Vile Men Page 14

  Eva nodded, her fingers tightening around the straps of her floral backpack.

  “You have to be strong,” Eva’s mother said. “Make your voice heard.”

  “Okay,” Eva said. She stepped out of the car. She wished she could have gone with her mother to wave the big signs she’d helped colour the night before, but her mother shut the door and drove off, already with an angry look on her face.

  Eva walked into the dense wilderness of books, her body tense when she spotted Mindy, the head librarian. Mindy’s face was always ghostly pale—her thin red lips pressed tightly together. Mindy walked up, her long black cardigan billowing behind her like a cape.

  “Is your mom grocery shopping again?” Mindy asked.

  “She’s protesting today,” Eva said.

  “Where?” Mindy asked.

  “I don’t remember,” Eva said. “A man’s office. Mommy says he works for the government.”

  “You know that I technically work for the government,” Mindy said.

  Eva tensed. She swallowed. “My mommy said I have rights. She said that I’m allowed to be here.”

  Mindy tucked her hair behind her ear and crouched down so her face was close to Eva’s. Her eyes always looked so dark because her mascara was constantly smeared. “Your mommy isn’t right about everything, Eva. She can’t just leave you here.”

  Eva lifted her backpack. “My mommy gave me snacks so I’ll be okay.”

  Mindy pointed at the sign above her desk with a picture of pop and chips with a line struck through. “You can’t eat in here,” she said. “And you’re not old enough to be here by yourself.”

  Eva took a step back and tightened her fists. She wanted to tell Mindy how hungry she was. She wanted to be the strong seven-year-old girl her mother always said she was, but she couldn’t mirror the anger in Mindy’s stare.

  The front doors opened and a warm brush of air swept through the library. A man walked in carrying a cup of coffee and a newspaper from the cafe across the street. He made eye contact with Mindy and smiled. He had wavy brown hair and a beard—burly shoulders straining against a plaid flannel shirt.

  “I thought you could use a coffee,” the man said. He handed Mindy the cup and kissed her on the lips. Mindy took the coffee. She looked happy for a moment, but her smile faded when she looked down at Eva again. The man placed his hand on Mindy’s shoulder and asked what was wrong.

  “It’s Eva,” Mindy said, her voice deepening. “Her mother’s some kind of activist. She leaves her here all the time so she can protest whatever it is she’s angry about.”

  The man looked down at Eva and smiled. “I don’t mind watching her,” he said.

  “Could you?” she asked. “You’ve always been better with kids.”

  “It’s no problem,” he said, kneeling down. He extended his hand to Eva, his fingers wrapping gently around her palm. “It’s nice to meet you, Eva. My name is Owen and I’m a friend of Mindy’s. Would you like to read with me?”

  “Yes,” Eva said, “but I’m hungry. I brought a snack but I’m not allowed to eat it.”

  Owen looked up at Mindy.

  “You can take her to the break room if you want,” Mindy said. “I’ll feel a lot better if I know she’s with you instead of by herself.”

  “How about that, Eva?” Owen asked. “You can eat your snack and then I can read you a story. I’m sure that together we can find a good book to read.” He took her hand and tucked the newspaper under his arm. “The paper never has good news anyway.”

  “That’s what my mom always says,” Eva echoed, her fingers loosening from the straps of her backpack.

  The room Mindy led them to had grey walls and a dull floor with peeling square tiles. A table sat in the centre, its surface dulled and faded. Eva rubbed her hand over the surface but the dirt didn’t come off. She caught Mindy staring at her and she leaned close to Owen because his shirt was red and warm.

  “I’ll make sure she’s safe,” Owen promised. Mindy nodded and turned, leaving Eva alone with Owen.

  Eva shared her oatmeal cookies with Owen. She laughed when the crumbs got stuck in his beard. Owen said that he used to give tours at the museum, but over the years he’d developed arthritis in his knees and it hurt too much to walk around all day.

  “Do you give tours of the library now?” Eva asked.

  “No,” Owen said. “I just like to spend my days here. I get to read and I get to see Mindy. She doesn’t let me eat in the library, either, but sometimes we go out for dinner.”

