeks after that.”
“Three weeks!”
“It’s just that, if she doesn’t take it, it won’t roll over into next year.”
One of the libraries farther down the coast had just gone through the process of unionization. It hadn’t come up at Richmond yet, but the situation had made Dean very sensitive about employee benefits.
Which must have been the reason why he told Bernie, “Bernie, I insist you use your leave time.”
“But—”
“The only time I want to see your face for the next . . . for the next month—a whole month!—is on one of these clever bookmarks. So I’m going to restock the desk while you two, uh . . .”
Dean whizzed out of their office so fast, it was funny. Bernie would have laughed if she could have stopped crying.
“Liz! I can’t leave you to this mess all by yourself. There’s no way. Finals!”
“Bernie, you’re a sweet girl, but the world does not fall apart when you’re gone. Go. You need a break. Anyone would under the circumstances. And by the time you get back, everyone will have forgotten about that silly meme.”
“But—”
“And if the library does fall apart, think how fun it will be to take on a new construction project!”
“Liz—”
“Bernie. You need this.”
Bernie sighed. She did need a break, a real one. She thought fondly of the stack of books by her nightstand. Maybe she could even go somewhere. Surely she had enough money to do an airbnb at a beach somewhere. She could go to the beach, read books for a few weeks, and come back to a world where nobody remembered that stupid Disapproving Librarian.
“And think about doing that article. It would do you good to get out,” Liz said, and she was through the door before she could see the look on Bernie’s face.
Chapter Seven
COLIN WAS NOT USED TO REJECTION. He had been lectured on privilege by Steph many (many!) times before, but awareness of his privilege did not make its absence any easier to take.
He used to be able to just turn on the charm and get whatever he wanted. Mostly from women, but he wasn’t unable to charm his fellow fellows as well.
In just one week, he’d been rejected by the same woman twice.
What was that word for doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result each time?
And now Pia would be right. Pia, who’d probably learned to tie her shoes just last week. Pia, who ate chocolate cereal for lunch every day. Pia, who had a different matching notebook for every outfit she wore. Pia was right.
The worst part—worse than Pia being right—was that he’d been excited about the story. He was intrigued by Bernie, even when she was biting his head off. Every little thing in life that he’d ever taken for granted about women was contradicted in Bernie. He had been looking forward to finding out what made her tick. Plus, it was nice to see everyone at Glaze so excited about a project. The clothes, the makeup. And everyone was on board to see what kind of fireworks would happen when Bernie was polished up and unleashed upon the city.
Except now that wasn’t going to happen.
Oh, and he’d probably lose his job.
At least Pia hadn’t had any success with the librarian, either. Although given what he now knew about Bernie, he wouldn’t be surprised if she did the story with Pia just to spite him.
Yeah, Colin, because the woman who wanted to avoid publicity would suddenly change her mind in favor of his rival just to spite him.
He wondered if, when he was jobless and homeless, his inner voice would continue to sound so annoyingly like Steph.
At least he still had his anonymous advice blog in which he pretended to be someone he was not in order to tell people what to do.
Dear Maria,
What the hell have I been doing with my life?
The Man in Your Inner Monologue
Dear The Man,
I have no friggin’ idea.
Kisses,
Maria
“WANT ANOTHER?”
Colin looked up at the bartender. He’d been chewing his cud so long, he hadn’t noticed that he’d finished his beer.
At least his unconscious mind would get what it wanted.
Which was a drink.
He ordered another beer and turned to survey the crowd.
Mostly men, especially this early in the day. Steph still couldn’t believe that his neighborhood bar of choice was a gay bar, but what did she know? He could walk home from here—which he frequently did—and the place was just a hole-in-the-wall pub, the last place in San Francisco that wasn’t a gastropub or a fusion cuisine or a brewery that served small batches brewed in the bathtub. Not that he had a problem with those kinds of places. He loved those kinds of places. But those places were work.
This place didn’t have shared work spaces and interns who were after his job and a boss who would gladly give away that job if he couldn’t convince a librarian to put on some damn lipstick. Besides, he was around women all day. It was nice to go to a place where he didn’t accidentally learn about different absorbencies of tampons.
