by Susan Wiggs
“Please, Miss Davenport, have a seat,” said another board member.
She sank down onto one of the molded plastic stacking chairs, folded her hands in her lap. She knew the facility had been operating in the red for a long time. It was no one’s fault, simply the fallout from a disastrous system wide finance crisis, exacerbated by rising costs and hard times for the entire area. When revenues shrank, hard choices had to be made. Priority funding went to life-or-death agencies—police, fire, EMS. Maureen might consider the library vital to the life of the community, but to many people, already feeling overburdened, it was expendable.
Mr. Shannon summarized the dilemma so the secretary could include the discussion in the minutes. After the original building burned down, the library had been rebuilt by Mr. Jeremiah Byrne. Although the building and grounds remained in the family, Byrne had extended a 99-year lease to the institution. Now it fell to a Mr. Warren Byrne to extend the lease.
And he had, but there were conditions attached. The lease would not be renewed until the library could fund itself, and that meant coming up with an entire annual operating budget before the end of the year. The library board secured a grant from the city, coupling this with donations and public monies, and for a time, the crisis seemed to be averted. The grant money for the next fiscal year had not come through, and the shrunken tax base had caused a budget cut. The library had been cut off like a bleeding artery.
Maureen tried to focus on what the head of the library board was saying. She was trying, actually, to hear anything but what he was saying.
“We’re out of money” could only be interpreted in one way.
Her heart sank. The library? Closed? It was impossible to imagine Avalon without its library. The public library was one of the most revered and recognizable institutions in any town. Avalon’s had always seemed special. Following the fire that had taken the boy’s life, the devastated community had pulled together, raising the new building as a monument to the spirit of resilience. For the next ninety-nine years, the place had endured, seemingly as permanent as the granite rock formations around Willow Lake. It was an illusion, though. Soon all of Avalon would know they were celebrating the library’s centennial by announcing its closure.
“I knew there was a budget crisis,” she said, trying to keep panic at bay. “I didn’t realize it was so dire.” Yes, dire. It wasn’t a word she used every day. Unfortunately, it was the right word for the current situation. Fixing a determinedly pleasant smile on her face, she said, “We can send out an emergency appeal. Do another fund-raiser. A whole series of them. What about an urgent letter, a capital campaign? An auction or event—” Her smile sagged as she surveyed their bleak faces. “I know. We’ve done all that.”
“And frankly, we don’t even have the money for postage,” said the treasurer.
“What about emergency funds from the county? Or the state—”
“Despite what we all think, Ms. Davenport, this is not considered an emergency like a wildfire or flood. The sad fact is, our expenses greatly outstrip our resources, and they have for quite some time.” He indicated the large, intimidating figure printed boldly in bright holly-red. “We’re not going to make it.”
“There has to be something more we can do,” she insisted. “What about asking Mr. Byrne to renegotiate the terms of the lease? Or ask for an extension until we can come up with more funds.”
“Warren Byrne? He’s the stingiest man in town.”
“And the richest,” she pointed out.
“He got that way by being stingy. He’s never given the library a penny.” Mr. Shannon shook his head. “We’ve asked, and he’s refused. The sum we need is out of our reach, pure and simple. Our major donors have been more than generous, but there’s a limit to what can be done with private funding. Without the grant, we’re out of options,” he said with a weary sigh. “Times being what they are, even our biggest donors are overcommitted—or tapped out. Perhaps if the recent bond issue had passed, we wouldn’t be in this position, but the voters declined to approve it.”
Maureen gritted her teeth. A small but vocal group of tax protesters had convinced people that the library was not worth saving if it meant a small added sales tax. She had campaigned hard for the bond, but it had failed.
“Our state assemblywoman requested a budget variance on our behalf, and so has the city council,” Mr. Shannon was saying. “But the money is not there, not for this. There are other matters ahead of us in the queue.”
The treasurer passed out her latest report. “Under the circumstances, we can’t come close to meeting our operating budget for the next year. We have until year’s end to close our doors and transfer all assets to the main library branch in the county.”
Maureen saw her own despair reflected in their faces. “What’s going to happen to this place?”
“Most of the collection and assets will be distributed among other library branches. The property is likely to be sold to a developer. Thanks to a building preservation ordinance, the space will be used rather than torn down.”
“Used for what?” Maureen asked. She pictured the venerable old place, converted to a craft shop or B & B. Not that she had anything against craft shops or B & Bs, but this was a library.
“You’re giving up, then,” she said. “Just like that.”
“Not just like that,” Mr. Shannon said, his voice thin with weariness. “We’ve left no stone unturned. You know we’ve been working nonstop.”
“I do know, I’m sorry. But…it’s the library,” she said in her broken whisper. She gestured around the room, its walls hung with old photographs depicting the library’s history. The arched doorway framed a view of the main room. In the half light slanting through the windows, the neat stacks and polished oak tables gleamed.
