Page 40 of The Librarians
Can you not just wait five years?Sophie wanted to shout.
She was crazy about Jo-Ann, she who had almost decided that a spinster life would, in fact, suit her just fine. She loved Jo-Ann’s expansive love of life, she loved how kind and deeply decent Jo-Ann was, and she had never known how wonderful it felt for everything she wanted to do to sit absolutely right with someone.
But Jo-Ann was a force of nature and it was all Sophie could do to hang on to her own plans and her own self. If Jo-Ann learned that she might be persuadable in five years, she was going to be hell-bent on cajoling Sophie to do it in four, three, two years. Hell, right now!
And Sophie could not allow that.
“You’re right. It’s always going to be the wrong time, at least until I’m out of school.”
She considered it a perfectly reasonable answer. And what did she get for her honesty and transparency? An out-of-left-field request for them to take a break three months later!
“What is this,Friends? Real people don’t take breaks. We’re either together or we’re over!”
Sophie rarely raised her voice, but doing so on this occasion did not make any difference. Jo-Ann was possessed. If Sophie would not agree to a baby then they had to take a break from each other.
The break has not been kind to Sophie. She does not like changes and does not make changes lightly. Going back to being single after she finally became accustomed to thinking of her future not in “I” but in “we” was like being locked out of the house cold, wet, and shivering.
Their mutual friends, unable to believe that they won’t get back together any moment now, keep bringing her Jo-Ann’s news.Did you know she bought a house? Did you know she nailed a huge deal for her firm? Did you know she managed to negotiate four months of leave for pro bono work? That’s Jo-Ann for you, always giving back to the community.
Now Sophie is finally—reluctantly and still somewhat resentfully—getting used to being on her own again. It sucks, having no one to text during the day, no one to meet after school, and no one to hug her when her mom issues another strong disapproval of her “lifestyle.”
But hey, no one to break her heart and crush her dreams either. That’s gotta be worth something, right?
And she doesn’t believe that she’ll hear from Jo-Ann at the end of the “break” either, unless it’s to tell her that Jo-Ann has already found the perfect baby mama and would be welcoming that prized child very soon.
So why is Jo-Ann calling today, all of a sudden?
Her phone buzzes throughout the drive home. As Sophie walks into her tiny apartment, she jabs the red phone button yet again—and belatedly notices that there are fourteen voice mails.
They can’t be from Jo-Ann, can they? Jo-Ann likes to talk on the phone but never cares to leave voice messages. Instead she prefers to send a text if she can’t reach Sophie by calling, the reason Sophie had to switch to a plan with unlimited texts.
The voice mailsarefrom Jo-Ann. The first few sound almost identical. “Hi, Sophie, sweetheart. It’s me, Jo-Ann. I know I’ve been an asshole but please call me. This is important. Super important. I love you, okay? I never stopped loving you for a second.”
Sophie sneers.Right.
But as message after message plays, the iteration begins to get to her, especially as Jo-Ann’s voice becomes more earnest, more urgent.
The ninth voice mail is longer. “Hey, Sophie, you know I don’t leave messages if I can help it. And I really wish you were here, by my side, so I don’t have to keep annoying you with these voice mails. But it’s important and I don’t want to blurt out what I need to say to you in a stupid text. So please, please, please call me. Please.”
On the next one Jo-Ann starts to sound desperate. “I’m sorry, Sophie. I’m sorry for everything I’ve put you through. Will you at least let me apologize properly, which I can’t do talking into an electronic device?”
Her voice breaks on the thirteenth message. “Oh, God, I don’t know why it never occurred to me before. You haven’t moved on from me—from us—have you? I think about us all the time. I’ve been so inspired. I bought a house for us, Sophie. You never talked about it, but I know you weren’t sure yet whether you should invest in a lifetime with me. This is me telling you that I’m so sure of us still being together decades from now that I will literally bet my house on it. Just say yes and I’ll transfer the house to your name. But please at least listen to my messages. If you delete them unheard then what am I going to do?”
All at once Sophie knows why Jo-Ann’s calling. And she knows what Jo-Ann has been up to since she last saw the impulsive, preposterous bitch. Dear God, if Sophie is right, then Jo-Ann used the “break” to get herself artificially inseminated. The whole thing was just so that they didn’t have to actually break up because she went to a sperm bank over Sophie’s objections!
The house isn’t a gamble. It’s a baby-I-done-did-you-wrong present!
What was Jo-Ann smoking that she thought she could spring a baby on Sophie and it would be okay?
Sophie deletes the messages, one by one, with vicious satisfaction. You think you’re too good for compromises like the rest of us mortals? Then enjoy this baby all by your lonesome self, because I will not be coming by with flowers and casseroles.
The final message is over a minute long. Sophie hesitates. What would be better if they ever run into each other—to tell Jo-Ann that she expungedthis last voice mail without hitting play, or that she listened to it, laughed at its futile pleas, and hit delete anyway?
She envisions herself as her most terrifying auntie, the church organist who never made a single mistake in thirty-odd years, declaring, with a genteel sneer, “Oh, I heard. But no reason for me to answer, was there?”
Sophie goes for it.
Jo-Ann is now frantic. “Sophie, help me!”
