ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Beth Goobie hails from Treaty 6 territory, Saskatoon, Canada.

She won the 2021 Carter Cooper Award for short fiction, and her work has appeared in Best Canadian Fiction.

She is the author of 26 books, 18 of which are for young adults.

Romancing the Hair

Adison Bookchin, as in Book-Attached-To-Chin, settled onto her couch with a large print copy of NW by Zadie Smith, the novel she had signed out at the end of her shift at the Frances Morrison library branch. At twenty-six, she wore Coke-bottle glasses; normal-size font left her weak eyes throbbing, and large print meant she could extend her daily reading period by an hour or more. Screens were less demanding, and a small TV sulked in her hallway closet, but Adison plugged it in only to placate visitors who couldn’t handle conversation without a screen flickering in their peripheral vision. By her own proud admission, Adison was a print snob. To her way of thinking, the mind was a quick-darting bluebottle fly, electronic visual media the dangling sticky tape designed to entrap it ... and then the mind got eaten. ’Nuff said.

The first hair appeared between pages fifteen and sixteen, nudged into the crease. Four centimeters long, it was black and delicately split at one end. With a hiss, Adison shoved aside the afghan warming her lower body and stalked to the bathroom to fetch a wastepaper basket. She didn’t know what it was that caused library patrons to tuck strands of their hair into books before returning them, but she knew from experience that once a hair showed up between a novel’s pages, more would follow. Thunking down the wastepaper basket, she snuggled back under the afghan that had been knitted by her granny. Then, curling her upper lip, she edged out the black hair and deposited it into the wastepaper basket. Sometimes she considered leaving the hairs in place, but this seemed ... unsanitary. Professional librarians respected the sanctity of a library book on principle.

Another hair, this one longer and blond-white, showed up between pages twenty-eight and twenty-nine. Gotcha! thought Adison, dropping it into the waiting basket. Ten minutes later, she turned a page to discover a cluster of hairs, all blond-white and around ten centimetres in length. Hissing in disbelief, she held the opened book over the wastepaper basket and pointedly brushed the hairs into it. Then she flipped to the front of the book and reviewed a series of dates that had been stamped on the inside cover. The library’s mobile unit transported sign-out materials to various retirement centres, and large-print books were popular with these patrons.

Some senior, very caught up in the plot, appeared to have taken NW to the hairdresser’s.

The life of a dedicated reader, Adison mused. TV zombies don’t have to put up with this.

The following morning, she sat describing the situation to fellow librarian Rea Minhinnick, as they worked the Checkout desk’s two tills. Solidly cheerful, Rea had enjoyed a Saskatchewan library career that gazed back to the sixties, when books were checked out with a photocopier. “I’ve found the odd hair, but never a clump!” she exclaimed. “It’s a devil’s way of getting at people, so I’ve heard.”

“Devil’s way!” Adison repeated, eyebrows rising.

“Not quite the same as sticking pins into a clay doll,” Rea nodded sagely. “But somethin’ like. It’s a way of getting yourself into someone else’s personal space. A way of seein’, if you take my meaning.”

“You mean like witchcraft?” asked Adison. “Scrying?” Several years back, she had spent a few weeks trancing out in front of her bathroom mirror. Occasional startling images had surfaced, but mostly she had found herself observing a candlelit blur.

“Scrying is looking into your own life,” Rea said crisply, then broke off as an elderly woman approached with some DVDs. At the same time, a man strode up to Adison’s till and slid four books toward her. She demagnetized and checked them out, and he tucked them under an arm and headed for the exit. “Now there’s a patron after my own heart,” commented Rea, watching him leave. “Bald as a lightbulb. Wouldn’t be cleaning up after him in library books or the bathroom floor. It’s my break – you okay to cover alone?”

Without waiting for a response, she slid off her stool. Alone at Checkout, Adison sat observing the July sunshine that beckoned through the front lobby’s glass doors. Beaches, bikinis, martinis, she mused. Why hadn’t she become a poolside lifeguard or a spotter in one of those middle-of-nowhere fire-watching towers – plenty of time to get in her reading there.

