Sonia

After a rush of patrons right at opening the next morning, the library emptied out and I had time to browse the Art section. It was Wednesday, July 26, which also happened to be National Aunt and Uncle Day. I wanted to make a special drawing for my aunt Julie, so was searching for some inspiration. I couldn’t believe I had lived in Foxfield all these years and never knew about the gorgeous art books sitting on these shelves, waiting for me the whole time. I had a lot of catching up to do. Before I picked one to take home, though, Sonia called me over to the circ desk.

“We’re slow right now. You want to do this pile of returns yourself?” she asked me, sipping coffee in a mug that read I’d rather be in the library.

“Really?” I asked, excited to learn something new.

“I’ll watch you. It’ll be fine.” Sonia half glared at me, and then ordered, “Have some confidence.”

“Okay.”

“Trade spots.” Sonia switched places with me so I was behind the monitor. “Hit F2 to get to the check-in screen, then click here to set it up for this pile.”

I followed her directions.

“Now it’s just the same as you did last time. Scan each one, make sure you get a beep, and read the title on the screen.”

“Okay, I can do that.” I picked up the first book.

“Of course you can.” Sonia pulled up a chair and sat beside me, ready to watch over my shoulder as I worked. “Then when you finish this pile, we’ll scan them again under inventory check, to make sure they’re all in. Always double-check.”

“Always double-check,” I repeated. “That’s what your mug should say, by the way.”

“What?”

“Your mug. What it says doesn’t make any sense, that you’d ‘rather be in the library,’ because you are in the library. It’s confusing. You should have one that says ‘Always double-check.’ That would be better.”

“I think you’re taking my mug situation too seriously,” Sonia replied.

I smiled to myself, then got to work.

I scanned and it beeped and I read the screen, and then I placed the book in a pile to my right. I got a rhythm down—scan, beep, read, place, scan, beep, read, place—and it was downright fun. I stood taller and pushed my shoulders back.

Scan, beep, read, place.

I looked up from the screen when a mom came in with a young boy, grubby with kid sweat and dirt on his little knees. I greeted them and they said hello back and then walked over to the children’s room. An older couple, Mr. and Mrs. Jansen, came in right after them. They chose some back issues of Reader’s Digest from the periodical wall and settled into seats side by side to read them.

I kept going with my pile, slowing down a bit on purpose to make it last. These patrons who walked in and saw me behind the desk thought I was a regular library employee. Why wouldn’t they? I was doing the work and I was dressing the part and I really felt, for the first time in a long time, like I was part of something good. I didn’t want it to end.

Scan, beep, read—

And then it ended.

The title on the screen: Jane Eyre.

My gut clenched and twisted as I stared at it.

“It went through,” Sonia said. “What’s wrong?”

I held up the book so the cover faced her.

“Oh,” she said.

Sonia put her coffee cup aside and leaned closer to me. “Okay. Should we talk this out, Jamie?”

“No,” I mumbled.

“No?”

“It’s fine. I’m fine,” I lied.

“You’re lying,” she said.

“Beverly already talked to me,” I said.

“Well, it appears there are some loose ends still tangling you up. Otherwise, I’d still be hearing that beautiful sound of books beeping back into the collection.” Sonia stared at me.

“You don’t have to,” I answered, not looking at her.

“Of course I don’t, and you don’t have to be doing my job right now, but you are. You’re already past your hours this week, again. We both know that.”

“I like it here,” I said quietly, staring at my sandals and the worn, scratched tile beneath them.

“And we like you, but you can’t spend the rest of your life afraid of a book title.” Sonia hopped off her chair to grab an empty stool on wheels and rolled it over to me.

“Sit,” she commanded. Then she positioned her chair so we were facing each other, our knees touching, our faces less than two feet apart.

“So let’s start with the girl who asked for this book—every time she comes in here, you freeze up like a mouse dropped in a snake cage.”

I tilted my head and squinted my eyes, trying to figure out exactly what that meant.

“Don’t ask,” Sonia warned.

I furrowed my eyebrows, asking.

“My son, Mateo, went through a snake phase, a pet snake phase.” She shook her head as if casting away a bad memory. “It didn’t last long. One feeding and it was over.”

I grimaced.

“So, that girl?”

“That’s Trina,” I said. “She’s in my grade. She’s Trey’s sister.”

“Who’s Trey?” Sonia asked.

I sighed heavily. “It’s too embarrassing.”

“It was embarrassing,” Sonia corrected me. “Now it’s over. It’s been over for a long time, but you won’t let it go. It’s like you have this whole fantastic book in front of you, but you just keep reading the same awful chapter over and over again. It’s time to turn the page, mami, and get on with the next part of the story.” Sonia let out a deep breath.

“Besides, a mistake over a boy is a rite of passage.” She nodded with certainty. “Trust me. I know.”

“I still feel stupid,” I mumbled.

