Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

by Matthew Sullivan

  “Some more than others, but yeah, all of them have holes cut out. Rectangles.”

  David slid the chair back, stepped to the sink, drank a glass of water, and sat back down. Apparently now he was ready.

  “This is wild,” he said, and then, right to the point: “So why leave it all to you?”

  “Exactly. Maybe for some kind of message. I don’t know.”

  David leaned into the crate and shifted around some of the titles.

  “Look at this one,” she said, and handed him the self-published, spiral-bound book called The Birds and the Beakers. Unlike all the others in the crate, this book was completely peppered with the cut-out windows, so it seemed as if its pages might simply disintegrate. In its own way this defacement made it beautiful, like a bound pile of paper snowflakes. “This one is definitely the anomaly. Way too many holes to follow any kind of order.”

  “It looks so sloppy compared to the others,” he said, and after spending a few minutes skimming its holes he set it in an empty spot on the table and rested his hand atop it for a moment, as if processing by osmosis. “I have no idea what to make of that one. As for these . . .” He stirred through the crate, gently pushing the books around as if they were puppies in a whelping box. Occasionally he’d lift one out and open its pages and trace his fingers over its cut-out holes, and she realized he was seeking a pattern, as if it were a stack of data cards and not a book. “I should call in sick,” he said. “This is way better than work.”

  She knew that if she asked him to, David would gladly bail on work, buckle into the chair next to her, and begin to sort through these piles. In a way, it would be his idea of the perfect date. He’d have a yellow legal pad and a mechanical pencil and a lifetime of puzzles from which to draw his inspiration.

  David spent a few minutes sorting through the titles, examining the books from all angles, objectively, as if he were studying an omelet pan or a bike crank. The spine, the cover, the little Bright Ideas label stuck to the back—all of it was worthy of David’s investigation.

  At one point he looked up from the task and seemed surprised that Lydia was still there. “Are these all from the bookstore?”

  “Most are,” she said. “All of the new ones I’m pretty sure he bought from me while I was working the register.” From the crate Lydia lifted a few books with yellowed pages and scuffed, outdated covers: The Osmond Family Story, the Victorian child’s primer, a collection of pastel poetry. “These are from thrift stores or yard sales or secondhand shops. Definitely used, anyway. Not from the store. We only sell new books.” David picked those up next, turned them in his hands.

  “If these are used,” he said, “why do they have Bright Ideas labels on them?”

  “They don’t.”

  “They do.”

  “They shouldn’t.”

  “They do,” he said, turning them over, one by one. “All of them do.”

  “Let me see,” she said, skeptical.

  One title at a time, Lydia flipped over the books and saw that David was right. Not only did the lower corner of each back cover have a Bright Ideas label, but as she looked close enough to read the labels—the title, bar code, ISBN, shelving section, date of arrival, and price—she could see that the information crunched there in tiny type belonged to different books altogether.

  Lydia grunted and held her forehead.

  “What is it?” David said.

  “The labels are all wrong,” she said. She lifted the copy of A Universal History of the Destruction of Books and tapped the label on the back: The Bed-Wetter’s Almanac. “This should be stuck on a different book altogether,” she said.

  “On all of them?”

  “On all of them. The new and the old: all have been mislabeled.”

  Lydia closed her eyes. It was entirely possible, she thought, that one of Joey’s books could’ve been tagged with the wrong Bright Ideas label—she and her comrades were, after all, overworked and underpaid—but it was entirely impossible that all of them had been mislabeled. And swapping labels from book to book made no sense, unless Joey had been up to something really stupid, like exchanging labels in order to pay less at the register, the way teenagers sometimes traded price tags on clothes in department store dressing rooms in order to buy a prom dress for the cost of a thong. But more telling than any such speculations was the fact that she was the one who’d sold Joey most of these books, so she knew they hadn’t been mislabeled when he’d brought them to her at the counter. Zapping them into the inventory system, she would have noticed that the book on the screen didn’t match the book in her hand, which meant that something more than stupidity was happening here.

  “You wanted to know what Joey was up to with the cut-up books?” David said. “There’s your answer.”

  “What do you mean?” Lydia said.

