346a

Like a true nerd, Rue was caught up in her pysch textbook and had lost all track of time. #easily distractible. She cursed as she looked at her watch. And cursed again for good measure. She crammed the volume in her backpack and threw it over her right shoulder where it thumped heavily against her back and sprinted for the library doors. #lateforworkagain. She had found a grassy spot in the sunshine and was soaking up some Vitamin D while exploring the vast expanse of the human brain. Rue had been promised that her general ed classes at uni would help narrow her field of interest and put her on track for graduation. But it hadn’t helped at all. #impossibletopickamajor.

Rue was now in her second semester, and she was falling in love with every class she took: psychology, human development, human physiology, English, and history. She even fell in love with the bowling class she had taken for her phys ed credit. She could pop into the bowling alley in the student union building and finish three games between classes. How was she going to decide? #biggestdecisionofherlife.  

She loved her job at the library (#studentjob.) because it gave her time to study but also gave her time to wander the stacks and pull books that looked and sounded interesting to her. She would pull a weathered book from the shelves and flip through its pages making mental notes about the facts the author had decided to put in permanent ink for future explorers. She wondered how long it had been since someone had picked up this particular book from this exact shelf. Who stood in this location last and held this tome in their outstretched hands and why had they come? What had they found? What was their story?  

Rue’s boss Charlene, who hated her own name from the day she heard it, was near the front desk when she arrived, ran to her with arms outstretched. Char was the only one that Rue let hug her. #huggingsucks. Rue stood stiffly while the thirty-something, think-out-of-the-box, pink-haired library science graduate threw her arms around her and held on for about eight seconds too long. “You came back!”

“Hi Char. Of course, I came back. I belong here.” Rue laughed, “What would you do without me?”

“Exactly. I never know if the students will put up with me for a second semester! Each university is only allowed one crazy lady and that is why they hired me!” she said pointing at herself. “They told me my student was coming and I worried I had been stood up.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I got caught up…”

“No worries. I’m excited it is you and now I don’t have to train anyone! You know where to put your bag and your list is on the counter.”

“Cool.” #coolbossesrock

“Have you nailed down a major yet?” Char knew Rue all too well from the nights they had talked clear up until closing the library at 11 p.m.  and sometimes late after that. Char felt like a sister she could talk to about things.

Rue rolled her eyes. “Of course not. I gotta do that. And soon. I’ve got it narrowed to three or four. Maybe revelation will hit soon.”

“And library science is one of them, right?” Char laughed.

“Well…” Rue hedged. “While I love it here…. I don’t know if I could live here like you do. I hear that long exposure to books make your hair go pink.” she teased.

“Oh. Low blow. Don’t make me take away your library card! You’d be desperate without this place.”

Rue laughed but there was a little bit of truth in it. When she wasn’t outdoors or in class, she was usually at the library. One roommate had told her she smelled like books. Rue took that as possibly one of the greatest compliments of her life. She couldn’t stand the dorm and all the roommate drama. She was only there to sleep at night, and she often did much of that other places on campus.  #thedormlife 

“Oh, and here’s your keys. And because you’re second semester and undecided about your future, you get this key.” Char unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk and handed Rue an additional key to put on the ring that held the key to the restrooms, one for special collections, one for the proctored testing rooms and one for the glass front doors. She hadn’t heard of any other keys last semester.

“What’s this?” She held up the key. It had 346a stamped on it.

“You’ll find out. It might help.” She smiled and threw back her pink hair. “Let me know how it goes.”

“You aren’t going to tell me?”

“Nah. You’ll find the out and then you’ll feel as crazy as I am.” Char grabbed a stack of books from her desk, piled on a file of papers and wrapped her water bottle handle around a couple of fingers and steadied the pile with her chin. “Let me know if you have questions on the list. I’ll be in setting up for a guest lecture in 241 for the Native American symposium.” She echoed as she walked off. “Oh. Just remember that a snap of your fingers can always help you out.

Glad to have you back Rue!”

Rue grabbed the list off her desk and put the keys in her pocket. She thought she knew the library inside and out and the thought of the key distracted her while she finished the tasks that Char had left for her. She took a break in the middle of the list to find the book section 346 in the Dewey decimal system. It was private law. 346a was a section on Neighborhood Law: Fences, Trees, Boundaries and Noise. That can’t be it. By the time she had finished the list a few hours later, she had determined that the key must be to a room on the third floor. She left a note on Char’s desk about the list she had completed, and she took the stairs two at a time up to the third floor to see if she could find a room number that matched the key.

Most of the third floor was stacks for the general collection and private study desks. Rue put her cell phone on silent just to be sure. She started with the south end of the third floor on the east side and made a loop past a portion of the general collection which was quiet with only one dark haired student hunched over his laptop with his laptop in his earphones (#Bosebarracuda.). It was now almost 9 o’clock so the Office of Undergraduate Research was closed and dark; she passed the Special Collections Closed Stacks which are key card entry only – she needed Char to get in that section; two glass-encased classrooms were spilling out students who looked glazy and ready to go home; and the Honors department where a student aid was locking up. The Honors department door had a 320 in vinyl on the glass.

Rue crossed the gap to the north end of the third floor. She knew that most of the north end of this floor was made up of the general collection of books but on the east side there was a set of restrooms and some small rooms for faculty research. She walked over to confirm. Past the faculty carrells was an unmarked white door that was locked. It didn’t have a number on it at all. This must be it! She tried to put the key in the lock, but it would not even slide in the lock. #epicfail. She sighed. She shook the handle of the door as if it would open out of sheer will. It did not. She would keep looking. She didn’t think Char would give her any clues even if she asked.

