Spines

Winnie leaned toward the mirror in her narrow bathroom, fastening the tag with her full name, Winslow Cooper, the letters too solemn for the face that studied them back. She pressed her collar flat, gathering her cardigan. Beyond the window the street waited, the hour of buses, bakery vans, stirrings of light. She swung her bag over her shoulder, locked the door, and stepped into the cold. The air nipped her cheeks and hurried her steps toward the library.

By the time Winnie arrived, the printer was rattling out slips, the tray twitching with each burst. Piper leaned at the counter, a pen stuck through her hair like a chopstick.

“The printer hates me,” Piper said. “It knows when I clock in.”

“You should apologize to it.”

Piper snorted and handed Winnie half the stack. Anita appeared from the back office with her mug, eyes sharp over the rim.

“Cart rotation today,” Anita said. “Front half of the alphabet needs to shift down. Don’t forget.”

“We’ll get it done,” Winnie said.

Winnie worked through the shelves, rhythm practiced, until a slip with the name Langdon Quade made her pause. She turned the sound of it over, unusual enough to hold her, before dropping her eyes to the title beneath, The Peregrine.

The book, slim and stark, carried a meditation that unsettled readers for decades. She pictured a man with binoculars, his notebooks lined with lists. The thought tugged a smile from her before she shook it off and pushed ahead.

At home that evening she reheated soup and listened to the pipes tick, the quiet recalling the book. The man who’d asked for it followed her. She caught herself imagining him in the empty apartment across the hall, bent over a notebook, birds marked in lines.

The next week she worked through another stack, names blurring until one stopped her. Langdon Quade again, this time requesting Stoner by John Williams.

“A man with taste,” Piper said over her shoulder. “Wish my holds looked like that.”

Winnie tucked the book into the cart and moved on. As she pushed along the shelves an image formed, a man with chalk dust on his cuffs and a desk scattered with essays. His shoulders bent too far toward work that never thanked him, and in her mind the students called him Mr. Q, their voices carrying fondness and respect.

The library filled her weekdays. On Sundays and the occasional overnight she worked at a mid-tier Days Inn, family-run and busy with crews and travelers. The shifts kept her rent steady and her mind occupied. At the front desk she shared hours with Ravi, the owner’s nephew tapping at the keyboard until a couple arrived with bags.

“Another one tried to pay in cash,” he muttered when they left. “Said no, and they looked at me like I’d robbed them.”

“You’re too polite,” Winnie said.

“And you’re too quiet,” he said back, grinning.

The banter ended there. They had worked together long enough that silence came easy. Some nights, when the hours stretched, they had sex behind the office door. It was easy that way, a pattern they both understood, pleasure without love, touch without demands. The quiet between them made space for it, and asked for nothing more. Tonight she filed receipts while Ravi refilled the candy machine.

On her break she leaned against the counter with tea and let her mind drift. The ease of those nights stood against the Sundays of her childhood. She saw herself in pinched dresses, her sisters in ribbons, her father’s hand on her neck while he prayed in tongues. She remembered kneeling on rice until her knees shook, verses spilling faster than thought. Even now the scrape lingered in her throat.

She finished her tea and glanced at Ravi through the glass. He smiled at something on the screen and she thought of how different he was from the men who had raised her. With him, even sex had been easy.

She worked through the night until morning light spilled across the lobby doors. At home she dropped her bag, drank from the tap, and stretched out on the bed. Her eyes closed and the room dissolved.

A lecture hall rose in its place. Wooden seats creaked, pencils tapped against paper, dust motes turned in the air. At the front stood a man with a book open in his hand, the spine bent to Stoner. His voice carried steady through the rows, not loud but sure enough to hold them. She saw him pause at a sentence, touch the page with his thumb, then lift his head as though the words belonged to him alone.

By the third week his slip read Invisible Cities. Winnie turned the book in her hand, the slim spine suggesting one thing, the pages another. Shelving it she felt the map unfold, a man tracing streets no one else could see, his steps carrying him deeper into a city that kept changing shape.

She shelved the rest of the cart, but the thought followed. She imagined him guiding students overseas, seniors who had never left their county. In Italy he stood at a piazza’s edge, pointing out columns and arches, teaching them to look instead of glance. In France he led them through side streets, translating menus, laughing as they tried their first words.

The next week his request was Myths to Live By by Joseph Campbell. Winnie scanned the slip and considered the widening pattern of birds, scholars, cities, myth. She traced how story folded into history, how myth framed a life, until Piper’s voice called from the next row.

“You asleep back there?” Piper teased.

“Counting spines,” Winnie said.

Anita passed behind and gave a nod.

Winnie kept down the row. She saw him outside the classroom, sleeves pushed back, steady with scouts. At a campfire he coaxed flame from damp wood, smoke rising as boys leaned close. She pictured him guiding a canoe across still water, shoulders set against the current, boys laughing on the banks. At the rec center he gripped the rock wall, pulling upward with calm strength until the hold gave him the summit and he stood, breathing the thin air.