  David tapped one of the mismatched labels. “That’s not an accident. He’s pointing you to this book too. Joey is.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “No idea,” David said with a shrug. “But if an answer exists, it’s probably in the other book.”

  “So, what—follow the label?”

  “Follow the label. Find the book it belongs to.” He looked up at the clock. “Do you want me to stay? I would love to stay. Tell me to stay.”

  “You need to go.”

  “Shit,” he said, smiling. “I know.”

  He rushed into the bedroom to finish getting ready, then returned to the table and kissed her. As he gathered his laptop and his jacket and started to leave the apartment, David swirled his bad hand in the direction of the milk crate as if casting a spell on Joey’s books. “This is really messed up that he did this to you. I mean it’s cool, but—”

  “Devious,” she said. “I know.”

  “Maybe try not to, you know. Get messed up from it.”

  “Too late,” she said, and though she smiled as if she were just joking, once the door closed behind him and David’s absence transformed into silence, the book-lined world of her apartment began to constrict, and Lydia utterly disappeared into Joey’s messed-up crate.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Tomas was checking out a pile of picture books to a young mother with a tot climbing up her shoulder when the phone rang at the circulation desk and startled him. He stamped an inky due date on his thumbnail.

  —Crap. Sorry.

  It was a city administrator on the phone, calling about WinterFest, an annual celebration that had started this morning in the ski town of Breckenridge. At this very moment, Tomas was informed, he was scheduled to be there, parked on Main Street in his branch’s rainbow-painted Bookmobile, serving cocoa and handing out library bookmarks on behalf of the Denver Public Library system. The trip had been arranged months ago by the PR people downtown as a sort of goodwill gesture to encourage literacy in the state and to strengthen relationships with small-town libraries, and Tomas had been reminded about it so often that he’d written it in bold red letters on his desk calendar, in his pocket calendar, and even on the construction-paper calendar that Lydia had made him for Christmas and taped to their fridge at home. . . .

  Yet he’d still managed to forget. Because that’s how this week was going.

  —I somehow forgot, he said on the phone.

  —You’re paid to somehow remember.

  Thankfully, the administrator explained, thick with sarcasm, WinterFest would be happening all weekend, and seeing as the town was at least a two-hour drive into the mountains, and seeing as snow was presently tumbling over Denver, and seeing as it was getting darker every minute, he didn’t exactly see how Tomas was going to solve this problem except by putting chains on the Bookmobile’s tires and driving it there tonight. Yes, tonight. Yes, in the snow. If he was lucky, the librarian in Breckenridge would take the keys and let him go home, and if he was really lucky, someone from the festival would give him a lift back to the city. If not, he’d have to try to find a hotel or catch one of the moonlight buses that shuttled sk
iers in and out of downtown. On his dime.

  —You really want me to drive it there tonight?

  —Only if you want to keep your job, he said. Get going.

  Tomas looked out the window at the headlights and taillights seeping over the streets and his heart felt hollow. The snow that had begun to fall was getting thicker by the minute, whitening sidewalks and weighing down trees and giving the gray light of dusk an atomic glow. He dreaded the long drive that waited for him out there, but an even deeper dread surrounded the news he’d soon have to break to Lydia: there would be no sleepover tonight.

  For the past week, tonight’s sleepover had been Lydia and Carol’s main topic of conversation, and they’d composed countless colorful lists of everything they wanted to do: make candles out of melted crayons in tuna cans, pop a pot of marshmallow popcorn, tell ghost stories with flashlights after dark—but now they were going to be shattered. Carol couldn’t spend the night at Lydia’s after all. Not if he had to haul the Bookmobile into a snowy pocket of the Rockies.

  Just when Tomas thought he couldn’t imagine a worse afternoon, he looked out the frosty library window and saw Bart O’Toole’s yellow pickup truck with its cage of racks bouncing into the parking lot, sliding to a halt at just the right spot to block the book drop. Tomas’s heart began to pound. He looked around the library and saw empty chairs and empty nooks; almost all of the patrons had gone home, attempting to beat the snowstorm. And then he found himself staring at his watch—4:17, it blinked, 4:17—as if to secure the moment in time, like a doctor noting a patient’s expiration.

