Twelve Angry Librarians

THREE

I scanned Forrest Wyatt’s e-mail message a second time to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood the import. No, I decided once I finished, I hadn’t made a mistake. According to Forrest, Gavin Fong submitted his letter of application and résumé earlier today. Forrest asked that I make a recommendation whether this candidate should receive further consideration by the entire search committee. The next meeting was set for tomorrow morning.

My initial—but mental only—response to this request consisted of words that would have my aunt Dottie and my grandmothers rolling in their graves. I doubted Melba would be shocked. I’d heard her use the occasional earthy expression herself. I, on the other hand, rarely ever did.

Gavin Fong deserved the profanity, at least in my mind. I decided I couldn’t respond right away to Forrest’s message. I had to let my temper cool before I tried to frame a coherent, reasoned reply.

Diesel’s loud meowing finally penetrated my focus on the e-mail on my screen. “Everything’s okay, boy.” I scratched his head and repeated my words. After a moment, he evidently decided things were fine. He went back to the nearby chair, jumped into it, and curled up for a nap. I knew he missed the window ledge in my office upstairs, but he had found a new favorite spot in this office.

I forced myself to open the attachment with Gavin Fong’s résumé. I couldn’t, in all fairness, write a response to the college president without having at least examined the man’s qualifications. I couldn’t simply tell Forrest I despised the man for his behavior nearly thirty years ago in graduate school.

The résumé followed a standard format, and I read through it fairly quickly, despite the fact that it was twelve pages long. To my surprise I discovered that Fong had earned a doctorate in education five years ago. I didn’t recognize the name of the institution, but there were many online schools these days offering degrees of all kinds.

Over the years since our graduate school days Fong had published a number of articles and three book chapters, the most recent one dated two years ago. None of the titles sounded remotely interesting to me, but they were—mostly—published in respected library science journals.

I examined his job experience a second time. As Lisa Krause told me during our phone conversation before lunch, Fong’s career began on a high note with a position at an Ivy League university library. He stayed there for nearly five years, but I noticed when I read further down the list that those five years constituted his longest tenure of any position. He changed jobs about every three years. Again, as Lisa told me, the prestige of the institutions declined steadily from the first job, even as the level of responsibility of the position rose.

Red flags went up for me whenever I saw such frequent job changing, especially on such a consistent schedule. I counted, and Fong had worked at ten different libraries including his present one since leaving graduate school in Texas. The fact that several of the job changes resulted in higher-level positions didn’t seem to me sufficient motive—not when the schools were all small, relatively unknown ones.

I, on the other hand, spent twenty-five years in the city public library system in Houston. I worked at several different branches over the course of those twenty-five years, but I ended my career as a branch manager, a position I held for seventeen years.

In my reply to Forrest Wyatt, I cited this job-hopping as a major negative. I did say that I had gone to library school with Fong but that I’d had no contact with him since. I concluded by saying that I did not consider his application worth further consideration.

I sent the message and leaned back in my chair, eyes closed. My head ached, and I tried to relax. I hadn’t realized how tense I’d become over this one e-mail message.

My brain wouldn’t let go of the fact that Gavin Fong applied for the position I currently held. I wasn’t sure I really wanted it myself. I had doubts whether the search committee would consider me qualified for the position permanently, but I certainly didn’t want Gavin Fong to get the job. If Forrest and the rest of the committee decided to ignore my recommendation and Fong somehow ended up in the position, I would retire. I wouldn’t work for him. I would be able to travel back and forth to Virginia when I wanted.

I checked Fong’s references again to see if any of the names rang a bell. He listed four people, three women and one man. I didn’t recognize any of them.

With only a vague purpose in mind, I went through the list of Fong’s publications again, more slowly this time. Most of them were coauthored, I saw, and among his coauthors I spotted two names I knew. We had all gone to library school together. Marisue Pickard and Randi Grant.

As I recalled, Marisue Pickard was my own age, early fifties. Randi Grant was possibly a decade older. Unlike Marisue and me, she had come to library school for a second career. Randi, Marisue, and I shared many classes together, along with Gavin Fong. Among the students in the program with whom I shared classes, the only two I came to know more than superficially were Randi Grant and Marisue Pickard. We kept touch in desultory fashion over the years, and I ought to have e-mail addresses for them. They had both migrated east in recent years, Randi from Colorado and Marisue from Kansas, and had ended up working together in Florida. I checked the conference program again and saw that I remembered correctly. They were giving a presentation on Sunday morning, and the affiliation listed was the same institution.

