Chapter 8 Kip

Kip Pickens ran into Davey on his way out of the reading room. He'd been watching for him and somehow still managed to be snuck up on like Davey was some sort of ghost. It was cartoonish, the velocity with which the two ran into each other. Kip was trembling now, and his stomach was seizing with violent cramps. He was hiccuping garlic he'd eaten two days ago. The damn fast. Soraya wasn't complaining about hunger at all, and he'd needed to get away from her and burrow into his unhappiness for a moment.

Davey didn't apologize for their run-in. Nor did Kip.

He imagined Soraya and Davey in the reading room, alone but for the oblivious graduate students trailing Davey. "Come find me by the backlog boxes when no one's watching."

He could see the words coming out of Davey's mouth. Worse, he could see them coming out of Soraya's.

He was confronted again, this time by Ronald when he was coming out of the bathroom, still clutching his stomach but determined to get back to the reading room without taking the time to even dry his hands.

"Mr. Pickens, I didn't expect to see you here," Ronald said. The workroom was empty. Manuscripts on desks where they'd been left for the night, but no watchful eyes. "Were you looking for something?"

"I'm sorry," Kip said. Davey's desk was the one closest to the bathroom, and it still had a Ge'ez prayer book open on top. As if this wasn't Davey's last day of work. As if Davey was gloating that he'd be asked to stay permanently. "Davey has a group of grad students through, and there was a line for the public bathroom. Must have been something he said."

"We value you here." Ronald put his arm on Kip's shoulder. Fatherly. "But the appearance of security is almost as important as actual security. I can't have you—"

"Say no more," Kip moved so Ronald would have to remove his arm. He was sweating a little and didn't need any new weight on his flushed skin.

"You're a part of our community," Ronald said. "Not just on account of your family but on account of the excellent work you've done with our collection."

"You staying late tonight, Ronald?" Kip asked. He didn't want to talk about his father or his grandfather. "Having a ham sandwich at your desk and hitting the books?"

"ITS is forcing me out. Have you not been subject to their relentless campaign of email reminders this week?"

Kip didn't know what Ronald was talking about, and there was little he hated more than being in the dark.

"‘To take advantage of the intersession period, there will be no wired or wireless internet service between nine p.m. and seven a.m. on the evening of Thursday, June 24th, as ITS is performing scheduled maintenance.' I think that's the message verbatim. Have you really not seen it? They've been sending those emails daily; it's harassment."

Of course Kip had seen the emails, but the realization that he was looped in didn't help. He was unhappy that he hadn't understood Ronald's meaning right away, or he was unhappy that Davey had planned things so well that he'd chosen a night that Ronald couldn't get lost in work at his desk. He was unhappy.

"I'm going home right at eight, Kip, and so should you. You look tired, and I'm sure you'll want to celebrate with Soraya tomorrow."

Kip didn't reply because Davey and his trail of graduate students came back through the hall. It was five minutes before seven. A little more than an hour to go.

"We close at five most days, but Thursdays during the academic year, we're here until eight," Davey said to his students. He was projecting, performing, for the sake of Ronald and Kip. "Maybe I'll see you here next year, maybe we'll work alongside each other and make great discoveries from within these stacks."

"Davey's forgetting that he won't be here next year," Kip said, to himself more than to Ronald, though he said it loud enough that Ronald could hear. He made sure of that.

"We haven't made any announcements about the permanent staff position." Ronald gave a little wave to the group of students. "Mary, Soraya, Davey. It could be any of them or none of them. The decision is still confidential, Kip."

A couple of the students had waved back at Ronald, and then Kip waved in return, which didn't make sense to anyone, so there was a quick aversion of the eyes all around.

"I have to get back to the books myself," Kip said. "All's quiet in the reading room. Jefferson awaits."

Kip had told Ronald about his line of research. Not to ask his advice, not exactly, but to try and read his facial expression when he shared the idea. Now, just as the first time he'd brought it up, Ronald's features relaxed into something like a poker face.

"You have a good night, Kip. If I don't see you before you go."

Another pat on the arm. Kip read it as fatherly, but whether it was meant that way was known only to Ronald. The chief librarian disappeared back into his office, to be alone with his invoices and his recording of Mahler's Fifth.

"All right, guys, I'm going to take you back upstairs to the coatroom and send you into the night, your souls enriched by the wonders you've seen here tonight," Davey said to his group. They were still down the hall from Kip. Davey had lost them a little. They were graduate students, serious about their scholarship, sure, but it was June and it was evening, and they all had cool drinks and warm patios calling.

Kip had done an undergrad in Toronto and a master's in Montreal, both at schools to which his family had long philanthropic ties, but neither institution invited him back to complete his graduate work.

"You think you can float along because you have a name on a couple of buildings?" his father bellowed from across the tennis court when he'd announced that he wouldn't be staying on in Montreal for his PhD. "It's harder for families like ours."

His father was so riled up he'd served into the net.

"You're judged twice as harshly. Every philosophy department is suddenly a Benetton. Your name isn't an advantage; it's an albatross." He smashed his second serve into the net, too, but under Pickens family rules, he was allowed another try.

Kip's father had eventually decided that an American institution would be more receptive to his charms than the Canadians had been, and so Kip wound up in Vermont, but he came with his father's voice ringing in his ears. His name was an albatross, and he'd have to produce stunning work, revolutionary scholarship, to be taken seriously.

The elevator pinged. It was there to collect the graduate students. They filed in, and behind them came Davey. As if they needed help navigating one floor up to the exit, as if they needed him hanging around any longer. Kip should have gone back to the reading room, or he should have gone down to the basement to hide with Ro and Umu. There were no other readers, Ronald was in his office; it was the perfect opportunity. If he left it much longer, he risked Ronald's reemergence—the man might have forgotten something, he might be struck by the urge to spend the rest of the evening in the workroom, or in the reading room, making it impossible for Kip to stay past closing. It was unlikely, but it could happen.

Kip should, Kip should, Kip should, but he didn't. Instead he stood and watched the slow old elevator until it was all the way closed, until Davey was all the way gone. In effect they were a team, in effect they'd planned this night together; they were partners. The truth of it was, though, Kip despised the very sight of him.