  O’Toole hopped up the library steps, two at a time, looking swift and unshaven and burlier than Tomas remembered. He shoved the door too hard when he came inside, so now it was propped open and cold air swooshed through the library, flapping newspaper pages and kicking the heater into overdrive. Tomas flinched.

  —Hey there, pal, O’Toole said.

  Tomas jogged around the circulation desk and offered a blundering hello, but before he could think of anything more to say, the girls arrived from the library basement, giggling and excited, wearing blue jeans and striped sweaters and necklaces they’d made from pop-tops. They blasted right past him and latched on to O’Toole’s pant legs as he entered the book-lined foyer.

  —You’ll never guess what, Carol blurted to her dad, as if she’d been waiting hours to share. A boy was bawling at school today. Just blubbering!

  O’Toole played along, slapping his hands on his knees, stooping down, pretending to be dramatically interested in Carol’s classroom gossip.

  —it’s because he was dying to come to my sleepover, Lydia said.

  —Who could blame him? Carol said, rolling her eyes like a diva. I’d cry too.

  The girls giggled and Tomas, aware that they were probably talking about Raj, scratched his neck uncomfortably. He’d rarely seen this side of Lydia before—taking such cruel pleasure from excluding her friend—but rather than intervene he stayed focused on O’Toole, attempting to determine the nature of his visit. O’Toole just wiped his boots on the mat, brushed snow off his shoulders, lifted and resettled his blue-jean cap.

  —You’re really in here all day long? he said to Tomas. I’d be crawling out of my skin.

  —I keep busy, Tomas said. Good to meet you by the way.

  Their hands pumped and Tomas thought that O’Toole’s grip was both strong and mild, exactly like the man. With his other hand, O’Toole held up a pink duffel bag.

  —I brought Carol’s stuff for the sleepover.

  Carol snatched the bag and, with Lydia crouched alongside, unzipped it and began rifling through. Pajamas fell out, and a cassette tape covered with heart stickers, and a bag of rubber bands.

  —Buddy, you okay? O’Toole said, leaning forward with a smile and intercepting Tomas’s sight. You look like someone shat on your toast.

  —Sorry, Tomas said, it’s just I had something come up for tonight. Work stuff.

  —Work stuff tonight? What’re you, a plumber too?

  Tomas wiped his palms on his slacks and explained his Bookmobile predicament. He needed to leave soon for Breckenridge and didn’t expect to be back before midnight, maybe even later with the snowstorm.

  —Bottom line, Tomas said, no sleepover. We’ll have to do it another time. I’m really sorry, girls. I know you’ve been—

  The girls sprang from the floor and began to beseech.

  —This is not happening!

  —you promised!

  —Hey, O’Toole said, I’ll take them over at our place.

  —That’s okay, Tomas said.

  —Really. Dottie and I aren’t doing anything. You go do your job in the mountains and Lydia will stay the night with us. We’ll make popcorn and cocoa, then tomorrow morning I’ll bring them around here. What time’s good?

  Lydia had never spent the night away from home, and the thought of her first time being under Carol’s roof felt too much like turning over the reins to forces he couldn’t control.

  —I don’t think so, Tomas said, looking at his watch, as if his reasons were trapped behind its scratchy face.

  —It’s up to you, O’Toole said. But just know it’s no big deal for Dottie and me. I’m sure Carol’s got some extra PJs and a toothbrush she can borrow.

  —Ewww, the girls chimed.

  Tomas tried to come up with a meaningful response, but even to himself he sounded like an uptight weenie, especially with the girls rolling their eyes and O’Toole shushing them for their disrespect. And so with the smell of snow in the air and headlights beginning to pierce the gloom outside, Tomas conceded. Lydia could spend the night at Carol’s.

  —Come around in the morning and you can help me with story time. Deal?

  —deal!

  Lydia barely even hugged him before following Carol and Mr. O’Toole out the library doors. Tomas stood at the window and watched the girls running across the snowy parking lot and through the pluming exhaust of O’Toole’s yellow truck. As their taillights disappeared into the rising dusk, he thought of Dottie tucking in his daughter on this cold night, kissing her on the forehead, and with an empty heart he went in search of the Bookmobile’s keys—with no idea of the darkness the night would bring.

