Page 44 of The Librarians
Aubrey Claremont disapproves of Sophie’s queerness. Yet it isn’t, for all her devotion to her church and her Savior, a line-in-the-sand condemnation. Aubrey disapproves because Aubrey considers queerness a luxury for rich white people, just as marijuana is a luxury for rich white people, something for whichtheywill not be punished. But a Black woman from a family hanging on to middle-class respectability tooth and nail indulging in an alternative lifestyle? It will not end any better than a brother caught smoking a fat one on a street corner, bothering no one in his mellowness.
Cora Barnes, however, is a real believer. Cora Barnes regards homosexuality as a great and willful perversion, a deadly offense against God and Nature. Cora, hardworking, enterprising, hospitable Cora, a lioness of a mother and the maker of the best goat curry in all of Kingston, Jamaica, banished Jo-Ann because Jo-Ann refused to live a lie.
I’m glad your dad is already dead, she once said to Jo-Ann,because this would have killed him, to see his baby grow into an abomination.
While they were together, Jo-Ann sent home a card one Christmas, aphotocard with Sophie and Jo-Ann in front of the pyramids, from a surprise trip organized by Jo-Ann to celebrate the one-year anniversary of their first date, a rare true splurge on Jo-Ann’s part. It was returned unopened. Jo-Ann spent a whole weekend barely speaking, as dejected as Sophie ever saw her.
Sophie replays Jo-Ann’s last message.Please, if anything happens to me, please look after the baby. Her name is Elise—I wanted something beautiful and sophisticated like yours. You know you are family to me. Youaremy family.
Stupid, stupid Jo-Ann. How dare she die on this beautiful baby, knowing that the girl would be raised by an old woman who considers her own wonderful child deviant and detestable?
Suddenly she wonders what death was like for Jo-Ann—and hopes with all her strength that she died on the operating table, blissfully unaware of her impending mortality. The thought that she might have been lucid, unable to draw her next breath, unable to see Elise, unable to make any provisions for the baby’s care…
Sophie rubs her chest, but the rib-crushing pressure persists.
And then a different vision comes to her. Jo-Ann, at death’s edge but holding on to life with her last shred of strength, trying desperately to crane her neck to look up and out, waiting for Sophie’s silhouette to appear at the window, the door, anywhere. Because she knew that Sophie would come.
That Sophie would not abandon her—or Elise—at a time like this. She would not leave them to the vagaries of fate.
Sophie’s tears flow like streams. She had no idea the lacrimal gland could hold this much fluid. She is also shaking despite the jacket she always puts on to go into air-conditioned buildings.
What is she supposed to do? Oh, God, what is she supposed to do?
She already knows, doesn’t she? She’s frightened not because she doesn’t know but because she not only knows but has already decided to damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
“You were right about me, Jo-Ann,” she murmurs to the echoing corridor. “You were right about me.”
Beware women who always follow the rules. Because when they stop, they will blow up everything in their path.
Chapter Fourteen
Saturday
Elise and Ana Maria are in the middle of making their buttermilk pancakes when Detective Hagerty and Detective Gonzalez knock on the door. Sophie, out for a jog to clear her head, sprints back after she receives Elise’s text.
When she arrives, her fingers cold and numb despite her hard run, Elise is seated in one of the two lawn chairs on Sophie’s tiny front porch, talking to the cops. Hagerty has taken the other chair, Gonzalez standing behind him.
Sophie has no legal objections to raise—in Texas, cops do not need a parent’s permission or presence to question minors. After a stilted greeting, Sophie moves closer to Elise and lets the police continue with their official business.
Elise must have told the cops that she conversed briefly with Jeannette Obermann in the library the Saturday before Game Night. They ask her whether she paid any special attention to Jeannette Obermann on Game Night itself.
Elise shakes her head. “Not after I put her at a table with the couple that also came late. Clue is a fairly straightforward game and I think Miss Hazel, the librarian who sat with them, knew the game well enough to help out. I didn’t have to guide them or give any extra explanations.”
Hagerty asks a number of other questions. Elise displays a steadinessthat almost dispels Sophie’s terror at this near home invasion. Almost, but not quite. She starts out standing immediately next to Elise but quickly moves six feet away, so that the cops—and Elise—cannot see that she’s shaking.
They are back so soon. On a Saturday morning. At Sophie’s house. Are they just eager to do their job or have they already found a trail of clues that led them directly to her door?
But at least Elise is not giving them any reason to pay extra attention to her, and that’s—
From inside the house Ana Maria yowls. Elise springs to her feet. Sophie places a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll go see what’s going on.”
In the kitchen Ana Maria is sucking on her finger—she nicked herself while trying to slice some fruits to go with the pancakes she’s just finished making. Sophie hauls out her first aid kit, disinfects Ana Maria’s small cut, dabs it with a bit of ointment, and wraps a bandage around it.
“Thank you, Miss Sophie,” says Ana Maria. “Are they treating Elise okay out there?”
As if she summoned the cops, the door opens. Detective Hagerty lets Elise back into the house but asks, “Ms. Claremont, can I also have a few minutes of your time?”
Elise looks apologetic.
