A Bone To Pick

As I waved to her as she drove down the street, it was a positive satisfaction for me to think of the skull in her blanket bag.

ELEVEN

In a burst of morning energy, I was singing in the shower when the telephone rang. Blessing answering machines, I barely paused in my rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The shower is probably the only place our national anthem should be sung, especially by people with a limited vocal range, a category that definitely includes me. As I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair, I did a medley of my favorite ads. For my finale, as I toweled I warbled “Three Little Ducks.”

There is something to be said for living by oneself when one wants to sing unheard.

It would be hard to say why I was in such a festive mood. I had to go in to work for five hours, then come back to the town house to prepare for the party. I was pleased at the prospect of seeing Aubrey, but not goo-goo eyed. I was more or less getting used to being rich by now (though the word still gave me a thrill up my spine), and I was on standby regarding action on the skull. I squinted into my makeup mirror as I put on a little eye shadow.

“I’m going to quit my job,” I told my reflection, smiling.

The pleasure of being able to say that! To decide, just like that! Money was wonderful.

I remembered the phone message and pressed the play button, beaming at my reflection in the mirror like an idiot, my drying hair beginning to fly around my head in a dark, wavy nimbus.

“Roe?” began the voice, faint and uncertain. “This is Robin Crusoe, calling from Italy. I called in and got your message from Phil… the guy subletting my apartment. Are you all right? He said Arthur married someone else. Can I come see you when I get back from Europe? If that’s not a good idea, send a note to my old address. Well, write me either way, and I’ll get it when I get back. That should be in a few weeks, probably late next month. Or earlier, I’m running out of money. Good-bye.”

I had frozen when I first heard the voice begin. Now I sat breathing shallowly for a few seconds, my brush in my hand, my teeth biting my lower lip gently. My heart was beating fast, I’ll admit. Robin had been my tenant and my friend and almost my lover. I really wanted to see him again. Now I would have the pleasure of composing a note that would say very delicately that I definitely wanted him to come calling when he got back. I didn’t want him to get the impression I was sitting in Lawrenceton with my tongue hanging out while I panted, but I did want him to come, if he was of the same mind in a few weeks. And if I was. I could take my time composing that note.

I brushed my hair, which began to crackle and fly around even more wildly. I gathered it all together and put a band on it about halfway down its length, not as stodgy as a “real” pony tail. And I tied a frivolous bow around the band. However, I did wear one of my old “librarian” outfits that so disgusted Amina: a solid navy skirt of neutral length with a navy-and-white-striped blouse, plain support hose, and unattractive but very comfortable shoes. I cleaned my glasses, pushed them up on my nose, nodded at my reflection in the full-length mirror, and went downstairs.

If I’d known how to cha-cha, I think I would have done it going up the ramp from the employees’ parking lot into the library.

“Aren’t we happy today?” Lillian said sourly, sipping from her cup of coffee at the worktable in the book- mending room.

“Yes, ma’am, we are,” I said, depositing my purse in my little locker and snapping the padlock shut. My only claim to fame in my history as a librarian in Lawrenceton was that I had never once lost my padlock key. I kept it on a safety pin and pinned it to my skirt or my slip or my blouse. Today I pinned it to my collar and marched off to Mr. derrick’s office, humming a military tune. Or what I imagined was a military tune.

I tapped on the half-open door and stuck my head in. Mr. derrick was already at work on a heap of papers, a steaming cup of coffee at his elbow and a cigarette in the ashtray smoldering.

“Good morning, Roe,” he said, looking up from his desk. Sam derrick was married with four daughters, and, since he worked in a library, that meant he was surrounded by women from the moment he got up to the moment he went to bed. You would think he would have learned how to treat them. But his greatest and most conspicuous failure was in people management. No one would ever accuse Sam derrick of coddling anyone, or of favoritism; he didn’t care for any of us, had no idea what our home lives were like, and made no allowances for any individual’s personality or work preferences. No one would ever like him; he would never be accused of being unfair.

I had always been a little nervous around someone who played his emotional cards as close to his chest as Sam derrick. Suddenly leaving did not seem so simple.

“I’m going to quit my job,” I said quietly, while I still had some nerve. As he stared, that little bit of nerve began to trickle away. “I’m on part-time anyway, I don’t feel like you really need me anymore.”

He kept peering at me over his half-glasses. “Are you giving me notice, or quitting, no more work as of today?” he asked finally.

“I don’t know,” I said foolishly. After I considered a moment, I said, “Since you have at least three substitute librarians on your call list, and I know at least two of them would love to go regular part-time, I’m quitting, no more work as of five hours from now.”

“Is there something wrong that we can talk about?”

I came all the way into the room. “Working here is okay,” I told him. “I just don’t have to anymore, financially, and I feel like a change.”

“You don’t need the money,” he said in amazement.

He was probably the only person working at the library, or perhaps the only person in Lawrenceton, who didn’t know by now about the money.

“I inherited.”

“My goodness, your mother didn’t die, I hope?” He actually put his pencil down, so great was his concern.

“No, no relative.”

“Oh-good. Well. I’m sorry to see you go, even though you were certainly our most notorious employee for a while last year. Well, it’s been longer than that now, I suppose.”

“Did you think about firing me then?”

“Actually, I was holding off until you killed Lillian.”

I stared at him blankly until I accepted the amazing fact that Sam derrick had made a joke. I began laughing, and he began laughing, and suddenly he looked like a human being.

“It’s been a pleasure,” I said, meaning it for the first time, and turned and left his office.

“Your insurance will last for thirty days,” he called after me, running a little truer to form.

As luck would have it, that morning at the library business was excruciatingly slow. I didn’t want to tell anyone I’d quit until I was actually leaving, so I hid among the books all morning, reading the shelves, dusting, and piddling along. I didn’t get a lunch break, since I was just working five hours; I was supposed to bring it with me or get one of the librarians going out to bring back something from a fast-food place, and eat it very quickly. But that would mean eating in the break room, and there was sure to be someone else in there, and having a conversation without revealing my intention would be seen as fraudulent, in a way. So I dodged from here to there, making myself scarce, and by two o’clock I was very hungry. Then I had to go through the ritual of saying good-bye, I enjoyed working with you, I’ll be in often to get books so we’ll be seeing each other.

It made me sadder than I thought it would. Even saying good-bye to Lillian was not the unmitigated pleasure I had expected. I would miss having her around because she made me feel so virtuous and smart by contrast, I realized with shame. (I didn’t moan and groan about every little change in work routine, I didn’t bore people to tears with detailed accounts of boring events, I knew who Benvenuto Cellini was.) And I remembered Lillian finally standing by me when things had been so bad during the murders months before.

“Maybe you can hunt for a husband full-time now,” Lillian said in parting, and my shame vanished completely. Then I read in Lillian’s face the knowledge that the only thing she had that I could possibly want was a husband.