  Eva looked out the break room door. Mindy sat at her desk in her big swivel chair, her back turned and her shoulders strained. She ate her salad while she worked, piercing the lettuce with a silver fork. Her dark hair was coiled tight into a bun. Her exposed neck was pale and long, reminding Eva of the pretty swans at the park that swam away from her when she tried to feed them.

  The air vent whirred to life and the break room grew cold. Eva started to shiver, but then Owen leaned in.

  “Do you like fairy tales, Eva?” he asked.

  Eva nodded, and Owen brought her to the bright children’s section of the library. Trees were painted on the walls and the sun shone through the windows. The shelves brimmed with stories that Owen and Eva searched through. Eva showed Owen a book called Bluebeard. Owen took the book and shook his head.

  “I don’t think you’ll like this one, Eva.”

  “Why not?” Eva asked.

  “Because this story doesn’t have a happy ending.”

  “I thought all fairy tales were supposed to have happy endings,” Eva said.

  “Some fairy tales are supposed to teach you lessons,” Owen said.

  “I don’t like those kinds of stories,” Eva said. “I want a story with a happy ending.”

  Owen agreed, and so he helped Eva pick out a stack of better books. He read her The Little Mermaid and Sleeping Beauty, but Eva’s favourite story was the tale of Snow White and the seven men who protected her from the evil queen.

  Owen’s voice warmed Eva’s chest, but then Eva heard her mother’s voice calling. Eva got up from her seat. She picked up her backpack and started toward her mother, but then Mindy stood, her rushed footsteps heavy over the floor.

  Eva froze, her heart pounding.

  “I ought to call the police on you,” Mindy said, walking right up to Eva’s mother, pointing in her face. “You have no idea who your daughter’s with or what she’s doing while she’s here.”

  Eva’s mother bit her lip, standing tall. “My daughter is a smart young girl,” she said. “She knows how to look out for herself. You make her sound completely helpless.”

  “She’s a little girl!” Mindy said. “She can’t protect herself from everything.”

  “Do you have kids?” Eva’s mother asked.

  Mindy hesitated.

  “Well, then you have no right to judge me,” she said. “Why does my daughter’s safety fall solely in my hands? Isn’t everyone responsible for a child’s well being? What if you noticed she was in trouble? Wouldn’t you do something about it?”

  “I noticed that your little girl could get into all kinds of trouble without her parent, and I’m trying to do something about it now.”

  Eva’s mother laughed. “All this community does is judge single parents like me.”

  “I swear to God I’ll call the police the next time she’s here by herself,” Mindy said.

  “It’s so typical, how everyone’s response is to blame the parent.”

  “Exactly,” Mindy said. “You’re her parent. You’d never forgive yourself if something happened to her.”

  “And you wouldn’t forgive yourself, either, because it’s obvious that you know what’s really at issue here. There’s no support in this society. I’m a parent and I have to do what I have to do. All you’re doing is blaming the victim.”

  “She’s the victim!” Mindy shouted, pointing her red finger at Eva. “She’s the real victim, and I swear to you I will call the police t
he next time I see her in here alone.”

  Everybody in the library stared at Eva. She could hardly breathe when everything was all her fault. The tears burned her eyes, but Owen pulled her hands away from her face.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said, his voice gentle in her ear. “Just go and tell your mother you want to go home.” He guided Eva out of her chair and eased her forward.

  Eva clutched her backpack against her chest, trying to warm the hollow ache that filled her. She pulled her mother’s sleeve but all her mother did was mirror Mindy’s stare.

  “C’mon, Eva,” she said. “It’s time to go.”

  Eva looked back at Owen. He was the only one waving goodbye.

  Mindy didn’t call the police the next time Eva walked into the library alone. Eva noticed the coffee on Mindy’s desk, and so she wandered through the stacks until she found Owen sitting at the table in the back corner of the library. He smiled at her and patted the stack of books he’d already chosen to read to her. He pulled her onto his lap and wrapped his big arm over her shoulders. His flannel shirt warmed her skin.

