Checking Out Love

Four Oaks was half an hour from the university by freeway, or twenty or so minutes down a winding hill alongside a nature preserve. Jeremy managed it in about eighteen, taking the turns on his bike in a way that would have panicked his mother. She would have preferred he ride the train rather than use his little motorcycle on crowded freeways or narrow, curvy roads. But the train would have taken too long, and anyway, this was one of his ventures that his mother was never going to find out about.

He’d been to the town once before for a gathering at a professor’s house. Four Oaks was a suburb, first of the university, then the other nearby colleges. Then, as the rent prices went up in the cities, it felt like everyone had fled to the surrounding areas. He could see why the place had been popular with the professor set for so long though. Four Oaks was laid out in neat lines. Near the center an old clock tower stood guard in the town square, and every little avenue and boulevard he noted along the main road had lots of Victorian-style buildings and cute shops, in addition to the necessary coffee house chains.

He wasn’t totally out of place on his royal blue, rust-spotted bike, but he did slow down to a safe speed limit as he took in the amount of kids and teenagers running around with restless energy. They were spending more on sugary iced coffees than he probably spent on food every month, but such was the glamorous life of a grad student.

The kids were also, by and large, heading in the same direction he was. He stopped at a traffic light and considered this ominous sign. He ought to make certain his directions were correct, but forgot all about consulting his phone when he looked over and realized that
had
to be his target in front of him.

By target, he meant his destination. Obviously. Jeremy wasn’t out to get the magnificent red brick building taking up the next block. Obviously not. He didn’t have the money to buy a library, especially not a large one, in a historic building, in an upper middle, mostly white, class suburb likes this.

But if he could have figured out a way to buy this one, he would have considered it.

He’d heard things about the private library in Four Oaks, but seeing it was something else. Impressed despite himself, he took off when the light turned green, and followed the stream of cars pulling around the block to the space behind the library. The tiny, cramped parking lot had clearly not been part of the original building plan. Probably because the building itself was from the nineteenth century. No one parked in the street however; everyone was trying to avoid the parking meters.

Some ventured across the street to a café, also overflowing with teens and pre-teens. Others left to circle the block. Jeremy parked at the edge of the lot, in a corner where no car would have fit, near—but not in front of—a No Parking sign.

Beyond the sign, under a willow tree, he saw a short path that led to a building nearly as intriguing as the library: a small, tucked away Painted Lady. The classic red brick of the library would have overshadowed the house if not for the pinks, blues, and mint greens of the scrollwork along the doors and windows, and the absolute sea of flowers on either side of the path.

Jeremy blinked, just a little bit in love already although he’d been raised in a city apartment and would probably die in one. A wooden sign hanging from the railing along the porch read
Four Oaks Historical Society
and instructed those interested to contact the library information desk if they needed to make an appointment. The quirky, asymmetrical Victorian had been restored and repainted some time recently, but he’d bet those windows were the original single-paned glass, or something close. He’d freeze on winter nights, he decided, but sighed happily when he saw the tall column of the chimney.

Then he noticed the rocking chair on the porch, complete with a long-haired orange cat. The cat was studying him… judging him. The cat was right to judge. Jeremy was getting ahead of himself again, big time. The Painted Lady that was the Four Oaks Historical Society—and apparently someone’s home—was so far out of his reach it was laughable. Not to mention he was only visiting the town, not moving here.

He probably wouldn’t enjoy doing research on that porch on a sunny day, maybe a Sunday, so the library parking lot would be quieter. And living across the street from a quaint café? Who wanted that? They probably had lousy coffee that his imaginary future boyfriend wouldn’t bring him to cheer him on gray days.

He had other things to think about in any case. Like a thesis and his options after that, and his parents’ despair when he tried to explain his interests to them, again and they finally accepted he was never going into the hard sciences. They were worried about his chances in this economy, and he could admit, computer science or engineering
were
slightly safer bets for a career.

Jeremy liked math, he really did. Computers too. Computer languages were like any other system, with rules and limits to determine and bend. But he’d always had this fear if he started staring at numbers, he’d fall in, never to be seen again. They’d find him in a basement apartment, unwashed, hair down to his ass, muttering about Pi and the secrets of the universe.

Now, this library on the other hand. Not even Jeremy’s tricky, non-linear mind was going to get lost in a sturdy, respectable establishment like this one. Clean red brick and white shutters and green, green ivy at odds with the piles of backpacks out front and the laughing teenagers. Those were the popular kids. Those had not been Jeremy’s people, in his high school days. His people were the kids who actually went inside buildings like this one, and gathered in nerdy circles behind the stacks to play card games about wizards when they told their parents they were studying.

Ah, his rebellions had always been so beautifully geeky.

Today, for example. He was supposed to be working on his thesis. Instead he’d heard a rumor and taken off to investigate. In his defense, the rumor was—somewhat—related to his areas of interest, Comp Lit and Linguistics. And playing hooky at a library was hardly even hooky.

He stuck his helmet into his bag, and unzipped his jacket as he walked up the steps to the entrance. He noticed a plaque—of course there was a plaque—announcing the age of the building and mentioning that library used to be the Barrett Mansion before the family had built a larger house on the other side of town. This building had also survived the 1906 quake intact, the plaque went on, although the original fireplaces had not.

Smiling faintly, because it was such a ridiculous little footnote to be proud of that it instantly became charming, Jeremy strode inside the building.