I opened the browser on my computer and typed in the URL of my webmail account. Once I logged in, I checked the address book and found the two e-mail addresses I wanted.

Then I paused. What was I doing? What was the point of e-mailing Randi and Marisue to ask for dirt on Gavin Fong? They had coauthored articles with him, one apiece, and I suspected that meant each had worked with him at the time.

I included them both in one e-mail message.

Dear Randi and Marisue, I’m delighted to see that you are both attending the SALA meeting this week. I look forward to catching up with both of you and hearing about life in Florida. Will you have time in your schedule for dinner with me? If not, I understand, but I’d love to spend an evening with y’all. I see another of our classmates is attending—I was surprised to see that Gavin Fong, of all people, is giving one of the keynotes. I haven’t thought about him in years. Well, safe travels, and I’ll see you later this week.

I signed it and then hit Send. That was subtle enough, I thought. Mentioning Gavin Fong opened the door for one or both of them to respond with a comment about him. I wondered whether their opinions of him had changed since library school, enough so that they had felt comfortable coauthoring articles with him.

Time to focus on the job the college was paying me to do. I had a stack of invoices to approve, and I might as well get on with it. I hated dealing with invoices and spreadsheets, though I had done so years ago. Staring at the stack of paper on my desk, I wondered again why I was tempted to apply to have this job on a permanent basis.

After I finished with the invoices—signing them and checking their amounts against the spreadsheets—I glanced at my webmail account, still open on the browser.

I had a new message. Marisue Pickard had replied to my e-mail.

Charlie! Great hearing from you. Of course Randi and I would love to have dinner with you. Lots of things to catch up about, and we want to hear all about that cat of yours. He sounds adorable. A friend of mine has a Maine Coon, and she’s the sweetest thing. How about dinner on Friday night? That should work for both of us. Love, Marisue

Two smiley face icons followed her name.

Another e-mail, again from Marisue, appeared in my inbox.

Re: the matter of GF, why would you even want to think about that creep? Keep your mind clean. Randi and I have a few things we could tell you. Maybe, with enough wine at dinner, we will.

That was intriguing, I thought. There was obviously dirt, and I didn’t think I’d have to ply Marisue and Randi with much wine before they started dishing on Gavin Fong.

I shut down the browser and checked my work e-mail.

Three new messages, and one of them came from Gavin Fong. Why on earth was he e-mailing me? Probably something to do with the job, I supposed.

I made a face at the screen and clicked on his message to open it.

Dear Charlie, been a long time, hasn’t it? Easy to forget certain things after all these years, but yet, some things do tend to stick with you. I have absolutely clear memories of you and our interactions—one in particular. We’ll have to chat about it when I arrive in Athena. I’m coming in early to have a look around your campus. I’ll drop by your office—which I hope will soon be my office. I’m ready to get out of this hick town to a school with the kind of reputation Athena College has. I’m sure I can count on your support, right? You certainly wouldn’t want to derail my chances, I’m sure. Especially once we’ve had a chance to discuss old times, eh?

The message ended with the standard professional institutional signature.

Fong’s message both irritated and confused me. I wasn’t surprised by the sheer gall of his words. They were pure Gavin Fong. His assumption that I would support his candidacy for the position was ludicrous. As for talking over old times, I couldn’t remember any that he and I had shared that were worth discussing.

What the heck was he hinting at? His e-mail could be interpreted as blackmail. Or was it extortion? But what could he possibly have to use as ammunition to force me to support him for this job?

I mulled this over for a few minutes, thinking back to the events of over twenty-five years ago. I had tried to keep out of his way as much as possible, because in those days I hadn’t yet learned to manage my temper effectively. My late wife, Jackie, whom I married right after graduation from Athena College, helped me learn to hold back and not pop off without thinking about what I was saying or doing.

Jackie . . . I frowned. Something about Jackie, me, and Gavin Fong. What was it?

Then the memory came flooding back, and I felt my stomach twist into a knot.