  Owen read about Little Red Riding Hood’s journey through the woods. Eva pointed to the picture of the woodsman who rescued Red at the end of the book.

  “He looks like you,” she said.

  “He does, doesn’t he?” Owen asked.

  Eva looked at the picture of Red, studying her dark hair. Eva wished that she had dark hair. She looked up to tell Owen, but then she noticed Mindy approaching the table. Mindy’s eyes were friendly and warm and she smiled at Owen, but then her gaze changed when she connected with Eva.

  “Where is your mother today, Eva?” Mindy asked. She leaned in close, her breath smelling like the wintergreen mints that Eva’s mother always sucked in the car.

  “She’s at her meeting,” Eva said, leaning back against the hard seat.

  “What meeting?” Mindy asked. “How important must this meeting be that she leaves you here?”

  Eva remembered all the things her mother had told her to say, about how it took a village to raise a child, about how the community didn’t care.

  “Owen likes me,” Eva said. “He cares.”

  Eva studied Mindy’s face. Her smeared mascara made her eyes look like shadows.

  “Owen’s not your guardian, Eva.”

  Eva looked at Owen. He sank back against his seat and Mindy stood over them, her lips tightening, her dark eyes turning into slits like a sinister queen plotting in front of a faded mirror.

  “Honestly, Eva, I think you’re better off waiting for your mother in the break room,” she said. “Maybe I can read you a book when I’m on my break. How does that sound?” She reached out for Eva’s hand, her red pointy nails digging into Eva’s skin.

  Eva struggled. She didn’t want to go back to the cold grey room again.

  “I want to stay with Owen,” Eva said, wrestling away from Mindy’s grasp. She climbed back onto Owen’s lap and wrapped her arms around him. He patted her back. He told her she would be okay.

  “Why didn’t you tell me she was here?” Mindy asked Owen.

  “You have work to do,” Owen said. “I was only trying to help.”

  “I don’t think we’re helping her if we let her come here without any consequences.”

  “It’s not Eva’s fault. We’ll talk to her mother, I promise you.”

  Mindy blinked and looked up at the ceiling. She rubbed her forehead and drew a breath.

  “Everything’s fine,” Owen said. “I’ll find you when her mother shows up, okay?”

  Mindy nodded before glancing at Eva again. Her expression looked like the angry faces of the people in the newspaper Eva’s mother always ranted about. Mindy sighed and walked back to her desk, wringing her hands the entire way.

  “My mommy’s always mad,” Eva said. “She says she’s mad at the government. She always writes letters on her computer. She says she can’t find a job that pays enough money but nobody ever writes her back.”

  “Do you know what the government is?” Owen asked.

  “It’s the big castle,” Eva said. “It has a flag. Mommy says that the people who live there don’t want to help her.”

  “That’s too bad,” Owen said. “Maybe if we went to the castle we could tell all the people there not to argue. Maybe then they would listen.”

  “I don’t want Mommy and Mindy to argue,” Eva said.

  Owen leaned in, his voice a whisper in Eva’s ear. “When your mother arrives, I promise I’ll help you get to her without without Mindy noticing.”

  “You promised Mindy you would tell her,” Eva asked.

  “Sometimes people can’t keep all of their promises,” Owen said, smiling.

  Eva smiled back at him. She didn’t care so much that her hair wasn’t dark like Red’s.

  “You can’t tell anyone that I helped you,” Owen said. “It would make Mindy mad.”

  “I won’t tell,” Eva said.

  “This is our little secret, okay?”

  “Okay,” Eva said.

  Then Owen showed her the new book he’d picked out: the story of Cinderella. Eva had heard about Cinderella many times before, so she sat beside him, waiting patiently for the part where the prince would save her from the evil women.

  Owen read Beauty and the Beast the next week. Eva sat on Owen’s lap but she kept looking over at Mindy’s desk. Mindy looked different, her expression lost as she shifted her attention between her computer screen and the printer. She took a quick sip of her coffee. Her fingers shifted over her mouse, furiously clicking until the printer whirred to life. Mindy looked up, her eyes widening when she met Eva’s gaze.

