An Imperfect Librarian - Elizabeth Murphy [12]
over her shoulders. Avoid!!!
> fair markr Midterm wz a joke Final WZ CRAP
I program the database to alert me of additions or changes related to the name Norah Myrick. Next, I open a word-processing document to record the information I’ve gathered so far. I name the file francis_norah.doc.
CHAPTER EIGHT
afternoon worry break
ICAN’T BLAME HENRY FOR WANTING to sit nearer the window. He’s so short he needs a front row seat to be able to see down into the Room. There’s a hooded body curled up, dozing in a chair. In a nearby carrel, a girl is copying something from a book. The couple on the two-seater couch below the window are necking. Straight ahead, a long rectangular beam of light cuts through the greens, blues and reds in the stained glass.
“Can you move away from the window and be less obvious about it?”
“Less obvious about what?” Henry says.
I don’t bother to argue. I rearrange the chairs while Henry serves himself at the stand. He walks his fingers through the cookies, picks a plump one then goes to his chair. I pour my own cup, wipe off the stand and circle round to join him. By then, he’s already rearranged the seating and the conversation. “Your libido is a) in remission, b) in quarantine, c) on extended disability leave or d) in some other arrested state. Which one?” he says.
I take my place next to him. “How would you feel if your wife left you for another woman?”
“I wouldn’t marry that type of woman.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“That’s because you make everything more complicated than it needs to be,” he says.
“I was a good husband. I did everything I could to please her.”
For her thirty-fifth birthday I borrowed some money to buy tickets for two to Greece. I tried to come up with the best itinerary, best hotels, best gift, best husband. I put the tickets in a large box and had it gift-wrapped. We went out to supper. As planned, the waiter came by with the box during dessert. Diners at other tables turned to view the spectacle. I watched her face. She smiled and laughed as she pulled out fat wads of stuffing. Her expression changed when she found the tickets in an envelope at the bottom. It turned out Elsa didn’t want to go to Greece. She’d been there already.
“There are husbands who are pathological cheats,” Henry says. “There are husbands who are pathological liars. Then there’s the worst kind.” He pauses as if he’s expecting me to finish his sentence.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“The pathologically pleasing husbands,” he says.
“More like pathologically wrong. I worried that she’d leave me for another man, not another woman.”
“Is worrying the strategy you have in mind for dealing with Francis and his People for Privacy?” he says.
“I need a break from conversations about Francis.”
“A break from worrying about him, did you mean?”
“Whatever.”
“If worrying didn’t prevent your wife from leaving you, don’t expect it to work with Francis. All you’ll accomplish is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“I hate those words. You sound like Elsa.”
When she came home late night after night, I couldn’t resist questioning her: Where were you? Why does it matter? It matters to me. I was nowhere. You had to have been somewhere. Who cares? I care. You’re such a bore sometimes, Carl. Yes, well please remember you’re married to the bore.
“You ended up instigating exactly what you feared most,” Henry says.
“The more I worried about her leaving me, the more she pulled away, the more she pulled away, the more I worried, and so on and so on. I went alone to a psychologist as a final resort. Elsa wouldn’t come. ‘You’re the one with the problem,’ she said.”
“I’m surprised someone who counts his pennies the way you do would tolerate paying psychologists’ fees,” Henry says. “I would have diagnosed you for far less.” He eases up from his chair like a woman pregnant with twins who stands with the shape of the chair still under her. He takes three or four steps before he can straighten up completely. His gait is awkward because the sciatic nerve problem makes his left leg move slightly to the side each time he steps