He opens the door, picks up a book from the cart by the door, a good book, a big, thick book, and walks a long circle of the small room, pausing at each compass point instinctively, despite the lack of arrows. He looks up, he looks down, he looks anywhere but at her, and finally he happens to be beside her, he happens to sit across an expanse of cushions in the broad window nook, he happens to be gazing at his book and not at her, oh no, and he is biting his lip raw. He is biting his lip and staring at the book and the clock is ticking and she has not looked up.
Five o'clock, six o'clock, seven and perhaps he should speak and the library closes at eight on Monday summer nights in August of that year but he has done as much as he is able in walking the room, in coming to this southwest compass point, in sitting here, where the breeze from the quiet vent carries with it her slightly musky scent mixed with the dust of old books. He has done all he can and turns the pages without ever noticing that the book is in Spanish and talks of un corazon that has shattered into a thousand pieces.
Seven fifteen. Thirty. Thirty-eight. Forty-seven, and the dry librarian calls out that it is time to check out books, that the library is closing, that it is over over over. And he does not move, he has stopped turning pages, and his lip is bleeding, just a little. Rosa looks up then, she looks up and smiles and asks, "Cafe?" and when he only clutches his book harder and stares at her she laughs. "Coffee, then." He laughs too, only half-comprehending, but they walk out the narrow white library doors together, leaving the books forgotten behind.