Chapter 1: Hoppity

“Look both ways,” Alicia Ortega told her niece, Anne. “What does the light say?”

“Red means stop.” Actually, the cars had gone. Al would have crossed if by herself, but four was the wrong age to learn exceptions; Anne was still learning rules.

“Green means go,” Anne burst out, but she took her hand. When she got to the curb, Anne dropped her hand and went skipping ahead.

“Christopher Robin goes
“Hoppity, hoppity,” a guy a little ahead of them said,
“Hoppity, hoppity, hop.
“Whenever I tell him
“Politely to stop it, he
“Says he can’t possibly stop.

“If he stopped hopping,
“He couldn’t go anywhere,
“Poor little Christopher
“Couldn’t go anywhere
“That’s why he always goes
“Hoppity, hoppity,
“Hoppity,
“Hoppity,
“Hop.”

Actually, he was quite a cute guy. She’d been so intent on teaching traffic rules, she hadn’t even noticed. He was going to the library, too, and when Anne hit the button to open the door, he thanked her and waited for Al to go through first. There was a second set of doors with a second button, and he waited for Anne to operate that one, too. One of the many pleasures of dealing with Anne was that she felt gigantic. The guy returned her to her usual Lilliputian 5’ 1”.

“Good morning, Mr. Warren,” the librarian on the front desk greeted him, and he returned the greeting with the librarian’s name. Now, Al knew the last name of a cute guy, though apparently a bookworm. Maybe she should drop Anne’s books; he might help pick them up. She’d been in Chicago for nearly a month, and working at a preschool was not the best way to meet single men.

“Aunt Al!” Anne wanted to go on, and Al had stopped,

“Use your library voice, Anne,” Al said using hers. “First we have to return these books, and then we’ll look for some others.” Actually, she returned the books in the slot provided in the front desk. She didn’t push the remarkably generous limits the Chicago Library set for borrowing at one time. She got five books for Anne every two weeks. As far as the library was concerned, she had the next set out hours before the last set was checked in. On the other hand, they had spent ten minutes finding the books this morning. Only because she was certain that it was five were they not going to wrack up a fine.

She put the books through the slot, and Anne trotted over to their section. The guy she’d been mooning over disappeared up the stairs.

Once they got to the area set aside for preschoolers, Anne was diverted by the giant Legos. A kid was already playing with some, and his dad and Al agreed that they could share. The boy, Ralph, was not so certain, and Anne felt grabby herself. With two adults saying “share,” they decided that they both enjoyed piling them up and knocking them down. Deb had planned to go to the coin laundry, and Al had promised her that the expedition to the library would take at least an hour. She was quite happy that Anne was intrigued by something other than the books.

When Ralph, who’d already selected his books, went home, Anne found the blocks less interesting. They had started looking for more books when a guy said, “Ma’am, Miss Al?” It was the cute guy from the street.

“I’m Al.”

“I’m Craig. Thought you might be interested in the poem. Here.” He shoved a paper towards her, and she took it. “You can find anything on the Internet, though I wouldn’t try to print off Moby Dick at library rates.”

“I’ll...” She reached in her purse.

“That’s not Moby Dick. I can afford one page.” He turned away. She watched him cut around the tables to shelves on the other side of the room. He bent down and started to pull books off the shelf and look at them.

“Aunt Al!” Anne said again.

“I’m right here. Mommy doesn’t need to hear that.”

“You’re right there, but you’re not looking.” So Al paid attention. Anne found six books that she wanted, and Al explained that they were only going to take five. Which one did she want to read here?

Craig Warren had actually noticed the little girl first. She was definitely hopping, and she reminded him of the poem. He noticed that the mom was pretty, but the prettiness of moms was something that bachelors should pretend to ignore. Then, the girl called her, “Aunt Al.” Anyway, he’d already offered the two of them the poem. He let his books go for a minute to head up to the adult computers. Nobody was at the express computer, and he needed only a few minutes to find the poem and send it to the printers downstairs. He normally used his own computer for printing, since the library charged 15 cents per page, but he went through the line, deposited a buck in case he might need to use the printers again, and got his page printed off.

He handed the poem, properly credited to Milne, to the aunt. Suddenly, he felt like a stalker, and he fled to the ‘hold’ shelves.

