Like a Book

by Bette Hawkins

  When June was walking away with the book safely in her hands she couldn’t resist making a face at Trish, just to see her full red lips curl up in a smile. Trish adjusted her glasses and June saw that behind them, she had amazing blue-gray eyes. When they made eye contact, Trish’s gaze was surprisingly direct. For just a second, June was sure that they were connecting in that unspoken way strangers did, and the rareness of encountering a woman who looked at her that way only made it more special. She smiled at the thought that she was going to be seeing Trish around the library now and then.

  June left with her book to find a quiet corner. By now she knew where the best desks were—in the areas where students were least likely to congregate. A lot of the time, younger students came to the library to hang out with one another rather than study.

  But today, the library, often dull, had become charged. June opened the book, spread out her notebook, and uncapped her pen. She took one last look over her shoulder to see if she could spy blond hair, and then she got to work.

  Chapter Two

  Within the week, Trish was sure that her new job was the right fit. Each morning she bounced out of bed, ready to learn more. She was already dreaming about extra projects she could take on in the future, all the archiving and collection building she could do. It had been a long time since she had felt this excited about anything.

  Although Ms. Rose had not warmed to her, the rest of Trish’s colleagues were very welcoming. It was a large staff of librarians and assistants. Angela, one of the assistants, was a keen environmentalist who welcomed Trish by gifting her a reusable coffee cup. Chris, who worked in the audio-visual collection, spent a break lecturing her about the influence of New Wave cinema while everyone else groaned. They invited her to join them in their coffee runs and weekly group lunches. Trish sat listening happily as they talked and shared jokes, grateful for the way they included her.

  It was nice to feel that she was connecting with her colleagues. Trish’s social life suffered when she broke up with Katrina, because some of their mutual friends chose Katrina in the split. Old friends had fallen away throughout the years, and she had realized far too late how isolated she had let herself become. Now that she was on her own, Trish longed to meet new people and to start having fun again.

  The job was more demanding and busier than what she was used to, but she adapted to it quickly. When she had free time, Trish wandered through the stacks to take in the library and familiarize herself with it level by level. The collection of books and journals was huge, and much broader than any other she had worked with. Trish loved pulling out random volumes to see what they held. She flipped through the pages to examine the underlined passages and read the scribbled notes that could be from yesterday, or years before.

  Though she loved the books, Trish enjoyed the human side of the work just as much. Trish was good at dealing with stressed students, she always had been, and now she had plenty of opportunities to practice her skills. She talked students down when they came to her panicking about overdue assignments. She provided a calming presence, helping them navigate the search systems and narrow down what they needed. There was a lanky, redheaded psychology student who came to her every day wanting to talk about the new angles he’d come up with for his research. Trish also met Beth, a brilliant student who was studying medicine. Trish and Beth worked on finding a good poetry collection, so that she could slow her mind when she was trying to sleep.

  At night she went home and paced around, wondering if she could fix the house problem by doing more work on it. The new job brought into focus that she had been unsatisfied with a lot of things since the breakup. She had been sleepwalking through her life. It terrified her to think of how unhappy she had been even before that. Things hadn’t been right when she and Katrina were still together, and she was only just beginning to face that fact.

  Trish and Katrina stopped talking about the things that mattered long ago. Instead, it was as though they were performing a job together, running the household, doing tasks like hosting dinner parties and going out for Sunday morning coffee. Yet the dinner parties had been planned through a storm of disagreements about who to invite and what to serve. When they went for coffee, they would barely look at one another while Trish buried her head in a book and Katrina worked on her laptop.

  The way they lived made Trish desperately lonely. She had wanted them to go to counselling to start working through their problems, but Katrina shook her off. When Katrina ended it, Trish wished that she had listened to her instincts more.

  Trish learned too late that it was better to be alone than to waste your life with someone who wasn’t right for you. She would never put herself through that again, no matter what.

  Trish walked toward the entrance to the library, a cup of coffee from one of the kiosks inside Flinders Street station warming her hands. It was sunny this morning, despite the chill and she had reached work early, so she took a moment to sit on the steps and finish her drink. She looked out over the grounds at the lush grass, at the clusters of students lounging around before class. This was just the right place for her.

  The loud roar of an engine made Trish turn to see a motorcycle pulling in to the carpark near the library. The bike was red and black, sleek, and quite small. As the person stepped off the bike, it became clear that the slim but shapely body belonged to a woman. When she pulled the helmet from her head, Trish recognized her from her first day at the library. There had been fleeting glimpses of her throughout the week, but this was the closest Trish had been to her since then.

  The woman opened a storage case at the back of the bike and pulled out a backpack, arranging the strap over her shoulder. Her back was turned, and Trish’s eyes dropped to study the woman’s very nice rear end. Trish sipped at her coffee, feeling more than a little guilty that she was checking out a student. As a staff member at the university, for her to have any interest in a student would be highly inappropriate. But she could rationalize that the woman was older and had obviously come back to school late. It couldn’t hurt to just look at her.

