The Librarians Are Plotting the Revolution - 2/2
Disclaimer: None of this is real, I made it all up. If you're reading this because you know me outside of fandom and googled my screen name, this would be a good time to back away slowly like a forklift. (Beep. Beep. Beep.) If you're reading this because you googled your own name, then I have three words for you, Matt Giraud. Stop googling yourself.
Part One
The library board of trustees was responsible for overseeing Simon. I was pretty sure they didn't pay very much attention to how he ran things, and even if they had, Simon probably wouldn't have cared what they thought. Still, they met every month to approve budget related items and hear reports from staff on what was happening in the library, and the meetings were open to the public. No one usually came, except for a few crazy regulars who always had a public comment on the same issue, like the sink in the men's room not having hot enough water, or why the library wasn't open until 9:00 on Sundays.
"We know there will be people at the board meeting this month." Kara told us the Monday before. "Randy has been getting questions from local media too, so I'm expecting them to be there. Adam, I want you there and ready to answer questions."
Adam raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean, answer questions? I'm not going to be able to defend every book purchase I've made. Some of these were even before I started working here."
Kara waved her hand in the air dismissively. "No, not every book. Just you know, generally. Our policy or whatever we have." Lil buzzed the phone in the back room to announce a phone call for Kara, and she headed back into her office, closing the door behind her.
"You know." I said to Adam. "Our policy or whatever. It's not that important."
Adam sighed and did something that was similar to running his hands through his hair, but stopped short of actually messing his hair up. "Oh my god, this is getting completely out of control. You know, I didn't want any of this to happen."
I rolled my eyes. "Oh come on. You did too." I didn't buy it for a minute, Adam thrived on drama. He had been waiting for this meeting ever since he graduated from school.
"Okay." Adam amended. "Maybe, but I really didn't mean for it to get this out of control. There were protestors at my apartment last week. I think they followed me home. My brother threw fruit at them."
I can't help laughing at that, because if anyone was born to throw fruit at people he disagreed with, it was Neil Lambert. "What was your brother doing there?"
"Oh, he got evicted, he has no job, woe is his life, so now he's sleeping on my couch, and throwing my fruit out my window. I'm going to kill him if he doesn't move out soon."
-----
I had met Adam's younger brother Neil when I had first started working at Franklin. Adam had invited me to a karaoke bar after work one evening. I think it was a birthday celebration or something. Or it might have just been because everyone really liked karaoke.
In addition to Adam; Anoop, Megan, Lil and Matt had come along, plus Neil, the only one who didn't work at the library.
"No, I don't work at the library." Neil said when I asked. "In fact, I was laid off last month, so I don't work anywhere."
"Jesus." Adam said. "Will you fucking get over it already? It was just a job. Get another one."
"Excuse me," Neil retorted. "It was not just a job. My entire identity is fundamentally changed. Before, I was a journalist. I kept the public informed. What is a democracy without an informed public? Also, I could pull off a fedora and those little pocket-sized notebooks. Now I'm just a guy with a bunch of dumb hats and no job, watching Glenn Beck destroy the very foundations of our once proud democracy."
"You've never been able to pull off a fedora." Adam said.
Around this time, Matt had dared Anoop to sing Like a Virgin, and Anoop had done it. Much to my surprise, it wasn't half bad.
"Guys, why don't we ever invite Danny?" Matt wondered. "He sings."
"Oh, no." Lil said firmly. "You invite Danny and I'm not coming."
"What?" Matt said. "He's not that bad."
Neil and I avoided the microphone. I wasn't really sure I was ready to make a fool of myself in front of new co-workers yet, and Neil insisted he was still recovering from the fruit chucked at him the last time. He said it in a way that implied everyone should protest and tell him it wasn't that bad, but no one did, and Neil didn't seem surprised.
"I can't believe my life has come to this." Neil said, slumping even slower in his seat, practically laying across the table at this point. "The highlight of my week is watching my brother cover the Stones in a karaoke bar."
It might have been the highlight of my week too. Adam was pretty good at karaoke, definitely the best I'd seen that night. He could actually sing, plus he was kind of hypnotic to watch. It was a little bit uncomfortable, actually... but in a good way.
"Are you going to drink that?" Neil asked, pointing at my not quite empty glass of beer, and when I didn't answer quickly enough, he drained it, then burped loudly.
-----
The board meeting was in the big meeting room on the first floor. There were tables set up at the front of the room for the board members and administration, and a couple rows of chairs set out for the public. Ten minutes before the official start of the meeting, there were clearly more people then there were chairs, and Ryan jumped up and jogged over to the closet to pull out more chairs.
Kara was at the front of the room, talking to Randy. She didn't have a chair at the front table, but she had set her self up in the first row. Adam hadn't come downstairs yet, but Anoop and Megan and I were all waiting in the back of the room and were planning on staying. I didn't see anyone who looked like local media. No cameras, no tape recorders, no notebooks.
Neil showed up a few minutes later. Adam came in the door behind him, and gave me an exaggerated eye roll when he spotted Neil.
"Ah, American democracy at work." Neil rubbed his hands together gleefully, surveying the crowd in the room.
Adam shrugged at us. "When he heard there was an opportunity for public comment, he insisting on coming."
"How goes the war against Glenn Beck?" Anoop said to Neil by way of greeting.
"You know," Neil said. "The man has written a book. God only knows what lunatic rantings are inside, but if he has a book, then he'll probably have a book tour. I think if I plan in advance, when he's visiting a B. Dalton or a Borders, I can jury rig one of the shelves to topple over on him during his signing, effectively destroying him."
"Wow." Anoop said, deadpan. "That sounds like a foolproof plan."
"Where's this 'local media,' anyway?" Neil twisted around, scanning the crowd.
"Adam, thank god you're here." Kara grabbed him by the arm. "I want you to meet Lydia from the Riverside Gazette." She introduced him to a tiny middle aged woman with glasses hanging on a string of beads around her neck.
Fifteen minutes after the meeting was supposed to start, Simon stood up and waved his arm at the crowd. "Hello there!" He called. "If everyone could just take their seats and be quiet, we'll get started with things shortly. Excuse me, please be quiet." When most, but not all of the room has quieted down, Simon just started the meeting and talked over the rest of them until they sat down and paid attention.
"The local media." Neil scoffed in my ear. "The Riverside Gazette is that free shopper's weekly that's in that stand outside the supermarket."
"It looks like there's a long list for public comments tonight, so let's just get the financial business out of the way first." Simon said. He was probably doing it that way on purpose, to make everyone wait before they could start ranting.
"Boy, I bet Lydia's written a few riveting exposes on that creepy guy with curtains across his van windows at the flea market." Neil continued. I stifled a laugh.
The first woman stood up at the podium, unfolded several sheets of notebook paper and spread them out in front of her.
"Oh, is she going to read all of that aloud?" Neil asked delightedly.
"Thank you." She said. "My name is Marjorie, and I'm the president of the Riverside Parents for Safe Libraries."
"They've organized." I said dramatically.
Neil dug through the pockets of his jacket and pulled out a notebook and a pen. "I have to take notes. This is too good."
"I've always considered the library to be a safe place for my five children." Marjorie said to the room. "Imagine my surprise when a friend told me that her teenage daughter was being urged by this library to read pornography."
"Porn-og-raphy..." Neil whispered in a sing-song tone, writing it down in all caps in his notebook and then underlining it twice. On the other side of him, Megan had her hand across her mouth to keep from laughing.
I wasn't really listening to Neil's running commentary, entertaining as it was. Adam was sitting next to Kara in the front row, turned around sideways in his chair so he could watch Marjorie. Kara was furiously taking notes -- even more than Neil -- but Adam was just watching with that same wide-eyed expression he always used when it looked like he was just super-interested in what you were saying, but really meant he was concentrating.
"I think it's awful enough that these titles are considered appropriate for the young adult section of a library." Marjorie said. "But how many parents thought the librarians were exposing their children to wholesome classic literature, when they were actively promoting this filth?"
"Exposing?" Neil repeated quietly. "This woman is such a pervert."
"After hearing her description of the explicit sexual acts in this book -- this book that is shelved in the young adult section, for minor children -- I started looking more closely at the library's collection. There are over 400 books in the library catalog under homosexuality. There are over 3000 under sex. There's another 200 under lesbians."
"Lesbians!" Neil hissed. "That should go in the headline. It'll draw the straight males in."
"Are you planning on writing an article about this?" I asked him.
"Maybe. I think I can do better than Lydia at the Gazette. With my hands tied behind my back, pecking out sentences with my nose."
Megan clucked like a chicken. "Sorry." She said when Neil turned to stare at her. "I like to make bird noises."
Anoop looked over the top of her head at me and shook his head sadly.
"Thank you." Simon said when the woman finished reading her notes.
She waited at the podium, and when no one else said anything, piped up with, "Well, what do you have to say for yourselves?"
Simon actually laughed at her, which was kind of an awesome and an asshole thing to do at the same time. "Oh no. This is an opportunity for public comment, not for a debate. You had your comment, the board will consider your suggestions. Actually, I'm not sure what your suggestion was. You did do an excellent job of telling us how large our collection is on various topics. Thank you for that, it'll save us running a report later."
