by C J M Naylor
“Can I help you?” she asked as I approached the desk.
“I was wondering if I could submit an application?” I asked. “I saw that you had a position open for an assistant of some sort.”
“All potential applicants must speak with our head librarian,” she responded. “If you have a moment, I can see if he has time to meet you.”
“That would be great,” I responded.
She nodded and walked from behind the desk, making her way to the back of the library and disappearing through a door that was marked Library Personnel Only.
As I waited for her to return, my mind began to drift, and eventually I was back in one of my classes at Birkbeck College . . .
September 1942
“What is Shakespeare trying to say about the theme of honor in Much Ado About Nothing?” Dr. Gabel asked the class.
I was seated in my first course of the day and it was also the first class of the semester. Dr. Gabel was a well-known professor of the Shakespeare Throughout History course I had enrolled in this semester. We had been required to read Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing before coming to the first class session. After he asked his first question, my hand immediately shot into the air.
Unfortunately, someone beat me to it.
“Yes, sir,” Dr. Gabel said, pointing, “in the back.”
“Shakespeare wants us to question appearances versus reality,” the man responded. “He wants us to question whether or not what we say is honorable is actually honorable, and, of course, vice versa.”
I looked back at the man that had answered the question. He looked to be about my age, maybe a bit older, with dark hair. There was something about him that made me want to get up and go speak to him at that very moment. And then he looked at me. I knew that my face turned beat red and I immediately turned back around, lowering my face into my hands, embarrassed at having been caught staring at him.
“Excellent,” Dr. Gabel responded. “And what is your name, young man?”
“Phillip Hughes, sir,” he said.
“Well, Mr. Hughes,” Dr. Gabel continued, “it is clear that you have interpreted the play correctly. Now, everyone, I want us to break up into partners and I am going to assign each of you a specific part of the text that you will prepare an analysis for. You will then give a brief presentation of your section during our next class.”
Partners. I hated the idea of partnering up on the first day of classes and not knowing anyone. I looked around the room, wondering who I could ask to be my partner, when Phillip Hughes appeared in front of me.
“Hello there,” he said to me. “I was wondering if you wanted to be partners?”
“I,” I hesitated and looked around, and then continued nervously, “um…sure.”
“You don’t sound thrilled about the idea,” he continued.
“I’ve just never had someone come up and ask me so directly before,” I responded.
“Well, I’m a direct, to the point kind of person.”
“Of course, you are,” I said. “Sure, let’s be partners.”
“Miss?”
I turned around and saw that the woman had returned for me. She had her hands on her hips and was standing in a somewhat stooped position, suggesting that she had been trying to get my attention for a moment or two.
“Yes,” I said, “I’m sorry.”
“I said that Mr. Jane will see you now,” she responded. “Go through the personnel door and take a right. He is the first office at the end of the hall.”
“Thank you so much,” I said, but before I went on, I suddenly processed what she had said and continued, “Did you say Mr. Jane?”
“Yes,” she responded. “Mr. Thomas Jane is the head librarian here.”
Thomas Jane.
I couldn’t even begin to fathom how a coincidence like this could happen twice in the course of twenty-four hours. I hesitated for a moment and then decided I wasn’t going through with this.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I need to go.”
I turned around and headed out the front door of the library, ignoring the lady’s protests as she called after me. I was at the bottom of the library steps when I was suddenly out of breath and took a seat, right there in the middle of everything. I put my face in my hands and groaned about my decision. Why was I being this way? I knew it wasn’t about the Timekeeping, it really wasn’t.
“It’s you.”
I looked up and saw Thomas Jane standing in front of me. Seeing that I was flustered, he sat down next to me.
“My assistant librarian said that you ran out of the door,” he said. “I felt compelled to see why I had so easily scared someone off.”
“Well,” I said, “this isn’t exactly insurance, now is it?”
He sighed. “You caught me. I don’t always like to reveal everything all at once, but neither do you I gather, considering I don’t even know your name.”
“You do know my name though,” I told him.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I came over to the United States from London back in February,” I told him. “I was supposed to study with the American Timekeeper, but when I got here, I chose not to.”
A look of realization came over his face and he nodded.
“Abigail Jordan?” he asked.
“The one and only,” I said, almost laughing.
“So that’s why you didn’t want to tell me your name,” Thomas said. “Because you were afraid that I would convince you to return to Timekeeping, or something along those lines?”
“Something along those lines,” I said, still somewhat breathless.
“Can I at least offer you a job here at the library?”
I looked at him in surprise. “Wouldn’t you want me to apply or something?”
“I have full say,” he said, “and I have literally had no applicants, besides you. So, it’s yours, if you want it.”
“No Timekeeping?”
“No Timekeeping,” he said, smiling.
"What about Ian Cross?" I asked. " I don't want him to know that I've met you. They’ll think I have decided to come back to Timekeeping or something."
