Page 6 of The Librarians

He finds himself telling her about his mother’s reams of reference works at home, her online friendship with appraisers all over the United States, and even her appearance on Antiques Roadshow when the juggernaut last came to Austin.

Not until Sophie comes inside wanting a word with him does Jonathan realize that Hazel smoothed over the situation so impeccably that he, accustomed to berating himself over stupid mistakes, completely forgot his faux pas.

No, more than that. Though she said nothing else on the subject, she has somehow persuaded him that he has not put her on the spot or embarrassed himself.

“I think we got lucky with her,” says Sophie, as the door closes behind Hazel.

That is high praise indeed, coming from Sophie.

They go into the storage room, in which they barely find enough space to stand. And there is still an assload of books under the porch. Sophie shakes her head, her palm over her temple.

“Entropy reigns supreme even in a temple to systems and organization,” she mumbles.

“You know we public librarians always exist on the edge of chaos,” says Jonathan, giving her a pat on the shoulder—a brief one.

He likes Sophie a lot. She is capable, fair, and kind.

Under her stewardship the branch library has thrived as a community center and the staff enjoy a harmonious workplace.

But Sophie is also extremely professional.

After all these years of working together, Jonathan knows her opinions on a lot of books and he can guess which way she votes.

But of her personal life, other than her devotion to her daughter, he hasn’t gleaned much, if anything.

“We’re going to have to do something,” laments Sophie.

The solution to their problem is fairly obvious, but even with Hazel joining the roster, the branch is still shorthanded.

“Don’t worry,” Jonathan says. “I’ll—”

They both turn at the bellows coming from the public area.

Jonathan sprints out, Sophie in his wake. Part of the reason the administrator likes having him around, even though she’s never said so openly, is that he’s an ex-military big guy. The library is open to the public and sometimes the public bring their worst tendencies to the library.

A leathery-tan man in a tattered T-shirt and pair of stained camo shorts and the man to whom Jonathan explained the library’s culling system twice are braced together, each trying to shove the other out of the way.

They are next to the computer terminals.

Patrons at other terminals have jumped up and stepped back, but patrons elsewhere in the library, drawn by the brouhaha, have filtered in past the stacks to see what’s going on.

At least the combatants don’t seem to be armed. Nor does Jonathan see, as he scans the crowd, any “Good Samaritan” about to whip out a Glock—thank God for small mercies.

He steps forward to forcibly separate the two men. But before he can do so, Astrid, who must have just arrived, screams, “Stop! Stop or you’ll both be banned from the library!”

The guy with whom she dealt for a minute back in spring stills. His opponent decks him across the cheek. He goes down, knocking over a chair to rendezvous with the floor. Onlookers cry out in alarm. The other man glances about, mutters a few unintelligible words, and bolts from the library.

Sophie is at Jonathan’s side with the first aid kit. “Do we need this?”

“Thanks.” He accepts the case and rounds the computer terminals.

The man on the floor, his face bloodied, the top buttons of his shirt ripped open in the tussle, appears unconscious.

Jonathan can’t help a glance toward where Astrid stands, stark-eyed, at the back of the small crowd.

For a week or so the guy came to the library every day and Astrid walked around with a huge smile on her face.

Though she never did anything unprofessional on the library’s premises, once Jonathan saw them in the reading area, the guy sitting, Astrid on her haunches next to his chair.

They were turned toward each other, their foreheads almost touching, and Astrid gazed at him as if she were a Star Wars fan circa 1998 and he the first image ever released from Episode I—The Phantom Menace .

Then he disappeared. For months, so did Astrid’s smile.

In the moment of Jonathan’s distraction, a man with a beanie pulled low enough to obscure his eyebrows sinks to one knee next to the guy and checks his pulse.

Sophie steps closer. “Sir, are you a medical professional?”

Jonathan would have asked the same. He too is unwilling to allow interference by some random dude.

Beanie, a light-complexioned man whose ethnicity isn’t immediately evident, rises and greets Sophie courteously. “Yes, ma’am. I’m a combat medic, serving with the 10th Mountain Division. I can show you—”

He reaches into his pocket, presumably for a military ID. The Brit on the floor rears up, startling everyone.

“Sir, are you okay?” Sophie asks immediately.

He clutches at his head. “I—I suppose so.”

Serves you right , thinks Jonathan. It was low, the way he barged in here to try the same schtick on Hazel. When Hazel innocently passed on the questions Jonathan had already answered six months before, Jonathan had to try hard not to freeze the guy out.

Or look toward Astrid—it would have mortified her.

Sophie crouches down. “Would you like some water?”

“No, thanks.” The guy gets up, unsteady on his feet. “I don’t need anything.”

“Sir, you have a cut on your face,” Jonathan makes himself say. “You might need to clean it.”

The guy, now upright, gingerly touches his cheek. He studies, as if in a daze, the small smear of blood on his fingertip, then glances in Astrid’s direction. “Do you—do you have anything I can borrow?”

Jonathan opens the first aid kit. The man accepts several large bandages and a packet of antibiotic cream with a mumbled “thank you” and heads toward the restroom.

“Would you like to file a police report?” Sophie calls after his retreating back.

He stumbles slightly. “No, no need.”

Sophie sighs and looks around. Jonathan is the first to spot the army medic, now seated in the work gallery, behind an open laptop. They approach him.

“Sir, you were going to show me something?” asks Sophie.

“Oh, right.” The medic offers up a military ID to Sophie. “I hope the gentleman will get himself some medical attention. The cut looks dramatic, but the greater worry is a concussion. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t exhibit the symptoms of one in a few hours, but hopefully it will be a mild case.”