At the end of the front table, Ryan Seacrest sank lower in his seat.
"My suggestion is you remove all the inappropriate titles from the childrens and young adult areas. The library shouldn't even own some of those. The ones that should be kept for adults to read should be kept behind the desk and people should have to ask for them." Marjorie said emphatically.
"That wouldn't be awkward at all." Neil muttered. "Hello, I'd like to check out the guide to gay sex. Oh no, I don't plan to have gay sex. I just like to look at the pictures to remind myself how straight I am."
A woman in the last row half-turned in her seat and glared at Neil.
"Stop saying gay sex." I said to Neil out of the side of my mouth.
"We want some answers." Marjorie informed Simon. "We've already told the library our concerns before tonight. We're here to get some answers, and we're not leaving until you give us some." The rest of the room broke into applause.
The president of the board of trustees cleared her throat. "Actually, Mr. Cowell, if your staff can provide some answers as we progress, I think that would be beneficial for everyone."
Simon looked over at Kara, who nodded. Simon leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. "Fine." He said, not sounding like he was fine with the idea at all.
"Now." The president of the board said. I couldn't remember her name. I think she was a member of the city council or the PTA or something. "Personally, I'd like to start with the alleged promotion of the titles this woman mentioned by the library. Exactly what were you referring to by that?" She turned to Marjorie.
Marjorie leaned forward towards the microphone on the podium. "I'm talking about the recommending reading lists on the library website, and the books promoted in library programs."
"Thank you." The president said, turning to Simon and Kara. "Now if someone could explain to the board and the public what reading lists and programs she's referring to, I think that would be a good place to start." This wasn't helping me figure out what other board she sat on. She could have learned those conflict resolution skills at either a city council meeting or a PTA meeting.
Kara nudged Adam, who stood up and managed to position himself at the side of the table by Ryan, so he could still see the board members at the table and most of the audience. "Hi guys!" He said cheerfully. "I'm Adam -- I'm a librarian here at the Franklin library, and I'm responsible for the teen collection and programs. I've received a lot of e-mails and letters from you in the last couple weeks, and I know this is really important to a lot of you, so I'm glad we have such a great turnout tonight!"
The audience wasn't having any of Adam's spin on the situation, thank you very much.
"Jesus." Neil said quietly. "Even I want to punch him in the face right now."
"We have about a dozen book lists available in the teen area of the library and on the library webpage." Adam explained to the library board. "They're not books that I personally recommend for everyone to read. I actually haven't even read all of them. Since we categorize our fiction collections by author, the lists are intended to help find books in a certain genre or on a topic. Some of them are are pretty standard lists -- we have one for romances and one for fantasy. The rest are topics that we get a lot of requests for. Vampires have been really popular for the last year, so we have a list of teen vampire fiction."
"But you don't have a list of Christian fiction!" A woman yelled from the back of the room.
Adam turned to look. "No, we don't have a list of Christian fiction. I don't think we have one for the adult fiction collection either. My experience with Christian fiction is when a patron comes in, they know what author they're looking for, and those authors tend to write several books, so they're grouped together. I just haven't had very many questions from teens about finding Christian books."
Then it was a man in the middle of the audience who spoke up. "So what you're telling us is you have a gay list of books because you get more questions about finding books about homosexuals than you do for books about Christians?"
"I don't know if I'd phrase it exactly like that." Adam said. "I think I do get more questions about GLBTQ books than I do about Christian fiction, but that might just be me." Randy laughed at this, and a few people in the audience actually smiled. "Another reason I think it's important to have a GLBTQ list is it's not a subject that someone feels comfortable asking a librarian about. Just because we don't get as many questions about gay fiction or books on depression doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't some interest out there. That's also part of the reason we have the gay fiction book list and the teen resources list on the website."
The comments continued in the same fashion for the next two hours. Not everyone who spoke had counts of how many titles were in the catalog under a subject. Some had lists of titles they believed were inappropriate, with descriptions of what the book was about. It was the same list of titles that Adam had received formal challenges on.
Adam spent some time explaining the libraries collection development policy and how he chose and reviewed books. The library board was nodding along with him. The audience reaction was mixed. Simon wasn't even pretending to pay attention anymore. Ryan was keeping track of the list of people who signed up for public comment while Simon flipped through the paperwork in front of him and occasionally looked up with an expression of I can't believe you're still here talking at me, go away already.
At one point, Scott stepped up to the podium and asked us to remove all the books from the library that weren't about blind people, because they offended him. Then he laughed crazily, like he always does at his own jokes.
"What the hell?" Neil said. "Is that guy for real?"
"No." Anoop and I said at the same time.
Three and a half hours into the meeting, Ryan had loosened his tie, Adam had removed his leather jacket and was perched on the edge of the table, next to Ryan's list of names, and Neil was complaining about his hand cramping from taking notes.
The next woman at the podium narrowed her eyes at Adam. "Do you really expect us to believe any of what you've said tonight when we know you've been indoctrinating children all across the country?"
Adam's eyes widened. "I'm actually not sure what you're talking about."
"We have Googled you. We've seen what committees you've been on and the workshops you've presented at conferences."
Considering Adam was a former weed-smoking new age hippie who spent multiple years at Burning Man, there was a lot more about him out there on the internet beyond his professional committees and presentations. I knew this, because I had Googled him once or twice myself.
"He's a witch, he's a witch!" Neil whispered. "Burn him! Burn him!"
"Earlier this year, you had a presentation at a conference about connecting with gay teenagers, didn't you?" This woman was very dramatic with her accusations. She could have been a prosecutor on a television show.
"I did do a presentation like that." Adam agreed cheerfully.
-----
“Just promise me you won’t do anything crazy.” Katy said.
I frowned. “It’s a conference of librarians. How crazy could it get? If anyone gets drunk and starts a vicious defense of FRBR, I promise to leave the room.” Just like I had every other time a librarian had one too many and started debating cataloging theory.
“I don’t know what’d you do.” Katy shrugged. “Maybe decide that since you're rooming with Adam, it's the perfect time to act on your man crush or something."
Oh, hilarious. She’d been talking about my man crush ever since she found out Simon had only authorized funding for one room. “I don’t have a man crush on Adam.” I repeated, like I had been for the last week and a half.
“Yes you do.” Katy corrected. “You never shut up about him. Adam said this. Adam did this. Adam read this book. Adam tamed a unicorn and rode it around the lobby today.”
That was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. Everyone knows unicorns don’t exist. And I can only hope that voice she used wasn't supposed to be an impression of me, because it was terrible. “Wait, you’re not mad about this or something, are you?”
Katy rolled her eyes. “Oh no. I think it’s adorable. I just think you should be careful, because if you kiss a little just to see what it's like, and then share the same bed because it made sense at the time, then you're going to have to explain what happened to a lot of people, like your parents and my parents and your boss.”
"Wow." I said thoughtfully. "I'm not even going to miss you at all this weekend."
"I know." Katy kissed my cheek. "Have fun, baby."
-----
"You're riding in the same car as Adam?" Neil had asked, raising his eyebrows. "Good luck with that." Ten minutes into the ride across the state to the conference, I realized what Neil meant. The radio was loud, but Adam was louder. He didn't have a bad voice, actually, it was just way too loud for one car.
Singing along to classic rock was entertaining for the first couple hours, but then even Adam got bored with it. "Can you even imagine living out here?" He said as we continued on through the rural farmland in the middle of the state. "I wouldn't last a week."
I shrugged. "I don't know, it might not be too bad. You'd probably keep busy, you know, farming things."
Adam laughed. "So, how did you end up a librarian?"
"What?"
"Were you one of those kids who loved reading and had an inspirational librarian growing up and decided to follow in their footsteps?"
I wrinkled my nose. "No, I hated reading. Mostly, I graduated from college and didn't know what I wanted to do, so I went back to school, which in hindsight was a terrible plan, because now I'm massively in debt so I can show little old ladies how to print the picture of their grandkids' cats from their e-mail."
"Those cats are probably very important to them."
"Sure they are."
"So, I take it you didn't come out of school wanting to be a helpful public librarian. What did you want to do?"
I shrugged. "I don't know, something big picture maybe. More technology, I don't know."
"Like David Cook?"
I shrugged again. "Yeah, maybe." David Cook was a librarian mostly known for his blog, which he had then turned into a book, and a series of speaking engagements. David spent a lot of time on the future of libraries and librarians, and was fairly controversial about it. For a librarian, that is. I thought he had some good ideas. Anoop put more energy into hating David Cook than I had seen him exert over anything else.
"He uses the word webinar." Anoop had said when he saw me reading David Cook's blog one afternoon. "Webinar is the stupidest word I've ever seen. Plus, it was trendy back in 2001. He's not even current."
"How did you end up a librarian?" I asked Adam. I was actually curious, since Adam usually had entertaining stories, but it was also a ploy to keep him from turning the radio back on.
"I'll have you know I did have an inspirational librarian in third grade." Adam informed me. "But, that wasn't made up my mind. I was at this hippie festival in the middle of the desert, and I was a little depressed because my boyfriend and I had broken up, and after I smoked a lot of weed, I decided applying to graduate schools would be a good idea."
"Wow." I said. "That's a really moving tale."
