Chapter One
“I’msosorry,Claire,but we have to let you go,” Anthony, my now ex-boss, had a pained expression on his face that he was trying to cover up with stoic professionalism. He never had much of a poker face, and it was part of what I found endearing about him. His brown eyes matched his ill-fitting corduroy jacket, and it seemed odd that someone sweet like him could smash apart the little peace I’d found in my life, but here we were.
I looked around my makeshift office within the basement of City Hall. The folding chair beneath me was hard and uncompromising, much like the position I now found myself in. It was late afternoon, and the sun lit the room at just the right angle to make the swirling dust motes glow with a golden effervescence.
I would miss this place and the records they hired me to digitize eight months earlier. I only finished that very task an hour before and already started packing up my things to prepare for this moment. “Claire, I want to clarify that this has no bearing on your work ethic or the job you’ve done here.”
I cut him off, knowing this was hard for him, “Anthony, I knew when I took the job it was temp work. I just didn’t expect to get so attached.” Letting out a pained sigh, I gestured vaguely around myself. This musty, forgotten hole had become my refuge. The smell of old paper filled the air, and the cavern in my chest opened wide.
He fiddled with his tie, a nervous habit. “I’m going to write you a glowing recommendation, and if we ever need help, I’ll call.” I believed him, but it would never be the same.
“Thank you, Anthony.” I knew I would cry later, but for now, I was calm. He didn’t want to do this any more than I wanted it done. I was used to trying to make things easier for other people, a task I assigned myself before I could even remember.
“Claire, I know it’s probably not my business, but you’re overqualified for this job, and any other I could offer you. You have a master’s degree, and I don’t think you should give up on your dreams. You’re only twenty-six and you have all the time in the world…”
I put up my hands to stop him. “Really, it’s okay. Thank you for the reference. I packed my stuff up. So, I’ll just be heading out.” I didn’t need a pep talk while he tore my world apart.”
“We’ll mail your check,” he called after me as I forced myself to walk up the stairs instead of running as I truly wanted.”
“I get direct deposit,” I called back.
The master’s degree he was talking about was in library sciences, and sadly, there were no libraries in the city hiring a librarian. I had been working odd office jobs since I graduated two years ago, and this was the first time I actually felt happy. My eyes drifted to the library sitting opposite City Hall.So close, yet so far.I stomped off to my crappy apartment and flopped against my worn-out couch. That’s where I stayed for longer than I’d care to admit.
“You’re the man for me,” I spoke directly to the actor sudsing his hair on my TV. The water ran through his golden tresses, sweeping the bubbles over his abs, and the camera cut away before it reached the goods. My heart thumped in excitement and disappointment as the news came back on.
“Another young woman found dead in the suburbs of–” I slapped at the remote, turning the TV off. That shit was too depressing, even for me. I shoved another chip into my mouth with the enthusiasm of a limp noodle, overboiled and ready for the trash.
My curly brown hair hung lank. The sheen of sweat covering me made it stick to my neck. I pulled it up into a bun grumbling about eighty-degree weather in May. I wore the same pair of pink bunny pajamas I had for two days straight and I ripped them off, frustrated with the temperature and the fact I failed to be productive yet another day. A bunny slipper flipped over the back of the couch and it landed in a pile of unwashed laundry.
I looked around my apartment, sure the walls were closing in on me. Takeout containers covered my kitchen counters and coffee table, and I needed to take the trash out. The things that didn’t need to be done would make for a much shorter list. I flopped back on the couch, feeling the coarse fibers scratching against my skin, and let out a groan. I slapped my hands against my bare chest, remembering the last time I wore a bra, two weeks ago, when Anthony banished me from my post at City Hall.
I checked the time, noting that my favorite Indian restaurant would be delivering. It didn’t bother me that three o’clock wasn’t a proper mealtime. I had too little to be excited about in my life to care about things like social acceptability. I shoved the containers out of the way until I found my phone. The battery was nearly dead. What else was new? I plugged it into the charger. At only three feet long, it kept me on a short leash.
I leaned against the kitchen counter, enjoying the feeling of the cool tile on my skin. “Hi, Sadar, it’s Claire. Delivery, please?”
“You sure you don’t want to come in and sit down?” Sadar was a nice guy, and my closest friend, considering I lost contact with everyone else for various reasons. Even my mom was currently not speaking to me, but that was typical of our relationship.
“I’m sure, Sadar. The usual, please?”
He chuckled a little, “One of these days you’re going to come in and eat, and I’ll get you to try something new.”
“Sounds good,” I lied.
I closed my eyes for a moment, willing the surrounding mess to disappear. I popped them open, half expectant. So far, no luck. The elaborate monument to destitution I called home wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Or was it?
I opened my banking app and read over the charges. There wasn’t a single credit since my layoff, yet I kept myself in chicken korma. My credit cards weren’t maxed out, but they were wheezing, and my savings account was nearly in tears. I needed to find a job before I was out on my ass and the place really disappeared.
I half-heartedly flipped through job listings, observing without surprise that none of the libraries were hiring. It was some elite club I couldn’t crack, harder to infiltrate than the NYC garbage union. I’d volunteered at the university library while I was in school as part of my degree program and to meet the conditions of my scholarship, but I couldn’t even get an unpaid position at the local libraries.
There were other things I could do with my degree, but most of the options came back to libraries in some way or database configuration and information processing. There weren’t a lot of jobs available in my city and none so far fit the bill. Moving wasn’t an option. What if I went somewhere with terrible Indian food? I shuddered at the thought.
I slammed my phone down a little too hard, revolted by the state of my life. My mother warned me plenty of times that my chosen career path was stupid, the product of too many dreams and an overactive imagination. There wasn’t much I did right where she was concerned and typically, I ignored her. Sadly, her words played in my head now:dreamsare forpeoplewho are betterthan us.
My entire existence felt like a boa constrictor tightening around me, preparing to swallow me whole. I forced myself to take a breath, and little spots of light burst into my vision as oxygen returned to my brain. The last thing I needed was to pass out and crack my head against the linoleum. Winding up with a hospital bill and a lost security deposit would suck.
At least when I was in school, the structure and having a goal to work toward kept my life in better order. I needed some semblance of a routine. I should at a minimum fill out some applications for the jobs that were available, even if they were light years away from what I truly wanted.
A lot of office positions required a bachelor’s degree with no concern for the major, and while the requirement mystified me, at least I had one. Truthfully, all I wanted was to go back in time to my days at City Hall. I wasn’t lazy despite the state of my apartment, and I didn’t mind hard work. Deep inside, I just knew I would never be as happy or complete as I was sifting bits of history in an undisturbed basement. I was a historian, a small-time, irrelevant one, but I loved it.