Sophie passes the common access card to Jonathan.

Tarik Ozbilgin , it says. Jonathan’s unit once trained with various NATO counterparts and this looks like a Turkish name.

The CAC is unexpired; Tarik Ozbilgin is in active service with the army.

His pay grade is E7. According to the birthday on the back of the card, he is thirty-six years of age.

And if he’s been in the army sixteen to eighteen years, then E7 tracks.

Jonathan hands back the CAC. “Thank you for your service.”

Tarik Ozbilgin chuckles. “Thank you for the tax dollars that support my service.”

Now that Jonathan has seen his name, he hears a slight accent also. They leave Tarik Ozbilgin, possible first-generation American, to his work. The other patrons who gathered to watch the brouhaha have also dispersed back to various corners of the library.

Jonathan finds Astrid in the children’s department, which is mostly empty this time of the day, when kids need to be fed. “Are you okay? You don’t look too good.”

Astrid picks up several picture books that have been left behind on a pair of tubby hassocks. “I’m okay. I just hate it when things like this happen at the library.”

Jonathan wants to put his arm around her and tell her that she deserves so much better. But she’s never confessed any heartache to him and it doesn’t look like she’s about to start now.

He sighs. “I’ll go take a look at the guy.”

The guy is already out of the restroom. Sophie again offers him the option of not only filing a police report but calling EMS. He thanks Sophie repeatedly but rejects any further action and leaves.

Except he then proceeds to stand outside. Waiting for an Uber?

Can the man not even do a dramatic exit properly?

Hazel comes up to Jonathan. “Does the library have CCTV cameras?” she asks softly.

“We do. But they’re not currently working and they’re not exactly a priority on the city’s maintenance list,” Jonathan answers, distracted. A second passes before he gets the gist of her question. “You want to see footage of what just happened?”

“I thought it was strange—completely one-sided. The patron who got beat up—I don’t think he had any idea why the other patron went after him in the first place.”

Jonathan shrugs. “Our cameras wouldn’t have recorded anything. But last time there was a fight in the library, a couple of years ago, somebody caught it on their phone and uploaded it. It could happen again this time.”

He studies Hazel’s expression, afraid he might see a distress similar to Astrid’s. But Hazel does not appear disturbed, only puzzled.

She shakes her head. “Much more of a thrill ride than I anticipated, working at the library.”

Sophie needs to write up the brawl. But the day doesn’t want her to file an incident report in peace.

By the time the aftermath of the fight has been dealt with—chairs righted, carpet sprayed, terminals disinfected—a potty emergency arises.

And by the time Sophie, who keeps a pair of heavy-duty tongs for just such occasions, extracts a sippy cup stuck in the drain hole of the family restroom toilet bowl, the on-again-off-again drizzle outside has turned into a downpour.

“The rain is supposed to stop in about forty-five minutes,” Jonathan says.

He means that weather shouldn’t be a factor for Game Night’s attendance.

Sophie’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Elise, adores tabletop gaming and has been trying to find a local club with people her age where she won’t be the only girl or the only Black person in the room.

Game Night is Sophie’s attempt to see whether Elise can find that community of younger and more diverse players via the library.

It hasn’t been billed as a teen event or an event aimed at traditionally underserved segments of the population. But in terms of marketing, Sophie targeted area high schools—specifically, teacher and parent sponsors for clubs for girls in coding, STEM, and leadership.

Unfortunately, registration numbers have been sluggish, to put it kindly.

Astrid has been hyping the event to kids who attend the library’s teen book club and LGBTQ+ social club. She’s even started to pimp the event to the young parents who come to her baby and toddler storytimes, telling them to think of it as a pre-Halloween treat for themselves.

Jonathan has reassured Sophie, using historical data, that usually more people show up than those who register ahead of time, but Sophie is secretly convinced that everyone is going to find something more fun to do and Game Night will end up a complete dud.

“I’m sorry, what?” She realizes that Jonathan has said something else and she hasn’t heard.

“Nothing, really. Just that I disinfected the toilet tongs and put them back,” answers Jonathan.

“Thank you, Jonathan.” She rests her hand on his arm for a moment. “You’re a godsend.”

He really is a great person, always respectful and always helpful. And gets better-looking every year in the way that sometimes happens for men in their thirties and forties. If he were a woman she’d have no choice but to date him.

Behind him, in the middle of the circulation area, stands Astrid, staring at nothing in particular.

“Astrid, isn’t it almost time for your next program?” Sophie asks, momentarily jolted out of her own problems.

“Oh, right,” says Astrid and hurries off.

Sophie sighs. She recognized the beat-up man: She saw him once, in the grocery store, the loading zone of which abuts the edge of the library’s lot. He and Astrid had their arms around each other, whispering, oblivious to their surroundings.

But something went wrong within days—pain had been written all over Astrid’s face. It was only in the past month or two that she had regained some of her liveliness and interest in life.

Sophie sighs again and heads for her office. She now has two incident reports, in addition to all the reports she must generate at the end of every month. And a slew of emails to get through before six p.m.

She opens her door and almost steps directly on an origami love knot— the things one learns to identify from library summer programs over the years.

Puzzled—and a bit excited—she picks it up.

Can this possibly be an old-fashioned love note?

With Elise nearly grown, maybe it’s time for Sophie to think about herself again.

The unfolding of the knot is a barrel of ice water upended on the tiny fuse of her anticipation.

I know you’re keeping a secret. We should talk.