The Right Book
“Here you are, Mr. Miller. Your books are due back in three weeks.” I smiled at him with genuine fondness. He was one of our regular patrons, with an eclectic taste in books as well as lots of patience and good humor. I couldn’t help but like him.
“Thank you, Lia, my dear. Your recommendations are always stellar.” He gave me a grandfatherly wink and made his way out the door with his limping gait that was still somehow dignified.
On his way out, Mr. Miller held the door for a thirty-something woman coming in who I had never seen before. She stepped in and looked up and around, looking lost.
I stepped out from behind the desk and approached her. “May I help you?” I asked gently.
“Oh. I…um…I don’t know.”
“You’ve never been here before, have you?” It was really less a question than a statement. I hadn’t been working here very long and I didn’t yet know everyone who used The Library, but I had learned to recognize the first-timer, especially one who needed to find us as much as this woman did.
“No, I haven’t…I didn’t even know this was here until…”
I smiled. “That happens sometimes. Shall I show you around?”
At her nod I lead her to the stacks on the first floor, and as we walked past the first bookshelf containing fiction, I rapped my knuckles once, sharply, on the wooden end of the shelf. She didn’t seem to notice.
As we strolled through the general history section and I explained our sorting system, I saw a pair of reflective green eyes appear above a thick volume on Western Civilization, looking intently at my companion for a minute or so before they disappeared.
The eyes appeared again nearly directly in front of me, around an illustrated history of the monarchies of Europe. They glanced quickly upwards, then back at me. Then they disappeared.
I knew what it meant, though. “Let me show you the second floor.” I said.
She followed me up the stairs and I continued my explanation of the organization and layout of The Library. I strolled along the stacks until I saw the eyes blink at me from the end of a shelf. I turned in there casually, seemingly at random. As I walked slowly down the row, a book on one of the lower shelves slid very slightly outwards.
I reached down and pulled it out. It was a book on Jungian Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Interesting. I handed it to the woman. “Here. I think you’ll like this one.”
She took it from me and frowned at it, but it was a puzzled, thoughtful frown. “Thank you, I…hmm. Yes, I’ll read this.”
I smiled. “Yes, I think you’ll find that it’s exactly the book you need right now.”