"I know, right?"
"I especially like the part about the hippies and weed. Do you use that in interviews?"
-----
The hotel room was pretty much exactly what I expected. Not the worst place I'd ever stayed, but cheap enough that it mostly smelled like bleach. That was okay, it just meant it was clean.
"So, what do you think?" Adam said, flipping his phone open. "Is six early enough?"
I stared at him in disbelief. "What? We don't have to be there until nine, right?"
"How much time to you need in the morning?"
"Like... ten minutes?"
Adam pursed his lips and changed the alarm entry on his phone. "Okay, so let's say seven then."
"Seriously?"
"Hey." Adam waved a hand around his head. "This doesn't just happen."
Adam's phone started buzzing promptly at 7am. I rolled over and pulled the other pillow over my head, but it didn't do any good. It was already light in the room, I was already awake, and I could hear Adam around the corner, rummaging through the disturbingly large bag he had left on the counter outside the bathroom the night before.
I stayed in bed until 8:00 just on principle, before I gave up and got up. Adam was standing in front of the sink, flat ironing his hair. He wasn't wearing a shirt, and his back and shoulders were covered in freckles. I hadn't ever thought about it before, but I suppose the hair color wasn't natural. It doesn't explain why his eyebrows are also dark though. I made a mental note not to bring this entire train of thought up with Katy, it would only be further evidence of my supposed man crush.
"What?" Adam asked, catching my eye in the mirror.
It might have been eight in the morning, but I was awake enough to realize that asking Adam if he dyed his eyebrows would be a completely ridiculous question. "Nothing. You done in there?" I added, tipping my head at the bathroom.
"Have at it." Adam ran another piece of hair through the iron.
-----
My morning workshop had been on net neutrality, and as interesting as it was, it was also insanely technical and exhausting, so in the afternoon, I slipped into the back of Adam's teen fiction workshop. My official reason was I needed something fun, and it related directly to my job, so Simon and Kara couldn't complain. My unofficial reason was I wanted to see Adam present.
I had probably already heard Adam talk about the books in his presentation before, since Adam was always talking about something he had just read, but I was curious to see what he was like in front of an audience. The room was almost full, and I wasn't sure if it was because of Adam, or because GLBT titles were the hot teen topic of the month.
The librarian who sat down next to me sighed loudly and shook his head as he looked around the room. "Here we go again." He said to me. "Someone's going to tell us something obvious like they're the only one who ever thought of it."
"Yeah." I said slowly. "I guess there is a lot of that." I had forgotten that sitting in the back of the room meant a greater chance of ending up next to someone who wanted to provide under-their-breath commentary. I was pretty sure this is what attending a conference with Anoop would have been like. This guy even had a Carolina accent.
"And this guy is the worst." The other librarian continued, waving his hand towards the front of the room. "Have you ever sat through one of his panels before? I can't stand him."
Yeah, that wasn't awkward or anything. I looked around for another empty seat, but the rest of the room was full, so I didn't even have a chance to plan my escape. Adam was sharing the front of the room with a teen librarian from a small library on the other side of the state, a man named Alex with multiple tattoos and crazy magenta hair. He was older and smaller than Adam, and talked like he had been smoking since he was eight, but they seemed to work well together.
"Can you believe the outfit?" The guy next to me leaned over closer. "I mean, last I checked, working with teenagers didn't mean we were supposed to dress like them too. Like anyone is going to take that seriously?"
In the guy's defense, Adam was decked out even more than usual this time, in jeans that looked almost painfully tight, a metallic purple leather jacket, and what I think was a vest being worn as a shirt. Alex was just in a dark t-shirt and a pair of really saggy, really faded jeans. Together they looked like half of a rock band.
I decided that ignoring the other guy was the best plan. Maybe if he doesn't get a response, he'd give up and be quiet. No such luck, he kept right on talking, but at least once Adam started talking, it was easier to tune him out.
Adam puts together a pretty good presentation. He was enthusiastic, while managing not to come across as fake, like some of the class presentations I had suffered through in school. Katy would probably point out I was biased and this was just more evidence of my secret man crush, but whatever.
Adam and Alex spent the first part of the session talking about programming and outreach with community centers and school gay-straight alliances, while the second part covered GLBT teen fiction titles. I was right, I had heard Adam talk about most of them before. It doesn't mean it wasn't as entertaining to watch the second time around though. The guy next to me had a comment for every single title they talked about.
Afterwards, I stuck around while Adam packed up his books and handouts and straightened the room. "Did you have fun hanging out with Clay?" He asked me.
"What?"
"The guy sitting next to you." Adam clarified.
"Oh." I said thoughtfully. "Yeah... that was kind of weird."
Adam tipped his head to the side with a 'what do you mean' face.
I shrugged. "He had a lot of opinions about things, that's all."
"Opinions about me?"
"Kind of."
Adam shook his head. "Yeah, he's kind of mad because he submitted the same program proposal that AJ and I did, and the committee approved ours and not his."
"I guess that would explain it." I should have known that if there was going to be political drama in a professional organization, Adam would be at the center of it.
"I sent him an e-mail afterwards and offered to combine the two, and he sent a really snotty response back, so you know, what-ever." Adam shrugged and picked up his crate of presentation materials, balancing it against his hip. No wheely carts or suitcases to carry books for Adam.
"He was kind of a bitch, actually." I said.
Adam laughed. "What did he say about me?"
"Oh, you know, the basics. You chose terrible and cliche books to talk about. Your general outlook on life is all wrong, and your hair is ridiculous."
Adam giggled. "My hair is ridiculous."
-----
"Oh." Adam said, surprised. "You're ready to go?"
I frowned at him. "There's nothing wrong with what I'm wearing."
"I didn't say that there was." Adam said innocently.
"You're looking at me like there is."
"It's a dinner banquet. You should dress up a little. It's the principle of the thing." Adam was actually wearing a suit. He was probably the only librarian in the building who brought one. Maybe even the only one who owned one that wasn't made out of jersey or corduroy.
"I did." I pulled the hem of my jeans up. "Look, I'm wearing socks."
"Well, bravo." Adam said sarcastically. "Do you have a shirt with a collar?"
"I do have a shirt with a collar."
"It's plaid, isn't it?" Adam sighed. "Maybe people will think you're trying to look ironic. It still has to be better than that thing you're wearing now."
I looked down at my t-shirt. There was nothing wrong with it. It didn't deserve to be called a thing. I was pretty sure Adam wasn't going to let me go downstairs and eat until I changed though, so I pulled the plaid shirt with the collar out of my bag.
"Oh no." Adam said when I started to put it on. "Not like that. The entire point of this was to get rid of the t-shirt."
"Fine." I pulled my t-shirt off and threw it on the bed. "Do you want me to take my pants off too?"
"Okay." Adam said instantly, and then cracked up laughing.
I pulled the plaid shirt on and headed for the door. "Let's go."
There were two older women waiting for the elevator on our floor. Since they were both wearing clothes made entirely from stretch jersey, I was pretty sure they were both librarians.
"I'm going to tell your wife you volunteered to take your pants off." Adam said, loud enough for both women to hear. They were both polite enough to pretend they hadn't heard anything.
I sighed. "I know you are." And she was going to love every minute of it.
The two women were too busy reading something on a cell phone, and almost missed the elevator. "David Cook's is live tweeting the conference." One of them explained after they hurried into the car.
"Do you suppose he's going to live tweet his dinner tonight too?" Adam wondered.
I mimed thumbing out a text message. "Am eating a potato. It is buttery and delicious." Both women laugh, which just proves that if you can entertain your own mother, you can entertain anyone's mother.
Adam frowned at me. Come on, it's not like it was that bad of a joke. "Okay," he said. "This is why you look in a mirror before you leave." He reached around to fix the back of my collar.
The woman without the cell phone raised her eyebrows at me when he was done. "Are you going to tell your wife about that too?" She asked, sending Adam off into another fit of laughter.
Look, just because I let someone fix the collar of my shirt in the elevator on the way to dinner, and just because I may have inadvertently volunteered to take my pants off in front of them doesn't mean I have a crush on them. My wife and that librarian I just met don't know what they're talking about.
-----
Four hours later, the board meeting was still going strong. Even Adam and Ryan looked rumpled by this point. Adam had explained the library's collection development policy at least four times. Honestly, I had lost count. Neil was even running out of muttered commentary. Shortly after nine o'clock, Anoop had held his watch up for Megan to see, and she had left, saying something about the babysitter needing to be home by ten o'clock on a weeknight.
Paula stepped up to the podium towards the end of the meeting. I hadn't even noticed her on the side of the room. She was wearing her usual pink, with a black velvet coat, and was only carrying one large bag, instead of her usual three or four. Even with her heels, she was too short to properly use the podium. "I just want to say that I love the library." She said. "I love all of the books and don't think you should get rid of any of them or put them behind the desk. And I think the librarians are great too. That's all."
Simon rolled his eyes, and flipped to the next page in the document he was reading.
"Aww." Randy said. "That was nice. Thanks."
Two more Parents for Safe Libraries got up to reiterate that in spite of what that lady just said, they really did want certain books out of the library or kept behind the desk. Ryan asked if anyone else wanted to speak, and when there was no response, the president of the board adjourned the meeting.
