Gatsby and I

The Librarian

When the portrait was finished, there was a mild twist of fate that turned into one of the wildest turns for the better I had ever experienced. It all happened on a Tuesday morning.

I guess that was a good omen. After all, not that I believe in omens, but it's that I most certainly know that back home I used to love choir practice and that was always on Tuesday since the time I joined. This particular Tuesday, however, things were really different. I woke up at about nine. Celestine was right at the side of my bed, as if she might have thought I died that night. I guessed I must have slept really soundly. She went:

"Psst! I'm going downtown to help work on a public garden's design. Wanna come?"

"I do want to come. But maybe leave me down at the public library because your adult discussions might bore me. Besides, I don't know what to say there, where you're going."

"This is exactly what I was trying to propose to you. So you do want to join me."

"But how are we gonna get there?"

"You know that big shed in the backyard?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"I own a motor car and that's where I keep it."

"My! And I suppose you know how to drive it, do you not?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. I got a permit and everything."

"Well I'll be! I thought women weren't allowed to drive."

"Of course they are! Especially in this age of emancipation for all... I bet in ten years or so, we'll even get the right to vote."

"Of course we will. But... We should be bound for leaving."

"More like you should. Look, I'll help you in deciding what to wear: that white dress with the grey arabesques on the skirt. Problem solved."

"I haven't ever worn it before, yet I'll take it now."

I changed lightning fast as she descended. Then I went out into the yard. In front of the gate, there was a motor car that looked like some sort of a hot rod. Well, it wasn't as exaggerate, but the engine was partially visible and the body was slightly longer than normal. I really liked how it looked.

"Get in the back, Clara, if you don't want an insane amount of wind in your face. That's what happens when the top is down as usual. Can't put it up now because it's hot outside."

"Okay. The back it is for me then. Well, is there enough gas?"

"I suppose there is. After all, I haven't driven in a while. But if there isn't, I'll buy some."

"Right-o! Let's get going, shall we?"

"You're picking up my way to speak. But that's fine. I myself picked up the 'old sport' thing from someone we know well. You know who I mean?"

"Yes. It's the Bluejay and I know that."

Without chit-chattering anymore, we both got in. And she drove rather fast for a women, taking only an hour or so to get downtown, with some pretty bad traffic. That's what I really loved, not so much the getting to the public library itself. Nonetheless, I much enjoyed the fact that that I'd be left in a place where I most enjoyed to be.

It's a paradoxal paradise out there, in the New York City Public Library. It has wood in the form of books, yet it smells overwhelmingly of cashmere in there. It's crowded with people merrily reading away, at their books, yet this crowd is really quiet and serene. It's peaceful, yet the tales of war contained in some of the books make it a little restless and uneasy.

What else? If there was a place filled with the most contradictions ever, this was it. It had a lot of Yin and Yang, things opposite but in balance.

From behind her desk, the Librarian gazed at me. She was a woman in her late twenties, with rather dark skin that made her seem half Filipina or something of the sort. She had big dark brown eyes that I thought I'd seen somewhere, a rather large nose and red lipstick. What the heck? She could very well have been my school librarian in with a bob and a dark red dress. This woman also had blue-black eyeliner which was a bit exaggerate. The first thing she told me when she saw me was:

"You're not from here. The only way back for you is touching the lamp that produces the green light at the Buchanan pier at midnight. Otherwise, you're not gonna go back where you're from. That's the way it goes."

"But can you take with you someone you hold dear? Just asking."

'Of course. But here, it'll seem that they're dead. They'll come to that world of yours with an ID and everything, like they'd have been born there. You can also take things, so long as they're not more than three things that aren't books. And they must be held by the person who it belongs to or who made it. It's as simple as that, darling. All there is to it, really. But don't thank me. I know a lot of things. I'd say almost everything because I think there is more to know that I don't. After all, I'm not God to know everything at all."

And nobody heard a word of what we discussed. I took "Sense and sensibility" off a shelf, let it and in walks Celestine taking me with her. But when we went back, she took a different route with the car.