Fair Verona

Fair Verona – Dan Mangan (listen in new tab)

Monday morning and the neighbourhood library branch is a slow crawl. The usuals are less frequent now that the weather’s nice. Though, by summer the heat will bake the city and drive them back. Outside the glass doors, Toronto grinds forward into the week, like always.

Ten o'clock. The library is all but empty. K and a co-op student from the Western’s Librarian program, Leslie (who thinks she knows everything, has boundless energy, and makes a lot less money doing K’s job) are the only staff on duty.

Leslie is done in a few weeks. K doesn’t hate her, but he will be happy to see her alacrity back on the streets of Ontario’s flimflam London. The boss, Eleanor, the “lets shake things up around here” replacement, is at a community outreach meeting. K doesn’t remember where or with whom. There will be a memo, assuredly.

Leslie completes some busy work on a promotional display about gardening. She wanders over to the reference desk, where K stands looking at his hands, palms up, fingers spread on the counter. He doesn’t know how long he’s been doing this.

Leslie: “Did someone ask about palmistry?”

K furrows his brow in soft mockery, but doesn’t look up. “No one’s here.”

Leslie: “I can see that. I was just… well. Nevermind. Do you know anything about palm reading?”

K: “Not a bit. I was just seeing if anything has changed.”

Leslie: “And?”

K thinks for a moment. He wishes he’d kept better track, maybe made a photocopy for future comparison. “I’m not sure I’d be able to tell.”

Leslie sticks her left hand under his face. “This is my life line. And this is my love line. And this is the number of kids I’ll have.” She traces along her palm with her index finger, pausing briefly at each landmark.

K: “Where did you learn that?”

Leslie: “Some woman in Grand Bend read my future once.”

K looks from her hands back to his, squinting, trying to drag an image from his memory: “And?”

Leslie shrugs. “She said it’d be a mixed bag.”

K: “A conservative gamble.” And why not, he thinks. Who’s got anything figured out? Three days ago, he felt like he was running smooth. But, it was a long weekend.

Leslie turns as the door opens. An older woman with a cane walks in. She smiles at Leslie and wanders into the fiction stacks. Seeing an opportunity to do some good, Leslie pushes off the counter and heads after her.

A few moments later, K hears her say: “Can I help you?” He can’t make out the reply.

He leans on his elbows. He doesn’t want to be here today. He wishes he could go see Maura. He’s desperate to speak to her again. But, she made it clear she needed a couple days’ space. She will call him. He must hold his imperturbation.

He showed up at her place Saturday morning. He was nursing a hangover, and found her wracked by a worse one. He started to make her breakfast. At first, she sat silently, head down, turning a cup of coffee in her hands. He started to tell her about the party. After all, he had shown up with more than one story he wanted to tell. Her absence from his last few days needed correcting through exposition.

His back was turned when she started. It was quiet, a shaky preamble. As she spoke, she gradually got louder. It took K a few moments to realize that she wasn’t going to wait for him to stop talking. Her words plowed through his chain of thought, a rogue wave of regret, fear, and uncertainty he didn’t know she possessed.

He turned around. She told him everything about the island and Edmund. What she remembered about the bodies. The years of wandering and nightmares. As she spoke, she looked straight through him, the cabinets, the wall, the city. Straight out, ignoring the curve of the planet. Out into space. And when she was done, she cried.

Maura felt beyond him, and K was at a loss.

He didn’t know much about real tragedies, only the minor sins and infelicities that had typified his life. Well mostly. He felt like maybe he has at worst one life’s blood on his hands. He was an accessory… involved by tacit collusion.

The thought made him drag Maura up into his arms. She sobbed into his shoulders. He held her to him. His hand on the back of her head. His fingers dove under her black hair.

Then she pushed herself away. She said quiet thanks and kissed him on the lips. “You should go, ok? I just need a few days. I’ll call you.”

She looks in him eyes through her smudged glasses, slightly askew from being pressed into him. “Ok. Call, ok?”, he said. She smiled weakly. He found it almost impossible to force himself out the door, but eventually he left her with the half cooked breakfast.

He didn't realize at first that he was waiting by the phone. Saturday afternoon, G.T. called. He went on about Claire. It sounded like he was finally going to break up with Brae. Later, K’s parents called. He listened absently about the garden, and the city ripping them off over garbage removal. His baby nephew was sick, but is better now. Reminders to make calls to grandparents.

That night, he sat on the couch and drank ginger tea as he watched old movies on TVO. In one, two now-dead stars tried to fall in love again. K regretted that he hadn’t told Maura that Shannon had come to see him. Instead he’d been forced him to file it under “Some Other Time, if Maybe it Matters." The idea seemed complicated, and he wanted to keep things simple.

Sunday, was indolent and overwrought. His feet up on the couch, he tried to parse everything. This new Maura. Shannon. Claire and the threat to Ulysses. He read. Watched old TV shows on DVD. Went for a walk. Ordered Thai food. No one called.

And now he stands in the library, studying his hands when Leslie comes back.

K: “What did she want?”

Leslie: “Books where cats are the detectives. People are weird.”

K examines his palms one last time, before shoving them in his pocket: “I suppose our lives don’t bear much scrutiny.”

Leslie scratches her forehead. “Ummm. I just meant that…”

K: “It’s ok. You don’t really get used to the stuff that people bring up around here.”