"Thank god." Simon said, gathering his papers together and stacking them neatly against the tabletop, like he was on the evening news.
"Wow, thanks everyone for all the comments." Randy said. "It was, you know, it was good. It was good of you to say all that. Nice job."
Simon glared at him. "Oh, would you shut up already?" Randy ignored him. When you've been working with Simon as long as Randy has, it has to be an automatic reaction by now.
-----
Neil and I waited in the lobby until Adam was done talking to Kara and Randy
"Nice job." Neil said when Adam appeared. Then they shared something that I thought was going to be a hug, but turned into some kind of bizarre handshake-slash-chest-bump. If it had been my brother, I probably would have hugged him, but I guess my family has always been pretty touchy-feely.
"Hey," Neil added. "Can you give me a ride home? I took the bus here."
Adam was heading for the stairs to the second floor, and didn't even turn around. "I was thinking about maybe going out." He said.
"Cool." Neil nodded. "Will you buy me a beer, then?"
Adam flipped him off over the railing of the stairs, but he laughed when he did it, and Neil beamed appreciatively. "Look at him and his purple eyeshadow." He said to me. "He's like the Fiercest Little Librarian." Then he pulled his notebook out and wrote that down, with a note that said children's book??? next to it.
-----
We were short-staffed the following Tuesday, and Kara sent Lil downstairs to the children's room to cover for Megan, and sent Danny upstairs to cover for Lil and Anoop. This wasn't particularly helpful for the rest of us upstairs, since Danny couldn't answer a reference question to begin with. Maybe a more accurate word would be wouldn't answer a reference question.
The library board was still considering their response to the challenged books, and Adam was still working on responses to the original seventy seven titles, just in case. I left him in the work room and took the desk with Danny. Adam now owed me one.
By the end of the first hour, I was already tired of listening to Danny scold the teens using the computers. Sure, technically there was a one person per computer rule, but if there were two and they were being quiet, no one really cared. Danny constantly telling them to move back to their own computer was causing more of a disturbance than the original behavior. This was why Danny should stay on the first floor, where the biggest trouble he could cause was insisting that patrons had not returned books that were really on the library shelves after his staff didn't check them in correctly.
After the fourth time Danny called "one person to a computer" at them, Allison gave up and came over to the reference desk. "When does Adam come back out?" She whined.
"I don't know. Later." I said, not really paying attention. Since Anoop was at a reference meeting, I was answering e-mail reference questions for the day. It was pointless, since when Anoop comes back and looked at the account, he was just going to tell me I answered it incorrectly anyway, but I needed something to make myself look busy, and the questions weren't going to answer themselves.
"I can just go back there and see him." Allison offered. "He won't mind."
She was right, Adam probably wouldn't mind, but Kara and Simon would. I pretended to consider her request for a moment. "No." I said finally.
Allison stuck her tongue out at me. "You suck."
"I am a horrible person." I agreed. "Hey, you want something to do, go grab the D volume of World Book for me."
Allison wrinkled her nose at me. "Yeah right." She turned and headed back to the computers, trying to shove Alex out of his chair.
"You guys!" Danny snapped. "How many times do I have to tell you, one person to a computer! I'm going to kick you out next time."
"Ooooh." Allison said sarcastically.
Anoop came in through the lobby doors. I could see the database brochures in his hand, which meant more information than we ever wanted to know later today. "I've got some exciting news about Gale." He said.
"Is it actually exciting?" I asked skeptically.
"Hey, what's the question?" Anoop leaned over to look at the open e-mail.
"Dinosaurs. Fourth grade." I said, leaning back so he could read it, and watching Danny out of the corner of my eye. Danny was out of his chair and heading for the computers. "Uh-oh."
"I warned you guys." Danny said loudly. "Get out. You're banned for the rest of the day."
"Dude." Alex said, not even looking up from his monitor. "We're not doing anything wrong."
"Yeah!" Allison chimed in.
"I've warned you multiple times about sharing workstations, and you deliberately ignored me." Danny said firmly. "Get your things and leave right now."
"Whatever." Allison rolled her eyes.
Danny grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face him. "Get your things." He repeated. "And leave right now."
"Oh." Anoop said. "That isn't good."
"Get off me." Allison shoved at Danny's chest with her free hand, but he didn't let go of her arm.
"What do we do?" I asked. The rule was staff backed each other up when enforcing the rules of conduct, but I wasn't sure if that still applied when the patron was struggling to free herself from the grip of said staff.
Anoop picked up the phone and dialed Adam's extension. "Yeah, you probably want to get out here," he said, then hung up.
"Good call." I said.
Allison shoved at Danny again, and when he didn't let go, Adam came out onto the floor just in time to watch Allison kick Danny in the shin. Hard. He yelled and reached down to grab his leg, and Allison bolted for the lobby door. The rest of the patrons in the building had stopped what they were doing to see what happened next.
Allison changed course when she saw Adam, doubling back towards the reference desk.
"Oh no, you don't." Danny said, limping over to cut her off. She tried to duck around him, but he grabbed her by the arm again. "Listen to me..."
The second time, Allison didn't waste any time delivering another swift kick to the shin, then jerked one knee up to catch Danny right between the legs. He dropped to the floor in front of the reference desk and curled up into a little ball. Allison spun around and headed for the door again, and Adam headed after her.
Anoop looked like it was Christmas morning and he had just received the best present ever. Getting kneed in the 'nads is entertaining when it didn't happen to you. He leaned across the reference desk to peer down at Danny. "Are you okay?"
Danny made a noise that I assumed meant he was definitely not okay.
-----
In the end, it didn't really end. The library board voted 3-2 to keep the books on the shelves in the teen area, and not put any of them behind the desk. Adam and Simon drafted a statement explaining the decision, and the protestors eventually gave up when autumn arrived and it started raining.
"They haven't gone away." Lil said to Adam one afternoon. "You know that, right?"
"I know." Adam agreed. "They've just retreated. They're out there, waiting until the time is right."
"Like the shark in Jaws." I added, and Adam laughed.
"They're waiting for that lady on the board to die." Lil said. "You know, the one that's the secretary even though Ryan takes the notes at the meetings? She's like, ninety five years old, when she dies, they're going to get someone on there who will vote with them, and this is going to start all over again."
"I know." Adam said again. "And she's not ninety five, she's like, eighty or something. Someone else will probably leave the board before she actually dies."
"Whatever." Lil shrugged. "She's pretty old."
"Hey, guys." Anoop came through the work room door. "Why is Kara on the desk?"
"I think she has writer's block." Adam said.
Lil narrowed her eyes at Anoop. "And what is up with you lately?"
"Nothing's up with me." Anoop shook his head.
"You've been all... cheerful." Lil said. This was true. Anoop had been disturbingly upbeat the last few weeks.
"No, I haven't."
"You have." I agreed with Lil. "Is it because you get two new databases in next year's budget?"
"Yeah, that's it." Anoop nodded firmly. "You know how I love picking databases."
"Are you dating Megan?" Adam asked. We all turned to stare at him, because that was completely out of the blue. "What?" Adam said defensively. "At first I thought he was dating Matt."
"Okay, Matt is insane." Anoop announced. "There is no way I would ever date him." Then he thought about what he had just said, and then tried again. "I mean, Matt is a guy. There is no way I would ever date him."
"So you are dating Megan?" Adam clarified.
"I don't have to answer that. My love life is none of your business." Anoop turned around and headed back out to the reference desk. Less than thirty seconds later, he came back. "How did you know we were dating?"
Adam shrugged. "She's stopped calling the reference desk to bug you with those crazy questions. I figured it must have gotten serious."
-----
After four months at Franklin, a job posting appeared in my inbox that looked interesting. It was a temporary fellowship at a college, and focused on online services and social media, with funding designated for attending conferences. It was exactly the sort of job I had hoped to find when I first graduated from school.
But now, I found myself hesitating before printing the application. Sure, I could focus on online services, but I could do that at Franklin, as long as I stayed away from Anoop's databases. I probably wouldn't have a boss who let me do whatever I wanted, since she was writing novels in her office. I wouldn't have Adam forcing me to read fiction I didn't think I was interested in until I tried it.
"Hey, I've got a plan." Adam came back from his shift on the desk and sat down at his desk. "You and I, we should put together a program proposal from this summer."
I thought about it for a few seconds. "Why me?"
"Because you need to get some experience! I don't do presentations solo anymore, it's way too much work, and I did one with Anoop once, and never again."
"I don't know. I wasn't really involved with all of that. It was you and Kara."
"You were involved enough!" Adam insisted. "Come on, you have no idea how big this will be. We tell the story of what happened, we workshop some censorship stuff, librarians live for this kind of stuff, we'll have standing room only."
"Isn't it kind of weird that it didn't really resolve or anything?"
"No, that makes it even better. It'll make everyone feel like they need to stay prepared, because it could happen to them at any moment!" Adam rummaged through a pile of stuff on his desk and pulled out a notebook. "Oh my god, I didn't even realize how good this was until I started talking. Clay Aiken is going to fucking flip when he sees this. We have to do it."
"That probably isn't the best criteria for deciding on a program proposal." I pointed out.
Adam grinned at me. "Maybe, but it's the most fun!"
