Chapter Seven #2
Brenda’s a few minutes late. Maybe she won’t show. Maybe she forgot we had this scheduled. She’s a busy person. Plus, she may have suggested this meeting solely to appease me and make me feel heard. It might not actually be a priority for her—
“Darcy?”
Brenda is standing in the doorframe.
“Hello,” I say in a too-high voice.
She pulls out a chair. “Sorry I’m late. I underestimated the lunchtime traffic.”
“No problem,” I say, my voice still too high. “Um. Let me know if you have anything specific you want to discuss first, but I’ve come prepared with some ideas and suggestions.”
“Have you?” she says while taking off her jacket. “You’re always on top of things, aren’t you?”
“No. Definitely not always,” I say.
She laughs.
I take a breath. “Okay. So. We’re talking about the complaints we’ve received regarding censorship.
You mentioned that we’re planning to review our related policies, and I know we have established procedures regarding how we address complaints related to our collections and programming.
That all sounds good. I’d also like to suggest we consider training our staff on how to respond to this sort of conflict and aggression.
I did my best in both of the recent instances, but I would have felt more confident if I’d been prepared with more specific messaging or direction. ”
I inhale. I’m speaking too quickly.
“Now, the main suggestion I have is that we consider these instances the same way we consider any rising issue in our community. In the same way we might plan programs or recommend resources on budgeting or community assistance when we notice our community is dealing with food and housing insecurity. I think now is the time to plan programs, develop our collection, and recommend resources about topics like intellectual freedom and community connection. I’ve been doing some research, and my understanding is that the behavior we’ve seen as of late is a symptom of deepening social and class division, and a significant number of sources suggest that one of the best ways to respond is to foster community and conversation. ”
I inhale again.
“So that all leads me to this recommended program, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Of course, I don’t think this is going to cure the problem—but I think it might be a small step toward connecting the work we do with these issues in a more constructive and positive way.
Have you heard about human libraries before? ”
She blinks. “No. I don’t think so.”
“It’s a social program where people act as books and share their life stories with readers in one-on-one conversations.
The objective is to promote connection and understanding, and challenge stereotypes, while fostering empathy.
I thought maybe we could pilot one at this branch.
I’m sorry I can’t get the screen in this room to work, or I’d show you some examples.
I have videos other libraries made. I can send you a follow-up email—”
“I love this idea,” she says. “Let’s do it.”
“You do?” I say. “That’s great.”
I smile. I’m looking forward to telling Dr. Jeong that my therapy homework is on track.
I join my next meeting three minutes late. The other attendees are already talking.
“What are your most popular questions lately?” Annie asks. She’s the meeting organizer.
This Zoom call includes reference librarians across our system.
We meet on a quarterly basis to discuss our services.
As part of this, we analyze the subject matter of our questions to identify areas where we might need to improve our collections, train staff, and so on.
We also talk about work we can share or complete together, like guides or work-shops.
Fiona, a librarian from a couple towns over, is talking about the reference work her branch has been doing. “We’re getting legal questions. Questions about health. Tech support, of course. Job search assistance… the usual. Slight uptick in questions regarding social services.”
The attendees can only see the top of my head, because I am making a list on a notepad of people I think could have sent me my nude. These are the suspects:
1) The patron sending me bird requests. The email address that sent me the nude is bird-themed, which is suspicious, and this patron obviously has my email address.
2) Ruth, Joy’s ex-girlfriend. I don’t know her very well, but she’s on my social media, and while I’m mostly joking when I say negative things about her, the truth is I have no reason to trust her. Maybe she hates me. Maybe she’s still in love with Joy and wants to fuck with me.
3) My cousin Tucker. He’s an ignorant, overtly homophobic man who often makes me feel uncomfortable. I don’t trust him.
4) Douglas, one of Ben’s old friends. I only kept him on my social media because we had this interaction once that made me feel bad for him, but he’s a lot like Tucker.
5) My mom. I don’t know why she would screenshot my naked Instagram story and send it to my work email, but her behavior has always mystified me. I’m often flabbergasted by the choices she makes.
