The Librarianist

June turned back to Bob. “My not-pleasant companion and I are traveling to a town called Mansfield to premiere our latest work, which consists of a series of somewhat-connected vignettes. Do you know what a vignette is?”

“No.”

“It’s a story that’s too small to be called a story, so you call it a vignette. By pretending you’ve made it small on purpose, you avoid the shame that accompanies culpability. Do you know what culpability is?”

“No.”

“It’s the bill coming due. This work is not our strongest. It is not bad work, but it doesn’t have the power of our past labors. That power, which was once effortless, and which we wielded as if it were the most natural thing in the world, is now dimming, and there isn’t any vitamin or medicine I can find to remedy the lack. The watch winds down, Bob Comet, the pebbles of sand slip through the trim waist of the hourglass, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” She snapped her fingers. “There is a hotel in Mansfield that, in the years before the war, showcased a number of our efforts, and we enjoyed some unlikely-yet-not-insignificant regional success. This was during the timber boom of the late 1930s, when the barons and their foremen and their mistresses wished for some semblance of culture of a Friday or Saturday night. I felt at the time they didn’t understand what we were showing them, but we have always created a certain spectacle, and with musical accompaniment, which is enough for some. Anyway, they were a game audience. They knew when to clap, and they spent money on wine, which pleased the hotelier. But then the barons and foremen and mistresses moved on, and the hotelier’s invitations dried up. Now, years later, and he contacts us from out of the blue, making claims of a revitalization. That’s fine, and I can’t say I wasn’t happy to hear from the man, but I do believe we’re headed for Flopsville. You know Flopsville?”

“I think so.”

“Yes, well, we’re almost there.” The sun had fallen farther and the bus was making wide, swooping curves in mimicry of the shape of the coastline. “You’re too young to know the melancholy of returning to a place where once you had thrived. I can say it is not as bad as it sounds. But then, Bob, I’m making a distinction between melancholy and sorrow. Do you understand the difference?”

“No.”

“Melancholy is the wistful identification of time as thief, and it is rooted in memories of past love and success. Sorrow is a more hopeless proposition. Sorrow is the understanding you shall not get that which you crave and, perhaps, deserve, and it is rooted in, or encouraged by, excuse me, the death impulse.”

Ida shivered and stirred. “How could anyone ever sleep with all this chatter buzzing in her ears?” she asked.

“It lives and breathes,” June told Bob. “It walks among us.”

Ida suddenly was awake and upright in her seat. She looked all around her, as if she had forgotten where she’d been sleeping. She said, “Where is my Baby Ruth? I want it.” And June, wincing, took a breath and told her friend, “As I was just explaining to young Bob, here: we are prepared for melancholy, but we must also and at the same time steel ourselves against the likelihood of sorrow.”

THE BUS PULLED OFF THE HIGHWAY AND ONTO A PATCH OF DIRT SEPARATING the pavement from the ocean. The driver cut the engine and Bob could hear the wind coming off the water, buffeting the bus’s exterior; he could hear the even sound of the receding waves raking pebbles down the shore. June was looking to her left, away from the sea. “There it is,” she said.

The Hotel Elba was built up in the Victorian style, rounded shingles, a covered wooden walk along its facade, a conical tower rising from its southernmost aspect. The tower held itself at a slant, its weathervane bowing in what looked a gesture of deference or bashful welcome; actually the tower, along with the rest of the hotel, was sinking into the ground. Bob thought the hotel was handsome but hungry-looking. It must have been very grand once.

“Mansfield,” the driver called out.

From the vantage point of the bus Bob could take in the town in its entirety, two roads sitting in the shape of a T, the highway, and a road running east and into a darkening forest. The sun had not set but the storefronts along the highway were closed for the day, or forever. Up the road, Bob saw a movie theater and a diner, both apparently open for business, but not a soul about to take part in either experience. June stared at this somber portrait, saying nothing. A light came on above the bus driver’s head and he made a notation on a clipboard hanging off his dash.

“Mansfield,” he said again.

He opened the swinging doors and a stiff wind poured in, traveling the length of the bus, disturbing each passenger in his or her turn and annoying the dogs, who growled at the unseen force. Ida’s and June’s hat feathers were bobbing as they stood to gather their things.