“Yeah? Go see how far that gets you. You think I felt like a world scholar when Mateo’s father disappeared one day, taking all my money with him, me only nineteen years old with a growing bowling ball in my belly and all alone?” She kept her voice low so only I could hear. “It happened. You keep going. You turn the page.”

“Well now I really feel stupid, compared to what you had to go through. . . .”

“Don’t feel stupid. Just get it out of your system once and for all and be done with it.”

The mom with the little boy returned to the desk with two movies to check out.

Sonia stepped in front of the monitor to help them.

“Just these today. I have a project to get through tonight and I need him out of my hair,” the mom explained to us, guilt in her voice.

“Mommy, I want books,” the boy whined.

“Next time, Xander. I promise. We’re in a rush now.”

Xander whined more.

“My kid wants a book and I’m making him get movies,” she said, digging her library card out of her wallet. “I guess I’ll be receiving the Mom of the Year Award.”

“No, no,” Sonia told her. “You do what you have to do.” She scanned the woman’s card and movies and handed them back to her.

“Mo-om,” Xander groaned.

Sonia leaned over the counter to tell the little boy, “The next time you come I will have a stack of new books, just for you, okay?”

He stared back up at her, eyes wide, lips parted.

“Oh, Xander, isn’t that special? New books just for you!” his mom repeated.

“Okay, Xander?” Sonia said, smiling her gorgeous smile at him.

“O-kay,” he answered back.

“Thank you so much,” the mom gushed at Sonia.

“Of course. You’re welcome.”

“Let’s go, sweet pea.” The mom corralled him toward the door.

“Thank you,” she called again over the door jingle.

“Bye, Xander,” Sonia called, waving as he stepped backward out the door.

“You’re so good with everyone,” I told Sonia, once the door closed behind them.

“It’s a gift,” she said, then asked, as if there had been no interruption, “So how is Trina involved?”

“Trina busted me. Trina’s the reason I’m here all summer.”

“Then I love Trina! Trina is my favorite!” Sonia chirped.

I couldn’t help smiling, but I shook my head at the same time.

“Spill it,” Sonia ordered.

“Okay, the short version is this. I took the copy of Jane Eyre from the library, which was stealing. I snuck it into Trey’s backpack because all the exam answers were in it, which was cheating. Trina turned it in and told on me, which was”—I held up my hands to make air quotes—“‘excelling in school citizenship.’” I dropped my hands. “So she’s the hero, Trey’s the innocent victim, and I’m the criminal.”

That was it, in a nutshell. But there was no nutshell big enough to contain how stupid and horrible I felt about it.

“So, not your finest decision-making,” Sonia stated.

“Nope,” I agreed. “Especially since we have this big-deal zero tolerance Honor Code at school and there was already a cheating scandal this year, on the midterms. But no one got busted. The principal and teachers were going crazy trying to piece it together and figure out who was responsible, but they never could.”

“They were outsmarted by the cheaters,” Sonia summarized.

“Exactly. It was like some bad teen movie where the administration becomes the laughingstock of the school and the sneaky kids get away scot-free.”

“I remember reading something about that in the Biweekly,” Sonia admitted.

“They were trying to get the guilty parties to confess for a more lenient punishment,” I explained. “That’s how desperate they were.”

Sonia raised her eyebrows at me, and I shook my head in response. “It didn’t work. No one came forward.”

“Okay,” Sonia said, clapping her hands together once, “thank you for providing context, but I would like to get back to discussing you.”

“I wouldn’t,” I replied.

Sonia ignored me and instead pronounced, “So, since the book at the center of all this drama is Jane Eyre, we will break it all down in Jane Eyre terms.”

“What?” I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Relax. This is very straightforward.”

“You’ve read Jane Eyre?” I asked, still confused.

“Jamie, they were teaching Jane Eyre in eighth grade back when I was a kid in the middle school. I grew up here, remember?”

“Oh yeah.” I made a duh face, which reminded me of Vic. Vic would really like Sonia, I realized.

“I’ve also spent the bulk of my life in a library. I’ve read pretty much everything.”

“Bragger,” I teased.

“Now try to follow me,” Sonia ordered, and then she zoomed ahead. “The school sees it that Trina is Jane, the honest, dignified heroine who does the right thing, Trey is Mr. Rochester, the innocent victim who had no idea what was coming his way, and you are Bertha, the nightmare in the attic who causes all the trouble.”

“I’m Bertha?” I asked, my voice flat. “Didn’t you say you wanted to help me feel better about all this?”

“Of course.”

“I can’t feel better if I’m Bertha.”

“You can’t feel better because you already see yourself as Bertha—you didn’t need me to say it.”

I sat with that for a minute. She was probably right. I had been punishing myself all summer long, hiding at home when I wasn’t working at the library, living like a nocturnal animal. I hadn’t had a sleepover at Aunt Julie’s house once since school ended, and I wasn’t even writing Vic letters the way I promised I would.

It was getting old. In fact, it was way past old.

I cleared my throat. “Well, I don’t want to be Bertha anymore,” I said, and I really meant it.

