One time in college I was sitting in the library reading a horrible book by a famous author about dying after having eight kids or something, when a girl caught my eye. And then, the other one. She was wearing a black dress with red veins, jet black hair with a maroon stripe, and struggling to rotate a bookcase. At least, she seemed to be struggling with a bookcase. In hindsight, I think the bookcase was struggling with her.

Hands on her hips, she stared for a moment, while I did. Then she crawled behind the case, out of sight, and I wondered what was going on. I wanted to help, but I realized that was either my desire to breed or my upbringing talking, and I was no wrangler of bookcases. Still, I kept watching and pretending to read so as not to arouse suspicion, even though no one else would ever dream of sitting near me. Then, she popped up as swiftly as she'd disappeared, carrying a bundle of network cables. That was when I decided she needed some assistance. I walked over.

"Looks like you could use a hand."

"I could use eight hands. Hold this."

She shoved the bundle of cables in my hands and I dropped the book. I was caught off guard.

"What's your name", she flatly stated, while she was crawling on all fours, her head buried in an access panel.

"John. I mean ..."

"You mean? Is it John or not?"

"It's a long story ..."

"Your name is a long story? That's kind of fucked up." She looked at me from her position on the tiles, and I felt like the awkward one. As always. She stood up halfway and grabbed the cables out of my hand. "You weren't staring at my ass, were you?"

"I, uh .."

"Good, I got my period. Faulkner, huh? I guess you want people to see you reading some ‘classic' book in the library." She made air quotes as best she could while holding a bundle of cables, and threw them in the panel.

"Well, not really – I mean, I guess. I wouldn't want to be caught dead reading this actually."

"Hrm. Good thing you're alive then." She smirked, slammed the panel, stood up, and faced me for the first time.

"So John, what are you really doing in the library."

I stared. I didn't know what I was doing in the library. I didn't want to be there. But I didn't want to be anywhere else either.

"Hoping to talk to some girl, I guess."

"How's that working out for you?" She smirked again and blew the hair out of her eyes.

"Uh, not so well. Like always."

"I was a history major." She flapped her arms in frustration.

I couldn't think of anything to say. She had been a history major. Yeah. She pushed me aside, and moved the bookcase back in.

"Got a master's degree and everything. And now I do this. What do you do?"

"Um, I'm a computer science major, I work in one of the labs."

"But mostly you hang out in the library, reading terrible books."

"Not mostly, just this once."

"Too bad, no one ever talks to me in here either. I think it's the job. Or maybe I'm ugly."

"Yeah. Uh! I mean, the networking .. stuff."

She smiled for the first time since I'd met her. Then, she walked away.

"Well, nice talking to you John."

"Oh. Yeah. Uh, you too."

She looked back at me without stopping. "Are you coming, or what?"

"Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I am."

I wasn't sure where I was going, but I was going.

"I tried to get my friend John to work with me on this shift, but he'd rather sit in his apartment and play games all day than talk to me."

We passed into an area I was sure I wasn't really supposed to be in, and I woke up. "Are you sure I'm allowed in here?"

She stopped, and looked at me, and then around the room. "You're in here, so looks like it."

"Were you .. fixing something back there? Because it didn't seem like you did anything .."

"Here, sit. I hid my boss's diary in some panel and I can't find it. One day he said I looked ‘bigger than usual'. I spent four hours crying my eyes out."

"Oh .."

"What a pussy. Half of that diary is love poems to his mistress."

"His mis..."

"I think she's like 17 or something. That guy creeps me out. I hate working with him, it's like he wants to molest me."

"Is that p..."

"One time he told Martin to print out website logs of all the computers in here. He always wants us to do illegal shit."

"...I could never work for someone like that."

"That's what I said." Suddenly, she was silent. I realized how alone we were.

"It's kind of weird, meeting you when John was supposed to be here."

"Well, my name's not John, I change it every year on my birthday."

She opened her eyes wider. "Wow, I should do that, I hate my name. And this picture. I look stoned or something."

She handed me her driver's license.

I almost snapped it in half.


SHELLEY WILLIAMS
756 EAST WATER ST
NEW BUFFALO, MI 49117