Louisiana Saves the Library (2 page)

“But we don't know for sure yet.”

“No, but they've already given pink slips to the German and Classics instructors. At the end of the semester, they're out of a job.”

Louise set down her plate. She couldn't eat anymore. This was almost worse than when Brendan told her about Julia. She was going to lose the position she'd worked so hard for, the one thing besides the kids that had kept her going after the divorce.

“Time for games!” Trish said, setting the bottles aside.

“Oh God.” Sylvia rolled her eyes and popped another mini cheesecake into her mouth.

C
HAPTER
2

L
ouise couldn't concentrate on the article she was trying to rewrite. She kept looking around her A&M office: the dull off-white walls, scratched metal desk cluttered with papers and pictures of her kids, creaky wooden chair circa 1975, ceiling-high green bookcases overflowing with textbooks and research volumes. It might be a crappy office, but it was
her
crappy office, and she might not have it—or her job—much longer. Now that she was going to lose it, the space seemed especially precious. The professorship was the only real tie she had to the state. Without her job, she'd be lost, not just financially but personally.

Becoming an academic was never her plan, though. Like so many of her life decisions, it had been Brendan's idea.

He didn't fit the profile of a deadbeat dad when Louise met him. They sat together in a German language class during their junior year at the University of Minnesota. He wasn't very good at German, but he had read practically every classic novel and remembered all the characters, plots, and themes. Louise didn't even have to read the assignments for her English class; she could just talk to him and take notes. Besides literature, they spent hours discussing life in general. He was genuinely interested in what she had to say and made her feel, for the first time in her life, that she might actually have worthwhile ideas. That was what she loved about him: the way he listened.

She followed Brendan to Indiana University, where he'd been accepted into graduate school in English literature. Louise landed a job in the university library. She spent sunny days checking in new issues of periodicals in the basement of the frigid building. The pay for the library tech job was so low that it seemed like a waste of time, so Louise decided to get a master's degree. Brendan talked her into the PhD program instead. When they completed their degrees, he was offered a position at the University of Iowa. Since she was already pregnant with Max, Louise stayed home to write articles on the history of public libraries. Two were accepted to journals.

Brendan changed after Max was born. He spent longer and longer hours holed up in his office, leaving Louise to take care of the baby by herself. Max never slept through the night, waking up three or four times for feedings. Louise was too tired to clean, cook, write, or even think. She fell asleep holding the baby in the glider chair and woke up terrified that he would roll out of her arms onto the floor. Brendan justified his disappearing act with a flip “How do you think we're paying for all those diapers?” As Max got older, Brendan showed interest in the toddler for a few days or even weeks, but always fell back into his old ways.

It was obvious that Brendan was having an affair. Louise saw the way he looked at a perky graduate student at one of the few English department parties she managed to attend and she planned to confront him about it. But before she worked up the courage, she realized that her period was late. The pregnancy test showed a plus. Brendan was out that night, supposedly with his English department colleagues. Louise collapsed on the bed and cried herself to sleep alone. She wanted another baby, but not with Brendan. Those days were over.

Three months after Zoe was born, Brendan told her that he wanted a divorce. Louise lacked the energy to throw his books and clothes out the window. She didn't say anything, just watched him walk out the door, suitcase in hand. At that moment, she vowed not to be dependent on anyone again.

She wrote two more articles, applied for jobs, and received an offer from Louisiana A&M. Even though it was spring and the job didn't begin until school started, she left Max with Brendan and brought Zoe to Saint Jude to house hunt. A few months later, she and the kids moved into their new home and endured their first stiflingly hot and humid Louisiana summer together.

That was a year ago, but Louise still hadn't realized her dream of independence. She needed Brendan's child support check, and to make things worse, he was a slow pay. Living in Louisiana was cheaper than somewhere like Chicago, but library science professor salaries were even cheaper. Add student loans and diapers, and the result was hand-to-mouth living.

Just thinking about it all—the physically and mentally taxing relocation halfway across the country, the late nights working on articles and the book that was supposed to get her tenure, Brendan and his young girlfriend—made Louise's pulse race with barely contained rage. She fished her cell phone out of her purse and dialed his number. Voice mail, of course.

“Brendan, can you please send the check? I really need it. I know you have my work address. Thanks.” She tossed the phone back in her bag and looked up to see Russ Adwell standing in the doorway. The aging professor wore his usual button-up shirt and slightly crooked bow tie.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was going to knock.”

Louise resisted the urge to put her head down on the desk and maybe even bang it a few times. She didn't need Adwell to hear her angry voice mails. Still, she was glad to see her eccentric colleague. “That's okay. I was just verbally abusing my ex-husband's voice mail.”

Adwell had a tendency to corner unsuspecting students and give long discourses on everything from the history of Masonic persecution in Nazi France to chemical differences between different kinds of fruit. Cataloging was his main area of interest, and he would sometimes launch into a speech about why the Dewey Decimal System was manifestly superior to Library of Congress. Louise had already heard it at least seventeen times. Regardless, he was one of her closest friends. She understood him much better than Trish and her crowd of former debutantes. Adwell said exactly what he was thinking, something Louise found reassuring. With him, what you saw was what you got.

“Two weeks,” he said now, an ironic smile appearing under his pockmarked nose.

“Until what?” Louise was muddle-headed, half inside the article she was reading and half thinking about what to feed the kids for dinner.

