mrs. kemp

There was a lady in the library I went to as a kid. Mrs. Kemp. She had pale red hair that looked like it might have been colored over its natural shade, to blend something out, maybe whites or grays, or maybe hadn’t. My grandfather was a barber and my grandmother was a beautician so maybe as a kid I noticed things like that that other kids didn’t. Or, maybe I just noticed things like that that other kids didn’t.

She had a pretty face with a pointed chin and light skin that showed the moments when she used to have freckles, and bright blue eyes that had very light lines around them that sometimes might have been worry lines but when she looked at you were smile lines. And she always smiled when she looked at me. Not just with her mouth. With her eyes. She could be reading a book or doing something on a ledger or whatever was probably important to her job but if I showed up in front of her desk, she would look up and her eyes smiled. And it felt like I was more important than anything else in the world.

Mrs. Kemp always wore nice clothes. Pretty blouses in pale colors with small spatterings of patterns on them and, discreet collar lines.

Mrs. Kemp always held a pen or pencil just so. Which is a funny thing to remember about a person. But it is something I remember about Mrs. Kemp. That when she was holding a pen or pencil, she held it just so. I wonder if she took speed reading classes. They teach speed readers to hold pens and pencils just so.

I spent a lot of time in the library as a kid. Trucking in and trucking out with my stacks of books. I read them all. 

(One time selling off books before an interstate move, I was pulling books out of boxes at a book store giving sort of a logline for each book and the woman behind the counter said, Wait, you read all of these? And I said, Well, yeah, of course. And she looked nonplussed. Which felt odd to me. Why would she think I owned and was selling off books I hadn’t read? But also it was 100 books plus. Hmm.)

(Once upon a time, I owned 1,000 pounds of books. I know that because that is what the movers told me. Ten interstate moves later? I own an iPad and two file boxes of books. One of the survivors is “Cinderella’s Revenge.” It’s a pictorial of the coolest shoes ever created. Yay!)

(I will never ever box and carry a thousand pounds of books again ever in this lifetime.)

Mrs. Kemp always held her pencil or pen just so. And she was always dressed just so. And her hair, though I wondered about the color, exactly? Was always just so.

But you know what was not just so? 

The way her eyes smiled at me every time I planted myself in front of her desk. 

I was a stringy kid. Thin enough to fall down a shower drain. Angry enough to start a revolution. Dressed in rags that were a mix between Paris France and Paris Texas — and all of that worn.

I was a nice kid. But, I had problems.

Mrs. Kemp didn’t care about stringy or thin or angry or problems. Mrs. Kemp was just kind and liked that I was there for books and she was going to find the best books for me in the world.

To this day I love Mrs. Kemp.