"Well," Thomas said, "the Headquarters is located beneath the city. The structure and layout is a bit different from the Headquarters in London and Ian is able to access it from another entrance. There is also an entrance here, however. As for Ian, maybe you could just tell him you found a job in insurance." I tried my best to stifle a laugh.
“Why are you working, though?” I asked him.
“I have my reasons,” Thomas answered, “but one is obviously because the entrance is so easily accessible here at the library.”
I hesitated for a moment, thinking about the decision he had given to me.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
“Excellent,” Thomas responded. “Let’s go fill out some paperwork.” He stood up and held out his hand to me.
“Shall we?”
I nodded, took his hand, and stood up. As soon as I was standing, I let go of his hand and we made our way back up toward the library entrance.
An hour later, I had, for record keeping purposes, submitted an application to be an assistant at the San Francisco Public Library. I sat in Thomas’ office and waited as he looked over the application and additional materials.
“Well,” Thomas said, “I think everything is in order. I’m going to just go ahead and hire you, because I can.”
“Just like that?” I asked.
“Just like that,” he responded. “You can start today if you’d like.”
I didn’t have anything better to do for the rest of the day, considering how I had spent the last few months, so I agreed. He took me on a tour of the library. The design of the building fascinated me; it was almost like being back in the London Library, but it was bigger. The vaulted ceilings and tall, glass windows made me feel like I was in a story, going on an adventure. I knew that this place could serve as a distraction for me from the pa
inful memories that I had been coping with over the last several months.
Thomas showed me the various reading rooms as well as the upper level of the library. After he had showed me around, we were both leaning on a rail looking over the level below.
“What did you think?” he asked.
“It’s beautiful,” I responded, continuing to gaze up at the vaulted ceilings. “It reminds me of home.” I had to stop myself then and take a deep breath, or I would become overwhelmed with emotion. It reminded me so much of the London Library and of Phillip. It reminded me of the hours upon hours that we had spent there together, doing homework, talking about books, or simply just spending time with each other. It reminded me of how that would never be the case again. It reminded me that life was gone.
A hand on my shoulder pulled me out of my brief reverie.
“Are you okay?”
I looked up at Thomas, and shook away my thoughts. Looking back at my hands on the rails, I realized I was gripping them rather tightly and I quickly unclenched them.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just thinking about home.”
“London?”
I nodded. This was all a bit much for the day and I needed to make my way out of here before I lost it completely.
“Mr. Jane,” I said, “thank you so much for this opportunity. I will be here at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, as previously discussed. But if you’ll excuse me now, I really need to get home and rest.”
“Okay,” he said. I turned to go, but he called after me. “Miss Jordan?”
I turned and looked at him. “Yes?”
“Please feel free to call me Thomas.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
That evening I decided to make dinner for Bridget and Ian. I planned to tell them I had a special announcement and that we were celebrating. My special announcement would be that I had found a job working with books and hopefully that would be okay for now and help me to get my mind off of other things. I had no idea if Ian knew Thomas also worked at the San Francisco Library, so my best bet was to say I’d found a job working in books and hope they would leave it at that.
Bridget was not home from university yet, and Ian had left me in the kitchen to cook after making us tea. I looked down at the chicken marsala I was making and began to add the marsala wine and some spices. The smell of the marsala sauce engulfed my senses. My mother had taught me how to make the recipe when I was thirteen. I remembered the day she had told me we were going to cook like it was yesterday. I had just gotten home from school and was surprised to find she was there, rather than Mrs. Baxter. When I walked into the kitchen, she announced she had gotten off work early that day and we were going to make dinner together—that she was going to teach me one of her favorite recipes.
A creak in the living room disrupted my thoughts.
I walked away from the stove and into the living room. It was dark in the room, save for the light coming from the curtained window. I took a deep breath and told myself I was hearing things. The Chambord Building wasn’t exactly a new building. It made sense that pipes in an old apartment building would make noises at times.
I walked back into the kitchen and found my mother at the stove, stirring the chicken marsala. She was wearing the same dress she had been wearing the day she died, and to my horror, the piece of wood that had impaled part of her body, causing her death, was there as well, blood pouring forth from the wound. She turned and looked at me as soon as I entered the kitchen.
“Abigail,” she said, her tone chiding, “you are going to let the chicken burn. You shouldn’t walk away in the middle of cooking. You also shouldn’t have killed me.”
“I, I… I didn’t k-k-kill you.”
She cocked her head to the side as if I had said something unintelligent.
“Why, of course you did. You joined this Timekeeping world. If you hadn’t gotten involved in all of this, who is to say that we wouldn’t be here now.”
Out of nowhere, Mrs. Baxter, my father, and Phillip appeared. They all joined hands and looked at me in disgust. And then Bessie was there. Water was dripping from her body, parts of her flesh peeled away.