  The woman walked over to the steps with the strap of her bike helmet dangling from her fingers. They made eye contact and the other woman’s face broke into a smile. It was quite dazzling, how good looking she was. Her eyes were a clear green color, and she had a cleft in her chin. She was effortlessly cool in dark blue jeans and an oversized black knit sweater.

  The boot-clad feet slowed as she walked closer to Trish.

  “Good morning.”

  “Morning,” Trish replied. She put her palm on the ground behind her and leaned back, the woman following the movement of her chest with her stare.

  “You’re a new librarian here, aren’t you?”

  “I am. My name’s Trish,” she said.

  “Nice to meet you. I’m June.”

  June put out her hand and Trish reached up to shake it. June’s fingers were warm and soft against her palm. They slowly released their grip on one another but neither of them shifted her gaze.

  “It’s nice to meet you too.”

  June finally broke eye contact and walked toward the library entrance.

  “I guess I’ll be seeing you around, Trish,” she called over her shoulder.

  Somehow June had made the innocuous sentence sound full of possibility. Trish tracked June with her eyes as she pushed open the library door, bumping her shoulder against the glass. It had been a long time since a woman had flirted with her like that, and she felt pleasure and remorse in equal amounts. She should be more careful. It wouldn’t look good for her if anyone were to get the impression that she was encouraging June to act that way. Trish tried to fix the thought in her mind, but instead all she could focus on was the way June stared at her, and how high it made her feel.

  The good mood that had ballooned inside her all morning threatened to pop when Trish walked into the breakroom. Ms. Rose was the only other person there, and there was no choice but to try and make conversation with her. Tri
sh had managed to avoid spending too much time around her so far.

  “Hi, Ms. Rose.”

  Everyone called her that. Trish had no idea what Ms. Rose’s first name was, and she suspected that she would never find out.

  “Hello. I’ve just made a pot of tea if you’d like a cup.”

  “That would be great, thanks.”

  They sat at the table, Trish swirling a spoon in her cup. She glanced longingly at one of the magazines on the table.

  “How are you finding it here?” Ms. Rose asked.

  “It’s been great. I’m enjoying it a lot. How long have you worked here?”

  “Twenty-five years,” Ms. Rose said. “And barely a day off in all that time.”

  “I can see why you would want to stay here. It’s a fantastic job.”

  “It is.”

  Trish searched her mind for a neutral subject.

  “Do you have children?”

  “I do not. Mr. Rose passed away many years ago, not long after we were married. Before I could fall pregnant.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that,” Trish said. She should know better than to assume asking about children would be an easy subject, given how tired Trish had become of well-meaning enquiries since she’d reached her thirties. Expectations about things like kids and marriage could be destructive if you didn’t follow the same path as most people did.

  “Thanks. But it’s all a very long time ago now. And you?”

  “Oh no. I’m not married or anything. I live alone. Thank you for the tea, I should get back to work.”

  Trish made a mental note to be more careful about the type of questions she asked people. You never knew what someone’s story might be. Trish had always been disinterested in getting to know Ms. Rose. If she’d known her history, Trish might have made more of an effort to be nice, and she definitely would have been more forgiving about her prickly ways.

  Trish’s problems were tiny in comparison to what Ms. Rose had been through. It made her ashamed to think about the way she had been wallowing about her split with Katrina. Trish was still young and healthy, and nothing tragic had happened. She and Katrina had just gone their separate ways, like people did all the time. It was okay to be sad about it, but why was she letting it rule her life?

  June was in the zone, typing rapidly as her eyes flicked between her notes and the screen of her laptop. For a couple of days this week she had written haltingly, grinding out the sentences one by one. The best way she’d found to deal with writer’s block was just to push through and wait it out, and it was finally working.

  June knocked her pen off the desk with her elbow, looking down to watch it roll away before deciding to ignore it. A moment later the pen reappeared back on her desk, attached to fingers. June looked up. Trish was standing there, looking down at her. Trish withdrew her hand and continued on, pushing a cart loaded up with books toward a nearby shelf.

  “Thank you,” June said.

  Trish looked back at her. “You’re welcome.”

  Trish scanned the spines of the books on the shelf, searching for the right place to deposit the book she was holding. June’s gaze followed the line of Trish’s waist and hip, then dropped down to her legs underneath her blue dress. Biting her lip, June reluctantly looked back at her computer screen. The train of thought was gone.

  June felt Trish’s eyes on her.

  “Are you working on an assignment right now?” Trish asked, her thumb running along the bottom of the book she held.

  “Something like that. I’m writing a book,” June said.

  Trish whistled. “A book? That’s a lot of work. Impressive. How’s it going?”

  “Slowly but surely. I’m getting a lot done today.”

  “Glad to hear it. Do you mind if I ask what it’s about?”

  “No, of course not,” June said. There was a range of answers that she could give to that question. For students or close friends, June usually went into detail, but for casual enquiries she had a much shorter answer. Trish could be placed in a separate category. June wanted to impress her, to sound like she knew what she was talking about. But she knew literally nothing about Trish or what kind of opinions she might hold.

