New Year's Reference Day

ding was virtually empty, but the phone kept ringing. Frankly, it was surprising that any library patrons even realized we were open on New Year’s Day. Then again, most of them seemed to be calling to verify that fact. My two colleagues and I were alternating phone and desk duties, and it was my turn to cover the phones.

  “Central Library Reference Desk, may I help you?”

  “Are you open?”

  “Yes, we’re open until five today.”

  “Oh. Ok, thanks!”

  Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

  The phone rang again, and I picked it up wearily, sticking a finger in my romance novel to mark my place. Today of all days, my will to read for pleasure was much stronger than my desire to be productive at work.

  “Central Library Reference Desk, may I help you?”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line, and then a somewhat uncertain female voice spoke: “I have two questions. The first is sort of an etiquette one. I went to a New Year’s Eve party and...unexpectedly stayed over. I don’t really know the hosts. Should I send a thank you note? Second, when you meet a guy and you know he’s worth twenty-seven million dollars--because that’s what they told me, twenty-seven million--and you know his nationality, how do you find out his name?”

  “Well,” I said, trying to buy time as I figured out which of her questions to tackle first. And how. I lost my place in my book as I fumbled toward my keyboard. The woman had my full attention. “What have you tried so far? I mean, what is his nationality?” This was probably a stupid place to start, but Reference 101, right? Figure out what the real question is. I couldn’t help but be intensely curious about the backstory on her situation. Had she passed out and woken up under some stranger’s table? Who meets a millionaire but doesn’t get even his first name?

  “He was American. He said something about living here in New York. I tried googling him but I didn’t really know what to look for. My grandmother always wanted me to send thank you cards.” The woman sounded wistful. There was some sort of banging noise happening in the background on her side of the call. I continued sifting through my etiquette results.

  “You, um...have the mailing address? The name of the hosts?”

  “I can probably ask someone.”

  “Miss Manners says that ‘overnight guests who leave before breakfast don’t officially exist,’ but she also mentions sending a letter of thanks when staying at someone’s parents’ house. Would either of those apply to this situation?” Fishing for information in the guise of asking for clarification: my specialty.

  “Well, no, it was kind of a not-really-friend-of-a-friend situation.”

  “I’m not supposed to give medical or legal advice, but it doesn’t say anything in my job description about etiquette advice, so I’d say don’t bother with a card unless you anticipate returning at some point. Or maybe they could help you with your second question?”

  “No…” the voice at the other end sounded defeated. “They probably can’t. We just--I mean--” She trailed off.

  “Ok, let’s look for millionaires who live in New York. You could give me your name and number and I could do some research and get back to you, or you can stay on the line…?” Oddly, I was hoping for the latter. My previously stultifying day had taken an interesting turn with her call, and I wasn’t so keen on returning to my book. My co-workers could handle any patrons that actually came into the building.

  “Oh, I’ll wait. I don’t really have anything else to do today--because of the holiday,” she said. I asked her a few additional questions about his age, looks, and coloring, some of which were necessary for my search and some merely to satisfy my own curiosity. The background noise increased at her end, to the point where she excused herself to “deal with the neighbors” and I was left to troll the library databases and the internet alone. It wasn’t the first time I’d been put on hold by someone who had called me for assistance.

  When she came back on the line, she was apologetic. “They’re doing some kind of work over there, I have no idea what...did you find anything?”

  “I have a list of possibilities, but I haven’t been able to find pictures of all of them. Do you have an email address where I could send you what I have? That way if I come across anything else I’ll be able to send it along as well.”

  “Uhh...yes?” I wasn’t sure what there was in that question to be uncertain about, but having dealt with the public’s weirdness for years, I didn’t bat an eyelash. Some people had concerns about privacy. She gave me the email and I sent the files as attachments.

  “Hopefully that list will give you the information you were looking for. If not, you can call back or email me back and we’ll keep looking. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

  There was a long pause, and I thought she might have disconnected. “No, you’ve been very helpful. What was your name?” I gave it to her, and we wished each other a happy new year and ended the call. After the line went dead, I sat with the receiver in my hand and stared at the library’s ornate ceiling until the dial tone woke me from my trance. What a strange reference question. I hadn’t really gotten any answers to my speculations about what I assumed to be her wild night, and now I would never have the chance. Unless that had been some kind of secret shopper exercise to see how diligent I was being at work today, in which case I thought I had probably passed? Assuming they didn’t have a camera trained on me at the moment.

  The hours came and went, and eventually I took my book and my microwaveable lunch to the back room. Instead of reading, I wondered again about someone who could spend time with a multimillionaire guy and come away with almost no information about him. Was she just completely unobservant? Had she been drunk out of her mind? What did she want with him? The romance reader in me immediately thought Love at First Sight, but wasn’t that more of a fairy tale construct? I felt irrationally jealous of multimillionaire dude, receiving the attention of my mystery caller.

  My colleague poked his head into the break room and let me know that a patron was looking for me specifically. Any irritation I might have felt about ending my break a few minutes early evaporated when I saw the woman standing at the desk. She was petite but not waifish, with auburn hair and a direct and smiling expression. Her brightly colored coat and bag brought an unprecedented energy to the library on this quiet holiday. She was exactly the kind of girl that I was unable to construct a coherent sentence around, and she was looking for me? I noticed that she was clutching a pile of printouts and looking hopeful.