“Hello,” drawled a voice, returning her to the mundane. A young man stood facing her – pleasant, if studious-looking, and about her height. He displayed no visible tattoos and wore a MADE IN SASKATCHEWAN t-shirt. Middle of the road, probably working on his Masters, thought Adison.

The man slid five books onto the counter and held out his library card for her to scan.

“This should keep me for a while,” he smiled.

Adison checked her screen; the card belonged to a Paul Sokoloff. “You have two books on hold,” she told him. “They’ll be on those shelves over there.”

Paul turned and headed over to the Hold Shelves. Adison glanced at the book on top of the stack he had slid toward her: Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward’s Gun Club. She had heard of the book, a Giller finalist. As she picked it up to demagnetize it, an impulse came at her like a bat veering in out of the July afternoon. Edging one hand into her hair, Adison yanked out a single long blond strand and tucked it firmly into the book’s crease, between pages ninety-seven and ninety-eight. By the time Paul started back with his two holds, she had finished checking out the books he had given her and was watching him approach with an innocent expression.

“These are going to keep me all summer,” he commented, handing over the two holds.

“I’m in the middle of a long one right now – The Idiot. It’s by some Russian guy.” Adison’s lip quivered. “Dostoevsky?” “That’s the guy!” Paul proclaimed.

“I had to read Crime and Punishment for a university course,” Adison explained as she processed the last two books. “All I remember is blood everywhere.”

“Metaphor for guilt, I’d say,” Paul commented, accepting the books.

Startled, Adison wondered, Did he see? But Paul simply said, “Thanks for the books,” and scooped all seven off the counter, then headed for the exit. She watched him go, one hand fingering the sore spot on her scalp where her Valentine’s hair had rooted. When she focussed, she could almost sense the long gold vibe of it, shimmering inches from Paul’s hip. Intention was what mattered most in magic, or so she had heard, not that she knew much about spell-casting or invoking demons. And her intentions here were harmless – a little romantic intrigue, a nuance, a whisper susurrated into Paul Sokoloff’s life. Winding a lock of hair around a finger, Adison purred, Think about me, Pau. Dream me. Read my vibes, read me.

Damn! she thought as realization hit. Why hadn’t she inserted the hair closer to the beginning of the book, say at page twenty? It could take Paul weeks to find it, even if he chose to read Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward’s Gun Club right after finishing The Idiot.

Adison would have been the first to agree that her morals enjoyed skiing down slippery slopes. She had French-kissed herpes in junior high. She had tangoed with the clap in grade eleven. She wasn’t particularly pretty, and even if she had been her lust for Pizza Pops would have banned her from the front cover of Vogue, but she generally achieved attention at parties if she wore stark makeup and flashy clothes, especially if there was cleavage involved. Adison could invoke demonic cleavage. All she needed was a plunging neckline and a small crowd, and she was in gear to adopt her Kurzweil Electronic Reader voice and pretend to phone someone in the room: Hello. This is the Saskatoon Public Library calling. According to our records, you have overdue library materials. If they are not returned within twenty-four hours, a robot will be dispatched to your address. The next time you exit your front door, this robot will break both your legs. Sask Health does not offer free health care to anyone with overdue library materials.

Thank you and have a good day.

This act had proven to be an effective technique for getting laid. Unfortunately, these experiences of ecstasy tended to rub off like the beauty mark Adison drew at the left corner of her upper lip, leaving her like a morning-after Marilyn Monroe – naked and deserted on an unfamiliar bed, a hangover granting memory flashes of overt scandal best consigned to oblivion. There was a genie in the bottle that possessed Adison when she drank, and she refused to keep alcohol in her apartment. When she went out, she drank and courted slander; when she was home, she curled up under her granny’s afghan and read about other people’s misbehaviour. Home alone was how Adison preferred domesticity – no live-in boyfriend was ever going to interrupt her reading schedule. Not right now, hon – Judith Hearne is tearing off the face of God and she can’t be interrupted ...

“I mean, be reasonable,” Adison would tell her granny, who was always inviting her over for pierogies then moaning about a lack of great-grandchildren. “No one can be a dedicated reader and be involved in a serious relationship.”