  “It’s nonfiction. An English literature thing,” June explained.

  “Fantastic. I thought about studying that myself once, I’m a big reader,” Trish replied. “Well I am a librarian, after all, so one would assume so. What are you writing about?”

  “Oh…it’s 18th and 19th century, Western canon and all that stuff,” June said.

  “Really? Which authors?”

  “A whole bunch, really, some of them obscure, some you’d definitely know.”

  June glanced back at her laptop, and Trish took a moment to respond.

  “Well, all the best with that.”

  “Thank you. And thank you again for the pen.”

  “It’s not a problem.”

  Trish turned back around and got back to her work. June wanted to say something else to try to explain her evasiveness or apologize, but the moment had passed.

  Trish wheeled the cart over to the next shelf, her shoulders drawn up tightly. During their last interaction, June had been so different, and Trish wasn’t sure what she had done to make her clam up. Most students she talked to were more than happy to talk about their work. She was writing a book and presumably sending it out into the world, so it was hard to understand why she should be so secretive, unless of course she just didn’t want to talk to Trish. It had certainly seemed that way, given that June was barely looking at her.

  This was exactly why she was so terrified by the prospect of dating again. It was too easy to misread signals. Trish hadn’t fooled herself into thinking that this could lead anywhere but she still enjoyed June’s attention. She looked forward to the harmless flirtation and to feeling desirable, something she hadn’t experienced in a long time. When she noticed June sitting there with a lock of hair hanging over her forehead and her sleeves pushed up, she couldn’t resist talking to her.

  Trish glanced over at June, whose fingers had resumed tapping on the keyboard. To Trish’s surprise she caught June’s gaze slipping away from hers. Almost like she had been caught out.

  Chapter Three

  It had been a long night at The Dickens. They were slammed because one of the regulars brought in a large group of his friends for his birthday. June mixed drinks and slid them across the bar in a steady stream, and she bantered with the patrons until closing time. After a long, soothing shower, it was time to relax. She was slumped down on the sofa and flicking between the channels on the TV, eating a bowl of cereal for dinner.

  A key turned in the lock, and June hoped that Ollie hadn’t invited his boyfriend over. Max was a nice guy, but she didn’t feel like socializing right now. She was too busy ruminating on her conversation with Trish and regretting the way that she had shut it down. Ollie called out to her and then came into the room on his own. He was pulling his shoes and socks off, removing an article after every step or two.

  “Good evening,” he sighed, lying down on the couch and putting his legs over June’s lap. “How was your day?”

  June shrugged. “Busy night at work. You?”

  “Same. How did the writing go this morning? Did you get anything done?”

  “A little. I got interrupted, so not as much as I could have.”

  “Who interrupted you?”

  “One of the librarians.”

  “That old biddy! Aren’t librarians the ones who are supposed to go sssshhhh?” Ollie said, pressing a finger to his lips. “Why were they distracting you from your work?”

  “Actually, this one is not old, nor is she a biddy.”

  Ollie kicked at her. “I know exactly what that face means. This librarian is a hottie.”

  June wished she hadn’t mentioned it. She didn’t know why she was so bothered by the awkwardness with Trish, especially when they barely knew one another. Maybe it had something to do with her bruised ego.
June liked to believe that she was smoother than the way she’d acted today, and that she wasn’t the type to get tongue-tied just because she was talking to an attractive woman.

  “Is she into you as well? I love this. Picking up women at the library. I really must take my hat off to you.”

  “It’s not like that. I’ve barely even spoken to her.”

  “Sometimes you don’t need to. Words just get in the way sometimes. Do you get a vibe from her?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe a little something,” June said. “Or maybe she’s just been acting polite. I don’t even know if she’s into girls, she’s kind of hard to read.”

  “Oh, come on. It’s all in the eyes. You can look into someone’s eyes and know if they want you or not. You know what I’m talking about.”

  June looked up at the ceiling, trying to not show her exasperation. It sounded like a recipe for delusional thinking. Regardless of how good a person might be at reading body language and facial expressions, nobody ever truly knows what anyone else is thinking.

  June patted Ollie’s foot. “Well, if you look into my eyes, you’ll see I’m super tired. I’m going to bed.”

  * * *

  Trish stifled a yawn and looked around at all the familiar faces, marked slightly by years. Trish and her sister were close enough in age that they had friends in common from high school. The two of them had been invited out to a brunch date with a big group. It was something they did every couple of years. They were seated around a large table, the twelve of them chatting in bunches of twos and threes.

  Trish was sandwiched between two girls from Leigh’s year, Katie and Lindsay. She regretted that she had been drawn into a conversation about a new fad diet that Katie had recently started. Katie had always been health conscious and, along with half of the table, arrived in her exercise gear. When Lindsay chimed in with some pertinent facts about kale, Trish watched her speak, remembering that she’d had a huge crush on her all through her first year of high school. It was funny to think of now, because Lindsay was very straight.