  That evening at dinner, Lydia could not stop staring at Carol’s family. While Mrs. O’Toole scooped out plates of macaroni-and-hot-dog casserole, Mr. O’Toole gave the two girls their first sip of beer—straight from his Coors can at the table—and let them eat cold marshmallows with their dinner. Mrs. O’Toole teased him about leaving his plumbing tools all over the house, so he made a big show of dragging his toolbox off the kitchen counter and putting it on the small back porch, and when he came in he sprinkled fresh snow on the girls’ heads and laughed like a goof. For all the uneasiness Lydia felt sitting at their table—Mr. O’Toole releasing little beer burps, then winking at Lydia and Carol; Mrs. O’Toole folding and unfolding her napkin—she recognized a certain fullness in their home, in their balance as a family.

  Mrs. O’Toole was especially mesmerizing. Throughout the whole dinner, as Carol yammered on about their night’s plans, Lydia couldn’t keep her eyes off Dottie—the swirling orange shine of her hair, the slight chip in her front tooth, the rings she kept twisting on her fingers—maybe because it was impossible to avoid imagining what she would be like as a mom. All throughout Carol’s house, Lydia noticed details that were different from her own, like the glittery pinecone candleholder on the shelf, and the way their orange tablecloth matched the orange flowers in the wallpaper and the orange swirls in the countertops and even the orange yarn of the God’s Eye on the wall. A mother’s touch.

  The night evolved into dirty dishes and television and ice cream, and as bedtime approached, the heavy snow that had been dropping on Denver showed no signs of letting up. Lydia forgot about Mr. and Mrs. O’Toole altogether as she and Carol shoved aside the coffee table and other furniture and set up a fort of blankets and cushions around the couch, smack-dab in the ce
nter of the living room. When it got late they rolled out their sleeping bags inside the fort and fluffed up their pillows. With flashlights in hand they listened to Carol’s parents murmuring in their bedroom down the hall and falling gradually to sleep. They listened to the snow and wind swelling against the front door and living room windows. Then the girls listened to each other. Inside their warm fort they giggled about the time Lydia had seen Raj’s wiener falling out of his soccer shorts, looking like a plucked brown duckling, and they read for a while from Carol’s book of scary stories, and soon they decided it was time to tell their own stories—about magic bathtubs and a drain that sucked children through its silver pipes and led them to a world of silver manholes and silver clouds and silver homes—

  But their stories were interrupted when the back door swung open and banged hard into the kitchen wall. Back doors always banged like that, except it was after midnight and the door crashed with enough force to strum their ribs a room away. Both girls froze. Lydia wondered if this was some kind of a mean trick Mr. O’Toole was playing, but she could still hear his droning snores at the end of the hallway so she knew it wasn’t him. Inside the fort Carol grabbed the flashlights and clicked them off.

  —Shhh! she quickly hissed.

  Lydia and Carol froze beneath the sagging blankets as someone unknown closed the back door and walked through the kitchen. Into the living room. Mrs. O’Toole had left the hallway light on so that Lydia could find the bathroom if she needed it but the man out there slapped at the switch, turning off the only light. The darkness that followed was immense, but Lydia still had seen, through the slit in the fort:

  A white latex glove, tight around a hairy man-hand. In the glove a hammer.

  The man out there was gripping a hammer, but Lydia didn’t fully register this until later, when the negative space that the hammer had occupied was filled in by her memory: a wood-handled hammer, claw and head painted industrial black. It fit his perfect grip.

  The rest of it happened slowly. The Hammerman stepped into the hallway and toward Mr. and Mrs. O’Toole’s bedroom. Inside the fort, Carol gripped Lydia’s wrist tightly for what seemed like hours, then abruptly let go. By the time Lydia reached out to hug her, nothing was there but a fluttering blanket. From her spot she couldn’t see a thing but her ears splashed sights through her mind. She could hear Carol’s knees scrabbling over the carpet and into the hallway and she could hear Carol screaming Daddy Daddy Daddy! The Hammerman spun around and his back collided with the wall, as if he’d momentarily lost his balance. Glass popped and a framed family portrait slid down and shattered on the carpet.