The woman was pretty, a short girl with a trim figure and gorgeous red hair. He’d never see her again, probably, but she also looked competent. She was managing a young kid, and that took some managing.

He had exhausted the Edgewater branch’s holdings of detective fiction, minus the books that looked not worth reading, in the past two years. He ordered two novels from other branches each Saturday, but they came in bunches. This time, he got four.

“One in and four out,” he said to Liz at the desk. “It never rains but it pours.”

He had been far from a social star in college -- track had barely registered as a sport on coed radar -- but he had relationships most of the time.

And, when he lacked a relationship, the campus had presented him with a huge selection of opportunities for seeking one. There were dances to which you could go stag. He attended classes after which you could strike up a conversation. There were food halls in which you could ask a girl sitting alone at a table if the seat next to her was taken. It often was, but it was polite to ask.

He even had women friends -- and the dates of men friends -- who would introduce him to girls who were looking.

The job he’d taken in Chicago was at a company which, despite a policy already in place against office romances, had a sexual-harassment scandal that broke in his first month there. He’d not been involved, had not even been employed when the harassment occurred, but he’d been put through training. He should not even tell a woman that she was pretty.

He now knew fewer than a tenth of the number of women he’d known three years and two months ago, and these were mostly older than he was. He couldn’t discuss his social life with any.

Now, he’d just met -- well almost met -- a pretty girl -- “woman” he told himself; even in college, they liked to be called women -- and she thought him a stalker.

Al walked Anne home. Al walked and, except when crossing streets, Anne skipped. That made her think of the poem, and the poem made her think of the guy. She’d thought for a minute that he’d expected her to pay for the printing. She really shouldn’t have been required; it hadn’t been her idea. But he hadn’t wanted her to, and the offer had driven him away. Well, what did she expect? The guy had been a fan of Anne’s, and adults who reacted to cute kids had to be very careful. She worked in a preschool, and she knew the rules.

If he’d put his name and phone number on the sheet, she would not have called him. She knew his name, Craig Warren. He knew her as Al. She was not going to look in the phone directory for him, and there was no way he could find her.

“Darling!” Deb said when they got to her apartment. She gave Anne a big hug. “Thanks, Al.”

That expressed Deb’s situation perfectly. She loved her daughter, passionately and unconditionally; she was very grateful to have her out of her hair for an hour of daylight. Well, Al loved her niece, too, and was happy to have her company for an hour.

The other reason for taking Anne to the library was that Al didn’t think that she had sufficient exposure to books. If Anne had fresh books in the house every other week, she would ask her mom to read them to her. Asked, Deb usually did what Anne wanted, too often in the case of sweet juice and snack food. Then too, saying that Anne asked was euphemistic; when Anne wanted something, she demanded.

“And, in addition to the books that have to go back,” she told Deb, “a guy gave Anne a poem you can read to her and enjoy yourself.” She handed it to Deb, but she’d used a word that Deb thought more important than any writing.

“Guy! What sort of guy?”

“Interesting sort of guy. Maybe your age -- maybe mine. Name’s Craig, and it fit. Craggy face and tall build.”

“Well, if you’re not interested,” Deb said, “toss him my way. A guy who’d like Anne sounds a hell of a lot better than Pete.” Al thought that Attila the Hun would be a lot better than Pete, even rotting in his grave for millennia. How Pete could be uninterested in his daughter she couldn’t understand, but Anne was very lucky that he was. Deb got child support out of Pete’s earnings, but only when Pete was employed.

“Well, that’s damning with faint praise, and thinking she’s cute skipping down the street is different than 24-7. Besides, I can’t toss him your way. I gave you everything I have of his.”

“You’re too picky ... Okay, I wasn’t picky enough. Still, there is a middle ground. How are you going to get married if you keep holding out for mister perfect?”

Al despaired for Anne’s future if that was the advice she’d get in a decade. “First of all, I don’t want to get married. Wanting to get married leads to Pete and Mom’s guys. Second, I’m not holding out for mister perfect. I dated in school. Dating is great; it’s marriage which traps you.”

“Whatever happened to that Ken guy? I thought that was leading somewhere.”

“He thought so too. Maybe it was. But he tried to force me. We were making out, and I was stark. Had to knee him to get him to stop.”

“So, at 22, you’ve never? Have you taken a vow?”

