11. Adam
Chapter eleven
Adam
B ecause I don’t know what else to say, I text Nicole a funny meme every day during the winter break. It’s easier than texting anything real; the coward’s way forward. But while sometimes she receives the memes and just reacts to them, other times, she responds, telling me about her day and what she and her family are doing.
So now I know that there are bats that live under a bridge in downtown Austin and at dusk, they all fly out en masse. I know her family always drives around their neighborhood to look at Christmas lights, and one house goes all out with music and toy trains weaving across the yard. I know that Nicole and her sisters went out and bought corny, matching Christmas pajamas and all wore them Christmas morning as a surprise for their mom, who may or may not have cried. I know that on New Year’s Eve, they all stayed home, even Olivia, and ate fondue and ice cream together on the couch as they watched the ball drop.
And in turn, Nicole now knows about the lighted boat parade I watched with my mom and Joan and a picnic of Publix subs. She knows we visited my dad’s grave and left a sprig of holly berry on the top of his headstone, and my mom definitely cried. She knows I got together with my high school best friend, who is now married and has an adorable three-year-old, with another baby on the way. She knows that I went to bed early on New Year’s Eve, because when she texted me “Happy New Year” at midnight, I didn’t reply until the next morning.
I also know that she went on dates, or at least one that she mentioned, a bad one. Perhaps she went on other dates, too, but they were good, so she didn’t text me about them. I wanted so badly to fish for information about that date, but of course, I couldn’t. Why would I care? I’m only her coworker and now text buddy, I guess.
On the first day back at work in January, I’m on edge wondering how our texting over break will translate into real life, or if it even will at all. Before I leave my house to head to the library, I text her a meme featuring Jim from the show The Office . In the first panel, he’s pointing to a chart that says “Always give 100% at work.” In the second panel, the chart clarifies “Mon - 14%, Tues - 26%, Wed - 42%, Thu - 15%, Fri - 3%”.
I add my own message: “What percentage for the first day after a long break?”
She texts back: “Ready for 100% on the graphic novel project!”
Okay, very work focused, but to be fair, so was the meme I sent.
At the library, I don’t run into Nicole until mid-morning in the break room. Susan, who is Herb’s administrative assistant, and Ben, another of the librarians, are discussing their grandchildren while getting coffee. Ben’s daughter had a baby right before Christmas, and Susan is gushing about the photo. The refrigerator door closes to reveal Nicole, holding a container of yogurt.
She startles a little when she notices me. “Hi,” she manages to say.
I smile, drinking her in. Her hair is a little longer, with blonde showing at the roots. She’s wearing black dress pants with a light blue sweater. She looks tired around her eyes, but otherwise her face is the same as the one that’s been popping up in my thoughts since I dropped her off at the airport weeks ago.
“Hey,” I finally answer.
I let the pause stretch on too long, and Susan and Ben are watching us now. Nicole notices.
“How was your break?” she asks quickly.
I frown and rub my chin. “Um,” I brilliantly verbalize. She pretty much knows how my break was. My eyes dart to Susan and Ben. Does she not want our coworkers to know that? Nicole looks at me expectantly, but with an air of detachment. “Uh, good,” I answer vaguely. “How was yours?”
“It was great,” she replies. “But I’m ready to get back to work. Let’s set up a time to discuss the graphic novel collection more. ”
I tilt my head to the side. “Discuss the graphic novel collection?” I repeat, shuffling a step closer to her.
She steps back. “Yes. We’re ready to order the books and start cataloging them, aren’t we?”
I nod. “Mm-hmm.”
“Good. I’ll look at your calendar and send you a meeting invite for later in the week.”
Susan and Ben have gone back to their conversation. Nicole glances at them and then gives me the smallest, abashed smile, her eyebrows wrinkling endearingly.
I sigh. “Sounds good.”
“Thanks.” Nicole sidesteps me and is out the door with her yogurt.
I shake my head to unbind my thoughts, but I can’t remember now why I came into the break room to begin with.
When I get back to my desk, I text Nicole.
Adam:
That was weird
Nicole:
I know. Sorry [frowny face emoji]
But no explanation. I try to get it out of my head and focus on sifting through the dozens of emails, mostly junk, which came into my inbox during the time off.
True to her word, Nicole emails me that afternoon with an invite to meet on Wednesday in her office .