That Clay guy had been pretty obnoxious. Adam was pretty excited about it. And he was right, it would be a popular program. "Okay, fine." I said. "I'm in."
Part One
The library board of trustees was responsible for overseeing Simon. I was pretty sure they didn't pay very much attention to how he ran things, and even if they had, Simon probably wouldn't have cared what they thought. Still, they met every month to approve budget related items and hear reports from staff on what was happening in the library, and the meetings were open to the public. No one usually came, except for a few crazy regulars who always had a public comment on the same issue, like the sink in the men's room not having hot enough water, or why the library wasn't open until 9:00 on Sundays.
"We know there will be people at the board meeting this month." Kara told us the Monday before. "Randy has been getting questions from local media too, so I'm expecting them to be there. Adam, I want you there and ready to answer questions."
Adam raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean, answer questions? I'm not going to be able to defend every book purchase I've made. Some of these were even before I started working here."
Kara waved her hand in the air dismissively. "No, not every book. Just you know, generally. Our policy or whatever we have." Lil buzzed the phone in the back room to announce a phone call for Kara, and she headed back into her office, closing the door behind her.
"You know." I said to Adam. "Our policy or whatever. It's not that important."
Adam sighed and did something that was similar to running his hands through his hair, but stopped short of actually messing his hair up. "Oh my god, this is getting completely out of control. You know, I didn't want any of this to happen."
I rolled my eyes. "Oh come on. You did too." I didn't buy it for a minute, Adam thrived on drama. He had been waiting for this meeting ever since he graduated from school.
"Okay." Adam amended. "Maybe, but I really didn't mean for it to get this out of control. There were protestors at my apartment last week. I think they followed me home. My brother threw fruit at them."
I can't help laughing at that, because if anyone was born to throw fruit at people he disagreed with, it was Neil Lambert. "What was your brother doing there?"
"Oh, he got evicted, he has no job, woe is his life, so now he's sleeping on my couch, and throwing my fruit out my window. I'm going to kill him if he doesn't move out soon."
-----
I had met Adam's younger brother Neil when I had first started working at Franklin. Adam had invited me to a karaoke bar after work one evening. I think it was a birthday celebration or something. Or it might have just been because everyone really liked karaoke.
In addition to Adam; Anoop, Megan, Lil and Matt had come along, plus Neil, the only one who didn't work at the library.
"No, I don't work at the library." Neil said when I asked. "In fact, I was laid off last month, so I don't work anywhere."
"Jesus." Adam said. "Will you fucking get over it already? It was just a job. Get another one."
"Excuse me," Neil retorted. "It was not just a job. My entire identity is fundamentally changed. Before, I was a journalist. I kept the public informed. What is a democracy without an informed public? Also, I could pull off a fedora and those little pocket-sized notebooks. Now I'm just a guy with a bunch of dumb hats and no job, watching Glenn Beck destroy the very foundations of our once proud democracy."
"You've never been able to pull off a fedora." Adam said.
Around this time, Matt had dared Anoop to sing Like a Virgin, and Anoop had done it. Much to my surprise, it wasn't half bad.
"Guys, why don't we ever invite Danny?" Matt wondered. "He sings."
"Oh, no." Lil said firmly. "You invite Danny and I'm not coming."
"What?" Matt said. "He's not that bad."
Neil and I avoided the microphone. I wasn't really sure I was ready to make a fool of myself in front of new co-workers yet, and Neil insisted he was still recovering from the fruit chucked at him the last time. He said it in a way that implied everyone should protest and tell him it wasn't that bad, but no one did, and Neil didn't seem surprised.
"I can't believe my life has come to this." Neil said, slumping even slower in his seat, practically laying across the table at this point. "The highlight of my week is watching my brother cover the Stones in a karaoke bar."
It might have been the highlight of my week too. Adam was pretty good at karaoke, definitely the best I'd seen that night. He could actually sing, plus he was kind of hypnotic to watch. It was a little bit uncomfortable, actually... but in a good way.
"Are you going to drink that?" Neil asked, pointing at my not quite empty glass of beer, and when I didn't answer quickly enough, he drained it, then burped loudly.
-----
The board meeting was in the big meeting room on the first floor. There were tables set up at the front of the room for the board members and administration, and a couple rows of chairs set out for the public. Ten minutes before the official start of the meeting, there were clearly more people then there were chairs, and Ryan jumped up and jogged over to the closet to pull out more chairs.
Kara was at the front of the room, talking to Randy. She didn't have a chair at the front table, but she had set her self up in the first row. Adam hadn't come downstairs yet, but Anoop and Megan and I were all waiting in the back of the room and were planning on staying. I didn't see anyone who looked like local media. No cameras, no tape recorders, no notebooks.
Neil showed up a few minutes later. Adam came in the door behind him, and gave me an exaggerated eye roll when he spotted Neil.
"Ah, American democracy at work." Neil rubbed his hands together gleefully, surveying the crowd in the room.
Adam shrugged at us. "When he heard there was an opportunity for public comment, he insisting on coming."
"How goes the war against Glenn Beck?" Anoop said to Neil by way of greeting.
"You know," Neil said. "The man has written a book. God only knows what lunatic rantings are inside, but if he has a book, then he'll probably have a book tour. I think if I plan in advance, when he's visiting a B. Dalton or a Borders, I can jury rig one of the shelves to topple over on him during his signing, effectively destroying him."
"Wow." Anoop said, deadpan. "That sounds like a foolproof plan."
"Where's this 'local media,' anyway?" Neil twisted around, scanning the crowd.
"Adam, thank god you're here." Kara grabbed him by the arm. "I want you to meet Lydia from the Riverside Gazette." She introduced him to a tiny middle aged woman with glasses hanging on a string of beads around her neck.
Fifteen minutes after the meeting was supposed to start, Simon stood up and waved his arm at the crowd. "Hello there!" He called. "If everyone could just take their seats and be quiet, we'll get started with things shortly. Excuse me, please be quiet." When most, but not all of the room has quieted down, Simon just started the meeting and talked over the rest of them until they sat down and paid attention.
"The local media." Neil scoffed in my ear. "The Riverside Gazette is that free shopper's weekly that's in that stand outside the supermarket."
"It looks like there's a long list for public comments tonight, so let's just get the financial business out of the way first." Simon said. He was probably doing it that way on purpose, to make everyone wait before they could start ranting.
"Boy, I bet Lydia's written a few riveting exposes on that creepy guy with curtains across his van windows at the flea market." Neil continued. I stifled a laugh.
The first woman stood up at the podium, unfolded several sheets of notebook paper and spread them out in front of her.
"Oh, is she going to read all of that aloud?" Neil asked delightedly.
"Thank you." She said. "My name is Marjorie, and I'm the president of the Riverside Parents for Safe Libraries."
"They've organized." I said dramatically.
Neil dug through the pockets of his jacket and pulled out a notebook and a pen. "I have to take notes. This is too good."
"I've always considered the library to be a safe place for my five children." Marjorie said to the room. "Imagine my surprise when a friend told me that her teenage daughter was being urged by this library to read pornography."
"Porn-og-raphy..." Neil whispered in a sing-song tone, writing it down in all caps in his notebook and then underlining it twice. On the other side of him, Megan had her hand across her mouth to keep from laughing.
I wasn't really listening to Neil's running commentary, entertaining as it was. Adam was sitting next to Kara in the front row, turned around sideways in his chair so he could watch Marjorie. Kara was furiously taking notes -- even more than Neil -- but Adam was just watching with that same wide-eyed expression he always used when it looked like he was just super-interested in what you were saying, but really meant he was concentrating.
"I think it's awful enough that these titles are considered appropriate for the young adult section of a library." Marjorie said. "But how many parents thought the librarians were exposing their children to wholesome classic literature, when they were actively promoting this filth?"
"Exposing?" Neil repeated quietly. "This woman is such a pervert."
"After hearing her description of the explicit sexual acts in this book -- this book that is shelved in the young adult section, for minor children -- I started looking more closely at the library's collection. There are over 400 books in the library catalog under homosexuality. There are over 3000 under sex. There's another 200 under lesbians."
"Lesbians!" Neil hissed. "That should go in the headline. It'll draw the straight males in."
"Are you planning on writing an article about this?" I asked him.
"Maybe. I think I can do better than Lydia at the Gazette. With my hands tied behind my back, pecking out sentences with my nose."
Megan clucked like a chicken. "Sorry." She said when Neil turned to stare at her. "I like to make bird noises."
Anoop looked over the top of her head at me and shook his head sadly.
"Thank you." Simon said when the woman finished reading her notes.
She waited at the podium, and when no one else said anything, piped up with, "Well, what do you have to say for yourselves?"
Simon actually laughed at her, which was kind of an awesome and an asshole thing to do at the same time. "Oh no. This is an opportunity for public comment, not for a debate. You had your comment, the board will consider your suggestions. Actually, I'm not sure what your suggestion was. You did do an excellent job of telling us how large our collection is on various topics. Thank you for that, it'll save us running a report later."
At the end of the front table, Ryan Seacrest sank lower in his seat.
