Hendo bent over to help me. “Shit, sorry,” he said. “Here.” He picked up a bunch of the books and put them on the cart, stacking them not the perfect way, which was spines up so I could see the numbers.
“You have to make sure the numbers are up, like this,” I said, and started moving the books.
Hendo laughed and fixed them. “How’s that?”
“Good.”
He put his hands in his pockets. “I can only take so much of that shit. I need a smoke like fucking crazy.” He asked if there was a place he could have a cigarette.
I told him that you could only smoke outside of the building, “But not within fifteen feet.” He gave me a military salute and held up a cigarette.
“You want one?”
It was almost time for my break. I nodded. I told Carol I was going on a break and as I went out with Hendo she said, “I didn’t know you smoked,” and I gave her THE LOOK so she’d be quiet.
* * *
I learned that Artem was Hendo’s baby but he lived with the Baby Mama, which is what Hendo called the mother. They were not a couple.
“We never really were,” Hendo said.
“You don’t want to have the baby live with you?”
“Don’t have much of a place yet. I’d like to get some more money, you know. Get a pretty nice place. Get him in a nice school.”
We were sitting on the curb watching cars. A bright-red one went by and Hendo flicked ash off his cigarette and pointed. “Now, that’s a fine car. You see it?”
I nodded.
“Mustang. Man.”
Since I had never smoked before, except once when AK47 put her cigarette down and forgot to crush it all the way, I tried to copy everything Hendo was doing. He tapped his finger onto the end of the cigarette again, so I tapped, and then I sucked the smoke like I was slurping spaghetti. He laughed when I coughed.
“You don’t really smoke, do you?”
“I’ve smoked before,” I said.
“You look like you’re having an aneurysm in slow motion,” Hendo said.
“What’s that?”
He stubbed the cigarette on the concrete. “Nevermind.” He stood up and wiped his pants off. “I guess I should be getting back in there.”
“Yes. Sunday Bunny Reading Hour is only an hour.”
* * *
When the Sunday Bunny Reading Hour ended Hendo left with his Baby Mama and Artem. They were arguing loudly. He did not wave to me. His Baby Mama was giving him shit about money.
“You think he can live on macaroni and cheese?” she was saying.
She was so angry I did not want to have our eyes meet. When they walked by I turned and pretended to be looking at a book.
The Bunny Lady took her guitar and said she’d see us next week. Her name was really Martine, and when she wasn’t a bunny, Carol said, she worked as a lawyer for some big company that was actually evil.
That was called being a hypocrite, Carol said, who smiled and said under her breath, “Bitch,” when Martine walked by.
Once everyone left, Carol and I went into the Rumpus Room and started cleaning up.
We picked up crumpled paper, and candy bar wrappers, and small baby-food jars. I held the garbage bag for Carol and she put all the garbage inside it. “You want kids?” she asked.
“I think maybe. I don’t know if it’s okay.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
I told her about the articles that were about people who were like me having babies, and how nobody knew if we should be allowed to, because some people just aren’t smart enough or powerful enough at being parents to have a baby.
Carol took the bag of diapers and garbage to the back door, opened it, and threw it in the big metal dumpster.
I held the door for her so she wouldn’t get locked out.
“That’s stupid,” she said. “You’re ten times more responsible than ninety percent of the men I’ve been with.”
* * *
That night I had a dream about Hendo. The library was empty. We were talking about books and Vikings in the dream. And then he leaned over and kissed me. We were sitting beside each other and he put his hand on my cheek. I put my hands on his arms and felt the muscles there.
That was when I woke up, and felt bad. I looked around my room in the dark. In my dream, I was kissing Hendo, not Marxy.
I lay in bed, my heart beating, my head full of Hendo. I tried to go back to sleep and couldn’t, because I was afraid of what would happen if I did—if I would dream-cheat on Marxy.
I decided to send Dr. Kepple another letter.
Dear Dr. Kepple,
It’s Zelda.
Whenever Viking heroes win the love of their fair maidens, they end up marrying them and having children. I don’t know if I want to have children, but I definitely want to have sex with Marxy, who is my boyfriend and fair maiden.
Something in your book confused me.
In the Friðþjófs saga hins frœkna, Frithiof and Ingeborg got married and their love was eternal, even when Ingebord was married to an old king because Frithiof had been sent away by people who were jealous of him.
How did Frithiof know that he was in love with Ingeborg, and why didn’t Ingeborg refuse to marry the old king?
Also, how do Vikings tell the difference between dreams that are serious and sent from the gods, and draumskrök, which are dreams that don’t mean anything?
Skál,
Zelda
chapter eighteen
The most famous Viking love story in Viking sagas is about Gudrun and Kjartan. A beautiful woman named Gudrun falls in love with Kjartan, who is very “charismatic,” meaning people like him and not just for his looks. But Gudrun is bad luck, since one of her husbands died and the other one divorced her when she was young. Kjartan likes Gudrun too. But her dad doesn’t like Kjartan and he sends Kjartan away. Which is when Bolli, Kjartan’s cousin, tries to convince Gudrun to marry him instead. Kjartan’s gone a long time, so Gudrun agrees to marry Bolli, and then when Kjartan returns Gudrun realizes that she messed up.
It is a very complicated story, because love is very complicated.
I reviewed my THINGS LEGENDS NEED list, and while Marxy was my “fair maiden,” I needed to win his love in the face of danger. Fair maidens are usually people who are not strong, who cannot protect themselves and need someone powerful to help them, and then they fall in love with the hero, who shows bravery and strength. I also believed that part of my legend was to show the world that people like Marxy and me can be powerful together, the way that Gert and AK47 are powerful, and that we can create a tribe of our own one day.
To make a tribe involved having sex, and many people do not like the idea of people like Marxy and me having sex. I told Marxy that it is not our problem that fuck-dicks do not want us to have sex. We are making our own legend.
The problem was Viking legends never talked about actual sex. They talked about love.
For a person who liked to have sex, Gert did not want to talk to me about how it worked. He would begin talking and then pick at his nail, which wasn’t even really much of a nail, since he kept his nails short.
Whenever people in TV shows and movies talked about sex, they said “the birds and the bees.” That was a way of talking about sex without actually talking about sex.