Page 83 of The Boyfriend Goal

“Yes! He does this long, languid stretch where he offers his sleek belly, ostensibly for petting. But if you touch him there on the very belly he’s offering, he will strike.”

“He’s a touch-me-and-die cat,” she says nonchalantly, scratching Raccoon’s chin, the one acceptable zone on this cat for petting. “So sweet.”

“And yet I’ll miss him,” I say, then wince, wishing I could take those vulnerable words back. I shouldn’t be putting sad vibes out in the air. I wasn’t hired for this temporary job to talk to my boss about how much I’ll miss this place when I finish the contract in seven weeks, but who’s counting?

Thalia gives me a sympathetic look. “This place is addictive,” she says.

But that’s all. She doesn’t add hey, how about I pry open our budget and hire you for a permanent gig? You’re the city’s most awesome new digital specialist librarian.

“It is,” I say brightly.

“Drinks this week with the crew? We’re doing Thursday night this time,” she says, shifting to another topic all together. “And we’re going to add trivia this week.”

“Book trivia?” There is nothing worse than librarians trying to best each other with book knowledge. It’s like a battle royale of the nerds, and no piece of information is left un-hurled at your rival.

“Please,” she scoffs. “We do pop culture. Sports. Music. That sort of thing, so it’s more challenging. We need it to be hard.”

“I’m in. Librarians like it hard after all,” I add, then realize the full weight of the innuendo in the statement.

Thalia sees it too, tilting her head in approval, then tapping her wine-colored nails against the counter. “That ought to be on a sticker, girl,” she says, then heads off in a swish of flowy magenta skirt and jingly bracelets.

Come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea. Maybe I could become a sticker queen and stay in San Francisco on the riches I’ll amass as I peddle a line of cheeky librarian sayings.

Meet me in the stacks.

Let’s do it on the reference desk.

Dewey Decimal to me all night long.

I have a free minute so I google the price of cute stickers, then the best fonts for stickers, then where to sell stickers. But soon enough, I sigh, vanquished already by practical matters. There’s just not a big enough market for naughty librarian stickers.

I take off my glasses for a second to pinch the bridge of my nose, since studies show ideas flow faster when you pinch your nose. Oh! I’ve got it! What if I can win another grant from The Violet Delia Foundation for Library Digital Empowerment? Thalia would probably say nice things about me to the non-profit. Maybe they’d crack open the coffers and fund this position for longer? I could look for other grants too, but most grants in my field fund professional development for librarians, not their salaries. This is a rare one. But if I can prove I’m a unicorn…

I’m also a workhorse though. I’ve been scanning the job listings regularly in San Francisco—old habits die hard, and when I was finishing grad school I was glued to the job listings. While I haven’t found any openings yet, I can widen the search beyond the city maybe. Like San Jose, or Oakland, or Marin County. I can apply to anything within a fifty-mile radius, even though I don’t have a car. But I’ll deal with that issue later. I’m aces at applications. Not only did I apply to sixteen colleges (accepted at thirteen), I submitted my résumé for more than one hundred fifty jobs before I landed this one.

I have an endless well of application energy, and I will put it to good use tonight in the job hunt. Because I want to stay here. Close to this lovely city. And my brother…and Maeve and Fable and Everly.

As I leave that evening, heading onto the streets of the Upper Haight to catch my bus, I text Wes to tell him what happened today. Well, not my “blanket the Bay Area with my CV” idea. That would definitely seem clingy. Like, hey, you life-hacked a lipstick tube into a sex toy to get me off on the counter. Clearly you want me to stay in town, don’t you? Nope. I’ll keep those plans to myself. Instead, I tap out another note.

Josie: It’s a wonder I still have a job. Today at work I said the following out loud to my boss: “Librarians like it hard.”

As I’m getting off the bus twenty minutes later, his reply lands.

Wesley: Can confirm.

I laugh and blush all at once.

The idea takes a hold of me though—the stick-around-town one. That evening, after I whip up some carrot bacon, I spend an hour crunching on my veggie food while I write a bang-up cover letter to The Violet Delia Foundation for Library Digital Empowerment, letting them know what I’ve accomplished so far and what else I hope to achieve. I send it off, then hunt for library grants, just in case there are any I might have missed. I search for more grants on the way to work the next day too. But I only unearth a few I’d really qualify for—or really that this library, or any others in the city, would qualify for to keep me on. But I check the job boards for open positions as well. I’m ready to pounce on any.

Spoiler alert: there aren’t any for—gulp—entry-level librarians.

Sigh. Sometimes starting out just sucks.

But there’s plenty of time. I’ve got seven weeks left in this job. I’ll keep at it. In the meantime, I order some stickers for fun.

On Thursday at work, the digitization center is quiet after I teach one of the digital literacy classes, but my brain isn’t. Maybe meet me in the stacks isn’t such a bad idea. Not for a sticker though. For something else. I take some notes, and work on some ideas all day, then I’m out for blood at trivia night.

News flash: our team wins, and Thalia lifts her beer in a victory toast. “You’re hereby required to play on my team for the rest of the year.”

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