What the hell was he doing with his life? Fighting with a child for bylines. Going out and partying with strangers. Hiding from women in a gay bar.
The one thing he really liked to do was Maria. It made no sense. He didn’t feel like he particularly related to older women, or that an older woman lived inside of him. It was just . . . fun. He could pass on advice from a guy’s perspective without, well, being a guy. When he was writing as Maria, he felt like he could really be unfiltered. He wasn’t beholden to advertisers or his reputation as Colin Rodriguez, Studly Reporter Guy.
And if he didn’t deliver on this story, there would be no more Studly Reporter Guy. There would just be Maria. And Maria was a side project; there was no way Maria could be more than that. The whole point of Maria was that she was a side project. He’d be out of a job in one of the most competitive markets in the country, and his parents would probably kick him out of the house and tell him that if he wanted free rent, he would have to move down to San Diego to live with them, and then he’d be stuck babysitting his brother’s kids and helping the old people in his parents’ development hook up their computers.
He shuddered. He needed this story. Even though talking to Bernie again made elderly tech support seem like a tempting option.
No, he needed this story.
First, he needed another beer.
Chapter Eight
Dear Maria,
I pride myself on having very strong principles, but an opportunity has presented itself and I am tempted to take advantage of it, even though it goes against everything I stand for. What should I do?
Thinking of Selling Out in the Richmond
Dear Sellout,
Let me get one thing out of the way and say that if the thing you are tempted to do is not legal, then I might suggest you get your rocks off in some other way.
There. That’s out of the way. Now, most people might think this is a question of the head versus the heart: your principles lie in your head, but your desires lie in your heart. This ignores the fact that principles come from somewhere, right? And if these principles are things you truly believe in (assuming you’re not being brainwashed by some cultlike society, in which case, see my answer from the first paragraph), then they come just as much from your heart as your desires do.
So . . . which do you do?
Is it possible this is not an either-or situation? You seem to look at the world like it’s black and white, but honey, it’s all different shades of gray. It’s not shady (ha!) to live in t
hose gray areas. That’s where all the interesting stuff happens.
Unless we’re talking about something illegal, in which case, I would like to remind the authorities that these questions are anonymous and therefore I should not be considered an accessory.
Kisses,
Maria
IT WOULD DO HER GOOD TO GET OUT, Liz said. She needed to get laid, Marcie said. What’s the worst that can happen? a tiny little voice in the back of her head asked. Can it really get any worse than it is now? What would Maria say?
“What is my threshold for public humiliation?” she asked Starr, her next-door neighbors’ toy poodle who Bernie sometimes liked to pretend she coparented. She’d stopped by Maddie and Al’s after work, as she often did. She liked to check up on them because they were elderly, and, conveniently, Maddie was a fabulous and generous baker and they let her borrow the dog for long walks. It was good for the dog, they said.
They had no idea the dog was also part therapist.
“Clearly my threshold for public humiliation is high since I am talking to a dog,” she said to Starr as the dog sniffed a particularly offensive blade of grass. Inside the restaurant they were walking past, kids were smacking the glass and making faces at Starr. The parents were making a face at Bernie, which meant they’d seen her talking to herself. She was half tempted to go in and explain that she wasn’t talking to herself, she was talking to the dog. Then she heard what that sounded like and gave Starr a gentle tug so they could move on.
“And now Maria says it’s a good idea,” Bernie told Starr, who looked up at her briefly, then continued on her happy trot down the street. They got to the little neighborhood park that was always empty this time of day, and she let Starr water the lawn a little before she sat down on the nearest bench.
Starr investigated the grass under the bench to make sure it was an acceptable place to sit, then she hopped up on Bernie’s lap, circled three times, and lay down with a sigh.
“It’s wrong to get advice from some anonymous old lady on the Internet, right?” Bernie asked. “But then, is it really that much more wrong than asking the cutest, sweetest dog in the world and yes, yes, I’m talking about you and your face,” she said, adding a vigorous rub behind the ears for emphasis.