The question was, she thought later, as she sat finishing NW and plucking out the odd hair – did every strand discovered in a library book represent someone seeking romance the way she had been with Paul Sokoloff? She had read somewhere that DNA vibrates, and that this was a possible source for the morphogenetic field that was believed to create a group mind among animals of the same species. Which meant that the DNA in a human hair also emitted vibratory messages. How many quiet, docile-looking library patrons were sending out lustful, occult vibes via their returned books? More importantly, when Paul Sokoloff discovered her single glowing hair, would he pick up on her hopeful hookup vibes or stomp off in disgust to fetch a wastepaper basket?

Intention, Adison reminded herself. It’s all in the intention. That being the case, a bit of intention-enhancement was in order. Julio Iglesias on low, a retro-lava lamp, some body oil, and the imaginative positioning of various body parts all contributed to bringing the memory of Paul’s grinning face into concentrated focus. For over a week, NW lay neglected on Adison’s living room couch as she coaxed thought forms into being and projected them into the wild blue ether. Night after night, she felt like one of those scientists who spend years beeping radio frequencies into the cosmos in the hope of an alien response.

One evening around 10:30, she got feedback. The sudden presence in her bed wasn’t visual, but she could feel it – tentatively amorous and communicating in body Braille. Unquestionably, it was masculine and her body responded as if to an actual physical presence; her skin tingled, the appropriate parts throbbed. Paul Sokoloff appeared to have reached page ninety-two in Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward’s Gun Club, and he was riding the DNA vibe of her long golden hair straight into her receiver. Within seconds, she established no-nonsense consent and they set out to explore intention.

From that point on, Paul became a frequent night visitor, but Adison didn’t encounter him in the flesh again for over a month. One afternoon in late August, she was on shift at the Information Services desk and looked up to see him standing opposite, wearing a quizzical expression. At this unexpected embodiment of her lover, Adison was flooded with a sensual heat, but Paul appeared calm and collected, oblivious to her flustered state.

“Hello again,” he said. “I looked up a book on the computer and it said there’s a copy available in storage. I checked and it’s not on the shelf.”

Adison leapt at the distraction of rational conversation. “That means it’s in Stacks, which is in the basement. I can use Remote Retrieval to fetch it up for you. What’s the title?”

“The Navigator of New York by Wayne Johnston,” said Paul.

Adison looked up the title on her computer and recorded the necessary information on a small form. Then she crossed to the wall behind her, where she raised a metal window and set the form onto a counter behind it. Returning to the Information Services desk, she said, “Someone has to go downstairs to fetch it, but it won’t take long. So, have you finished The Idiot?”

“Oh yeah,” Paul said agreeably. “I read all the time. I’ve finished most of those books you signed out for me in July.”

Again, heat paraded across Adison’s face and neck. “And ... what did you think of Small

Game Hunting at the Local Coward’s Gun Club? I’ve been thinking about reading it.”

Paul’s gaze wandered off into the middle distance. “It got me thinking,” he murmured as a visible flush crept up his neck. “Yeah,” he added abruptly, his eyes flicking across hers. “I’d recommend it. How long will it be before that book gets here?”

“About five minutes,” said Adison.

“I’ll come back for it,” Paul said and headed toward the Reading for Reconciliation area. Bewildered by his obvious lack of interest, Adison maintained enough composure to scrutinise him from behind as he walked – the shift of his hips, the width of his shoulders, his pleasantly rotund waistline. This was her night visitor, she was certain of it – the moment she had caught sight of him standing across from her, he had sent out an energy projection that had kissed her on the mouth. The kiss had been so tangible, it had been almost audible. But if his astral body had recognized her, why hadn’t the rest of him?

A bell dinged and she opened the Remote Retrieval window to find a copy of The Navigator of New York lying on the counter. Flipping to page fifteen, she plucked another hair from her head and slipped it in against the crease. As she brought the novel to the Information Services desk, an elderly man approached and requested assistance with his gmail account; leaving the novel at the desk, Adison headed over to the computer area. When she returned, The Navigator of New York had vanished, along with all signs of Paul Sokoloff.