"My suggestion is you remove all the inappropriate titles from the childrens and young adult areas. The library shouldn't even own some of those. The ones that should be kept for adults to read should be kept behind the desk and people should have to ask for them." Marjorie said emphatically.
"That wouldn't be awkward at all." Neil muttered. "Hello, I'd like to check out the guide to gay sex. Oh no, I don't plan to have gay sex. I just like to look at the pictures to remind myself how straight I am."
A woman in the last row half-turned in her seat and glared at Neil.
"Stop saying gay sex." I said to Neil out of the side of my mouth.
"We want some answers." Marjorie informed Simon. "We've already told the library our concerns before tonight. We're here to get some answers, and we're not leaving until you give us some." The rest of the room broke into applause.
The president of the board of trustees cleared her throat. "Actually, Mr. Cowell, if your staff can provide some answers as we progress, I think that would be beneficial for everyone."
Simon looked over at Kara, who nodded. Simon leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. "Fine." He said, not sounding like he was fine with the idea at all.
"Now." The president of the board said. I couldn't remember her name. I think she was a member of the city council or the PTA or something. "Personally, I'd like to start with the alleged promotion of the titles this woman mentioned by the library. Exactly what were you referring to by that?" She turned to Marjorie.
Marjorie leaned forward towards the microphone on the podium. "I'm talking about the recommending reading lists on the library website, and the books promoted in library programs."
"Thank you." The president said, turning to Simon and Kara. "Now if someone could explain to the board and the public what reading lists and programs she's referring to, I think that would be a good place to start." This wasn't helping me figure out what other board she sat on. She could have learned those conflict resolution skills at either a city council meeting or a PTA meeting.
Kara nudged Adam, who stood up and managed to position himself at the side of the table by Ryan, so he could still see the board members at the table and most of the audience. "Hi guys!" He said cheerfully. "I'm Adam -- I'm a librarian here at the Franklin library, and I'm responsible for the teen collection and programs. I've received a lot of e-mails and letters from you in the last couple weeks, and I know this is really important to a lot of you, so I'm glad we have such a great turnout tonight!"
The audience wasn't having any of Adam's spin on the situation, thank you very much.
"Jesus." Neil said quietly. "Even I want to punch him in the face right now."
"We have about a dozen book lists available in the teen area of the library and on the library webpage." Adam explained to the library board. "They're not books that I personally recommend for everyone to read. I actually haven't even read all of them. Since we categorize our fiction collections by author, the lists are intended to help find books in a certain genre or on a topic. Some of them are are pretty standard lists -- we have one for romances and one for fantasy. The rest are topics that we get a lot of requests for. Vampires have been really popular for the last year, so we have a list of teen vampire fiction."
"But you don't have a list of Christian fiction!" A woman yelled from the back of the room.
Adam turned to look. "No, we don't have a list of Christian fiction. I don't think we have one for the adult fiction collection either. My experience with Christian fiction is when a patron comes in, they know what author they're looking for, and those authors tend to write several books, so they're grouped together. I just haven't had very many questions from teens about finding Christian books."
Then it was a man in the middle of the audience who spoke up. "So what you're telling us is you have a gay list of books because you get more questions about finding books about homosexuals than you do for books about Christians?"
"I don't know if I'd phrase it exactly like that." Adam said. "I think I do get more questions about GLBTQ books than I do about Christian fiction, but that might just be me." Randy laughed at this, and a few people in the audience actually smiled. "Another reason I think it's important to have a GLBTQ list is it's not a subject that someone feels comfortable asking a librarian about. Just because we don't get as many questions about gay fiction or books on depression doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't some interest out there. That's also part of the reason we have the gay fiction book list and the teen resources list on the website."
The comments continued in the same fashion for the next two hours. Not everyone who spoke had counts of how many titles were in the catalog under a subject. Some had lists of titles they believed were inappropriate, with descriptions of what the book was about. It was the same list of titles that Adam had received formal challenges on.
Adam spent some time explaining the libraries collection development policy and how he chose and reviewed books. The library board was nodding along with him. The audience reaction was mixed. Simon wasn't even pretending to pay attention anymore. Ryan was keeping track of the list of people who signed up for public comment while Simon flipped through the paperwork in front of him and occasionally looked up with an expression of I can't believe you're still here talking at me, go away already.
At one point, Scott stepped up to the podium and asked us to remove all the books from the library that weren't about blind people, because they offended him. Then he laughed crazily, like he always does at his own jokes.
"What the hell?" Neil said. "Is that guy for real?"
"No." Anoop and I said at the same time.
Three and a half hours into the meeting, Ryan had loosened his tie, Adam had removed his leather jacket and was perched on the edge of the table, next to Ryan's list of names, and Neil was complaining about his hand cramping from taking notes.
The next woman at the podium narrowed her eyes at Adam. "Do you really expect us to believe any of what you've said tonight when we know you've been indoctrinating children all across the country?"
Adam's eyes widened. "I'm actually not sure what you're talking about."
"We have Googled you. We've seen what committees you've been on and the workshops you've presented at conferences."
Considering Adam was a former weed-smoking new age hippie who spent multiple years at Burning Man, there was a lot more about him out there on the internet beyond his professional committees and presentations. I knew this, because I had Googled him once or twice myself.
"He's a witch, he's a witch!" Neil whispered. "Burn him! Burn him!"
"Earlier this year, you had a presentation at a conference about connecting with gay teenagers, didn't you?" This woman was very dramatic with her accusations. She could have been a prosecutor on a television show.
"I did do a presentation like that." Adam agreed cheerfully.
-----
“Just promise me you won’t do anything crazy.” Katy said.
I frowned. “It’s a conference of librarians. How crazy could it get? If anyone gets drunk and starts a vicious defense of FRBR, I promise to leave the room.” Just like I had every other time a librarian had one too many and started debating cataloging theory.
“I don’t know what’d you do.” Katy shrugged. “Maybe decide that since you're rooming with Adam, it's the perfect time to act on your man crush or something."
Oh, hilarious. She’d been talking about my man crush ever since she found out Simon had only authorized funding for one room. “I don’t have a man crush on Adam.” I repeated, like I had been for the last week and a half.
“Yes you do.” Katy corrected. “You never shut up about him. Adam said this. Adam did this. Adam read this book. Adam tamed a unicorn and rode it around the lobby today.”
That was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. Everyone knows unicorns don’t exist. And I can only hope that voice she used wasn't supposed to be an impression of me, because it was terrible. “Wait, you’re not mad about this or something, are you?”
Katy rolled her eyes. “Oh no. I think it’s adorable. I just think you should be careful, because if you kiss a little just to see what it's like, and then share the same bed because it made sense at the time, then you're going to have to explain what happened to a lot of people, like your parents and my parents and your boss.”
"Wow." I said thoughtfully. "I'm not even going to miss you at all this weekend."
"I know." Katy kissed my cheek. "Have fun, baby."
-----
"You're riding in the same car as Adam?" Neil had asked, raising his eyebrows. "Good luck with that." Ten minutes into the ride across the state to the conference, I realized what Neil meant. The radio was loud, but Adam was louder. He didn't have a bad voice, actually, it was just way too loud for one car.
Singing along to classic rock was entertaining for the first couple hours, but then even Adam got bored with it. "Can you even imagine living out here?" He said as we continued on through the rural farmland in the middle of the state. "I wouldn't last a week."
I shrugged. "I don't know, it might not be too bad. You'd probably keep busy, you know, farming things."
Adam laughed. "So, how did you end up a librarian?"
"What?"
"Were you one of those kids who loved reading and had an inspirational librarian growing up and decided to follow in their footsteps?"
I wrinkled my nose. "No, I hated reading. Mostly, I graduated from college and didn't know what I wanted to do, so I went back to school, which in hindsight was a terrible plan, because now I'm massively in debt so I can show little old ladies how to print the picture of their grandkids' cats from their e-mail."
"Those cats are probably very important to them."
"Sure they are."
"So, I take it you didn't come out of school wanting to be a helpful public librarian. What did you want to do?"
I shrugged. "I don't know, something big picture maybe. More technology, I don't know."
"Like David Cook?"
I shrugged again. "Yeah, maybe." David Cook was a librarian mostly known for his blog, which he had then turned into a book, and a series of speaking engagements. David spent a lot of time on the future of libraries and librarians, and was fairly controversial about it. For a librarian, that is. I thought he had some good ideas. Anoop put more energy into hating David Cook than I had seen him exert over anything else.
"He uses the word webinar." Anoop had said when he saw me reading David Cook's blog one afternoon. "Webinar is the stupidest word I've ever seen. Plus, it was trendy back in 2001. He's not even current."
"How did you end up a librarian?" I asked Adam. I was actually curious, since Adam usually had entertaining stories, but it was also a ploy to keep him from turning the radio back on.
"I'll have you know I did have an inspirational librarian in third grade." Adam informed me. "But, that wasn't made up my mind. I was at this hippie festival in the middle of the desert, and I was a little depressed because my boyfriend and I had broken up, and after I smoked a lot of weed, I decided applying to graduate schools would be a good idea."
"Wow." I said. "That's a really moving tale."
"I know, right?"
"I especially like the part about the hippies and weed. Do you use that in interviews?"
