***
“Both of you have to come visit,” Elle told Marni and Tina that evening. “The beach is about fifteen minutes from my apartment.”
“We’re there,” Tina promised. She was going to be in New York City studying interior design, but she wasn’t far by air or even train.
“You know it,” Marni agreed. “Charlottesville is land-locked, so you know I’ll be coming down there.”
Both Tina and Marni were on-camera at the same time. It was about midnight in London, and they had returned to their hotel from dinner. Elle could see from their heavy eyelids and giddy manner that they had indulged in a few drinks. Tina didn’t normally drink, but she had said she was going to go wild for her “last hurrah.” Marni wouldn’t have it any other way.
“So what’s in Norfolk?” Tina asked.
“The biggest thing near here is probably the Naval Base over in Hampton Roads, which isn’t far from here. It’s right on the east coast.”
“Oooh, Navy guys!” Trust Marni to focus on the important stuff. “Seen any hot sailors yet?”
Elle rolled her eyes as she laughed. “Have you forgotten about Preston?”
“Have you forgotten Preston is a fling?” Marni retorted. “You said yourself he told you that you were free to date. I bet sailors make great dates.”
Elle shook her head as Tina said, “I don’t know about sailors, but you do need to remember what you have with Preston- and what you don’t have.”
Elle tried to hide a flash of irritation. “I know the score: we’re enjoying a fling. But right now, I want to keep enjoying it.”
“And you can,” Marni said. “Enjoy it when he decides to drop in, and enjoy the company of some sailors when he’s not around.”
“When you get here,” Elle said, “you’ll have to come down for a weekend, and we can go on the prowl together.”
“Imagine what those sailors must be like,” Marni said, her eyes starting to flash, “after months on a ship, probably with just men- do women serve on ships?”
“I think so,” Elle said, “but I’m not sure.”
“Well, even if they do, there can’t be that many. Hell, you could probably have a third eye and no teeth and they wouldn’t care,” Marni finished.
Tina looked at her as Elle stared at her through the webcam. “Seriously,” Tina told Marni, “you need to get laid.”
“Like, tonight,” Elle added.
“I’m just thinking about the possibilities for Elle in Norfolk!” Marni exclaimed.
As both Elle and Tina cracked up, she asked Elle, “So, have you asked about flying over here for the 4th?”
“Not yet- I’m sorry, guys.” Elle hated to see their faces fall. “I’m on a ninety day probationary period, so I need to tread carefully here. Something tells me asking for vacation time right away may not be smart, but I’m going to feel things out, see how things are looking closer to the 4th. Since it falls on a Thursday, I might be able to fly out Wednesday evening and enjoy a four-day weekend with you.”
“We understand,” Tina said. “Your ‘last hurrah’ is over. You’re a working woman.”
“Yeah, you really do have to be a grown-up now.” Marni shuddered. “I’m kind of glad I’ll still be in school next fall, even if I’m sick of it.”
Tina nodded her agreement. Elle was surprised to hear this; she’d been so excited about this transition herself, she hadn’t really noticed her friends’ misgivings. “Well, I can tell you that so far, it’s fantastic.” She went on to tell them about Preston taking her out, the scenic drive through Virginia, and all that she’d been up to.
“It’s better than I imagined.”
Chapter Six
As Elle made her way up the sidewalk that led to the main library, she was struck by how modern the brick and glass building looked. So many of the buildings in Norfolk looked historic, but this structure was all brick and glass. It would be interesting to see what their library system was like. She entered through the glass doors and went to the circulation desk where someone who looked like a student in her ripped jeans and t-shirt with the school emblem on it was working.
“I’m here to see Evelyn Raleigh,” Elle said.
The student let her in- a security card was needed to go behind the desk of the circulation area- to some offices further back.
“Mrs. Raleigh is in a meeting,” she told Elle, “but you can wait for her here.”
Elle thanked the student and sat down. The office she was in was so neat, it could be in a catalogue. The walls were white and the carpet dark, but the top of the desk was covered in paper that was cut in a doily pattern. A white ceramic cup with delicate pink roses painted on it held pens. The stapler had a flowery pattern.
Even the chairs were covered in flowery fabric. The couch that lined the back wall looked antique, with curved wooden legs and covered in the same flowery fabric that matched the chairs. Bookshelves lined the rest of the walls except where a window behind the desk let in light. The books on the shelves looked incredibly old. There were a few textbooks but many of them were bound in leather with gilded lettering or cloth-bound. It was the perfect setting for a tea party.
Something felt slightly off to Elle, and she wondered what it was as she looked at the desk and bookshelves. Then she realized it: there was no computer in here. It was true that most people used laptops, but offices still tended to have desktops. Universities (and any big companies) got them at such an inexpensive rate, every office had one, even if the employee worked mostly on a laptop. Strange.
Elle was glad for a brief moment to settle down. She wiped her damp palms on her black slacks. Figuring out what to wear had been a little tricky. For interviews she wore suits, of course. But this wasn’t an interview: this was her first day of work. Typically university libraries were pretty casual. Many of the staff at her alma mater wore jeans, but Elle worried things might be different here, although she couldn’t imagine them wearing suits like in a corporate setting. She figured black pants and her white and black sweater set were a good compromise: business casual.