“Look at what you did,” she said. She walked over to me, until she was mere inches from my face and pointed at my family and my fiancé. “You did this.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head.
“Yes,” Bessie said nodding. “You killed them all.”
“No,” I said again, softer this time, on the edge of tears.
Bessie only nodded this time.
The sound of the apartment door opening and closing entered one ear and went out the other.
“Abby?”
I heard my name, but like the door opening and closing, I didn’t quite register it. I simply continued to look at Phillip and my family, looking at me as if I was the most horrible thing they had ever seen.
“Abby!”
Bridget ran past me, literally right through Bessie, and she vanished, as did everyone else and I suddenly realized the entire kitchen was filled with smoke. Bridget grabbed the pan of burning chicken marsala and put it in the sink, turning the water on as she did. More smoke filled the room and she quickly opened up the windows, allowing the smoke to dissipate. She walked back over to me and grabbed me by the shoulders.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “Abby? Are you listening to me? You could have burned the place down. What’s going on?”
“My parents,” I said. “Phillip, Mrs. Baxter, Bessie. They were all here.”
Bridget shook her head. “No one is here Abby. You were having a hallucination or something.”
Tears welled up in my eyes and Bridget pulled me into her.
“Please don’t tell Ian,” I said into Bridget’s shoulder, holding onto her tightly.
“Abby,” she said, “I don’t know what to do. I think we need to call Dr. Aldridge back.”
“No, please.” I pulled away and looked at her. “I think I’ve found someone who could help me, or at someone I could talk to about what has been going on. I found a job today. I’m pulling myself together. Just, please don’t tell Ian about this.”
Bridget looked at me carefully, studying me for a moment, and then nodded. “Okay.”
The following morning, I made my way to the San Francisco Public Library around 7:30, so I would arrive on time at eight o’clock. As I walked up the steps, carrying my purse around my shoulder, I felt a sense of relief. It finally felt like something was going right in my life for the first time in a long time. My only hope was it would stay that way.
I made my way into the library, past the checkout desk, and back to the office area I had signed my paperwork in yesterday. When I walked in the room, Thomas was sitting at his desk, scribbling something down on a paper.
“I’m here for my first day,” I announced.
He looked up and smiled. “Great! Here, have a seat.”
He gestured to a chair next to his desk and I stepped forward and took it.
“Unfortunately,” he continued, “I do not have any extra desks, so you are more than welcome to use mine when needed. I honestly don’t use it very much at all; you’ve just happened to catch me at both of the times I’ve actually made use of it. The main thing I would like for you to do is keep track of the library’s budget and supplies. You will be in charge of figuring out what expenses we have incurred every month and how much is left over to actually buy books, as well as keep up on the maintenance of some of our older selections. Does that sound okay for you?”
I nodded, even though I had secretly hoped I would be working with books directly. I could do bookkeeping all right, but my passion was books. Discovering them. Reading them. Collecting them.
But this would do for now.
Thomas spent the next hour showing me the process of keeping track of the library’s budget and the organizational system for keeping track of bills, receipts, and any other necessities involving the budget of a library. He had just finished showing me
the current budget when there was a knock outside. We both looked up to see the woman that had assisted me yesterday standing at the door.
“A Miss Hall is here to see you,” she said to Thomas.
Thomas looked a bit annoyed at this declaration, but nodded and stood up. Before leaving he turned to me and said, “Why don’t you begin subtracting these expenses from our current budget while I see to this matter?” He gestured toward a folder labeled expenses and then made his way out of the office. He pulled the door shut as he went, but it didn’t catch and bounced back a little, allowing me to listen to the conversation outside.
“You haven’t bothered to call me,” a woman’s voice, presumably the Miss Hall’s, said.
“We discussed this, Shelly,” Thomas responded. “I thought we agreed this was going to be casual?”
“I know,” Shelly answered, switching from an annoyed tone to more of a cooing one. “But when I invited you into my bed, I had no idea how much I would come to need you.”
My eyes grew wide and I looked up at the door. I felt as if I should get up and close it, but they’d surely hear that and know I’d overheard their clearly private and intimate conversation. Another part of me, one that had only blossomed in previous years, wanted to hear more.
“I’m not interested in a relationship, Shelly,” Thomas replied. “I’m sorry.”
I heard what sounded like a slap and then heels clicking against the floor, walking away.
Thomas came back into the office, shutting the door behind him.
“I’m assuming you heard that,” he said, sitting back down in his chair, “considering the door was open.”
“I apologize.”
He gave me an odd look and then took a sip of water from the glass on his desk. “It isn’t your fault. That actually happens quite a bit. I always tell women I'm not interested in more than one night, but sometimes they just don’t listen.” He leaned forward and put his face in his hands, sighing loudly. “My God, I can’t believe I just said that to you. I do apologize.”