By the fifth week the slip bore Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell. Rural grit joined the myths, the cities, the birds. She imagined back roads cut with ruts, trailers with sagging steps, a girl moving through the Ozarks with frost in her breath. The pattern widened, and the life she built for him widened too.

By the sixth week the slip named HHhH. History and violence tangled in its pages, men who plotted death and the stories written after. She pictured the classroom again, chalk dust rising as he turned, sleeve rolled back. A teacher, she decided, who spoke of what most avoided.

A week later she found The Book of Disquiet. The title lingered in her chest, Pessoa’s fragments too intimate for a stranger’s hand. She pictured him reading in bed, lamplight low, a notebook filling with unsaid thoughts. For the first time she felt her own lamplight echo his, the glow trailing into her evenings.

At the cart Piper caught her staring at the slip.

“You always look like you’re solving puzzles,” Piper said.

“Maybe I am,” Winnie answered.

Anita walked by and raised an eyebrow. “As long as the holds end up on the shelf, you can puzzle all day.”

They laughed, but Winnie’s thoughts had already gone elsewhere.

At the hotel desk she stared past Ravi, nodding through papers signed and keys dropped, while her thoughts circled back to Langdon. Leaning against the counter she pictured his canoe slicing through green water, the blade cutting arcs in the sun. She saw students on foreign streets, eyes lifted as he pointed out stonework older than their country. The image threaded into her nights until it became part of the rhythm.

By week eight the slip read The Overstory. Winnie pictured him leading students through a forest, naming each tree, mapping roots wider than roads. She saw him marking rings on a fallen trunk, explaining years of drought and flood, turning wood into history. She moved through his world as if it had been waiting for her.

Week nine brought Autobiography of Red. The title caught at her, strange and fiery, unlike the others. She couldn’t stand only imagining and needed to step inside his mind. She finished her work, then slipped the book into her bag, promising herself she would fill his hold tomorrow.

She fell asleep with the sense that she had spent the night inside his head.

In the morning she slipped the book into her bag, careful no one noticed when she pulled it out at the library. She set it on the hold shelf, slid the slip inside, and sent the message to Langdon, the small rush in her chest reminding her she’d held it back a day too long.

Her shift at the library passed without note, yet the urgency in her chest never eased. By day’s end she wanted only the quiet of home, a simple evening to steady herself, though her mind already pressed toward a fracture.

The Robinsons, her neighbors, began their hymns at seven thirty, steady as the clock. Gospel was their nightly ritual and most evenings she let it pass, but tonight the sound snagged her nerves. Winnie set the skillet on the stove and laid scallops to thaw, peppers waiting on the board, while the first swell of voices rose through the wall, rich and unwavering.

She told herself to keep chopping, to let the hiss of oil drown it out, but the sound pressed harder with each note. The Robinsons were kind people. They waved in the hallway, asked if she needed anything from the store. Old, half-deaf, certain the music lifted them closer to heaven. She wanted to forgive them.

Still the chorus rose, beating in her ribs until memory broke open. The rhythm carried her back to wooden pews, her father’s hand heavy on her shoulder, tongues tumbling from his mouth, his voice booming until her ears rang. Rice beneath her knees, sharp enough to scar.

She slid the scallops back into their bag and shoved the peppers into the fridge. She seized the change jar, hands shaking as she twisted off the lid and spilled every quarter she had saved.

She carried the quarters into the laundry room and shoved them into the machines until none were left. Dryers roared to life, empty drums turning. She pressed her back to the corner, knees to chest, the noise pounding through her skull until it smothered every thought.

She stayed until the last dryer quieted. The roar had swallowed the hymns, the memories too, leaving her head ringing and empty. She peeled her cheek from the cinderblock, skin tender where the chill had sunk in, and dragged herself upright on stiff knees.

Back upstairs her gut cramped, leaving her lightheaded. She opened the freezer, stared at the scallops, then shut it again. The hour was late, her body wrung out, and she decided the store would be easier than cooking.

At the store she grabbed a plastic-wrapped sandwich and stepped into line. The man ahead drew her eye before she meant to look. His plaid shirt was crisp, buttoned high at the throat, a white undershirt faint beneath. The hem sat tight in belted khakis, shoes so clean they looked new. A lanyard sagged with keys that knocked against his hip, and she wondered what doors he carried, what life needed that many locks.

He pulled a velcro wallet from his pocket, the rip cutting through the aisle. It marked him as out of step with the world, and the discord stirred something electric in her, enough to decide she would sleep with him tonight.

He lifted several grocery bags, enough to stock a week, and headed for the door. Winnie watched him go, laid a few bills on the counter for her sandwich, and slipped out to catch him on the sidewalk.

