Crying for the Moon by Mary Walsh

Author:Mary Walsh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2017-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

MAUREEN WAS RELIEVED TO FINALLY BE OUT OF THE apartment and free and on the street—Oh God! George! She’d forgotten all about him. He was probably worried sick about her. She’d been gone all night. Well, good. Let him worry, because the more you were nice to them, the more you considered their feelings (Ha! Like they even had any feelings. They only had the one feeling: stick it in and go at it) and the better you were to them, the worse they treated you. But she knew she should go down to George’s. But first she was going to the library, the Gosling Memorial Library on Duckworth Street.

Maureen had always loved the library, despite having been in the stacks when some guy had hauled it out and waved it at her. Another time, a fella standing in Biography was pulling away at himself. Jesus, why did they always have to find her? It was like she had a sign on her that said, “Abuse me. I’m no fucking good anyway. If you require someone to waggle your dick at, here I am.” I’m like a walking buffet for the pervert crowd. She was getting worked up.

To calm herself down, she went straight to the card catalogue. She loved the card catalogue: everything there was numbered and in its place. Good old Melvil Dewey. She looked under the 500s, for Science, maybe 540, she supposed for Chemistry. Oh, it was glorious. All the books on one subject all together on the shelves, all numbered, no chaos, three numbers to the left of the decimal point and a limitless amount of numbers after the decimal to indicate what each book was and where it was, and the cutter number to tell you the author of the book.

She found Poisons and Pesticides of the Modern Age by G. Botkin. Chlordane was even listed on the typed-up part of the card. She wrote out the number 542.580973B8261956COP2. She knew she didn’t have to write it all down, but she wanted to—she wanted to head into the stacks fully armed.

Maureen looked for chaos and instability and loved the unpredictable. But there was a part of her that longed for the comfort of order, a part that felt so much better inside structure. She loved the soothing certainty of a place for everything and everything in its place. She loved that 542.580973 was right there in the stacks after 542.580972. It brought her a real moment of joy that there were two copies, just like it said on the card. Yes, she loved the library and all the glorious organization that the library contained. But she had never let on to anyone that she felt that way. She was ashamed of the dweeby person who loved all that order. She didn’t want anyone to think that she was one of those foolish, pasty-faced, overweight, drippy dorks going around being joyous about books, lurking about in the stacks, burying their heads in texts, with food stains on the front of their blouses from always reading while trying to eat.

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