Elle tried to distract herself by doing some web surfing on her smartphone, but she couldn’t get a consistent signal. She didn’t know the university’s wifi network information yet, so logging in there wouldn’t work. She reviewed her “cover story” of working for the Library of Congress in her mind. It still felt so weird that she, an analyst, had a “cover story,” even if she was working for the CIA. She really did feel like a spy. Kind of.
Thirty minutes later, Elle wondered if there had been some miscommunication. Should she go check out front? She checked her written instructions on Library of Congress letterhead that Mason had given her again. No, no miscommunication: the letter told her to report to the office of Evelyn Raleigh at nine am. After another fifteen minutes, she rose, planning to check at the front desk, but the door opened.
“Are you leaving?” A woman who looked like she was past retirement age stood in the doorway. Her pin curls were more gray than black. She also wore a sweater set, but hers was dusty rose and edged in lace, and it topped a matching skirt that nearly touched the floor. The pointy toes of her shoes peeked out from under the hem. Rather than a necklace, reading glasses hung from a chain around her neck.
“Oh, no- I just wanted to make sure everything was okay.” Elle could hear the nervousness in her voice. She sounded like an idiot.
“Why wouldn’t everything be okay?” the woman asked, entering the office and closing the door behind her.
Because this meeting was starting forty-five minutes after the scheduled time? “I-” She knew she needed to be tactful. “I was under the impression we were scheduled to meet- well, at nine o’clock.” She glanced at a miniature antique clock.
The woman’s eyes practically turned to ice as they bore into Elle. “I was only informed of your appointment last week. I cannot rearrange my entire schedule to accommodate some administrator’s new hire.”
She had to figure out how
to turn this around. Now. “Of course: that’s completely understandable.” She wiped her sweaty palm on her slacks before holding out her hand. “I’m Elle Paquet, the new Information Scientist from the Library of Congress.”
For a moment the woman stared at Elle’s hand as if she feared it was infested with germs before reaching out to give her hand the briefest of shakes.
“I am Evelyn Raleigh,” she said as she swept around her desk with the grace of a ballerina to sit in her chair. “You may address me as Mrs. Raleigh.”
Elle felt like a clunky elephant as she turned around to sit back down in her chair. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Raleigh.” She hadn’t called an adult by their last name since high school. A few of her undergraduate professors preferred to be addressed by their last name, but in grad school everyone was on a first name basis.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Mrs. Raleigh replied as she settled her reading glasses on the bridge of her nose and pulled a folder out of her tote. She reviewed the papers.
“Eleanor Paquet,” she said as she skimmed them. “You were educated at the School of Information Science...” She pursed her lips as if she had just tasted a lemon as she continued, “…fine university… master’s degree in Information Science with specialties in developing mathematical models to organize and analyze metadata of large datasets as well as human-computer interaction for program development.”
Hadn’t this lady reviewed her background before she arrived? Elle simply sat there, only offering a smile when Mrs. Raleigh peered up at her over the rims of her glasses. Most people were impressed with Elle’s credentials, but this woman seemed to be an exception.
“I also have a master’s degree in Library Studies.” Mrs. Raleigh let her reading glasses hang from the chain around her neck. “That’s what it was called in my day.”
The school within the university where Elle got her degree used to be called Library Studies as well. Then it was briefly changed to Library Science before changing the name to School of Information Science since more and more of what librarians were required to do involved dealing with technology. Elle considered “Library Studies” and “Library Science” antiquated terms. Of course librarians still organized and shelved books; they just did far more than just that.
“What made you decide to pursue a degree in Library Studies, Miss Paquet?”
Miss? Who was called ‘Miss’ anymore? “I always loved to read when I was growing up although I also liked math. Then, of course, I spent a lot of time on the internet, like researching topics and that kind of thing. When I got to college and found out there was a way to combine all of that into one degree, I was hooked.” She gave a shrug and a smile.
Mrs. Raleigh’s lips barely seemed to move as she returned Elle’s smile. Her words were clipped. “I also pursued a degree in Library Studies because of my love of books. Books, Miss Paquet. Our current… obsession… with, with computers and the… internet-” It looked like it hurt her just to say the word, “Well, quite frankly, it breaks my heart.”
The idea that this cold woman had a heart seemed implausible to Elle, although the rest wasn’t. This woman looked like she was stuck in the past by about five or six decades, but the internet wasn’t going anywhere. Making that point right now probably wasn’t going to help with the whole “forging a connection” thing, though.
“Every fall now, part of our training of the student staff has to include basic writing skills. They want to send emails and leave notes in this… this language that no educated person should be using, substituting numbers for letters and abbreviations that are not found in the dictionary.” Mrs. Raleigh waved her hand with a desperation that suggested she would offer up her soul to correct it with a flick of her wrist.
Substituting letters for numbers…“Are you talking about the abbreviations people use for texting?” Elle asked.
