I rushed out of the lobby of Melissa's apartment building, fumbling my phone as I wrestled with the door. Matteo and Rob were right behind me. I didn't want them to sense my panic; I offered an overly-cheery goodbye as they walked together in the opposite direction. I ended up in the park across the street, the one sandwiched between the row of apartments and the library. The bench was sturdy under my fingers. I desperately hoped the call wouldn't be about Alex, my brother.
The phone only rang twice before Mom picked up. "Emma! Thank goodness."
"What's wrong?" I asked, frantic. "Is Dad okay?"
"No, that's why I'm calling."
Images flashed through my mind. Hospital bleach. Fluorescent lights. Linoleum floors. Doctors speaking too quietly, too slowly. I knew it wasn't medically possible, but it felt like my heart would burst out of my chest. Who knew? Perhaps I would be some sort of medical freak, the girl without a heart. It would certainly make things easier.
I couldn't live through that all again.
"What's wrong?" I managed to croak.
"Your father has picked up knitting as a hobby," she said. She paused.
"And?" I prompted. "Did he poke out an eye? Stab himself?"
"What? No. He's knitting a scarf with two colors, and he chose green and orange. Green and orange! Can you believe it? It's like he's never heard of color theory. A cool and a warm color don't go together–"
"Hi, honey." Dad's voice came through the background.
"So everything's fine?" I said weakly. "There's no emergency?"
"Emergency? Of course this is an emergency!" Mom said, shouting into the phone. "I'm the one that's going to have to wear this monstrosity."
The emergency was about the color of a scarf. I wanted to laugh. To scream. To cry.
And instead of doing any of that, I said, "You can rock anything you wear."
I've always been a non-confrontational person. Even when I was younger, if Alex was arguing with our parents, I would run to my room and shove my head under the pillow. I didn't want to deal with the messiness of life.
The problem is that I've never really learned to deal with conflict. And, sitting there in the park, I didn't even have a handy pillow.
The last time I had confronted a problem, I had been drunk and had rudely yelled at Wesley in the bar. I knew this wasn't healthy. The last thing I wanted was a strawberry daiquiri-fueled rant. I cringed when I thought about how I had my nacho-y hands in his hair, making the world's worst unicorn horn.
And now I wanted to explain to my Mom how much she had scared me, how worried I had been. But those emotions weren't things we ever talked about. At least, we hadn't talked about them in the past decade or so.
"Are you there?" Mom said.
"Sorry?" I had spaced out for a moment. When I unwrapped my hand from the edge of the bench, I could see deep grooves that lined my fingers.
"Have you spoken to Alex lately?" she asked.
There it was. The question I dreaded most.
"No," I said. "I haven't. Look, Mom, I see the bus coming, I need to run."
There was no bus. Just me, the bench, and a lonely Tim Hortons coffee cup rolling across the path.
"Okay, honey. Make sure you talk to him. I don't want him to get lonely."
"Sure. Gotta go." I hung up.
I was doing it again: running from my problem.
I stood up from the bench. I needed to distract myself. Trying to be a good citizen, I picked up the Tim Hortons cup, only for a massive cockroach to come crawling out the lid. I squawked, throwing the lid away from me as fast as I could.
"You shouldn't litter," a passerby said to me, sneering at me as he walked by.
I wanted to sic an army of cockroaches on him. But since I didn't command any insect armies, I picked up my purse and trudged to the bus stop, mentally counting down the minutes until I could go to bed and forget about the day.
—
When I got home I was seized with a sudden need to do something. Anything, really, to get rid of the jittery energy under my skin. Conversations with my parents could do that.
After I washed my hands twice - I was still grossed out about the cockroach - I settled down in front of my computer to start researching local celebrities for our fundraising event. Then I realized I should clean my desk, and I needed to take out the garbage, and my laundry was overflowing. Sighing, I got back up to power through a few chores.
No one ever warned me how much work goes into just existing as an adult. I truly believed a scientific anomaly was occurring in my kitchen sink, because my dishes seemed to multiply when I wasn't looking.
I trudged around my apartment, tidying up as I went. At least I didn't have roommates any more. Rent in Vancouver, where I had done my Masters degree, had been ridiculous. Landlords wanted your money, your soul, your firstborn child, and anything else not tied down. I had paid a stupid amount of rent each month to share a basement apartment with two other students.
