Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 128742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
Me: Gotta go. Still at the library.
I slide my phone in my pocket and head back inside. As always, Mr. Baxley sits at his information desk guarding the precious archives from us ne’er-do-wells and our greasy fingers. He scowls at me as I approach.
“Tell me something,” I say. He’s already slapping down the clipboard. “Anyone ever try ordering a pizza? Some tacos, maybe? For the sake of variety?”
He doesn’t twitch a muscle. Perfectly still in his abject disdain as I fill out yet another request form.
“I’m going to crack you, Mr. Baxley. One of these days.”
Unconvinced, he jerks his head to allow me access. As if I don’t have a sleeping bag and mini fridge set up under a desk with my name on it by now.
And so the cycle begins again. I read, and a footnote sends me to yet another volume. Not an hour later, I’m back. An exasperated Mr. Baxley slides the clipboard in front of me without so much as a grumble under his breath.
“Is this really necessary?” I ask. “I’m already in there. I keep filling out the same information for the same reason. Why kill all these trees?”
He doesn’t budge, so I scribble down a snarky response on the form in protest of this library’s archaic and redundant regulations.
REASON FOR REQUEST:
I like books that start with the letter R.
The next time, I get more creative.
REASON FOR REQUEST: A HAIKU
The quest for knowledge
Is right at my fingertips.
Insert five words here.
The time after that, a personal approach.
REASON FOR REQUEST:
I knew this kid named Martin in the fourth grade who came from a super religious family. He showed up on Valentine’s Day with cards for everyone in class—except me. It was very hurtful, Mr. Baxley. I cried when I got home, and my dad called Martin’s mom and was like, “What the hell, lady? Teach your son some manners.” She apologized profusely and put Martin on the phone to explain himself, and—get this, Mr. Baxley. Martin confessed that he left me out because his father told him redheads were created by the devil to lure weak men into the red pits of hell. I wonder what ever happened to Martin. His parents sent him to Catholic school the following year, where I assume gingers are forbidden from attending.
Oh, I am requesting this book for research purposes.
Pleased with my juvenile antics, I hand the clipboard back with a smile. “You don’t have to be a slave to bureaucracy, Mr. Baxley. Fight the power.”
Back at my desk, I get an email from Marjorie at the museum in Rye informing me that the painting is authentic. And while she’s taken pains to exhaust every contact she has, no one recognizes the woman in the portrait.
Another dead end.
In frustration, I fling my pencil across the room. It lands with unsatisfying quiet.
Yes, I can continue my research project on the tragic Tulley brothers, but who was this girl? Who, damn it? How is it possible someone so connected to a prominent family can simply disappear from history but for this one painting? It’s an infuriating mystery that loses its romance with every slammed door.
I’ve managed to chart a family tree for the modern Tulleys. They’re all accounted for with names and photos, none even remotely resembling the woman. And no long-lost sisters or daughters either. I thought for sure that a hole would appear on a branch somewhere. A blank space where this woman would fit. But no. Nothing.
I think maybe the library and I need to go on a break, Ross and Rachel style. It’s getting late, and I’m exhausted.
In a fit of desperation, I return to Mr. Baxley with my phone.
“Do you know this woman?” I push the phone at him to show him the photo. “The Tulley portrait artist Franklin Astor Dyce painted her sometime after World War II.”
His typical grimace evaporates as he carefully peers at the photo, squinting behind his glasses. “I don’t, I’m afraid.”
I swallow another rush of frustration.
He continues to study the image, then sets my phone down. “But perhaps you might want to have a look”—with a pencil, he scribbles a decimal number on a slip of paper— “at this.”
He hands it to me. Along with the damn clipboard.
Touché, Mr. Baxley.
But I suppose this is progress.
15
THE BOYS ARE HOSTING A PARTY TONIGHT, AND THE FLAT IS heaving with their friends and friends of friends. Strange faces that mostly look past me like I’m the child who’s supposed to be at the neighbor’s house for a sleepover so the big kids can play. I try to be social, and the guys do introduce me to everyone, but they get caught up in conversation that starts to box me out and I’m left drifting on the periphery. It isn’t their fault, this outsider syndrome of mine. I don’t blame them.