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April had said it was fun, like solving a puzzle. Sometimes you found the book in the wrong place, and sometimes you came up empty-handed, but it was a good way to spend ten or twenty leisurely minutes in the stacks.
For my break, I walked around outside. It was a warm August morning, and I fired off snapshots of sorority girls with bows in their hair, jocks in jogging shorts, and various campus citizens and buildings, especially the hot construction workers working on a new building by the Hill.
I ate some Laffy Taffy I’d bought earlier in the week from a campus canteen and stored in my jacket pocket. My mind wandered back to the night before. Daniel’s smile, his laugh, his touch. Each memory was imbued with fluttery excitement and wistful hope.
When my break was over, I headed back into the library. Waving at Ellie, I went straight up into the stacks.
The first book was an easy find. It was right where it was supposed to be. Perhaps it’d been shelved shortly after the professor had looked for it. The second book seemed lost for good. I investigated a couple of different possibilities, but to no avail. Giving up, I looked at my list of call numbers again. The next book was supposed to be on the fifth floor, on the opposite side of the building.
After I’d taken the elevator up, I paused in the 71 Dewey Decimal numbers—books about area planning and landscape architecture—to double-check the call number. Putting the list back in my pocket, I looked up at the ceiling, and on impulse put my hand on the shelf next to me, grazing the edge of a book.
For some reason, I turned my head and looked at the spine.
The book was out of place. The call number started in the same way as the book I was looking for—77—so I pulled it from the shelf to take a closer look. It was a book of photographs featuring Appalachian wilderness scenes. The cover was of lush greenery alongside blooming azaleas and rhododendrons. No wonder it had been shelved in with books about outdoor gardening. I flipped it open, scanning some of the pages. They were nice pictures, tasteful and well-framed. Nothing groundbreaking.
Glancing around to see if anyone was watching me dawdle here and seeing no one, I took the liberty of reading some of the write-ups alongside the pictures. I nodded along. Yes, yes, all very standard. It was a little dated, but still good information. I’d reshelve it while I looked for the other book.
Snapping the book closed, I blinked, tilted my head, and read the photographer’s name on the spine again.
Appalachian Dreamlandby Harold Seville.
A flame of curiosity lit in me, I turned to the back flap of the book, looking for what I wanted to see. Bingo. There it was: a picture of the photographer, one Harold Seville. It was probably taken in the late seventies, based on the fashion, photo quality, and the publication date of the book. Harold was tall and blond with sparkling eyes, and in the photo he wore a khaki linen suit and held a Pentax K1000 in his hands.
I tucked the book under my arm, my mind buzzing, considering the possibilities as I went on looking for the other books on the list Ellie had given me. I found one more in a wrong section, but the others seemed lost or perhaps were out and about in the library and hadn’t made their way back to circulation and their proper place yet.
I returned to the circulation desk and found Ellie yawning and doodling on a sheet of paper.
“Here you go,” I said, handing over the two books I’d found and the list. “This was the best I could do. Hope that’s okay.”
“That’s great,” she said smiling. “Thank you, Peter. Good work.” She waved as she returned to the circulation office area just behind me, leaving me to man the desk alone.
Patrons were slim on the ground still, so I looked again through the photography book, interested to find two more photos of Harold within it. In both, he held his camera, and in the last one, he had his arm wrapped around a “friend” whose name was undisclosed. But based on the way the man was looking at him, I’d say he met Adam’s definition of a “friend.”
They surely kissed sometimes.
The write-up within the book gave little information about Harold’s life, except the part near the beginning where he was quoted as saying, “Growing up in the South, near the Smoky Mountains, the area’s flora was always near to my heart. I typically work in portraiture, but I wanted to honor these special scenes from my youth.”
Portraits, huh? I wondered if the library had any of those books, too.
Turning to the computer, I typed in a search string for Harold’s name and was surprised when fifteen volumes of photos turned up. All but one—a book titledRobin—were available to be checked out. And, based on their titles, all but the one I’d found by accident were books of portraits, just as he’d said.
Spinning around in my chair, head up, pondering the ceiling as I considered. I decided to go up to the stacks after my shift and look at them all.
What were the chances that this man was my uncle’s lover? The one who’d begged him to return to him? Slim as hell. Perhaps this photographer was another Harold Seville. It was a common enough surname.
But what if…
I opened my backpack, dug out the manila envelope, and opened it up.
The contents were the same as ever, but this time I withdrew the letters and the journal both. I spent the rest of my shift reading them in between patrons. And that was why, by the time I made my way upstairs to look through the photography of Harold Seville, I already knew.
This manwasmy uncle’s lover. George had written all about him in his journal, including about Harold’s career as a photographer. That was, it seemed, how they’d met. Harold had been traveling through Nashville, run into George there while at a party of a mutual friend, and had found him beautiful. He’d asked George to pose for some portraits. George had complied.
As I reached the stacks, my hands were shaking.
I didn’t know why. It didn’t signify anything or make my uncle un-dead, but it felt fated for me to have placed my hand on that mis-shelved book and to have discovered it was full of photos by this particular man, the one who’d written the letters I’d been avoiding reading for too long.
It was as if my uncle’s ghost had reached through the veil and guided me to pause just there, to touch just that book. Silly, maybe, but that was all I could think.