“And that’s the problem,” Mr. Shannon said, donning his overcoat and flat driving cap. “It doesn’t matter to enough people. Most people I’ve talked to don’t see letting one library go as a total disaster. It just means a few more people will have to drive an extra twenty miles to get books, or wait for the Bookmobile to show up. Hardly the greatest of catastrophes in times like these.”
Maureen felt a chill, knowing he was right. “Yes, this is just one library, but our situation is being replicated everywhere. They just barely managed to save the library in Salinas—John Steinbeck’s hometown. Philadelphia lost eleven branches last year. An entire county in Oregon shut down their system. It’s all part of a slow erosion. When will it stop?”
“The city council had to fund public safety,” Mr. Shannon pointed out. “Do they monitor misdemeanor sex offenders or pay the library’s light bill? There’s really no choice.”
“I understand,” she said. “I’m…trying to, anyway.”
“Thanks for meeting with us,” he said. “I wanted to tell you in person as soon as we heard the bad news.”
She stood up, walked with him to the door. “I appreciate it.” Everyone else followed, silent and somber. Maureen felt shell-shocked, like an accident victim. She’d always pictured herself spending her entire career here, serving the institution she loved. Now, she realized, in a few weeks she’d be out of a job.
Mrs. Goodnow, the board secretary, said, “We’re planning a potluck for the closing ceremony at the end of the year.”
Maureen tried not to sway on her feet. “Yes, all right,” she managed to say. She shut the double doors to the meeting room behind her.
Mr. Shannon paused at the exit, draping a muffler around his shoulders. “Are you coming?”
“I’ll be a few minutes more. I need to check my e-mail and rearrange a few things on my schedule.”
“Take care, Ms. Davenport.”
“You, too, Mr. Shannon.”
He hesitated a moment longer. “You don’t look well.”
She felt a nauseating wave of grief. “This library is part of the fabric of the town. We can’t just close.” She thought about the children who came for story hour. The se
niors who came for book clubs and computer classes. The adult literacy program. Then she pictured its doors being closed and locked forever. And something inside her curled up and died.
“Can I get you something before I go?” Mr. Shannon offered. “A glass of water or—”
“A miracle,” she said, forcing a smile. “A miracle would be good right about now.”
In the empty quiet of the library, Maureen didn’t check her mail. She didn’t even go near her desk. Instead, she went to the stacks, walking slowly between the tall oaken shelves, running her hands across the spines of the books. She’d always considered the library a sacred place, a place of ideas and art, a safe place to let dreams take flight.
A library—this library in particular—had always filled her with reverence. It was a cathedral for the most diverse elements of mankind, where all of humanity could find its place. She’d practically grown up here in this historic Greek revival building, with its marble halls and leaded windows, the polished mahogany railings and casements. In the center of the building was a sky-lit atrium, featuring a winding staircase leading to the children’s room. When she was very small, climbing the staircase had felt like a special rite of passage, like ascending to heaven.
It was fitting that Maureen would one day become a steward of the institution. Oh, there had been a couple of years in college when she’d been bitten by the theater arts bug, dreaming instead of a future on stage, as if such a thing could actually happen to a girl like her.
A disastrous adventure abroad had cured her of that notion. Even now, years later, the memory of her semester in Paris made her shudder. The life lesson had been slammed home with the force of a tidal wave. She’d learned quickly that she was made for a quieter, more mindful life. Working at the library offered her exactly that. She could be here doing work that mattered, that made her feel vital and alive…and safe.
Yet soon, this place would cease to exist. The county system might assign her to the bookmobile, she thought with a shudder. The one time she’d served in the bookmobile, as an intern, she’d gotten carsick. She could probably find a position in another town, or at the college in New Paltz, but working in this particular place was so much more than a job to her. And it was about to be taken away.
She couldn’t imagine her life without this library. What would she do every day? Where would she go? Who would she be? She refused to imagine it. But that was just denial, wasn’t it? It was time to face the cold, hard facts. By year’s end, the library would be closed. She had to quit hoping for a miracle.
As she put on her things and prepared to leave, her gaze slipped once again over the dimly lit stacks. The wisdom of the ages lived there, philosophers and scientists, poets and playwrights and novelists, the best minds of humanity. Shouldn’t the answers lie in one of these books?
Wandering between the rows of shelves, she went through a ritual she’d been enacting since she was a girl. Whenever she had a problem or question turning over and over in her mind, she would close her eyes and select a random book from the shelf. With eyes still closed, she would let it fall open, and without peeking put her finger on a passage. Then she’d open her eyes and read the book’s advice. It was just a game, yet it was uncanny how much she’d learned simply by opening her mind and opening a book.
She couldn’t imagine what advice might possibly save her from her current troubles, but force of habit ran strong. She shut her eyes and skimmed her fingertip along the spines of the books, stopping between heartbeats. She quickly extracted a volume from the shelf. She heard another fall to the floor, a corner of the book hitting her foot.
“Ow!” she said, her eyes flying open.
Now she had a dilemma. Which was more random, the book in her hands or the one at her feet?
She let the book in her hands fall open and, without looking, ran her index finger partway down the page. Then she looked down to see what would be revealed to her.
