68 The Meadow cled, compact outdoorsy types. If he’s ever seen the inside of a book, I bet it’s Bret Easton Ellis or Chicken Soup for the Hiker’s Soul. On the rare occasions when Lupita talks about him, it’s to complain that he lacks ambition. He’s an assistant manager at Starbucks, and his only other goals in life seem to be drinking and hiking with his friends. I’m not exactly going places myself; I’ve been in the same job—library paraprofessional, which basically means I do the same stuff as a librarian, but I have less schooling and make less money—for seven years. But I’m not the one dating her, so I only have to be ambitious enough to pull her into the office and lock the door. We’ve been doing whatever this is for the past eight months, since she was transferred to my branch, Alhambra. She once commented that she doesn’t want me to pity her. I assured her that I don’t, leaving out the part about how I reserve all my pity for Brigid, who is a frequent flyer in jail and rehab, Band-Aid institutions that cannot address what’s broken at her core. As I eat my lunch in the break room, I stare at the pictures of library personae non-gratae that adorn the bulletin board. These are people who have struck staff members, watched porn on the public computers, guzzled the library’s hand sanitizer. Recently we had to take one picture down because the man, who was homeless and, as it turns out, schizophrenic, was shot to death by the police in the foothills of the mountains. Everyone in Albuquerque knows his face now. My chest ached as I watched Katherine throw his mug shot in the garbage with the morning’s coffee grounds. He used to come in and tell us that the mountains were packing up and leaving town. I heard his name on the news, but now I’ve forgotten it. I’m shelving holds again this morning. It’s hard to find
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