-----
The hotel room was pretty much exactly what I expected. Not the worst place I'd ever stayed, but cheap enough that it mostly smelled like bleach. That was okay, it just meant it was clean.
"So, what do you think?" Adam said, flipping his phone open. "Is six early enough?"
I stared at him in disbelief. "What? We don't have to be there until nine, right?"
"How much time to you need in the morning?"
"Like... ten minutes?"
Adam pursed his lips and changed the alarm entry on his phone. "Okay, so let's say seven then."
"Seriously?"
"Hey." Adam waved a hand around his head. "This doesn't just happen."
Adam's phone started buzzing promptly at 7am. I rolled over and pulled the other pillow over my head, but it didn't do any good. It was already light in the room, I was already awake, and I could hear Adam around the corner, rummaging through the disturbingly large bag he had left on the counter outside the bathroom the night before.
I stayed in bed until 8:00 just on principle, before I gave up and got up. Adam was standing in front of the sink, flat ironing his hair. He wasn't wearing a shirt, and his back and shoulders were covered in freckles. I hadn't ever thought about it before, but I suppose the hair color wasn't natural. It doesn't explain why his eyebrows are also dark though. I made a mental note not to bring this entire train of thought up with Katy, it would only be further evidence of my supposed man crush.
"What?" Adam asked, catching my eye in the mirror.
It might have been eight in the morning, but I was awake enough to realize that asking Adam if he dyed his eyebrows would be a completely ridiculous question. "Nothing. You done in there?" I added, tipping my head at the bathroom.
"Have at it." Adam ran another piece of hair through the iron.
-----
My morning workshop had been on net neutrality, and as interesting as it was, it was also insanely technical and exhausting, so in the afternoon, I slipped into the back of Adam's teen fiction workshop. My official reason was I needed something fun, and it related directly to my job, so Simon and Kara couldn't complain. My unofficial reason was I wanted to see Adam present.
I had probably already heard Adam talk about the books in his presentation before, since Adam was always talking about something he had just read, but I was curious to see what he was like in front of an audience. The room was almost full, and I wasn't sure if it was because of Adam, or because GLBT titles were the hot teen topic of the month.
The librarian who sat down next to me sighed loudly and shook his head as he looked around the room. "Here we go again." He said to me. "Someone's going to tell us something obvious like they're the only one who ever thought of it."
"Yeah." I said slowly. "I guess there is a lot of that." I had forgotten that sitting in the back of the room meant a greater chance of ending up next to someone who wanted to provide under-their-breath commentary. I was pretty sure this is what attending a conference with Anoop would have been like. This guy even had a Carolina accent.
"And this guy is the worst." The other librarian continued, waving his hand towards the front of the room. "Have you ever sat through one of his panels before? I can't stand him."
Yeah, that wasn't awkward or anything. I looked around for another empty seat, but the rest of the room was full, so I didn't even have a chance to plan my escape. Adam was sharing the front of the room with a teen librarian from a small library on the other side of the state, a man named Alex with multiple tattoos and crazy magenta hair. He was older and smaller than Adam, and talked like he had been smoking since he was eight, but they seemed to work well together.
"Can you believe the outfit?" The guy next to me leaned over closer. "I mean, last I checked, working with teenagers didn't mean we were supposed to dress like them too. Like anyone is going to take that seriously?"
In the guy's defense, Adam was decked out even more than usual this time, in jeans that looked almost painfully tight, a metallic purple leather jacket, and what I think was a vest being worn as a shirt. Alex was just in a dark t-shirt and a pair of really saggy, really faded jeans. Together they looked like half of a rock band.
I decided that ignoring the other guy was the best plan. Maybe if he doesn't get a response, he'd give up and be quiet. No such luck, he kept right on talking, but at least once Adam started talking, it was easier to tune him out.
Adam puts together a pretty good presentation. He was enthusiastic, while managing not to come across as fake, like some of the class presentations I had suffered through in school. Katy would probably point out I was biased and this was just more evidence of my secret man crush, but whatever.
Adam and Alex spent the first part of the session talking about programming and outreach with community centers and school gay-straight alliances, while the second part covered GLBT teen fiction titles. I was right, I had heard Adam talk about most of them before. It doesn't mean it wasn't as entertaining to watch the second time around though. The guy next to me had a comment for every single title they talked about.
Afterwards, I stuck around while Adam packed up his books and handouts and straightened the room. "Did you have fun hanging out with Clay?" He asked me.
"What?"
"The guy sitting next to you." Adam clarified.
"Oh." I said thoughtfully. "Yeah... that was kind of weird."
Adam tipped his head to the side with a 'what do you mean' face.
I shrugged. "He had a lot of opinions about things, that's all."
"Opinions about me?"
"Kind of."
Adam shook his head. "Yeah, he's kind of mad because he submitted the same program proposal that AJ and I did, and the committee approved ours and not his."
"I guess that would explain it." I should have known that if there was going to be political drama in a professional organization, Adam would be at the center of it.
"I sent him an e-mail afterwards and offered to combine the two, and he sent a really snotty response back, so you know, what-ever." Adam shrugged and picked up his crate of presentation materials, balancing it against his hip. No wheely carts or suitcases to carry books for Adam.
"He was kind of a bitch, actually." I said.
Adam laughed. "What did he say about me?"
"Oh, you know, the basics. You chose terrible and cliche books to talk about. Your general outlook on life is all wrong, and your hair is ridiculous."
Adam giggled. "My hair is ridiculous."
-----
"Oh." Adam said, surprised. "You're ready to go?"
I frowned at him. "There's nothing wrong with what I'm wearing."
"I didn't say that there was." Adam said innocently.
"You're looking at me like there is."
"It's a dinner banquet. You should dress up a little. It's the principle of the thing." Adam was actually wearing a suit. He was probably the only librarian in the building who brought one. Maybe even the only one who owned one that wasn't made out of jersey or corduroy.
"I did." I pulled the hem of my jeans up. "Look, I'm wearing socks."
"Well, bravo." Adam said sarcastically. "Do you have a shirt with a collar?"
"I do have a shirt with a collar."
"It's plaid, isn't it?" Adam sighed. "Maybe people will think you're trying to look ironic. It still has to be better than that thing you're wearing now."
I looked down at my t-shirt. There was nothing wrong with it. It didn't deserve to be called a thing. I was pretty sure Adam wasn't going to let me go downstairs and eat until I changed though, so I pulled the plaid shirt with the collar out of my bag.
"Oh no." Adam said when I started to put it on. "Not like that. The entire point of this was to get rid of the t-shirt."
"Fine." I pulled my t-shirt off and threw it on the bed. "Do you want me to take my pants off too?"
"Okay." Adam said instantly, and then cracked up laughing.
I pulled the plaid shirt on and headed for the door. "Let's go."
There were two older women waiting for the elevator on our floor. Since they were both wearing clothes made entirely from stretch jersey, I was pretty sure they were both librarians.
"I'm going to tell your wife you volunteered to take your pants off." Adam said, loud enough for both women to hear. They were both polite enough to pretend they hadn't heard anything.
I sighed. "I know you are." And she was going to love every minute of it.
The two women were too busy reading something on a cell phone, and almost missed the elevator. "David Cook's is live tweeting the conference." One of them explained after they hurried into the car.
"Do you suppose he's going to live tweet his dinner tonight too?" Adam wondered.
I mimed thumbing out a text message. "Am eating a potato. It is buttery and delicious." Both women laugh, which just proves that if you can entertain your own mother, you can entertain anyone's mother.
Adam frowned at me. Come on, it's not like it was that bad of a joke. "Okay," he said. "This is why you look in a mirror before you leave." He reached around to fix the back of my collar.
The woman without the cell phone raised her eyebrows at me when he was done. "Are you going to tell your wife about that too?" She asked, sending Adam off into another fit of laughter.
Look, just because I let someone fix the collar of my shirt in the elevator on the way to dinner, and just because I may have inadvertently volunteered to take my pants off in front of them doesn't mean I have a crush on them. My wife and that librarian I just met don't know what they're talking about.
-----
Four hours later, the board meeting was still going strong. Even Adam and Ryan looked rumpled by this point. Adam had explained the library's collection development policy at least four times. Honestly, I had lost count. Neil was even running out of muttered commentary. Shortly after nine o'clock, Anoop had held his watch up for Megan to see, and she had left, saying something about the babysitter needing to be home by ten o'clock on a weeknight.
Paula stepped up to the podium towards the end of the meeting. I hadn't even noticed her on the side of the room. She was wearing her usual pink, with a black velvet coat, and was only carrying one large bag, instead of her usual three or four. Even with her heels, she was too short to properly use the podium. "I just want to say that I love the library." She said. "I love all of the books and don't think you should get rid of any of them or put them behind the desk. And I think the librarians are great too. That's all."
Simon rolled his eyes, and flipped to the next page in the document he was reading.
"Aww." Randy said. "That was nice. Thanks."
Two more Parents for Safe Libraries got up to reiterate that in spite of what that lady just said, they really did want certain books out of the library or kept behind the desk. Ryan asked if anyone else wanted to speak, and when there was no response, the president of the board adjourned the meeting.
"Thank god." Simon said, gathering his papers together and stacking them neatly against the tabletop, like he was on the evening news.