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
“Thank you, Douglas Adams,” she murmured to the late author, flipping the book over to check out his photo. “You’re no help at all.” She reshelved the book, carefully lining up its spine on the old oak shelf. Then she picked up the book that had fallen to the floor: Words to Live By: A Compendium.
Well, that didn’t even belong here in adult fiction. It had been misshelved.
This was a common occurrence in any library, but there had always been rumors afoot that the place was haunted. In a building like this one, filled with whispering marble halls and papery echoes, such fanciful talk couldn’t be avoided.
As she hastened to the aisle where the book properly belonged, she glanced down at the page that had fallen open, read the line indicated by her thumb in the margin.
If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good. The statement was attributed to Theodore Seuss Geisel—better known as Dr. Seuss.
Fun is good. A tiny chill touched the back of her neck. Maybe her thumb was really pointing to the next entry: Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.—Anais Nin.
Snapping the volume shut, she put the book away and left the library through the staff-only back door, locking it behind her.
As she headed into the dark night, her mobile phone sounded with her sister Janet’s ring tone—“Shattered” by the Rolling Stones. She pulled her glove off with her teeth, fished out the phone and flipped it open. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself. I was just wondering if you’d had dinner yet.”
Maureen’s stomach was in knots. She couldn’t imagine eating anything. Ever again. “I’ve already eaten.”
“Oh. I just wondered if you wanted to drive over and grab something. Karl is going to be late tonight, and I’m all by my lonesome.”
That was Janet for you. Her younger sister was the baby of the family. Though she was as loyal and loving as a person could be, she was never happy in her own company. She’d gone from her college sorority house to marriage, and was already expecting her first child.
“It’d take me an hour to get there, Jan,” Maureen said. Janet and Karl had moved closer to the city to make his commute shorter.
“There’s no snow in the forecast.”
It always bothered Maureen that she was the default sister. When anyone in her family needed someone to be instantly available, Maureen was the one they called.
They didn’t call Meredith, the oldest. Meredith was a doctor in Albany. She was always on duty or on call and at any given time, she was considered too busy to bother. Renée, the next oldest, had three kids, which meant three thousand reasons Renée could never be the go-to girl. Their brother, Guy, was, well, a guy, reason enough to leave him be. That left Maureen, the middle sibling. She was the one they called when they suddenly needed something—companionship, an errand runner, someone to chat with on the phone, a babysitter.
Here was what drove her crazy—not that she was the one they called, but that they assumed she never had anything better to do.
“We could get takeout and watch goofy old holiday movies,” Janet wheedled. “Come on, it’ll be fun. You remember fun, right? Fun is good.”
“What?”
“I said—”
“Never mind. I’ve got something I’m doing tonight,” she told Janet.
“Really? What’s going on? Do you have a date? Oh, my God, you have a date,” Janet exclaimed without giving Maureen a chance to respond. “Who is it? Walter Grunion? Oh, I know. Ned Farkis. He ran into Karl on the train and asked about you. Oh, my God, you’re going out with Ned Farkis.”
Maureen laughed aloud. “I’m glad you have my evening all figured out for me. Ned Farkis. Give me a break.” Ned was a pharmacist’s assistant at the local Rexall. He’d asked her out several times, and sh
e’d never said a clear no, but she never said yes, either. Then she felt guilty about her scorn, because she knew there were guys out there—many, many guys—who had exactly that kind of opinion of her—Maureen Davenport? Give me a break.
“Seriously,” she said to Janet, “I’m meeting Olivia. We’re going to the church to help construct the nativity scene.”
“Oh. I didn’t know you were on that committee, too.”
“I’m not. Not officially, anyway. But since I’m working on the pageant—”
“I get it. Today the pageant, tomorrow the world.”
“Very funny. You could join us,” she suggested.
“Us?”
“The volunteers at church.”
“It’s kind of a long drive for me,” Janet said.
Yet she’d been perfectly willing for Maureen to drive it. Maureen tried not to feel exasperated. “Have a nice night, Janet,” she said.
“Sure will. Love you!”
Maureen was blessed to belong to a family where everybody loved each other. Her parents had been college sweethearts who made their home in Avalon because it was a place of natural beauty, a place where they wanted to have lots of kids and raise them surrounded by small-town safety and the richness of nature. All five of their children still lived in or near Avalon.
This was not to say life for the Davenports had been easy. Far from it. Her mother had died of a virus that went straight to her heart. Stan Davenport, a high school principal, had been left with a houseful of kids. Maureen was just five years old when it had happened. She remembered the livid pain of loss, a memory as stark as an old photograph. Meredith had cried so hard, she’d made herself throw up, and Guy had turned their mother’s name into an endless string of tragic sobs: “Mama. Mama. Mama.” Their father had sat at the dining room table with his head propped in his hands, his shoulders shaking, Janet and Renée clinging to him, too young to grasp anything but the fact that in a single instant, their world had exploded. Maureen understood everything, young as she was. Dad had looked like a stranger to her. A complete stranger who had wandered into the wrong house, the wrong family.