  Eva looked up to tell Owen, but then he reached the part of the story where Beauty kissed the Beast and broke the spell on the castle.

  “This is the best part, isn’t it?” Owen asked, putting his arm around Eva’s waist. He squeezed her torso, his grasp tight around her bony frame.

  Mindy walked up to the table before Owen could turn to the page where the Beast transformed into the handsome prince he really was.

  “Owen,” Mindy said. Her chin shook and she struggled to gain her breath. She clutched several crumpled pages from the printer in her hand. “Can you come with me, Owen?”

  “I’m in the middle of this story,” he said.

  “No,” she said. “Put her down.”

  “What?” Owen asked.

  “Put her down,” Mindy said, her teeth gritting. “Don’t make me do this in front of her.”

  “What you talking about?” Owen asked.

  Mindy’s fingers shook over the pages and she slapped them down on the table.

  Owen’s picture was on the first page, but it didn’t really look like Owen. In the picture, Owen didn’t have a beard and his hair was longer, greasier. He had stubble that looked like dirt on his jawline. He wasn’t smiling. There were big bold words on the bottom of the page.

  “What’s that say?” Eva asked, but Owen didn’t read the words aloud. His grasp loosened around her side.

  “I found this on Family Watchdog,” Mindy said, her lips twitching. “I already called the police.”

  Owen closed the book and put the picture down.

  “You used to give children tours at the museum,” Mindy said. Her fingers twitched and her eyes turned glossy and red. “You said you had to leave the museum because of your knee.” She brought her shaking hand to her mouth and blinked.

  Eva pulled at Owen’s shirt.

  “Get away from her,” Mindy said, her voice raised. “Put her down, Owen. Put her down now.”

  People looked up, but they didn’t look at Eva this time. This time they all looked at Owen.

  “I have to go,” he said, pushing Eva off his lap. He stood up and started walking for the door. “I’m sorry, Eva, but you probably won’t see me again.”

  “Why?”

  Owen didn’t answer. Eva went to chase after him, but Mindy grabbed Eva’s arm.

  “You can’t
go with him,” Mindy said, her wavering voice desperate in Eva’s ear.

  Eva kicked and thrashed against Mindy’s grasp. She screamed Owen’s name but Owen didn’t look back.

  Mindy dug her nails deep and pulled Eva back to the table. She gripped her fingers over Eva’s tiny shoulders and forced her to sit in the cold hard seat. She stared at Eva with her sick red eyes, her coffee breath touching Eva’s face. “You can’t go with him, Eva. Owen is a bad man.”

  Sirens sounded outside.

  “He’s not the man he said he was, Eva.”

  Eva struggled, her eyes looking at the picture of Owen on the table. He looked like the beast that everybody in the community wanted dead.

  “You’re safe,” Mindy said, her cold grasp locking Eva to the chair. “I promise you’ll be safe,” Mindy said. Her mascara was smeared and her tears ran black down her face.

  Eva couldn’t look at Mindy. Everybody else in the library was staring, their hushed whispers echoing between the dense towers of books. Her eyes burned as she struggled, and she spotted the cover of Bluebeard on the shelf behind Mindy. The man on the cover had a beard like Owen’s, but his stare matched those of everyone else in the library. They all stood around her, their eyes like tiny flickering fireflies in a dark expanding forest.

  Ghost Story

  Melody rolls over in the morning and reaches toward Lewis’ side of the bed, clutching only a handful of the hotel’s white sheets, luxury thousand thread count slipping smooth under her palm. She calls her boyfriend’s name but there’s no answer.

  Propping herself up, she glances out the second-floor window at London’s dreary dawn, unable to see the appeal. She’d never been much of a traveller. Lewis had gone on several vacations but this was their first trip abroad in the four years they’d been together. Melody was nervous on the plane, sitting tense with her grasp braced over the armrest. Lewis held her hand during the take-off. He whispered in her ear, promising that the dread brimming inside her would subside once they’d arrived.