Char was mom-like in that way.

She circled past more students at private desks and mostly open tables. The proctored testing rooms were just ahead of her. There was nothing behind those except a set of stairs down to the second floor and another set of restrooms. She started back toward the center of the room and decided to check one more place. The farthest west wall of the large third floor was lined with more student desks behind the vast general collection, but she decided to look one more time. The automatic lights had dimmed because no one had wandered through in the allotted minutes before they dimmed as an energy saver. There was a corridor of empty study desks against the west wall of the building but at the far end was an unmarked door in a dim alcove. Why had she never seen it before?

She walked both quickly and cautiously to it.

Rue still had the key in her hand from the last attempt. It slid like butter into the awaiting lock. She took a breath and turned the key. The handle turned in her grip. And she stepped inside.

Rue looked down and instead of her torn jeans and V-neck sweater, she was standing behind a table in a pencil skirt and Nordstrom jacket with her hair pulled back in a tight bun. There was a line of people standing in front of her waiting with impatient excitement. A dark-haired man was standing behind her holding a chair waiting for her to sit down. The table was covered in sharpie pens and a stack of books on either corner. She picked up the book and read the title: Inescapable by Rue Buchannan.

It was her name! She looked around her. She was in a bookstore. There was a sign behind her that read: Powell’s City of Books welcomes bestselling author Rue Buchannan! Writer of the Carolyn Church series. #isthismyfuture?

Her mind was suddenly filled with the plots of all six of her books. Her novels were climbing the New York best-seller list with impressive speed for a new writer on the market. The dark-haired man to her right was her boyfriend of two years, Erik. He had taken time off work to take her to her book signing in Manhattan. She took the chair he offered and gave him a kiss. “Thanks, hon.” She grabbed the nearest sharpie and said hello to the first person in line with a deep blush but a powerful feeling of relief that she was a success. “Who should I make it out to?” And she began scribbling her name on the title page.

She was working her way through the line of people. Answering their questions and signing the books they had purchased. Some with the entire series. One woman insisted on hugging her as she told her the story of her daughter, with tears in her eyes, and how the books had given her courage to get out of an abusive relationship. Rue’s hand was cramping her and ability to be chatty with these strangers was waning when Char’s words came to mind. She snapped her fingers and just as suddenly as it had begun, she was standing outside the unmarked door of 346a with key in hand.

Rue had no idea how much time had passed. Had she been standing in a view of her own future? What kind of magic was this? Clearly Char new the room’s power.

She pulled her cell phone from her pocket. Only minutes had passed.

If she went in again, would she be in the same bookstore again? She looked around her. She was back in her jeans and sweater. There were no other students in sight. The lights had dimmed again in the stacks.

She slid the key in the lock and turned.

Rue was not in a bookstore. She was no longer in a pencil skirt and a tight bun. She was in blue scrubs. Her feet were aching, and her stomach was growling with hunger. Her hair was falling out of the makeshift ponytail in large sections that were touching her face and tickling her neck. She was standing beside a hospital bed and the young girl lying there had huge brown eyes filling with tears. As it had taken a moment to upload like her novel series, suddenly the files were there, and she knew she had been on shift now for fourteen hours and the tiny person in the blue speckled gown was Emilia and she was having surgery today on her neuroblastoma. #childrenscancerwing.

Rue sat down beside the bed. “Hi Big Girl, are you ready for surgery today?”

Emilia’s tears tumbled down her face and she shook her head.

“I know you are scared. You are very brave! Nurse Jenn will be in soon. She will put an IV in your arm, they will wheel you down to your surgery and you will be able to sleep through the entire thing! I promise you won’t feel a thing. And tomorrow, I will meet you here and you will tell me about the entire thing! Okay?” Emilia nodded. But the tears continued to fall. “And I will have you a surprise waiting for you when you return. Or should I just show you now?”

Emilia smiled weakly and nodded. Rue pulled a bag out from underneath a bed and handed it to the little girl. She pulled out the stuffed animal and hugged it tightly. Rue left it on her bedside table as they pushed her bed toward Operating Room #6. Rue snapped her fingers.

She was back in the library in her jeans.  She could still feel the ache of the hospital wing. She had been elated after the book signing. But her work at the hospital had felt real and worthwhile.

Rue didn’t feel like she could leave it there. She had time to go one more time. She had one more lingering question. She put the key in the lock and turned it a third time.

She was standing on the front porch of a home as the rain pounded on the sidewalk beside her. She was standing there in her black cargo pants, dark shirt with her name beside the logo for the Crime Scene Investigation team of Chicago. The police were crawling in their various squad cars that were parked in the street and in the driveway. They had cleared the home. The ambulance was transporting the victim to the nearest hospital and the perpetrator to the police station.

It was time for her team of investigators to go in and gather the evidence. She grasped her camera firmly in her right hand. Rue was always on photography because she had an unmatched gift of turning off all emotion. When a job had to be done, she could engage a focus which didn’t allow her to breakdown even in the darkest crime scenes. Stone Cold Buchannan they called her.

She knew if she was careful, the evidence she gathers could put away the perp for a long time. She took several pictures before snapping her fingers to return to the present.

This time Char was standing outside room 346a when she returned. She was leaning against the first stack of books nearest the room.

Rue just looked at her. “What was that?!”

“What did you see?”

Rue took the key off her ring and handed it to Char. “Exactly what I needed to.”

“And?”

“And I know what I’m going to do.”

Char hugged her with fervor. Rue’s face was buried in her pink hair. And they laughed together.

Char looked over her shoulder as she logged on and submitted her major.  #choosingmyfuture

Rue was sure that this was the future she wanted.