Page 5 of The Librarian of Souls
“Joanna, you know the drill. Make sure all the new guys are trained up and have their May schedules.” Patrick ends the video call without another word.
I hold in my sigh. Patrick Concord doesn’t seem to understand what my job role really is or what I was first hired to do. I am supposed to be the marketing and office admin. I am supposed to keep our small office tidy, make sure our project announcements are professional, and make the occasional post on social media about how we are helping conserve historic buildings in Gwenmore. That was before Janet, his ex-wife, left him and before he started his three-year-long midlife crisis on the Spanish coast.
Patrick is permanently tan with a drink in his hand now, while I am permanently his girl Friday. It started out simple enough, a few extra spreadsheets to help keep everything organised and suddenly all of Janet’s old emails and documents were in my possession because I couldn’t say no to my first boss. Janet knew my moms from university, and Patrick gave me a chance when I’d failed interview after interview. When Janet left, I couldn’t abandon Patrick, even when he ran away to the other side of the world leaving me to pick up the slack.
And while the job is shit, and the seasonal hires shitter, the job market is the shittest. Here my old dresses and busted shoes go unnoticed in the sea of hard hats and hi-vis. Out in the interview world, I’m not sure I would ever be able to sell myself enough to get something better. I know this role now, these people, how to manage the expectations of me here. Out there, the world is unknown. I’m much happier with the devil I know.
My day dribbles on after that late-morning call. Purchase orders, invoices, customer complaints, compliance forms, project bids, and so much more paperwork pass over my desk, I don’t even get a chance to stop for lunch. I don’t even think I’ve stood up from my desk until our compliance manager knocks on my open door to remind me about the introduction meeting I’m leading.
Lance Jameson has been at the company longer than even I have. He’s in his early fifties, has been married for twenty years, and has two grown kids who are out of the house now. He still has all his dark brown hair and, by anyone’s standard, is very attractive. His constant guidance and kindness when I first started cemented an easy relationship for us during my first years when I was trying to prove to myself, to Patrick and Janet, that I was more than a pity hire.
Since the divorce and my sideways promotion that I’m not sure was actually a promotion, our relationship has been strained. I don’t see myself as his boss, even though I’m in charge of the office rota and passing around payslips. I want to believe I can still come to him with problems if I have them. His opinions matter to me, but recently there has been something off with him that I can’t exactly place.
He’s distant. There is something about the way he looks at me, looks over my shoulder when I am working in one of the billion spreadsheets I have open all the time. Lance is trying to assess what I am doing, and it only makes me more concerned about my productivity levels. I find myself trying to prove to Lance now that I am worth my seat in this office.
I don’t know how to broach the topic with him. Is he observing what I am doing to report back to Patrick? Or is he looking for a new job, thinking maybe he wants to switch to what I do in operations? Either way, I don’t want to rock the boat. Lance weathered every storm, every fight between Janet and Patrick, the nightmare of divorce, all of it, with me. I don’t think I could handle it if he got a new job. He is my daytime constant.
“You got everything?” he asks, a small bag slung over one of his shoulders.
I toss a backup, empty file folder into my purse so I can collect all the papers I will need to put away tonight. My eyes sweep over my desk, and I click sleep on my computer. “Yep, let’s get this over with.”
Lance leads the way as we start walking away from the office and over to the job site. This is my chance to ask him what he has been up to outside of the office, away from the prying ears of everyone else. I swallow down the nerves, tucking my purse tighter under my arms as we turn on to the busy sidewalk.
“So, how have you been? I miss our morning gossip.” If there is one thing I miss the most about Lance, it is knowing everything that is happening about anything. Whether it was in the office or at a job site, he would have the best stories to tell. He has been in the business for so long, he can get you just about anything you need in the construction world as well. Now, between my workload and his distance, these little meetings are all I get with him.
“Ah, well, you know Toni and I are separated right now,” he starts.
“What?” I stop right there in the middle of the pavement and look at Lance. Is that why he has been so weird? “Are you okay?”
“It was a long time coming, ya know, but I am working on it. I’m going to make sure we spend the rest of our lives together.” He keeps walking, hands shoved into the pocket of his jacket. “C’mon, tell me more about this job, kid. I want all the nitty-gritty of it.”