The noise was the first thing that struck him. Everyone was using their proper library hushed voices, but that didn’t matter when there were so many of them. It seemed the Barrett Library was the center of after-school activity in Four Oaks. He paused to note the rooms off to the side, opened up and filled with long tables. The teenagers seemed to be gathered there. The circulation desk was in the center space by the entrance, occupied by two white ladies in their twenties and an overgrown philodendron resting on what looked like an actual lace doily. On his other side, in what had probably been parlors a long time ago, everything was colorful and soft. Much younger children were running amok. Farther ahead, beyond rows of computer stations, he saws stacks of books, probably fiction. Chairs and benches lined the walls, many of them in sunny windows.

To one side a staircase led to the second floor. The second level contained the Barrett Library’s real claim to fame—the Madeline Canales-Barrett Special Collections Library.

Nonetheless, Jeremy hesitated. The Barrett Library and the university had an arrangement so students and professors could use the small, private library’s resources. Jeremy was allowed to not only check out books here if he needed, but to access the rare books and artifacts in the collection. 

However, venturing up those stairs was something attempted only by the brave or the desperate. Somewhere in this building, possibly up those very stairs, lurked the Beast, a librarian so notoriously strict—it was rumored—he had gotten more than one disrespectful student banned for life from not only this library, but the university’s as well.

That shouldn’t have been possible for anything short of sex in the stacks, which, let’s face it, was a far more common occurrence than the university liked to pretend. Jeremy sincerely doubted anyone was permanently banned for it. He found it far more likely the guilty ones who got caught were simply too embarrassed to return.

Jeremy had personally never fucked anyone in the stacks, not for a lack of trying. The problem with being one of those people fascinated by everything was that he annoyed those humans around him who didn’t think it was fun to learn and question and talk about woolly caterpillars or geographic profiling, or shoes and ships and ceiling wax, whatever. By date three, Jeremy was usually left alone with his running thoughts and his dashed visions of weddings and white picket fences.

Ah well. He was young. And in the meantime, he had school, and interesting side trips like this one. Jeremy had been meaning to sneak a look at the Beast for over a year now, but between work, his internship, and his studies, hadn’t had the time. He hadn’t needed anything from the Barrett Library either, until yesterday, when his friend had mentioned a diary in the special collection.

In the nineteenth century, the Mexican general Canales had lived in the area, and his teenage daughter Rosa had kept a diary. At fourteen or fifteen, Rosa had taken an interest in the various languages around her, from Spanish and English to the Cantonese and Pidgin English of the Chinese laborers, even the remaining Native place names, and written them all down. She had also, in between all the usual thoughts of a young girl, created her own language out of them, for a fantastic world she made up. If that was true, that was some Tolkien-level shit and Jeremy needed to see it.

He could brave the Beast for that, and straightened his glasses at the thought. He slipped on a scarlet beanie as he headed up the stairs, mostly to hide his helmet hair, but the temperature was also cooler inside the old building. The stairs creaked too, despite the carpeting, showing the library’s age.

He liked that. The history, however domestic and ordinary, of this place. The
pride
in the history of this place. Like knowing that a young girl had been interested in learning about the languages spoken by the Chinese men who had helped build both this country and this state. She’d found those men worthy of study, worthy of remembrance, and knowing that gave Jeremy a connection to this building too, although his family hadn’t come here until the early twentieth century.

The second floor was markedly different in attitude from the first. Jeremy considered the open space, the walls that must have been knocked down decades before to leave so much room for the bookshelves and large tables. Sunlight filtered in through blinds on the windows, much like downstairs, although there was a noticeable lack of couches or soft benches. The tables were of dark polished wood, with brass lamps in the center and little cups filled with pencils. The carpet was red and thick enough to dampen the sound of footsteps. No children or teenagers were to be seen.

The stacks around him seemed to be heavy, leather-bound reference books that couldn’t be left downstairs amid all the families and chaos. Jeremy momentarily forgot his quest for the diary and slipped down the nearest aisle to scan the titles.

He reached the end, turned the corner, and headed down a new row, his heart thumping madly to notice the complete absence of dust. The Beast
had
to be real.

He swung around the end, nearly knocking over a Bird’s Nest fern on a tall stand, but saving it with one graceful sidestep. He twisted to make sure he had a hold of his bag and his bulky helmet, and jumped when his shoulder bumped into something large and unexpectedly solid.

The sound of books hitting the floor, even on the lush carpeting, echoed through the entire space. The few people seated at the tables raised their heads, then quickly lowered them again.

Jeremy finished turning around, then ducked back between the rows of shelves in embarrassment. He knelt down to set his bag on the floor and start gathering up books and heaved a sigh.

“I am so sorry, dude.” He glanced up once, noting black pants and a tall, imposing figure, then tidied up his stack of books so they’d be easier to carry. He rose to his feet in the next second and held it out. “We don’t have to tell the Beast, right?” he hoped out loud, then noticeably froze as he finally took in the man in front of him.

He didn’t know what to focus on first. Height: about six feet. Build: strong, nearly husky but not there yet. Age: about five years or so older than Jeremy. Shoulders: broad as hell. Hair: black or dark brown. Face: perfection. The guy had serious glasses with heavy frames and a knitted lavender cardigan covered in cat hair. The lavender made his eyes seem misty green, something made more dramatic by how they were framed by his dark lashes. He was white, although not pale, and had scruff that was threatening to become a full beard, and which would probably look good on him. Anything would probably look good on him, even Jeremy.

Sadly, he was not Jeremy’s type. Jeremy’s type didn’t draw thick, fuzzy eyebrows together in confusion and take their stack of books back with a soft, annoyed exhalation. Jeremy’s type tended to be as smart as Jeremy was—or close to it—and driven. The kind of jerks who enjoyed challenging him and testing his brain… and then left when they realized he was smarter, or just weirder, than they were.