I've had minor relationships here and there, most of them don't mean much. Probably more in the category of infatuation than love. But there was an incident, I was probably 22. It was after my first series of cases, the same year I made Detective with ACME.
I needed some time off.
At the library, in the old ACME building, there used to be a corner most people miss. It was between two pillars and behind a well-placed bookshelf. Contractors may have meant for something like servers to be hidden in that nook but never quite completed the walls.
Right, so I figured I could sleep there between briefings. But as I was laying down, I saw this book, Niccolò Machiavelli's Il Principe in Italian, tucked behind the shelf. It looked at first like part of some forgotten décor.
Inside this book, someone had made penciled notes in English and Italian on the sides, all over. Every page had something.
There was no recent library stamp, the last time this book had been checked out was over ten years ago. So instead of leaving it alone, which would probably have been wiser, I tore paper from my notepad and left a notice in the book. I told the vandal that this was a valuable book, he'd do well to not write all over it like some amateur, and that I expected to see this book returned to its proper location by next week. I may have added something about one of the scribbles being misconstrued. Then I put it back behind the shelf.
Next week came and I found that book exactly where I left it. This time, when I opened it up, instead of my notepad paper was a lengthy letter, typed out. The vandal wrote that I had assumed incorrectly that she was a he, that by calling her a vandal, I had also incorrectly grouped her with an East Germanic tribe, and proceeded to lecture me on lecturing her about the value of this book. It wasn't my business, she made this clear, how anyone learned.
I wrote back, penning the flipside of her letter arguing my case.
A few days later, I found another typed reply. She translated a section from the book, illustrating the irony of us arguing over an account of Cesare Borgia.
I wrote back, because she was right. We began discussing random things between the pages of a political treatise; sometimes a few days in between, other times a few weeks.
Those brief, limited interactions consistently made my day. I wasn't immune, I did want to ask who she was, or if we could meet beyond the pages, but to add that to these cerebral letters seemed out of place. There was a side of me that didn't want to solve it, I was solving enough things already. I didn't think she cared who I was, either.
About eight months in, as mysteriously as the exchanges began, it ended.
The book was gone.
I asked around, nobody had seen anything. Some years later, I bought a copy of Il Principe during a trip to Florence and donated it to the library in the new Accolade Tower. Figured it was good closure.