"Wow, thanks everyone for all the comments." Randy said. "It was, you know, it was good. It was good of you to say all that. Nice job."
Simon glared at him. "Oh, would you shut up already?" Randy ignored him. When you've been working with Simon as long as Randy has, it has to be an automatic reaction by now.
-----
Neil and I waited in the lobby until Adam was done talking to Kara and Randy
"Nice job." Neil said when Adam appeared. Then they shared something that I thought was going to be a hug, but turned into some kind of bizarre handshake-slash-chest-bump. If it had been my brother, I probably would have hugged him, but I guess my family has always been pretty touchy-feely.
"Hey," Neil added. "Can you give me a ride home? I took the bus here."
Adam was heading for the stairs to the second floor, and didn't even turn around. "I was thinking about maybe going out." He said.
"Cool." Neil nodded. "Will you buy me a beer, then?"
Adam flipped him off over the railing of the stairs, but he laughed when he did it, and Neil beamed appreciatively. "Look at him and his purple eyeshadow." He said to me. "He's like the Fiercest Little Librarian." Then he pulled his notebook out and wrote that down, with a note that said children's book??? next to it.
-----
We were short-staffed the following Tuesday, and Kara sent Lil downstairs to the children's room to cover for Megan, and sent Danny upstairs to cover for Lil and Anoop. This wasn't particularly helpful for the rest of us upstairs, since Danny couldn't answer a reference question to begin with. Maybe a more accurate word would be wouldn't answer a reference question.
The library board was still considering their response to the challenged books, and Adam was still working on responses to the original seventy seven titles, just in case. I left him in the work room and took the desk with Danny. Adam now owed me one.
By the end of the first hour, I was already tired of listening to Danny scold the teens using the computers. Sure, technically there was a one person per computer rule, but if there were two and they were being quiet, no one really cared. Danny constantly telling them to move back to their own computer was causing more of a disturbance than the original behavior. This was why Danny should stay on the first floor, where the biggest trouble he could cause was insisting that patrons had not returned books that were really on the library shelves after his staff didn't check them in correctly.
After the fourth time Danny called "one person to a computer" at them, Allison gave up and came over to the reference desk. "When does Adam come back out?" She whined.
"I don't know. Later." I said, not really paying attention. Since Anoop was at a reference meeting, I was answering e-mail reference questions for the day. It was pointless, since when Anoop comes back and looked at the account, he was just going to tell me I answered it incorrectly anyway, but I needed something to make myself look busy, and the questions weren't going to answer themselves.
"I can just go back there and see him." Allison offered. "He won't mind."
She was right, Adam probably wouldn't mind, but Kara and Simon would. I pretended to consider her request for a moment. "No." I said finally.
Allison stuck her tongue out at me. "You suck."
"I am a horrible person." I agreed. "Hey, you want something to do, go grab the D volume of World Book for me."
Allison wrinkled her nose at me. "Yeah right." She turned and headed back to the computers, trying to shove Alex out of his chair.
"You guys!" Danny snapped. "How many times do I have to tell you, one person to a computer! I'm going to kick you out next time."
"Ooooh." Allison said sarcastically.
Anoop came in through the lobby doors. I could see the database brochures in his hand, which meant more information than we ever wanted to know later today. "I've got some exciting news about Gale." He said.
"Is it actually exciting?" I asked skeptically.
"Hey, what's the question?" Anoop leaned over to look at the open e-mail.
"Dinosaurs. Fourth grade." I said, leaning back so he could read it, and watching Danny out of the corner of my eye. Danny was out of his chair and heading for the computers. "Uh-oh."
"I warned you guys." Danny said loudly. "Get out. You're banned for the rest of the day."
"Dude." Alex said, not even looking up from his monitor. "We're not doing anything wrong."
"Yeah!" Allison chimed in.
"I've warned you multiple times about sharing workstations, and you deliberately ignored me." Danny said firmly. "Get your things and leave right now."
"Whatever." Allison rolled her eyes.
Danny grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face him. "Get your things." He repeated. "And leave right now."
"Oh." Anoop said. "That isn't good."
"Get off me." Allison shoved at Danny's chest with her free hand, but he didn't let go of her arm.
"What do we do?" I asked. The rule was staff backed each other up when enforcing the rules of conduct, but I wasn't sure if that still applied when the patron was struggling to free herself from the grip of said staff.
Anoop picked up the phone and dialed Adam's extension. "Yeah, you probably want to get out here," he said, then hung up.
"Good call." I said.
Allison shoved at Danny again, and when he didn't let go, Adam came out onto the floor just in time to watch Allison kick Danny in the shin. Hard. He yelled and reached down to grab his leg, and Allison bolted for the lobby door. The rest of the patrons in the building had stopped what they were doing to see what happened next.
Allison changed course when she saw Adam, doubling back towards the reference desk.
"Oh no, you don't." Danny said, limping over to cut her off. She tried to duck around him, but he grabbed her by the arm again. "Listen to me..."
The second time, Allison didn't waste any time delivering another swift kick to the shin, then jerked one knee up to catch Danny right between the legs. He dropped to the floor in front of the reference desk and curled up into a little ball. Allison spun around and headed for the door again, and Adam headed after her.
Anoop looked like it was Christmas morning and he had just received the best present ever. Getting kneed in the 'nads is entertaining when it didn't happen to you. He leaned across the reference desk to peer down at Danny. "Are you okay?"
Danny made a noise that I assumed meant he was definitely not okay.
-----
In the end, it didn't really end. The library board voted 3-2 to keep the books on the shelves in the teen area, and not put any of them behind the desk. Adam and Simon drafted a statement explaining the decision, and the protestors eventually gave up when autumn arrived and it started raining.
"They haven't gone away." Lil said to Adam one afternoon. "You know that, right?"
"I know." Adam agreed. "They've just retreated. They're out there, waiting until the time is right."
"Like the shark in Jaws." I added, and Adam laughed.
"They're waiting for that lady on the board to die." Lil said. "You know, the one that's the secretary even though Ryan takes the notes at the meetings? She's like, ninety five years old, when she dies, they're going to get someone on there who will vote with them, and this is going to start all over again."
"I know." Adam said again. "And she's not ninety five, she's like, eighty or something. Someone else will probably leave the board before she actually dies."
"Whatever." Lil shrugged. "She's pretty old."
"Hey, guys." Anoop came through the work room door. "Why is Kara on the desk?"
"I think she has writer's block." Adam said.
Lil narrowed her eyes at Anoop. "And what is up with you lately?"
"Nothing's up with me." Anoop shook his head.
"You've been all... cheerful." Lil said. This was true. Anoop had been disturbingly upbeat the last few weeks.
"No, I haven't."
"You have." I agreed with Lil. "Is it because you get two new databases in next year's budget?"
"Yeah, that's it." Anoop nodded firmly. "You know how I love picking databases."
"Are you dating Megan?" Adam asked. We all turned to stare at him, because that was completely out of the blue. "What?" Adam said defensively. "At first I thought he was dating Matt."
"Okay, Matt is insane." Anoop announced. "There is no way I would ever date him." Then he thought about what he had just said, and then tried again. "I mean, Matt is a guy. There is no way I would ever date him."
"So you are dating Megan?" Adam clarified.
"I don't have to answer that. My love life is none of your business." Anoop turned around and headed back out to the reference desk. Less than thirty seconds later, he came back. "How did you know we were dating?"
Adam shrugged. "She's stopped calling the reference desk to bug you with those crazy questions. I figured it must have gotten serious."
-----
After four months at Franklin, a job posting appeared in my inbox that looked interesting. It was a temporary fellowship at a college, and focused on online services and social media, with funding designated for attending conferences. It was exactly the sort of job I had hoped to find when I first graduated from school.
But now, I found myself hesitating before printing the application. Sure, I could focus on online services, but I could do that at Franklin, as long as I stayed away from Anoop's databases. I probably wouldn't have a boss who let me do whatever I wanted, since she was writing novels in her office. I wouldn't have Adam forcing me to read fiction I didn't think I was interested in until I tried it.
"Hey, I've got a plan." Adam came back from his shift on the desk and sat down at his desk. "You and I, we should put together a program proposal from this summer."
I thought about it for a few seconds. "Why me?"
"Because you need to get some experience! I don't do presentations solo anymore, it's way too much work, and I did one with Anoop once, and never again."
"I don't know. I wasn't really involved with all of that. It was you and Kara."
"You were involved enough!" Adam insisted. "Come on, you have no idea how big this will be. We tell the story of what happened, we workshop some censorship stuff, librarians live for this kind of stuff, we'll have standing room only."
"Isn't it kind of weird that it didn't really resolve or anything?"
"No, that makes it even better. It'll make everyone feel like they need to stay prepared, because it could happen to them at any moment!" Adam rummaged through a pile of stuff on his desk and pulled out a notebook. "Oh my god, I didn't even realize how good this was until I started talking. Clay Aiken is going to fucking flip when he sees this. We have to do it."
"That probably isn't the best criteria for deciding on a program proposal." I pointed out.
Adam grinned at me. "Maybe, but it's the most fun!"
That Clay guy had been pretty obnoxious. Adam was pretty excited about it. And he was right, it would be a popular program. "Okay, fine." I said. "I'm in."