“Nice?” My thumb painfully picked up a sliver of wood from the teen collections desk, where I was gripping the edge too hard. That must be why my voice had been so hard.
“Yeah, nice. I’ve never vacationed with my parents, but you like yours, right?”
I do like them, actually, but something felt a little numb around the edges of my thoughts. Why? “Yes.”
“Awesome. Block out the days. Go, cruise, take pictures of Alaskan icebergs—”
“Glaciers. Not icebergs. Glaciers.” The sliver was deep and drove deeper as I tried to work it free. I’m certain that’s why there were tears in my eyes. I felt Shelley push in close to me, saw her dark fall of hair in my periphery. But I continued to work the sliver, because I knew if I looked at her, I’d break apart, right there in teen collections, for no good reason I could understand.
“Hey,” she whispered.
I shook my head. Pushed the sliver in farther.
“Carrie. Look at me. Come on.”
“Can’t.”
She laughed, just a little. Because Shelley is happy. Because what else is there to do when you recognize the signs of an inexplicable breakdown? “Carrie. Seriously. Also, there isn’t anyone here right now. It’s okay.”
When I met the obvious sympathy in her gaze, it’s how familiar she looked that unfastened the sob from my throat. Or at least that’s what I told myself, swiping the tears away. “Fuck.”
“Oh, Carrie.” She gently lifted my glasses away, making it worse. “Tell me.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Is something going on with your parents?”
“No. I just talked to them. They’re great, as usual. Looking forward to the trip.”
“Here? Is it something here at the library—work stuff?”
“No. It’s awesome here.” I stuttered over another sob. “I love it here.”
“It’s my fuckup with the glaciers, right? What’s the difference, anyway? Are icebergs little glaciers, like baby glaciers that will be big glaciers somed
ay but have to heave up on a continent or something?”
My confusion momentarily eased up my breathing. “What?”
She passed me a tissue. “You don’t want to cruise with your parents, do you?”
I looked at my sliver, but couldn’t see it because my thumb was now so mangled and sore. The numb-around-the-edges feeling had spread out over everything. “No,” I whispered. “I don’t think I do.” I looked back at Shelley, who was leaning against the counter, head in hand.
“Finally.”
I sat down on a stool, suddenly exhausted. “What do you mean?”
“What are you going to do about it?”
And I’m still not entirely certain what she meant, except that I couldn’t go with my parents on a cruise to Alaska. Now, I listen to the little sounds raining through the line from Will and Shelley’s tiny milking barn.
“Carrie?”
“I’ll be okay, Shelley. It’s a funk, that’s all. Lady of a Certain Age funk.”
“Hmm. There are certain … cures for such a thing, you know.”
“Oh, I know you know, Shelley,” I say, hearing Will laugh in the background, “but I think we’ll save that talk for another time.”