“Mostly avoiding,” said Hamel. He gave an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders. “I don’t mind sitting here by myself. ” He shifted his position in the chair, tried to think of something else to say, but couldn’t. So he repeated himself, trying to sound casual and offhand about the subject. “I don’t really mind at all.”
The librarian nodded her head. “I like people,” she said, “in small doses. Like fudge. You break it into little pieces that sit on your tongue and just melt — that’s the best way to enjoy fudge.” She smiled at Hamel again. Then she looked at her watch, shook her head and said, “I’ve got to get back to my desk to close up.”
She turned to go, then hesitated and asked, “Will you be coming in tomorrow night?” Hamel nodded yes, with no consideration to any previous plans or commitments. Not that he had many of them anyway.
“Good,” she said. “I’ll see you then.” She walked away, through the narrow stacks. Hamel watched her go until she turned and disappeared at the stairwell.
He did not get up immediately, even though he knew the library would close in minutes. He simply stared at the space she’d occupied moments before, felt a warmth in his face, and mentally ran through every moment of the last few minutes, from the instant she’d said Hi. He examined every word she said, tried to recall clearly every movement and gesture. Then he looked down, at his notes and his books and the blank piece of note paper that was supposed to contain the start of his philosophy paper. He closed his eyes for just a second, opened them, and packed up his things to leave.
On his way out the door, he looked back to see the librarian leaning over some papers at her desk. She didn’t look up. He hesitated just a second, considered stopping by her desk to say good-bye, but didn’t. He opened the door and left.
Hamel returned to the library the next evening about thirty minutes earlier than the day before. He glanced toward the desk, irrationally hoping that the librarian would somehow be available to join him as he walked up the stairs, would take time to talk with him, would focus her attention on him.
When Hamel saw that another person was in her place, behind the desk, disappointment surged through him. He took his usual path toward the stairs, but continued to look back at the desk as if visual concentration alone might change the picture.
He walked slowly up the stairs but his thoughts were racing: Why wasn’t she where he’d expected to see her? What was going on? Was this some kind of mean trick she was playing on him, telling him that she’d see him when she’d known she wasn’t working that night?
Hamel turned the questions over and over in his mind, looking at them from different angles, imagining conversations with the librarian, considering different responses to whatever she might say.
He was surprised at how much her absence from her desk bothered him. He sat at the study carrel and fidgeted, shuffling books and papers. He stood and looked out the window, watched students crossing the campus, became annoyed at himself for even reacting this way. He sat back down, wanting to focus on his philosophy paper as a distraction from the feelings running through him.
Chief among those was a sense of unease that something had changed in his life and he had no control over it. Which made no sense to Hamel. Yesterday, he’d walked into the library as always, not even bothering to look toward the front desk. Today, less than twenty-four hours later, his mood had darkened, his ability to focus considerably worsened, simply because a person, a woman, that he had just met, was not where he expected her to be. Hamel considered this incomprehensible.
He wanted to do something — but he could not think of any single action he could take that would change how he was feeling.
He realized that he had no way to get in touch with her. But, more significantly, Hamel also knew that he had no idea what he would say to her anyway. Hamel shook his head, as if it would clear his mind from the tumult of half-formed thoughts colliding inside his brain.
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