The Merton
public library was a melting pot of the haves and have-nots, a mixture of
homeless people and the wealthy older residents of the nearby neighborhood. The
rain, though, or a threatening of snow would guarantee larger numbers of seats
filled. But the library boasted comfortable in all ways, there were sofas and
love seats in the reading rooms, and large tables made of very solid oak for
the researchers in that section of the old building.
Sarah often
thought about the two things she loved best, this library and people, but especially
those who frequently visited the Merton. She looked up from the multiple
research tomes in front of her to calculate the ethnic mix of the room’s
current inhabitants. Never surprised that just one room held a healthy share of
Asian, middle easterners, lots of Hispanic and the usual Anglo and European
mix.
There was Luiz
devouring a book on how to interview, guess he’s looking for a new job. She
thought this as she craned her neck to see the cover of the book. It looked
decidedly corporate, a photo of a suit and tie type guy on the front, smiling a
perfectly dental record of teeth. Nope, she decided, this was not a short “how
to,” Luiz was looking for a career move up.
It was then he
looked over at her, catching her out, and he smiled his own brilliant and
natural set of teeth, his handsome and brown face lighting up the room, well,
maybe her room.
“You almost done
over there?” He whispered in a tone of voice that said he was a guy with a long
history of whispering in a library, this one, for sure.
“Almost, why?”
Sarah not any less a devotee of The Merton herself, whispered as appropriately
with just enough timbre to be heard by Luiz’s eager ears, but not loud enough
to perforate the ear drums of the old guy, Mr. Hemmings who sat across and two
chairs down from Luiz. He hardly looked up from his Brief History of the World
Volume II.
Luiz raised his
hand, five fingers, five minutes, he gestured, not wanting to push his luck
with whispering. And Sarah nodded and compiled her neat stack of notes and with
them, her own books back into her briefcase with the reference materials to be
returned placed on the side table meant for such things. Luiz had less to
assemble and was with her in quick time, maybe breathing a little faster for
the effort or his own eagerness. He was hoping for her attention for several
weeks, the darkening windows and the suggestion of sleet were not going to stop
him, now.
“How about there?”
He pointed to the corner luncheonette across the street. His eyes dived down to
look up into her eyes, making him seem shorter when they were actually the same
height, five feet seven. He said as much, “Ah you’re taller.”
Sarah responded
almost automatically, “Nu uh, the same.”
“Yeah, but not
when you wear heels, then you’d be statuesque.”
“I never wear
heels.” She smiled and so did he.
Sarah handed
over her large umbrella and Luiz drew her closer, their breath coming out in a
stream into the just below freezing rain. This weather always descended her into
a kind of melancholy that went along with near holiday joys. Decorations were
already in a smattering up on Fifth Avenue and she would find the time to see
them, but the quieter little streets held the less than festiveness that is
natural when entire families cannot celebrate together. This year Sarah would
be alone with her mother and father at their house one block down from the
library. She said this to Luiz as they settled into a small booth across from
the counter.
“I forgot to
check the time.” Luiz looked at the menu. “Let’s have some dinner, okay?”
Luiz then
remembered she had told him something, and hurried not to be rude, to respond
to Sarah’s remark. “We’ll have many of my mother’s family, her brothers and
sisters and cousins.”
Sarah was still
in that other quiet place, thinking of roast turkey and the farmland outside
her grandmother’s dining room table far from the city. She looked at the dinner
side of the menu. “I’ll have the open-faced turkey sandwich.” After they ordered Sarah leaned forward to
say, “I saw the job interview book today. Are you planning an interview?”
“I’ll bet I
never told you my last name, did I?” He touched her arm where she had reached
out. “It’s Luiz Rivera, my family is in Puerto Rico, except for a younger
brother and my mother.” Then he said, “you and your Dad should be with us.”
She noticed his
brow, creased as he looked down briefly, he’s thinking of his family and waited
because she knew Luiz would tell her about the book.
“I have an
interview next week, on Wall Street, an investment bank, not the biggest but
still that address…”
“Yes, of course,
how exciting. I have a good feeling about this.” She didn’t know right away,
but when she was alone later, she would remember what she had said, and knew it
was because she could feel his success. It was coming now, and nothing would
stop it.
“Why did you say
that?” He asked her.
“Because you are
smart, you are healthy and you like people.” She wondered whether she should
have said this, her voice, to her, sounded reluctant but her thoughts would not
stay still. She believed in him.
Their coming
together happened over a much longer period of time. Sarah remembered and told
him throughout their dinner, her first recollection of Luiz at the age of
seven, coming, alone, into the Children’s Hour, which Merton librarians had
created for neighborhood elementary school boys and girls. “You were seven and
I was six and I thought that was perfect.”
Luiz sipped some
of his hot tea which Sarah thought an unusual choice for a young man. She
listened very hard, intent on the rhythm of his voice, the rising up and down
of his tone as he breathed out the English, he learned at age five or six.
As though by
magic he picked up her thought and said, “I have no accent because I learned
English before the age of ten. I read about accents a short while ago, that ten
is sort of the cutoff point. You retain a portion, however small, of your first
language pronunciation if you’re over the age of ten. My cousin Gabriel has
that Latino intonation.” He had interrupted her and now wanted most to get back
to what she wanted to tell him about their first days in the Merton. “Tell me
why it was perfect, Sarah.”
She luxuriated
in him saying her name. “I knew some things about myself even when I was just
six. I knew we would share this evening someday.”
“How could you
know such a thing?” She was a mystery yet was happy to know he could spend the
rest of his life unravelling her thoughts; all, not just those about him.
Sarah thought as
he was forming the question and knew he would ask how was it that they would be
together.
“I see things,
when I’m reading a story, the characters jump out at me and the greater the
description, the deeper I see into them, not just what they’re doing but then
why.” She stopped to catch her breath because it isn’t every day that you
confess such a thing, never having done this before, though she was satisfied
that she would tell Luiz anything.
Luiz rubbed his
head in concentration, “I remember. You told me when we were children, you told
me this. Then I thought it was because books, everything, influences a young
child with all of its color and actions; that would not be true for everyone.
For you it would be a defining gift.” He left off telling Sarah he was thinking
how, if they had children, they might inherit this gift.
Sarah reached
across the table and touched Luiz’s hand. It was warm, like his smile. “Tell
me, Luiz, tell me about the future.” She hadn’t meant to be bold, but she
sensed the need for this urgency, that it would carry them forward and faster
and they needed to be quick or lose their chance.
If you didn’t
know Luiz the way that Sarah did, you might not see his own life force surging
forward with the same energy as hers. To outsiders, it seemed slow motion,
slogging through thick and heavy syrup, but it was only a moment for them. “It
will be wonderful, the interview, they were so excited on the phone when they
called. Imagine, a conference call, all seated around a big glass table in a
glass walled room.”
Sarah squeezed
his hand. “Yes, it will be all of that.”
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