The next morning, I text her a meme of a woman sitting by the water reading a book. The image says:
“Oh yeah, I’m outdoorsy … if outdoorsy means I read outside.”
She marks it with the laughing reaction but doesn’t text back.
While I was in Naples during the break, my mom tried to get me out of the house more.
“Adam,” she scolded, “you can’t just sit around with an old lady your whole vacation. Why don’t you go do something fun?”
But I didn’t really have anywhere to go. Other than my high school best friend, Mark, who was busy with his own family, I don’t know anyone in Naples anymore. Mom and I watched Hallmark Christmas movies together, I went with her on her errands, and I played my computer games or read. I went on runs with Joan in the mornings or evenings when the air was cooler. My mom has an active social life, so a couple of times I found myself sitting at home alone on a weekend night while she was out with friends.
One day, in the week after Christmas, we decided to change things up and went to the beach. Regardless of the calendar, it was close to eighty degrees in south Florida, and while that is not warm enough in my mind to get in the water, it is a pleasant temperature for enjoying the sound of the waves crashing against the sand and watching seagulls dive bomb tourists with their picnic lunches.
“Your dad loved the beach,” Mom sighed as we sat side by side in our beach chairs .
I turned my head to see her face in profile. Her long, straight white hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail. Her brown eyes glistened, and her lips turned up in a soft smile. “I remember,” I said.
“He was a quiet man, didn’t like crowds, so in our younger days, we would often head to the beach after dinner. Most of the tourists and families and sunbathers had gone back to their hotels or homes by then, and we would sit together and talk as the sun went down.”
I smiled, picturing them on the beach together at sunset. “That sounds romantic.”
“Sometimes,” she began and then paused, “sometimes I wonder how life would have gone if circumstances were different.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I had passed before your father, I mean. What would his life have been like without me? I miss him every day, but my brain is just programmed to need people. I have my book club, and my committees at church, and the volunteering I do. I rarely feel lonely. Your father, though. Most of the time, I had to force him out of the house. He would go anywhere I asked him to but would never be the one to suggest it. He would have been terribly lonely, I think. I’m not sure he would have tried not to be.”
She turned to face me, then, her forehead creased together in between her eyebrows. “You remind me a lot of him,” she said.
And while it’s a comparison I loved to hear, I knew she didn’t mean her words as a compliment.
I sighed. “I know.”
“What do you know?”
I shrugged. “That I’m lonely. That as comfortable and orderly as my life is, I’m missing out.”
She nodded. “And what are you doing about it?”
Nicole’s face came to mind. “There’s a woman I’m interested in,” I admitted.
Mom’s eyebrows rose halfway up her forehead. “And?”
“And it’s complicated. She’s a coworker, and I don’t want to bother her.”
“Do you know that she would think your interest is a nuisance?”
“No. Honestly, she seems lonely, too. I’ve been trying to be a friend.”
Mom nodded. “Friends is a great place to start.” She grinned at me. “What’s her name?”
I laughed. “Oh, no. I’m not telling you anything else. Until,” I allowed, “there’s anything more to tell.”
She chuckled and took my hand. “Okay, fine. Just tell me this. Is she the type that will get you out of the house? Who won’t let you miss out on life?”
“Yes,” I murmured, the word tumbling up in the breeze floating out to sea.
I meet Nicole in her office on Wednesday, the order list for the graphic novels in hand. I tell her that I placed the order already and the costs were pretty close to what we estimated in our original proposal .
“That’s good,” she says absently, focusing on her computer screen. She’s gotten her hair done in the last couple of days, I note. Still lavender, but the color is refreshed in stark contrast to the area around her eyes, which looks more fatigued than before.
“Yeah,” I continue. “The books should start coming in next week and then I’ll be able to catalog them.”
Nicole’s quiet, the usual light in her eyes dimmed. She droops in her office chair, her neck bent and shoulders sagging.
“Hey,” I prod. “Is anything wrong?”
Her eyes snap to mine. “No, of course not.”
“Are you sure?” If she deflects again, I’ll let it go.
“Okay,” she admits, her eyes trained on her computer screen. “I guess I’m a little down, a little lonely, after spending the long break with my family.”
“That’s hard,” I say gently. “It sounded like you all had a lot of fun.”
“We did.” She sighs wistfully. “My sisters can be a pain, but they’re my best friends. It’s hard being so far from them all the time.”
