He shook his head.
“How come?”
“I haven’t thought about any specialties yet. Too far off in the distance.”
She reached over and touched the tips of his fingers. “You’re a beautiful boy, Isaac Gomez. One day you’ll be famous. I hope you think of me kindly when you are.”
He laughed.
Klara said, “I’m not being funny.”
He walked her back to her desk in the reference section and turned away as she began chatting with her assistant, Mary Zoltan, a mole-faced woman ten years younger than Klara but somehow more cronelike. When Klara saw he was leaving, she ran after him, caught him by the door, touched his shoulder and whispered fiercely that he was beautiful, it had been beautiful, too bad it could never happen again.
Mary Zoltan was staring. No warmth in her rodent eyes.
Klara squeezed his shoulder. “Okay?”
“Okay.” He moved out of her grasp and left the library. Too wound up to concentrate on his doctoral research or June 28 or anything else. As he stepped out into the open air, the bulk between his legs throbbed, and Klara’s scent adhered to his skin, his throat, his nasal passages. He stopped in a men’s room in the neighboring building and washed his face. To no avail; he stank of semen and Klara.
No way could he face Petra.
He had nothing to offer her, anyway.
Why was he feeling as if he’d been unfaithful to her?
He walked back to Figueroa, caught the Metro 81 bus to Hill and Ord, picked up the 2 at Cesar Chavez and Broadway, and bypassed the Sunset/Wilcox exit for the station house. Continuing to La Brea, he got off and walked all the way to Pico Boulevard. There, he caught a Santa Monica Blue Line 7 to the beach.
It was nearly six by the time he arrived at the pier, where he bought a chewy corn dog, crisp fries, and another Coke, walked a while, checked out the few old Japanese guys fishing from the far end. Then he just hung out. His grad-student clothes and briefcase drew stares from tourists and tough-faced teens and vendors.
Or were they seeing something else?
The person who never fit in, never would.
If they only knew what bounced at the bottom of the case.
Leaving the pier, he walked down to the beach, got sand under his socks and didn’t care as he continued to the shoreline where he rolled up his khakis and got barefoot and waded out into the cold surf.
Standing there until his feet grew numb, he thought about nothing.
That felt great.
Then he flashed back to June 28.
Petra thinks I’m right, but I could still be wrong. It would be good to be wrong once in a while.
He walked back onto the sand, put his socks and shoes back on without bothering to dry his feet.
By the time he got back home it was close to ten and his mother was sulking because he’d missed the dinner she’d prepared. Albondigas soup teeming with meatballs and herbs, beef tamales, a big pot of black beans with salt pork. As Mama hovered and counted every forkful, he ate as much as he could stomach. When his guts were about to burst, he wiped his chin, told her it was great, kissed her cheek, and headed for his room.
Isaiah was already asleep in the upper bunk, lying on his back snoring rhythmically, his left arm flung across his eyes. For the past year, Isaiah, an apprentice roofer, had bounced from one construction job to another, working for barely above minimum wage, acquiring a permanent reek of tar. Generally, Isaac was used to it, but tonight the tiny space smelled like a freshly asphalted freeway.
His older brother snuffled and rolled over and returned to his original position. The job demanded rising at five A.M. in order to be in place at the pickup spot when the shift boss drove by in his panel truck and collected day laborers.
Isaac removed his shoes and placed them down on the floor quietly. His younger brother Joel’s rollaway cot was empty, still made-up from the morning. A part-time city college student when he wasn’t clerking at the Solario Spanish Market on Alvarado, Joel had taken to staying out late without explanation. The same transgression committed by the older Gomez boys would’ve brewed a parental storm. But Joel, good-looking, with a Tom Cruise smile, got away with everything.
Isaiah snuffled again, louder. Muttered something in his sleep. Went silent. Isaac disrobed carefully, folded his clothes over a chair, and slipped into the lower bunk.
A slurred “Hmmm” came from above and the bed frame squeaked. “That you, bro?”
“It’s me.”
“Where you been? Mom’s pissed.”
“Working.”
Isaiah laughed.
“What’s funny?” said Isaac.
“I can smell it all the way up here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You smell like heavy-duty fucking, man. Yo, little bro. Right on.”
The following day, he returned to the library, determined to meet Klara’s eyes forthrightly.
We’re all adults here.
She wasn’t at her desk.
“Sick,” said Mary Zoltan.
“Nothing serious, I hope.”
“When she called in this morning, she sounded pretty bad.”
“A cold?” said Isaac.
“No, more like…” Mary stared at him and Isaac felt his face catch fire. He’d showered for a long time but if Isaiah, half-asleep, could smell it…
“Whatever,” said Mary. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“No, thanks.”
She smirked.
Sick. More than a cold.
A woman on the edge and he’d driven her over.
Bad enough on its own, but there goes June 28.
As he made his way down to the third subbasement, nightmare scenes tumbled out of his brain like a payoff of slot-machine quarters.
Klara, having convinced herself she’d been sexually exploited- by a young, ambitious man- had plunged into a deep, dark depression.
And dealt with it by self-medicating.
Overdosing.
Or, she’d drowned her sorrows in pills and alcohol- pills and white wine.
Yes, that fit: tranqs and chardonnay. Besotted, she staggers to her minivan. Another car heads her way but it’s too late.
Two gifted children left orphaned.
A police investigation ensues: What had led a middle-aged librarian to engage in such rash behavior?
Who was the last person she’d been with?
Mary knew. From the way she’d looked at him, Mary knew.
He stopped midway down the second flight. What if the two of them hadn’t been as discreet as they’d believed and someone, some botany scholar, some damned chlorophiliac, lured to Isaac’s quiet, dark corner by a crumbling, antiquarian text on molds or marigolds or whatever, had seen everything?
Career-killing publicity.
Bye bye med school.
Bye-bye Ph.D., for that matter. He’d be standing with Isaiah at five-thirty A.M., waiting for roofing jobs.
The shame. His parents… the Doctors Lattimore. Everyone at Burton Academy. The university.
Councilman Gilbert Reyes.
By the time he reached his corner, he’d conjured a vivid image of Reyes calling a press conference in order to distance himself from his prodigal project.
He looked around. No one in the Botany section. As usual. But what did that mean? During the whole thing- the entire damned orgiastic fifteen minutes or however long it had taken- his eyes had been shut.
He shut them now, as if to bring back the moment. Opened and saw high library stacks. Dim, empty corridors.
But everything felt wrong; the air smelled reproachful.
He turned face and ran back to the stairs. Tripped and nearly tumbled but managed to maintain balance.
Or something that passed for it.
He couldn’t be here today. Back to the beach, the beach had been good. He’d return, stuff his face with junk food, play video games like an everyday bonehead, numb his feet, and whatever else demanded numbing, in the vast, relentless Pacific.