Little Exchanges by Scott Levy

Originally published in Phenomenal Literature, 2019.
This story was also semi-finalist for the Online Writing Tips Story Prize.

Mary Abon took her daily inventory:

Money in the bank. Food in the fridge. Clothes in the closet. Book on the shelf.

Since Mary kept the items in her life to a minimum, she knew that this ritual was unnecessary in a practical sense. Perhaps it was the very nature of such minimalism that drove her to it-she could remind herself of what still remained, and do so quickly. She could attempt to avoid being reminded of what was now gone.

This left even more time for reading the book on the shelf.

Harlan McDermott, unlicensed P.I., swam upstream against a flood of alcoholism to solve the murder of his ex-wife. A man haunted by demons, his work as a sleuth in pursuit of justice served to momentarily silence them. The clues were piling up with escalating speed. Soon Harlan, and Mary herself, would arrive at an answer. Harlan would then return to his bourbon. Mary would then return his story to The Little Library.

The mostly barren rural town where Mary passed her days in the echoey emptiness of her self-imposed minimalism was a good fifty miles from any sort of library that could be labeled ‘big.’ But the wooden stand bearing the sign, “Free Library: Take a book, leave a book,” was only a block away.

The sign was aptly worded. Every time Mary had visited, a single book occupied the diminutive structure. A single book, freshly read by her, was returned to it.

Once Harlan McDermott ended his hiatus from liquor, Mary Abon would exchange his world for another-the circumstances, style, and genre of said world to be discovered upon exchange. She would still have money in the bank, food in the fridge and clothes in the closet. A new book would be on the shelf.

Mary’s inventory, like nearly every aspect of her current life, would remain unchanged. It was only within the freely acquired content of pages did she move toward what came next.

#

For the second time, Janice Ritt bid farewell to Olga Detrovavitch. When the fictional countess had first been encountered, in the pages of the 600 page 19th century Russian novel, Janice had fewer wrinkles, gray hairs, and aches in her joints. She had a teenaged girl who still spoke to her, and a husband who still breathed. The reasons for the decades-long wall of silence between her and her daughter Angela were as complex as the issues between Olga and her numerous lovers. It was the more simply explained blight known as cancer that had stolen the breath from Charles, her husband.

Charles had built the Little Library. He did so to encourage her to minimize the clutter in their home.

“Once you’ve read a book, you no longer need it,” he was known, on more than one occasion, to grouse.

This was back in the days when she was content to have one go-through per novel. After all, there were so many others to dive into, so many other ways to swim in the waters of what came next.

But now, as the years added weight to the figurative pressure she felt on her chest, as the walls of her house seemed to spread farther away, opening spaces that remained unfilled by flesh and blood companionship, the unspoken voice in her mind argued with Charles’s ghost: “After I’ve read a book, I need to visit it one more time. I know what comes next. I want to know what I missed. I want to learn.”

As long as she re-gorged the words on those pages, she could stall the realization that lived in her gut-that even though age had given her new perspectives to accompany her re-reads, she questioned if she had learned anything that could be used. She had found nothing that reopened Angela’s voice. Nothing that reanimated Charles’s expired cells.

But the cycle of those novelistic retreads opiated her just enough to keep her going. She still possessed the capacity to think, to see, and to walk the short distance to the Little Library.

The cycle was nearly complete. The inventory was emptying. Like all novels, her part in the take-a-book-leave-a-book exchange was soon to end.

Janice believed that she too was ending. It seemed fitting. Her own exit would contribute to a silence more complete than that of any library.

#

Mary trudged through the snow. She limited her ventures to inventory replenishment. The supply of money, food and clothing remained satisfactory. Only the next storied volume was needed to complete her monastic larder.

She arrived at The Little Library at the same moment as another. A quick glance revealed, for the first time in Mary’s experience, the empty box beneath the sign instructing the book swap. A slower glance revealed, also for the first time, the woman before her, older by a generation. The two of them, so accustomed to print, read each other’s eyes.

Speaking not a word, they bypassed the box for a hand off. Each took a book, each left one. Harlan McDermott’s plight was soon to be revisited. The loves and travails of Olga Detrovavitch were on the verge of fresh discovery.

Each woman turned and returned to their heated, well lit houses.

#

One week later, with nothing to read, Janice trudged through the snow. In spite of the chill, her breaths came free of struggle. In defiance of the emptiness, her beating heart delivered no chest pains. The end of her life, which she predicted would accompany the final second reading, had thus far failed to imprint itself upon the pages of her flesh.

Taking a direction opposite to that of the now abandoned structure built by Charles, she made her way to the tiny diner down the road. True appetite eluded her. She hungered simply for something to do.

Through the window she saw the woman who had taken the final book, staring into a coffee cup. Even from the sidewalk, Janice could see her tears.

#

“I had a feeling that they were all your books.”

“Not too many other people around.”

Mary and Janice, sipping their refills, ordered a slice of pie. Neither was sure about managing one all to themselves, so they decided to attempt a split.

“There really aren’t any more?”

“No, sorry. Unless you’d like to read them again.”

“Too soon for me.”

“And twice is enough for me.”

The pie arrived. They surprised themselves by finishing it. Each received another coffee refill.

Perhaps it was the caffeine that made speaking easier. Perhaps the sugar assisted.

“I keep reliving the moment the state troopers came to my door,” Mary found herself saying. “They think my husband leaned down to pick up my little girl’s doll, which she dropped. That’s when he swerved into the other lane.”

Mary sipped her coffee. The steam failed to obscure the fresh round of tears.

“I lost my David and Allie in an instant.”

Janice reached for her companion’s hand. Despite them having officially met a mere half hour before, it was accepted.

Thus they sat in silence for a few moments. Eventually, the older of the two shared her own tales of grief-her own husband lost to death, her own daughter, alive but gone.

Their conversation turned to the books they’d shared. Praises and gripes were exchanged.

Mary revealed her hatred of the abusive spouse Calvin Fortlette, her envy of the witty teenage sorceress Mandy Tuffield, her disdain for the privileged snobs Henrietta and Alvin Shankstun.

Janice admitted that it wasn’t until her second go-throughs that she realized Daniel Resto had framed Abby Pidge and that the Land Of Treblair existed only as the consumptive child Ruthie Halstone’s fever dream.

Neither spoke of how these stories had temporarily quieted the howling of their torments.

Neither needed to do so.

Eventually, a second slice of pie was ordered. The first had been apple. Blackberry was chosen as the sequel.

“I really shouldn’t eat like this at my age,” Janice said.

“You think it will hurt?”

“I don’t know. It hasn’t seemed to.” She paused, directing her eyes toward the cooling blackness of her coffee. “I’m still here.”

“So am I,” said Mary.

As they waited for their order the two women looked at each other. The pie was a certainty. Beyond that, they knew not what came next.