We hadn't particularly gotten along. It wasn't surprising, really, considering the lack of space. One roommate often brought back "guests of the night," as she termed it. This in itself was fine, but when she and said guest ate my leftover macaroni and cheese in the fridge - well, it was an act of war. And one week, when I went home for Christmas, the other roommate hadn't cleaned up at all. The smells of the accumulated garbage were just too attractive for the local critters. By the time I came back, an aggressive family of squirrels had moved into the ducts. Squirrels are cute until they're demonically obsessed with taking over the house.
And it was all over now.
No more blood pacts with landlords. No more hungry guests. No more weirdly aggressive squirrels. Just me and my space.
It's not like my apartment was anything special. The doors tended to creak, the view from my balcony was a parking lot, and I could often hear my neighbor through the walls. But it was all mine, and I was proud of it.
I hadn't let Mom and Dad help me move in. I wanted to do it for myself. This had really been a catastrophic mistake, since I ended up paying far too much for a moving company to help. At least I was able to decorate without any outside opinions. Pictures of me and my friends lined the walls. Shelves of books stood protectively in the living room. Knickknacks sat on my desk in my room.
Even now, cleaning up and slogging through chores, I felt glad to be home.
Finally, once I had washed the last plate - which would mysteriously be replaced with more dirty dishes very shortly - I sat down in front of my computer again. I pulled up Google.
In library school we learned all about conducting research. Boolean operators, database parameters, search strategies. We learned it all. And yet, my friend Mr. Google was often the first place I looked. Forgive me, library gods.
I typed in Cherryhill celebrities and hit Enter.
It turned out there was a Cherry Hill in New Jersey, which was not helpful at all. I tried Cherryhill Ontario celebrities.
There wasn't much. A few minor league hockey players, some news broadcasters, a flutist. Nothing that had too much star power.
I realized I was setting myself up for failure. The part of me that loved glitter and snazzy things really did want a celebrity, someone who could bring attention to the library's plight. But I sadly didn't have Justin Bieber's cellphone number, and Andre de Grasse probably had better things to do - like winning Olympic medals.
No problem. A librarian never gave up at the first obstacle.
I continued Googling. At first I thought I found something of interest - it was advertised as an "adult play party" - and I had an image of bouncy castles and ball pits. Why let kids have all the fun stuff? But then it turned out it was actually a weird sex thing, so I grimaced and let go of my bouncy castle dream.
I finally started to gain traction when I searched for children's performers. There were magicians, knock-off Disney princesses, clowns, and other kid-friendly shows. I realized I didn't know what the budget was, if there was a budget at all. I prayed we would have more than ten dollars to cobble something together.
There were over two hundred performers listed on the website. I gaped, imagining myself scrolling for all eternity. I decided to sort by those that had received the best reviews.
There was a clear winner when my page reloaded: Mr. Oodles of Noodles.
Mr. Oodles of Noodles was a children's singer. In his profile picture a guitar was slung across a sweater that, unsurprisingly, was covered in pictures of different types of noodles. He beamed into the camera. His hair, a chestnut brown that swooped across his forehead, fell onto the tips of his ears.
And as much as I hated to admit it, Mr. Oodles of Noodles was hot.
I told myself that wasn't the reason why I clicked on his blurb, which opened onto a page with more details. Apparently he sang both traditional children's songs as well as his own creations, which included hits such as "I'm Not Going to Stop Eating Pasta" and "More Cheese, Please." I loved him already.
The reviews were glowing. Kathy from Waterloo said he was the best children's performer in the region; Joel from Kitchener said he was a hit at his son's birthday party. And Sharon from Cherryhill said, "I wished he had taken off his sweater." Sharon needed to chill, but I agreed.
At the end of the day, I was a professional librarian, so I put aside any uncouth thoughts. I clicked on the button that said Contact Me.
I settled in to write my message. Hi! I wrote. Would you mind letting me know what your prices are? I'm interested in booking a performer for some sort of fundraising event. If I'm telling the truth, I don't have a lot of details yet. Just wanted to get an idea. Are you local in Cherryhill, or would we pay for travel expenses? Thanks!
I clicked on Send.
I felt better immediately after sending the message. I had taken the first steps towards organizing an event to help save my job and the library as a whole. Despite Wesley's early advantage with the therapy dogs, I could still make a comeback. He didn't know what was coming his way.
I would survive this, just as I had survived everything else.