Work Day

Work Day – It Hugs Back (listen in new tab)

It’s mid October. 7:30 AM. The wind is not too sharp, and the low sun is bright in the east, pushing up and over the buildings. The trees are almost naked. The light feels clean and solid, like he could hold it. K tries to walk on the side of the street with the least shadows.
That’s the kind of the morning it is; one of the last before winter makes getting to work a darker ordeal. A morning polished with optimism, even if you know it’s just another waged day.
Once or twice a week, K gets to be one of the librarians who open up the neighbourhood branch. Most of the time, it’s too early. Today, he doesn’t mind.
It’s almost muscle memory: security unlocking doors for him; lights coming on with the stutter and flick of the florescent tubes; the ritual of turning on each of the public computer towers, and doing the same circuit in reverse for the monitors; then the staffs’ computers at the reference desk; looking for a “To Do” list and finding none.
When he works mornings, K always brings two large coffees from Ulysses’s. He’s learned through experience that it makes his day easier for this reason: after a few minutes, Jenny O’Baird arrives. She’s probably the oldest librarian in the world – probably the dirtiest minded, as well. Grey, a little fat, and bubbling, K is confident that she’d been a looker in her day. Jenny always takes the morning shifts. She’d been there so long she could dictate terms. He knows that she can be a force, so he brings her a tithe.
Jenny “Darling. My coffee. You always remember!”
K: “How could I forget?”
She comes over to him, touches his arm.
Jenny: “I’d die without it, dear. You know, the other librarians don’t always bring me one.” She winks at him.
K: “Do my best, you know?”
She sips her coffee and sighs. She looks him over and pokes him in the side.
Jenny: “You seem chipper this morning. Maybe even spry.”
K: “Spry? I dunno. Maybe? I did talk to Shannon yesterday. It'd been a while. She’s been busy.”
She chuckles to her self. “Talk? In my day a phone was for more than conversation.”
K: “Well, umm…”
Jenny: “No need to say more. I can see it in your eyes. Sweetheart, if I had to go a year without my lover, I’d crawl out of my skin without a little fun.”
K, clearly awkward, scratches at his sleeve. “Well. I mean… we do talk about more intimate things.” He’s unsure if there was a lie in there.
Jenny smiles at him, accusing him of the dirtier things that percolate in her brain. “No need to say more. Still, I like to have my lovers in the here and now. There’s nothing like a warm touch in the dark hours of the night. Winter is coming after all…” The thought causes her to drift off.
K looks for a way to escape. “Umm… OK. I’m going to check the displays.”
Snapping back from wherever she’d been, “I have a nice grand-daughter your age.”
K: “Those displays really need work.” K tries to move around from behind the reference desk.
Jenny blocks his way. Waving her coffee cup disparagingly, she says, “Pish posh those displays.”
K: “Thoroughness is a virtue.”
She looks him in the eye as he shimmies past her. She smiles broadly. “This is something I’ve always believed for many things.”
K looks at the ceiling and then at her. He sighs.
Walking over to the book display, the one by the main entrance, he is passed by the branch manager. K can’t remember if she’d ever looked any way other than frizzled and exasperated.
“Hi. Early morning, eh?” K says warmly.
Her eyes are steely. “Glad to see you’re on time today,” she mumbles as she passes by.
She ignores Jenny’s “Hello, Candice!” and walks off to where her office is at the back of the branch. Jenny makes an exaggerated face of mock concern at the snub.
K watches Candice go. He lets out a quizzical “Huh”, as if to say, interesting, but only if he cared. But right now, he doesn’t care. It’s not that kind of morning.