There was nowhere to sit, so I was in the children's section, even though I felt guilty, hogging the Dr Seuss. One of the young librarians came in, with a pixie haircut, talking on her cellphone with an air of furtiveness. "I know it must be very competitive." She sat down on a tiny children's chair with her thin knees folded up. I doubt this counts as a power pose, as seen on Oprah, the pose you are advised to take in job interviews.
"It is hard to see your own CV very objectively I know." "They don't come up very often do they." "Oh no, that's fine. Thanks so much for getting back to me; you send your CV off into the blue and thank you so much for the feedback because it's hard to see your CV objectively ..." She trailed off. She had already said that once. "Thanks."
She sat for a moment, quietly after the conversation had ended. I squinted at my screen so I wouldn't catch her eye and give her a Duchenne smile of empathy as I doubted she would like to think the whole children's department of the library - really, just me, as the only adult - overheard her being so, so brave.
People are just going through lots of shit all the time aren't they? We keep the show on the road, jazz hands, happy thoughts, gotta laugh but still, little bits of trauma leak out.
When I left, the pixie librarian was talking loudly to someone who seemed to know little English. "You need a bank statement or a power bill." She was almost shouting. Rejection can make the best of us petulant.
In the evening, I was driving home from the gym. Top down on my car, listening to commercial radio. I pull a face, my children put it on, but today I was alone, stopped at the lights by the Northern Club. I don't know where the group had been. They were young and maybe drunk, or just high spirited. Then I noticed the child, dawdling behind. It was after 6pm and quite cold. He looked like he had sore feet and carried a bottle of water. Was he barefoot or crying or maybe I reverse embroidered that bit.
We cobble together our memories anew, every time we retrieve them, did you know that? Neuroscientists are adamant on this point, at least for now. One of the adults, a woman, but seemingly not the child's mother, stopped and waited, reluctantly, for the child to catch up but the others went ahead. Her face showed impatience with the child, then pain.
The others in the group laughed and didn't look back, stranding her on the other side of the road. Her face said: panic. I wanted to know what happened but the lights changed and I pulled away, my V8 engine sounding arrogantly loud.
I couldn't stop thinking about the woman's face, the left-behind face. I had heard of boundary violations - stepping over the line - but I never knew there was such a thing as a distance violation; it's when you have valid grounds to expect someone to be there for you and they are gone. I wonder whether I should have done something, but what?
A rainy day a few weeks ago I stopped and offered a frail-looking lady at a bus stop on College Hill a ride. She said "No! I'm fine!" and looked so angry I felt chastened as I got back in the car. Anyway, I tell myself the boy went home and had a bowl of steaming pasta and a bath with Johnson's baby powder and flannelette pyjamas and got read a story. Maybe Dr Seuss. "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot. Nothing is going to get better. It's not."
