The running path is empty except for the two of us. The air is heavy with the low-tide scent of salt and seaweed, and the wind whips up the coast in unpredictable, little bursts. I am in my usual running trance: my breathing matches the rythym of my footsteps and my mind wanders from grocery lists to tides patterns. I jog behind him for some distance, slowing my pace, watching him. And I think to myself how his librarian costume of tweed and khaki seems so out of place when he's not giving suggestions from behind the fiction desk on the 2nd Floor.I am closer now, and I can tell he is tense. His pace is quickened with agitation, and he turns his head to the side with a quick jerk. I catch the movement of his lips: a spurt of words, then pursed lips, an angry pause. He flings a cussword in his quiet librarian voice, laced with frustration, pitch elevated.
I slow to a walk, hoping not to scare him with too abrupt of an approach. His face twitches with disgust as he half-whispers, half-spits his point of view to his imagined adversary. The usual, soft kindness of his face is distorted with frustration, and I’m suddenly embarrassed at my imposition. For a moment I debate not stopping, worried that my grin will betray that I too have been privy to his lecture that was meant only for the silent aggressor.
But I linger too long and he turns before I have a chance to back out. Startled, he jerks his head towards me, eyebrows still knitted in anger, mouth slightly open in surprise.
“Hi,” I venture, tentatively, trying to supress my smile.
His eyebrows relax; he closes his mouth.
“Hello,” he says.
“I just wanted to say that I love your stories.”
“Oh!” he says, stuttering to find words. “Well!”
“I come listen to you read every week. They’re really great.”
He smiles and cocks his head too jerkily not to betray his embarrassment. “Well thanks!”
And I know that somewhere in his head he wonders if I’ve witnessed him speaking out loud to himself. And then he reassures himself that, surely, I haven’t, that I was too far away and that he wasn't being that loud. But he knows that I have.
I nod and smile and start to jog off.
“I’m reading Poe next Monday!” he calls after me.
“I know!” I call back to him.
And he laughs.