  “Hi, I called earlier about the…” her voice lowered conspiratorially, as my co-workers were hovering, “unknown millionaire?”

  “Hi,” I said. There was a long pause as I tried to recover from my surprise. This was the potential one-night stander? I don’t see how any guy, even one possessed of fabulous riches, would have been willing to let her slip away this morning.

  “I was wondering if you could...help me some more?” She blushed furiously, and it looked adorable on her. I was powerless to resist, even though I had no idea if I was going to be able to assist.

  “Of course! Sure. What can I do for you?”

  “None of the photo ones are the guy from last night. I don’t think?” Great, was she about to cross the line from adorable to crazy? We would be closing soon, and I wasn’t sure there would be time to start searching from scratch.

  “Okaaaay…” my skepticism must have been clear, because she rushed on.

  “But I thought it might be one of these three men.” She showed me the ones she had circled in green pen. I resisted the urge to ask her the brand of pen she had used. “And I really need help figuring out how to get in touch with them.”

  “Ok! That we can
do. We might not be able to get direct lines, but we should be able to figure out the numbers of their assistants or email addresses--” Her pained look forestalled me.

  “I kind of need to see them in person. I think? I know this sounds stupid.”

  I took a deep breath. “It might help me if you told me some more about the, um, situation? Is this, like, an emergency?” It suddenly occurred to me that she might be worried about pregnancy, or god forbid, rape, and that I should be treating this much more seriously. “Do you need to contact the police?”

  “Oh, no! Nothing like that. I just misplaced something last night and I couldn’t find it anywhere this morning and I thought this guy might have taken it, he was kind of an entitled ass…” she trailed off, looking distressed. My relief must have been palpable, because she laughed. “It’s just a little thing, really, but my mom gave it to me and I’m just so mad that I can’t find it and do you think you could help me?” The way she ran her sentences together when she was nervous was especially endearing.

  I thought about it for a minute. “I can help you find everything public record on these three guys. How you want to contact them is up to you. Does that sound ok?” She nodded and watched me intently as I sat back down at the reference desk and collected information. Her light perfume wafted across the air to distract me. I glanced up, and she quickly looked away. She leaned forward as she rummaged in her purse to silence her phone, and I got a distracting view of her cleavage. It occurred to me that she could have called for this information, as she had initially, but who was I to protest when a lovely lady decided it was time for an in-person visit to the library?

  I wrapped up my searches, printed out the material (free of charge--why not, it was New Year’s Day), and handed it to her. Was it my imagination, or did her hand brush mine as I pushed the pages across the desk? I glanced at the clock and noticed again that it was nearly time to close. It had been a more interesting day than I’d expected from a quiet holiday shift. The phone rang again, and I had to answer it. I made apologetic faces at her as she mouthed “thank you!” and added the papers to her heap. Watching her leave the library was an exercise in wistful pleasure. The building was dull without her, and I was left with the feeling of tasks left incomplete.

  I half-expected to see her again when I walked down the steps of the library after closing. Or on the subway ride home. It took me a few weeks to stop looking hopefully up from my work whenever someone came up to the desk for help. On the street, I would catch a glimpse of a woman in bright colors and my heart would stupidly speed up. Several weeks after New Year’s, the phone rang again at work.

  “Central Library Reference Desk, may I help you?”

  “Oh, I’m glad it’s you,” she said. Her voice flooded me with pleasure and anticipation. She sounded a bit tentative, even now. “I called before and tried to leave a message, but I’m not sure it got to you?” I looked over toward my usual desk-mate and glared at him ferociously. He looked mystified.

  “Apparently not,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Well, I just wanted to let you know that I was able to find my necklace.”

  “I’m so glad!” I said, overenthusiastically. She laughed.

  “Actually, I went to the office of one of the guys you looked up for me, and boy was that awkward because they had no idea what I was talking about and didn’t really want to let me see him and they thought I was crazy when I asked if I could just see a picture and when I was waiting for them to decide what to do with me I found it in my coat pocket!” She finished with another adorable giggle. “I feel so stupid.”

  “That sounds like something I would do,” I said, not untruthfully. I became aware that I was grinning stupidly and wrapping the phone cord repetitively around my finger. Would anyone mind if I just spent the rest of my shift on the phone with this woman? That sounded nice.

  “Thank you so much for helping me,” she said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Um…”

  “Can I help you with something else?” I became aware that someone was approaching the desk, and I gestured at my co-worker to handle it. Once again, he looked at me as if I was a nut.

  “Yes.” Silence stretched between us, and I heard her take a deep breath. “What does Miss Manners have to say about asking out cute and helpful reference librarians?” I looked up to see her standing at the desk in front of me, a cell phone pressed to her ear. I hung up and turned toward her.

  “We have a no cell phone policy in this library,” I said, with as straight a face as I could muster. Her face fell and she started to put her phone away and turn away. I stood up and reached for her hand to stop her. Her fingers were warm, as were her cheeks. She was gorgeous. Our hands didn’t seem to be able to separate. “But maybe you could join me for my break? I have a lot of questions I’d love to ask you.”