“Whatever they call those… those things they write in messages on their phones,” Mrs. Raleigh said, as if the words “text talk” were too obscene for her to utter. “I don’t know how these students earn high school diplomas and get the necessary test scores to even go to college. They are virtually… illiterate.”
Now this, Elle could understand, even if Mrs. Raleigh did seem to be over-stating things a bit. Time to go back to the whole connection thing. “People do seem to want to use text talk for everything,” she agreed. “They don’t realize there’s a time and a place for it.” Mrs. Raleigh nodded, her expression softening a bit as Elle continued. “It’s like people sometimes forget how to spell on their own, especially with the auto-correct programs in software programs. They don’t recognize when the autocorrect is wrong.”
“Exactly.” Mrs. Raleigh punctuated her pronouncement with a single nod. “Technology has brought about many amazing things, but it’s also brought about more than its fair share of problems.”
Elle wasn’t sure how to respond to that, since her position, ostensibly, was to make sure the library programs were technologically enhanced, so she simply nodded again.
Mrs. Raleigh folded her hands together on her desk. The whiteness of her knuckles betrayed the force she was using to press her fingers together. “Every year more and more faculty are requesting our journals be online. It’s too much trouble to come down to the library and photocopy the articles.”
Elle agreed with the faculty on that one. With online journals, people could do their lit searching at home and print the articles out on their computers. It could get a little expensive in terms of paper and ink costs, but it was well worth it a lot of the time. She had a feeling sharing her enjoyment of online journals would not earn her any brownie points, however, so she kept quiet.
Mrs. Raleigh rose, picked up one of the cloth-bound books from her book shelf, and held it up before Elle. “This is a collector’s item. Please be careful.”
Only after Elle nodded did she lower the book to Elle’s hands.
“Little Women!” Elle exclaimed once she read the gold lettering. She carefully opened it. This was an old book. “I read this in fifth grade, carried it around the entire year.” She laughed as she thumbed through the yellowed pages. “My copy got so dog-eared I had to use my allowance to buy a hardback copy.”
“That is a first edition.” She gestured to the shelf. “Part Second is right there.”
First edition? That meant the book was from the eighteen hundreds. Suddenly fearful she would damage it somehow, Elle carefully set it down on Mrs. Raleigh’s desk. It must be worth thousands of dollars, literally.
“You collect books?” She didn’t bother to play it cool and minimize the awe in her voice.
Mrs. Raleigh gave her a genuine smile. “I do.” She placed the book back on the shelf before sitting down again. “So you understand what I mean when I say there is nothing more sacred than the printed word.” Her gaze had the same piercing quality that Mason’s did. “Our responsibility as librarians should be to preserve these sacred treasures, not scan them into the computer so they can be read on monitors.”
Elle didn’t know about all that. Most people would never see the first edition of a classic book. It really shouldn’t even be touched, certainly not with bare hands. “Preserving classics is extremely important, but the value of digitization is that it makes it more accessible for people who do not have access to the original documents.”
Mrs. Raleigh pursed her lips again but did not respond directly to her point. Elle had a feeling she should have kept her mouth shut if she wanted to connect with this woman. “When I was informed of your appointment, Miss Paquet, I was told that you were being brought here to update our library catalogues and enhance the technological aspects of our collections.”
Elle nodded.
“I have been working at this library for forty-one years,” Mrs. Raleigh continued. “I started out at the circulation desk in the front, when I was an undergraduate student here. While many of my contemporaries were smoking pot, practicing ‘free love,’ and burning the
American flag, I sought refuge here, away from all that insanity, amongst my books.” Yeah, something told Elle this woman wouldn’t have indulged in the hippie activities of the 1960s and 70s.
The steel in her eyes would have put Mason to shame. “There is nothing wrong with my library’s catalogues or functioning. Change for the sake of change merely creates unnecessary chaos. I understand that you may find some minor adjustments to make, and I will be open to hearing them, but do keep in mind that I will not have my library upended just to make it ‘hip’ or ‘cool.’”
Elle repeated a phrase she had heard often in the past few days in Norfolk. “Yes, ma’am.”
The steel from Mrs. Raleigh’s eyes hardened her smile. “I am glad we understand each other, Miss Paquet.”
***
Elle decided to just pick up some takeout on her way back to the hotel at the end of the day. After meeting Mrs. Raleigh, she had gone over to the university’s human resources office where she filled out more employment paperwork, listened to presentations about the various benefits the university offered, got her university ID made, etc.
In some ways, it reminded her of her freshman orientation, but the different topics (like benefits rather than the university honor code) made it clear she wasn’t a student anymore. It may have been tedious, but at least Mrs. Raleigh wasn’t the one who did all of that with her.
No matter who Elle was with, one thing was clear: Mrs. Raleigh was going to be a problem. She was probably ready to fire her the moment she put a toe out of line, or maybe she’d create a reason. The woman obviously didn’t want her around. What would the CIA do if she got fired? The Library Director was obviously determined to keep “her library” stuck in the twentieth century and had no use for this “new-fangled” Information Scientist. Elle would have to give Mason a heads-up when they next spoke, whenever that would be. He had simply said he would be in touch before she left the headquarters in Langley.
Covert Interview Page 5