I stay quiet, hoping she’ll continue opening up. But instead, she shakes her head, her hair swishing back and forth, and affixes a fake smile to her face.
“Anyway,” she says. “How long will the books take to get here?”
Barriers back up. I let it go and answer her question.
“I placed the order today, so they should start trickling in next week. None were backordered, so they shouldn’t take long to arrive.”
“Great!” she says. “As they come in and you work on the cataloging, I’ll continue talking to faculty members about plans to incorporate the graphic novels into their courses, and work on plans for marketing and programming around the collection.”
“For faculty members, does anything seem promising so far?” I ask.
“Yes, actually. I’ve talked to two different instructors who are pretty excited. Dr. Calder in the art department wants to do a whole unit in one of her courses about comic art, having the students look at examples from published works before they try it for themselves.” Nicole’s eyes sparkle as she talks, and I’m relieved to see the light returning to her face.
“That sounds amazing,” I say. “We could see if any of the students in her course are interested in displaying their finished comic art in the library—sort of an exhibit to go along with the collection.”
“Yeah, great idea. I’ll talk to Dr. Calder.” Nicole jots down a few words on the notepad in front of her. “I think that’s it for today, then,” she finishes, looking up at me.
I stand to leave, and to my surprise, she stands too, walking with me toward her office door. At the doorway, she places a hand tentatively on my arm.
“Adam?” she starts. She’s quiet for a moment and I wait for her to gather her thoughts. Finally, in an earnest voice, she quietly says, “Thank you.”
I meet her eyes. “Anytime,” I promise.
That afternoon, I check upstairs for Dr. Parker. His office door is open, and as usual, Beans is lounging near the desk.
I rap out a knock as I stick my head through the doorway. “I wasn’t sure you’d be here today.”
“Well, I try to get here every Wednesday, if I can,” he answers. “How was your Christmas?”
“Quiet,” I reply, taking a seat. “I visited my mom in Naples. How was yours?”
He chuckles. “Not quiet. All three kids came with their spouses and the grandchildren. We had a full house. Christmas morning was glorious! Toys and wrapping paper and chaos everywhere.”
His eyes are shining, and I feel a pang of longing in my chest.
“How many grandchildren do you have?”
“Six now,” he counts. “My oldest daughter has three little ones. My son has two. And my younger daughter and her husband had their first in November.”
I smile and nod.
“I’m glad you came by,” Dr. Parker adds. “I was thinking of starting a project to organize my personal papers going back as far as the founding of Harkness. That’s something the library might be interested in, yes?”
I clear my throat. “Yes, absolutely. We don’t have an archivist or any archival collections at the moment, but I can’t think of a better starting point than your personal papers.”
He nods. “I’ll talk to Herb. I’m sure there’s something I can do to lobby the board for funds to hire an archivist. ”
His statement, said nonchalantly, gives me pause. I’ve had inklings before that Dr. Parker, despite his “honorary” status, still wields a good amount of authority at Harkness, but this is the boldest statement he’s made to that fact, at least in front of me. I wonder just how involved Dr. Parker still is in the college’s decision making.
Dr. Parker eyes me knowingly. “Anything else I can do for you today, Adam? How are things with your girl?”
“I don’t have a girl,” I protest.
“Not yet, but you’re trying to woo one, aren’t you?”
“Uh, in a manner of speaking.”
“And how’s it going?”
“Not great,” I admit. “She’s reserved. I’m still trying to work my way from coworker to friend, but her walls are pretty high.”
“Hmm,” Dr. Parker muses. “Has she let you in at all?”
“Actually, yes,” I concede. “A little bit here and there. But then it’s like she realizes she’s doing it and shuts down.”
Dr. Parker’s eyes flash. “One thing I’ve observed in life,” he says, “is that often the people with the hardest defenses are the ones most worth knowing. For whatever reason, it sounds like this young lady has learned not to trust others with her vulnerabilities.”
I nod. That sounds right. “So, what can I do?” I ask.
“Give her every reason to believe that you are in her corner; that you’re trustworthy. But let her come to you.” He nods thoughtfully.
“What do you mean? ”
“Don’t pressure her. Don’t push her. Just be there, quietly and steadily. She’ll notice. And you’ll be the first person she thinks about when she’s ready to open up.”