“That's when they're going to tell us if we're done.” He made a slashing motion across his throat. “They might not kill the whole program, of course. By which I mean, they might not fire everyone. They could dump some of us into the education school. That is to say, the old farts like me who have tenure.”

Whenever he deviated from one of his canned lectures, Adwell's speech slowed down like a clock that needed winding. Louise patiently waited until he was finished. He wasn't telling her anything she didn't know, but it was worse coming from him. “Or maybe they will find some money somewhere and leave us alone,” she said.

“Don't count on it, sister. I assume you are on the market.” Adwell sounded less like a clock now and more like a robotic synthesizer.

Louise was surprised to see that he was truly upset. She'd never known him to be bothered by anything. Obnoxious students, pushy administrators, and even the creepy brown American cockroaches that sometimes grew to mouse size in Louisiana had no power to move him. But now his world—and hers—was crumbling. His discomfiture made it all horrifyingly real. “I haven't looked for jobs yet,” she admitted.

“You haven't? Goodness' sakes. I'll write you a letter of recommendation this afternoon. You've already missed the deadline to apply for some of the jobs. The American Library Association conference is on December twenty-seventh.”

“I know. I just can't stand the thought of moving again.” Dread collected in the pit of Louise's stomach. Coming to Louisiana with two little kids was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. The thousand-mile drive alone had been torture. Zoe spent half the trip crying because she wanted out of her car seat. When they stopped at a hotel each night, neither child fell asleep until after midnight. Louise had been so worried about passing out on the road that she drank coffee until her hands shook. She'd arrived in Saint Jude feeling strung out and exhausted. The idea of doing it all again terrified her.

“Well, you need to think about it. Unless you want to end up scanning bar codes in some public library.” Adwell spat out the last words as though they were poisonous. Apparently, he didn't go in for the idea of librarians as fighters for free access and education on behalf of the downtrodden. But his concern for her welfare was touching.

“It might not be that bad,” she said.

“Don't kid yourself. I've been there. You want to stay in academia. Trust me.”

“Well, academia might not want me anymore. I think it's considering a divorce. I know the signs.”

“I mean it. I'm writing you a letter right now.” Adwell left, slamming the door behind him.

Louise closed the word processing program and opened her Internet browser. As she checked the ads on the ALA Web site, her worst fear was confirmed. There were no jobs in universities. At least not in her field. She had indeed missed the deadlines for a few, but it didn't really matter because they were all in children's services, cataloging, disability services. She was, as Sylvia had put it, screwed. Defeated, she closed her laptop and slid it into its case.

Louise wiped the dust from her favorite picture of Max and Zoe. Taken by a professional photographer at the school, it showed them smiling with their arms around each other in front of a painted forest. She had to be strong. Failure was not an option with two vulnerable and precious children depending on her. She decided to work on her book about the history of public libraries in Louisiana. She'd already visited the State Library many times and done all the digging she could within Saint Jude. Now she had to travel around the state to complete her research, beginning with the closer counties—parishes in the local parlance.

Finding time to work on the book was a challenge. While the children were in school, she was usually teaching or dealing with students. After she was done with her obligations, there was never time to drive to a library outside the city and get back to pick up the kids by three o'clock. Maybe they could stay late just one time. She got out her phone again and dialed the school. The secretary answered.

“Ms. Susan, this is Louise Richardson. Do you think Max and Zoe could stay until five o'clock today?”

There was a pause at the other end of the line. Louise felt the little strength and hope that she'd managed to gather fade away. She knew what was coming.

“Ms. Louise, you're ten days late on your tuition payment.”

“I know. I'm trying to get the child support check from their father.” Louise hated the pleading in her own voice. Being reduced to begging favors from the day care workers was too humiliating.

“Sorry. I mean, really, with your payment being that late, we shouldn't have let Max and Zoe come to school today at all.”

“Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. I'll be there at three.”

“I hope you'll have the money soon.” Susan's voice softened a little. “If you just paid some of it now, then you could give us the rest when you get the child support.”

“I'll do that.” Louise thanked her and hung up. The day had just gone from worse to unbearable. She had one hundred dollars and fifty-five cents in her checking account, and soon she might not have a job. Reaching into her shoulder bag, she took out her lunch: leftovers of a homemade pizza that the kids had refused to eat, a chewed-on apple, and a yogurt drink that Zoe had picked out at the store and then decided she didn't like. Sushi or a fresh salad from the A&M cafeteria would have made her feel a little better, but buying lunch wasn't in her budget. She took a bite of cold pizza and got out her laptop again. If she couldn't work on the book, at least she'd finish her article “The Effects of Computerized Card Catalogs on Public Library Circulation.”

By two thirty, Louise was completely sick of the article. She'd cleaned up the writing, added a few citations, and formatted it in the style of the journal she wanted to submit it to. Hitting “send” to e-mail the article to the editor gave her a small sense of accomplishment. In that moment of optimism, she rashly decided to bring the children with her to visit one of the libraries for the book project.

She retrieved Max and Zoe from school and strapped them into their car seats. “We're going on an exciting adventure into the uncharted Louisiana frontier,” she announced, handing them drink boxes and identical snack holders full of Cheerios.

She programmed the library's address into the GPS that her mother had sent as soon as Louise told her that she was moving to Louisiana. The present had been symbolic, an acknowledgment that she was going to need help navigating in this new and different place. Louise would have preferred a visit, but her mother was declining in health. She had to settle for the electronic device with its cold female voice.