“Taken a vow to stay on the Pill,” Al said. Anne was running around madly, but one never knew what a toddler could hear. She was willing to explain contraception and the advantages of getting the pleasures of sex without the consequences to Anne, but not -- please -- for another decade.

Deb went to take the clothes out of the dryer, and Al read to Anne. She started with the poem that Anne had been given.

“Craig gave this to you,” she said.

“Cray!”

That night, as every night, Craig browsed the Internet for arousing pictures. He took himself off in front of the toilet. This night, though, memories of the aunt in the library -- fully clothed -- interfered with the memories of the women on line. Since the effect was the same, he kept those images before him.

Well, he’d probably never see her again. On the other hand, she went to Edgewater Branch Library on Saturdays; so did he. That toddler hadn’t walked far. Well, she hadn’t skipped far. They might come back the next week. And he had the precise -- much more precise than he needed -- time he’d checked out the book on the slip he was using as a bookmark.

He’d heard the kid asking questions, and that reminded him of another poem.

Sunday morning after his run, he looked up and printed out Kipling’s poem about six honest serving men. He also noted the time he’d checked out his books and subtracted an approximation of the time he’d spent before hand. Then he took his current book to the beach to read.

The next Saturday, he returned three of his books to the library. He checked out the children’s section, and neither Anne nor Aunt Al was there. He went outside and walked up and down the street watching for them. Hell! She had thought he was a stalker, and now he was proving her right.

When he went in to find his books, none had come. He had one half read, and he browsed the fiction -- a different category than mystery -- shelves until he found one that looked interesting. He checked it out, looked again at the children’s section, and went slowly home walking the block from which the two had come before turning. The nice thing about the Chicago grid is that you can take another path without really going a detour -- it’s the same length.

Since he wasn’t going to ever see her again, anyway, he was feeding an illusion. To feed it further, he figured what date he would ask her to if he ever saw her again which he wouldn’t. He sure couldn’t invite her to the next dance on campus. Well, he’d noticed the store-front theaters in the neighborhood. He’d check out the times on one.

Al visited Deb again. Deb only did laundry every other week. She was a barkeep, Al was always careful to say “waitress,” on the late shift. She paid a neighbor with her own kids to have Anne sleep in her apartment while she worked. The coin laundry, however, was closed those hours. Anne found all her books, and they set off. The same guy, Craig, met them on their way.

“Good morning,” he said. “Did you like the Hoppity poem?”

“Hoppity, hoppity, hoppity,” said Anne. She jumped to illustrate what she meant. Well, being Anne, she jumped because the idea of jumping had occurred to her. Since she was safe on the sidewalk, Al was perfectly happy for her to get her exercise before going into the library.

“I have another poem for you,” he said. He whipped off his back pack and pulled out a folder. “You like to ask questions, don’t you?”

As she took the poem, Al’s danger antennae were quivering. Running off a poem right after quoting it, and quoting a poem when the kid was exemplifying it could be called normal. Well, how many people had kids’ poems by heart? But, for one who did, quoting it was probably normal. Looking up a poem when the kid was gone and printing it off when you had little chance of seeing her again was entering creepy territory. “Entering”? It was miles inside creepy, bordering on pedophile.

“Look,” the guy continued, “I don’t know whether you like the theaters in the neighborhood, but there’s a play with great reviews playing down on Bryn Mawr. Would you like to see it? See it with me, I mean.”

She breathed again. The guy was trying to pick her up. Anne was only a means to an end. Well, lots of guys tried to pick her up, and she could deal with it. Anne was not in danger.

And the guy looked interesting. He liked to read, and he liked kids, two pluses for him. Then, too, while lots of guys had asked her out on dates, none had in Chicago. Most of the guys you met working in a preschool were married.

“Sounds interesting,” she said.

“Can we say next Friday? I have details, but your niece is anxious to get her books. Let’s exchange cell numbers, and we can fix the details later.”

“Sure.” The guy walked her into the library, though, and thanked Anne prettily for opening the door. A few minutes after they were in the children’s section, he joined them and pointed out the books by Milne, the author of the first poem. He asked when was a good time to call, and she told him. He left them alone after that.

As he hadn’t specified the day, she had chosen a time when a call would be welcome any day of the week. Craig called that evening, though.