Any Display in Particular

The library director closed the conference room door.. They walked to the head of the table. As the head of reference, I was on the right of them. The children's librarian Jaime sat on their left. Margaret from Technical Services sat on the floor in the corner clicking away on her laptop. I did not see the office manager Kate, but I imagined she was in her office taking notes. Paige the circulation librarian sat at the end of the table.

     The director tapped the table with a single, long fingernail. "Thank you for coming and taking the time to talk."

     Everyone murmured some affirmation to appease the administrator.

     "Paige, we wanted to talk to you about some of the displays you have been creating," Jaime said.

     I said, "There have been some complaints."

     "Was there any display in particular that was worse than the others?" Paige asked.

     "I received several complaints about the Valentine's display "Fuck These Books Read', spelled r-e-a-d. Clever wordplay, but, well, no," Jaime said.

     "And the most recent Easter display," the director said. "What was it?"

     "Read Like a Bunny Sexual," I said.

      "Not very clever," Jaime said. "And it is the spring equinox and many other seasons, not just Easter."

      The director said, "The display had a spring to make a rabbit wag back and forth simulating fornication with an egg."

     "That was clever," the children's librarian said.

     "It was obscene," the director said.

     Paige pulled out her phone. The bright light in the dark room turned her face ghoulish. I expected her to tell us a scary story.

      "Complaints are up. Paige, and… Do you mind not being on your phone?" the director said.

     Paige said, "Ah, there it is." She turned her phone to show the library's social media. She flicked her finger and showed a number of graphs, charts, and lists of numbers.

     "Ooo, pretty colors, Paige," Jaime said.

     Paige said, "Thank you. If you see, after I started posting the displays online, stats went up two hundred percent in January, another two hundo in February, and three hundred in March."

     I imagined Kate in her office typing up "hundo" in the meeting notes.

     "And I had Margaret run numbers on the items in my displays and the adjacent categories."

     The librarians turned to Margaet. She did not look from her computer. She said, "Did my job."

     The phone was passed from librarian to librarian. Except Margaret.

     "As you can see, same increases. My displays have increased checkouts, foot traffic, and general circulation. I am doing my job and giving thousands of reasons to keep doing it as I see fit."

      "Those numbers could be because mandates are ending," the director said.

     I said, "They increased even before mandates dropped. Back with omicron, see?"

     "People like my displays," Paige said.

     The single, long fingernail tapped. "Okay," they said.

     We waited in silence. The "okay" could mean anything.

     Paige broke the silence, smiling. "Okay."

     Jaime said, "Okay. I might need help on children's displays before Summer Reading."

     "I already have an idea. What about 'Your Body and the Hot Tub Parts?" Paige said.

     "Not okay," the director said, standing. "In three months, we will revisit." 

     They left us sitting in the room. Paige and Jaime began talking about Summer Reading. Margaret vanished. I sat wondering what displays were even up in my reference department.