“Same here,” says Aisha. “We had quite a few tax-related questions this quarter, as expected, but also quite a few questions relating to topics like affordable housing, food assistance, and financial aid.”
“What about your branch, Darcy?” Annie asks.
I unmute my mic and look up at the camera. “Similar trends here.”
I haven’t actually assessed our data, so I’m lying. I barely worked this quarter. I’ve been away.
I mute my mic, look back down at my list of suspects, and flip the page in my notebook. The next page is covered in notes about the human library.
I think of my earlier meeting with Brenda.
Prior to her arrival, I’d been in the glass-walled room preparing my notes.
People were looking in. Maybe someone who saw me in there, with the word “lesbian” written on the board and my trans flag pin on my vest, felt compelled to lash out at me.
Maybe that’s who sent me the picture. Maybe I upset someone.
But how would they get the picture?
I flip the page. I zero in on my first suspect, the bird emailer.
I unmute myself again. “I have noticed a slight uptick in questions about, um, wildlife. Birds, specifically. Has anyone else been getting those?”
“Pardon?” Annie says.
Why did I ask that? Did I take my medication today?
“Bird questions,” I repeat, having already dug this hole for myself. “Has anyone else been receiving questions about, uh, birds?”
“No,” Fiona says.
Aisha turns on her mic. “No bird questions here.”
“Hello,” my mom says.
I’m home from work, sitting on the floor in Joy’s workshop, petting Kyle.
“Hi, Mom,” I say.
“Wow, hi. Is this my long-lost daughter? It’s been a while since we’ve heard from you. I didn’t know if you were dead or alive.”
I feel myself revert slightly into the child I once was when I hear my mom’s voice, especially when she sounds irritated.
I remember being a little girl in that house with her.
She did my hair every morning before school.
She tied it into tight pigtails or French braids.
I hated it. I used to pull them out at recess.
“I’m alive.” I cringe. “How are you? How’s Dad?”
“Beyond not hearing from my only child for months, I’m well. Thank you. Your father is all right. He has a sore hip, but we’re managing. He’s watching the game right now. He says hello. Why are you calling?”
“I’m just checking in.”
I run my fingers against my scalp. My hair is down right now.
“For no reason?”
“Yeah, for no reason. I’m just calling to say hey. Is that all right?”
She huffs. “Whatever. You’ve always been good at keeping things close to your chest, that’s for sure.”
I frown. “What do you mean by that?”
I already know what she means. She considers me a secretive person because when I was a teenager I hid things from her, like eating, dating, and drinking.
I behaved like a run-of-the-mill, standard teen; however, my mom never saw it that way.
She thinks I’m dishonest because I’m gay.
She has misconceptions about homosexuality and has interpreted my reluctance to come out to her as secretive behavior.
I have reason to believe she also just considers gay people devious and untrustworthy in general.
In fact, she doesn’t believe I am truly gay.
She thinks it’s a choice I made to be defiant and alternative.
Despite the fact that I’m married and in my thirties, she still views me as a rebellious child, driven by a bizarre and illogical motive to upset her for no good reason.
My head hurts. It feels like there are tight elastic bands tied taut to my scalp.
She’s always been like this. Before she griped about my lesbianism, she used to complain about my diet, my clothes, or about how I lived with Ben before marriage.
She didn’t think I should go to university.
It was too much money. It’s always been something, and it’ll always be something.
She wants me to be someone I’m not. A modest, well-behaved, obedient, feminine, domestic, chaste, skinny heterosexual she can brag about to the ladies in her running club.
Even if I were that person, I think she’d still complain.
I doubt I could ever be who she wants me to be.
I don’t tend to call her because she’s difficult to speak to, and she rarely calls me.
I live far away. I visit once every other year or so.
I often feel upset by the fact that our relationship is strained, and I wish I could have an easier relationship with her and my dad, but I don’t think it’s in the cards for us. For the most part, I’ve accepted that.
My dad and I only speak through my mom. Once in a while he answers the phone when I call, we exchange pleasantries, then he hands me off to her. When I visit, he and I talk about baseball, despite the fact that I don’t follow baseball.