“Need help?” she asked.

He startled, then nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

They walked a few steps with the bags between them.

“You shop heavy,” she said.

“It’s efficient,” he replied. “Multiple small trips waste fuel and time.”

She tilted her head, almost smiling. “I’m Winnie.”

“Colson.”

Her eyes dropped to the lanyard. “That’s a lot of devotion.”

He glanced down, matter-of-fact. “Most people think Star Wars started in 1977, but technically it began in 1973 with Lucas’s first draft. Hardly anyone knows that.”

She watched the way he moved, precise in every gesture, as if the world required constant tidying. Awkward, she thought. Exactly him.

At the door of his building he fumbled through the keys. She didn’t wait.

“Why don’t you take me upstairs?”

He blinked. “Upstairs for what?”

“To fuck you.”

His hands froze mid-turn, eyes wide behind his glasses. The keys slipped once before he jammed the right one in and pushed the door open. He stepped aside, holding it stiffly. “Please.”

The door shut and groceries slid across the counter, shirts in a heap. She kneeled and took him in her mouth, salt and cotton on her tongue. His breath broke sharp with surprise, and after a few minutes he gripped her shoulder and pulled her up before losing control.

She lay back on the bed, steadying for his weight. Instead he moved lower, parting her legs with care, his mouth brushing her skin with a patience that made her gasp. His tongue traced deliberate shapes, slow circles and flicks, the touch of someone who had studied how to please. She arched, breath sharp, trying to quiet herself.

Pleasure tangled with guilt. He didn’t let her stay on him long, yet here he was, devoted and unhurried. “You can stop,” she whispered, tugging at his shoulder. “We can just have sex.”

He shook his head, mouth still against her. “This is my favorite part.”

She sank into the pillow and let the waves roll through. His tongue worked with precision, pressing and curling, drawing sighs from her chest until she thought she would unravel.

At last he lifted himself over her and slid inside. His rhythm steadied, each twist of his hips finding the right angle, the right pressure. She matched him, caught in the pull of it, the simple, unembellished pleasure of two bodies working together.

She buried her face in his hair, breathing it in, sharp and clean. The scent sank deeper than his face or his voice, something she kept. One day a man she loved would fuck her, and she would remember the smells and know the difference.

She left his apartment, the night air cool on her skin as she made her way home. In bed she curled beneath the blanket and slept without the usual shadows pressing in.

The next morning she set her bag beneath the desk and joined Piper at the printer.

“Another full cart,” Piper said, gathering hers.

She searched for Langdon's name. His pattern was one hold per week, but he strangely had two now, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy and House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.

She lifted each book, tested the spines in her grip. One carried violence that bled through every page, the other a maze that swallowed whoever entered. Holding them, she felt the man she’d built tilt darker, a hunger she hadn’t seen before. The man who guided students through piazzas and leaned into canoes was also drawn to the abyss. At night he might sit beneath a lamp, searching for order in chaos, shaping syllabi that traced darkness. She imagined scars beneath his shirt and couldn’t shake the thought.

She pulled the books and set them aside, then sent the notice. For a moment she pictured him opening it, his eyes on the words she had triggered, the thought of his hands brushing the spines she had touched.

On her break she scrolled her phone. The pulse in her chest hadn’t eased, his hunger still alive in her body. Restless, unable to hold it in, she opened her browser and searched inmate pen pal programs, letting the act carry the heat she couldn’t name.

She scrolled past the young ones, eyes still pleading. She wanted the opposite, men she could never want, men who would stay distant. Mugshots blurred until she stopped on three. Two were in for murder, the third for rape and attempted murder.

She chose them for their crimes, for the safety of distance. They could never slip into desire.

That night she signed up and wrote her introductions in neat lines. She described the library, the hotel chlorine and vending machine glow, the city streets she walked when she couldn’t sleep, careful to keep it measured and polite, giving nothing of herself that mattered. She sent the messages, steadied by the act.

The week slid by in routine. She shelved books, checked IDs at the hotel, laughed at Ravi’s small jokes. One night he bent her over the desk in the office, their bodies moving with the same wordless ease as always, touch without desire. When the Robinsons’ hymns swelled another evening, she turned the television up and stayed at her desk until the noise gave out.

His next hold was Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko. His choices had become a story of their own, one she had been reading for months without him knowing. She placed the slip, scanned the bar code, and sent the notice.

Winnie hesitated, then turned to Piper. “Can we switch shifts tomorrow?”

Piper frowned. “You hate nights.”

“I need this one.”

“Fine. Hope it’s worth it.”

Winnie turned back to the screen. Tomorrow she would be there when he walked through the door, the man she had built from spines and titles, a life she had read without his knowing. She felt the time gather inside her.

The name Langdon Quade filled the quiet like breath.