“Glad to hear it, because Bertha has serious medical issues and was the victim of other people’s cruel choices and can’t help herself, but you can. You are not Bertha. If you are anyone in that book, you are Jane.”

“Oh no,” I protested. “I don’t think I’m Jane.”

“You could be Jane,” Sonia assured me. “Trina doesn’t get to be Jane. In fact, she doesn’t get to be in your story at all.”

“Oh, she’s in it,” I muttered. My eyes started to well immediately, just at the memory.

“Oh no, mami. That bad?”

I nodded yes and told her about Trina posting my apology letter to Trey on a public Instagram account opened just for middle school drama. It was quickly shut down, of course, but not in time to stop a gazillion people from taking screenshots of the letter and sharing it over and over.

Sonia said something in Spanish then that she refused to translate for me.

“And that wasn’t even enough for her.” I swallowed down the lump forming in the back of my throat. “A week after the whole thing, I went to my locker to pack up and when I opened it all these trays, these plastic trays from the lunchroom, came crashing out at me.”

Sonia’s eyes pinched and little lines formed above her perfect eyebrows.

“And then soda cans came rolling out also, cans of Crush soda, and some of them split when they hit the floor and the orange soda went spurting everywhere and I was soaked and everyone in the hallway was dying laughing at me.”

“Trays for Trey, and orange Crush soda for your crush on him.” Sonia processed it out loud slowly. “You gotta give her credit for creativity.” She shook her head in disbelief.

“And then there were the bathroom stalls.”

“Go on,” Sonia urged.

“Vic told me there was graffiti about me in two stalls in the bathroom on the third floor. She tried to erase it, but it was in permanent marker and she couldn’t get it off.”

After Vic told me, it took me two days to build up the nerve to look, but once I did, I found it easily in the first stall, in neatly written black Sharpie: Worried about exams? Need a tutor cheater? Call Jamie Bunn.

The second stall said, in brown marker: Feel CONNECTED to someone who DOESN’T like you back? Join the Jamie Bunn club!

I could still see my name on the wall, glaring at me.

“Okay, this Trina is a real piece of work.” Sonia reached over and hugged me tight to her. I breathed in her sweet smell, a mix of books and coffee and lip gloss.

“But she won’t always be like that, you know,” Sonia said, very matter-of-factly. “It won’t last.”

“Like the pet snake thing?” I asked.

“Exactly.”

“You don’t know Trina. It might last.”

“Maybe you don’t know Trina, either.”

I looked at the floor and admitted to myself that it was true—I didn’t really know Trina. But it was because she was too mean to get to know. She scared me.

“So let’s just focus on Trey now,” Sonia advised. “He’s the Mr. Rochester in your story.”

I considered it, but then had to admit, “I don’t think Trey is like Mr. Rochester.”

“Is Trey moody? Or hot-tempered? Or hiding his wife in his attic?”

“No, no, and definitely no.”

“Is Trey someone you can’t get out of your mind, no matter how hard you try?”

I paused.

Then I told the truth. “Yes.”

“Then he is Mr. Rochester. Don’t argue.” Sonia sat up straight and tall, looking very pleased with her analysis, and sipped more of her coffee.

“So that means I’m going to end up with Trey and live happily ever after with him, just like Jane does with Mr. Rochester.”

“No.” Sonia shot me down without a blink, disapproval in her voice. “It means you will live happily ever after with yourself, which is all that matters. Learn from your mistakes and live the life you believe in. The boy in the story is just a side note.”

“The boy in the Jane Eyre story or the boy in my story?” I asked, getting confused.

“Both. Neither. It doesn’t matter.” She waved her hands in front of her as if smacking away gnats. “The story is about you. You made a mistake. You served your time. Now move on. Turn the page.”

I took a deep breath and let this sink in.

Sonia waited, watching me.

“Anyway, that’s what I did, and look at me now.” She hopped off her chair and shook off her serious vibe like a dog shaking water off its fur. Then she struck a pose like one of those gorgeous marble statues from the sculpture books in the 730s.

I looked at Sonia’s pose, how confident she seemed, and thought about what she was saying. I realized that my mom had done exactly what Sonia was telling me to do. She recognized the mistake she made with my dad, so she folded her hand and then she fixed it. She started over and built herself the life she wanted. I guessed my dad was her rite of passage mistake. And when my mom curled up in my bed with me, two weeks after her meeting with Mrs. Shupe, and told me, “You played cards you didn’t have and you lost. I know it hurts, but that’s how you learn. In fact, that might be the very best way to learn,” I knew she forgave me the same way she had forgiven herself, years ago, for my dad.

My mom had turned the page.

So had Sonia.

I could, too.

“Sonia?” I said quietly.

She dropped her pose and looked at me, warmth radiating off her. “Yes, Jamie?” She took my hand in hers. I felt a surge of strength rush from her skin to mine.

I squeezed her hand gently. “Thanks for being my compass.”

“You’re very welcome, mami.” Sonia gave my hand a slow, tender squeeze back and then let go.