Daunted but undeterred, Adison continued her amorous interactions with Paul’s astral body, which responded with growing eagerness. That this nightly presence was Paul Sokoloff and not an incubus, she never doubted; that the whole affair might be her imagination, she dismissed as equally nonsensical. Competent in the self-debauchery department, Adison’s goal, when on her own, was to get to the point as quickly as possible. The out-of-body Paul, however, drove her out of her mind with foreplay, and he was endlessly inventive. Sometimes, after he had once again faded into the ether, she would discover the title of a book written on a notepad that she kept on her night table – a book she had never considered reading, sometimes a title she hadn’t even heard of. In addition, the handwriting wasn’t hers.

Paul didn’t show up every night; sometimes a week would go by without contact. September and October passed at the library without a single in-person sighting. Adison wrapped strands of her waist-length golden hair around her little finger and focussed; she laid it over her lips and hummed lasciviously; she performed absurd sexual acts that required washing her hair thoroughly afterward. Sometimes this summoned her fey astral lover, and sometimes it did not. She began to pine and lose weight. Her rigorous reading schedule faltered, and her behaviour at bars and parties became a gossip highlight. Virtual strangers propositioned her in Kurzweil Electronic Reader mode. With alarming ease, Adison gained the kind of low-grade gutter popularity that could have made her the protagonist of a large-print bodice ripper, but none of the shirts that she was tearing off were Paul Sokoloff’s – of late, even his astral double seemed to have dumped her.

On October thirty-first, Adison dressed up as an open book (which involved mostly cleavage) and gatecrashed a house party. Gathering an audience with practised ease, she was midway through explaining the phoenix that she had recently had tattooed on the ascent between her breasts, when Paul Sokoloff walked in the door dressed as a sea captain. Their eyes met; his widened as he took in her costume. Adison had worn her hair down, and its gleaming golden tresses splayed languidly over her admittedly smutty book covers. As Paul’s gaze descended, Adison flushed, but she resolutely laid claim to her own heat, raised her chin and pursed her lips.

Paul’s eyes lit up and he grinned. She shimmied her hips; he shimmied back.

He does know! she thought, exultant.

A woman came through the doorway behind Paul and took his arm. Dressed as a demure peasant girl, she had long blond hair that cascaded past her slim hips; on her left hand glittered an engagement ring. Paul’s gaze shifted from Adison to his fiancee. His expression looked to be slogging through deep thought. Tugging along his fiancee, Paul walked over to Adison, picked up a lock of each woman’s hair and held them side by side.

“Paul?” his fiancee asked, confused. Adison stood motionless, locked into the morphogenetic field of Paul’s consternation. Abruptly, he threw back his head and cackled. Dropping both locks of hair, he cradled his fiancee’s face in his hands and said, “Darling, let’s go home. I want you to ravish me with your hair.”

Darling lit up; linking arms, they headed for the door. As the couple passed out of the room, Paul shimmied his hips. He did not look back.

Adison never again encountered Paul Sokoloff or his astral double. But she was not one to waste time on broken-hearted-damsel moping. Having learned her lesson about the vagaries of astral romance, she returned to her rigorous reading schedule and a more ... contained approach to ecstasy. Soon after, she met a beanpole of a man at a book launch – a foreign student from south Sudan. Jamil Chol favoured science fiction and poetry, and the two of them fit together like a bookmark seeking story. Together, they worked out a signed-in-blood reading schedule that could only be interrupted by natural disasters, crimes–in-progress, or medical emergencies, and he moved in. One night, as they lay abed reading, Adison edged out a five-centimetre, carrot-red hair from the pages of Lullabies for Little Criminals. Holding it up for Jamil’s inspection, she asked if he had ever played the Russian roulette of library-book love.

Jamil blinked over a copy of Jericho Brown’s The Tradition. “Dreams like that can leave you bald,” he said in his quiet, liquid voice. “But you, my sweet Adison sonnet – you drive me to very hairy distraction.”

“I have seven pages to the end of this chapter,” Adison cooed.

“Five more poems,” Jamil bargained.

They returned to priority number one.