The armoury. Built in 1675, the building is one of several along this main strip of the historic district that was constructed when Gwenmore was founded. Unlike a lot of the buildings here, which were rebuilt after the revolution, it still retains its Colonial style of architecture. The contract is pretty basic. We are replacing the narrow windows and doing some structural maintenance around the building to keep it in tip-top tourist shape.
Concord is a small construction company in the grand scheme of the industry. We don’t have the full-time manpower or connections to build new housing suburbs cropping up west of Gwenmore for commuters or the redevelopment happening around Dunst Overpass. We specialise in smaller projects and historic preservation. This contract is a much bigger win for us than the general sort of work we do for smaller commercial businesses and homes.
The armoury is a listed building, meaning it’s partially owned and funded by taxpayers, even though now it holds a variety of different privately owned companies. It’s leased by the city to some mega-conglomerate, who didn’t really have a choice in the matter when the mayor and city council announced they were accepting bids on the project eighteen months ago.
I couldn’t stop myself from jumping at this opportunity eighteen months ago. At being able to keep this little pocket of Gwenmore history alive. Patrick was sceptical, still is, that I am in way over my head and that the project will fall apart, but when I told him the city was underwriting the whole thing, he stopped fighting me on it so hard. Sometimes my stomach still does a dip when I think about how this project is going to look for Concord, for me.
But no matter how many times I do this introduction meeting, standing up in front of a large group of people never gets easier. But the contract we are starting construction on today is a big deal; it’s my deal. It is my labour of love to show that I have done something for this business. Some of the guys today will be seasoned veterans who have worked for us before. They know me, know the deal. Their bored expressions and casual disregard for what I have to say will be annoying, but it’s nothing new. The new hires will stare and pass judgement, because I am a woman working in construction, but I am used to that look.
Plenty of people have passed judgement on me. The difference here is these contract hires don’t hold any power. It will irritate my skin, but when I leave for the day, it won’t come home with me.
It has never occurred to me that this job is right next to the library until we walk past it to cross the road to the armoury. Up until recently, it didn’t matter to me because I wasn’t carrying any sort of schoolgirl crush on any individuals who worked there. This thing for the librarian is new to me, a few months old and I haven’t had to visit the armoury site in months, so I have only confronted these feelings in the dark when I am alone.
Now, I am transported inside. I can’t remember the last time I was here in the daylight, but my brain fills in the blank. The librarian is there, golden and shining in the afternoon sun. His jacket is off, and his shirt sleeves are rolled up as he carries an impressive stack of books to a shelf. I wonder briefly if he enjoys the sun or if he chooses to work the night shifts because like me, he hates the heat and baking sunshine.
Any thoughts of sexy librarians are dashed when I’m hit by the overpowering smell of dampness and underground. While the main entrance of the armoury is new and has security, the basement has obviously been neglected. Fluorescent lights hang from the low ceiling and cast an eerie light down the hallway that leads to the site office. A “Concord Construction” paper sign is taped to a windowless door that is wedged open with an old brick.
Further down the hall, there is a right and left turn that leads to the workmen entrance. That was one thing the leaseholders demanded, no construction crews in the lobby. Office staff like Lance and I were given temporary passes so we could talk with the security team when necessary, but otherwise they don’t want the increased risk. In my opinion, allowing about a hundred contractors, and sub-contractors, and site hires basement access with no visible security is a bigger risk. But the aesthetics are worth more to them, I suppose.
The walls of the site office are lined with metal shelves stuffed full of plastic filing boxes, but just behind them, you can see the old brickwork. Massive stones backed deep into the ground centuries ago. It’s dark and damp with narrow, bar-covered windows. A stink trap with fans that push the smells around rather than removing it. This space is obviously used for storage, and once we are done with our job and packed up, they will move everything else back. Like we were never here, little drones come to fix the hive who don’t matter when the job is done.
And as a head drone, it’s my job to control the other drones.
“Hey everyone!” I shout, my voice echoing around makeshift desks and folding chairs. “Please, quiet down. I know it’s late, and you’ve had a long day of paperwork.”
The room with about forty contract hires doesn’t settle down; the roaring chatter of men continues on while I try again to get them to shut up.
