Word to the Wise

by Jenn McKinlay

  “I thought you might,” Emma said.

  “We have fifteen minutes until opening,” Ms. Cole said. She rose from her seat and gestured everyone toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  They all rose and headed back to work.

  “Lindsey, do you have a minute to talk now?” Emma asked.

  “She does,” Beth said. She gave Lindsey a look. “I’ll oversee opening. You need to get Emma up to speed.”

  “Thanks, I’ll be out as soon as I can,” Lindsey said. She gestured for Emma to sit down.

  The door shut behind her staff, and Lindsey took the chair beside Emma. She told her what had been happening with Aaron Grady, and Emma nodded, pursing her lips and raising her eyebrows at the weird text and the sight of Grady on the pier, watching Lindsey on Sully’s boat.

  “I feel like an idiot complaining about him, because he hasn’t threatened me,” Lindsey said. “But I just can’t shake the feeling that his interest in me is not normal.”

  “The flowers, showing up at your house, sending the text message while you were shopping for your wedding dress—assuming it was him—all indicate a fixation that isn’t welcome, whether there is a threat or not,” Emma said. “You were very direct with him that you didn’t appreciate his interest, so he backed off, but obviously, he isn’t getting it. I’ll have a talk with him and see if I can get a read on him and make it clear that he is to keep his distance.”

  Lindsey felt the tension inside of her uncoil. She wasn’t overreacting. Emma was going to step in. She felt better for the first time in days.

  “Thank you, I really appreciate that,” she said.

  “I want you to keep a log of everything he has said and done to make you uncomfortable,” Emma said. “If he shows up at the library with more flowers, if you get any weird texts, if you see him watching you or think he’s following you, write it down with the date and time,” Emma said. “We want to have a concrete record of harassment.”

  “Is it harassment, or is he just socially defective?” Lindsey asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Emma said. “If he’s making you uncomfortable, then it has to stop.”

  Lindsey nodded. She’d definitely feel better if she wasn’t looking over her shoulder all the time, waiting for Grady to spring out at her.

  “All right,” Lindsey said. “I’ll make a list.”

  * * *

  • • •

  It didn’t take very long to write down the dates and times of her interactions with Grady. In fact, when she was finished, she wondered whether she was overreacting. She felt somewhat stupid and silly, as if this was all a misunderstanding and she was being a drama queen, rejecting the offer of friendship from a person who was a little off.

  But then she thought about the text message when she was getting her wedding dress. She hadn’t recognized the number. She hadn’t been able to trace the number on her own, and Emma hadn’t gotten back to her about it either. She couldn’t think of anyone else who would send her a message like that. It was creepy and weird, and her gut told her that it was from Grady.

  Her morning was spent going over the schedule for the rest of the summer. Because they were a small library with limited full-time employees, they took turns working on the evenings that the library was open. Since it was summer, Lindsey had to factor in vacations and extra days off to be certain they had a full-timer in the building all the nights they were open. Because she, Beth and Ms. Cole were the senior employees, it was up to them to cover the extra nights when they were short staffed.

  She’d gotten through most of August’s calendar by the time she had to start her shift at the reference desk. She gathered the stack of library periodicals she planned to read—she was looking for some ideas to spark more outreach in the community—and headed out the door to the desk. It was midday, and Ann Marie was due for her lunch break.

  “I’m tagging in,” she said as she approached Ann Marie and a library patron. Valerie Cannata, who was one of Lindsey’s favorites, had recently taken up knitting. She mostly worked on scarves, which she called blankets for snakes, but she was looking to branch out into more challenging projects.

  “I can finish,” Ann Marie said.

  “Nah, I’ve got this,” Lindsey said. “Go have lunch.”

  “Yay, I’m starving,” Ann Marie said. “I follow an author online, and she frequently posts about bad breakfast choices, and today she had cherry pie. Ever since then, the cheesecake in my lunch has been calling my name. To heck with the ham sandwich.”

  “Life is uncertain—eat dessert first,” Valerie said.

  “Agreed,” Lindsey laughed.

  She took over the search and handed Valerie a slip of paper with the pertinent call numbers for knitting. She then walked her into the shelves to show her exactly where the books were. Once Valerie was immersed in the section, Lindsey returned to the desk. She sat down and did a visual sweep of the library.

  Ms. Cole was chatting with a patron at the checkout desk. Beth was wrangling kids in the children’s area, the local genealogical society had filled up one of the study rooms, and Paula was changing the bulletin board in the lobby.

  Notices for local yard sales, missing pets, neighborhood-watch meetings and so forth were posted every month, and Paula had taken it upon herself to be the liaison. It was a pretty straightforward process—take down the old and put up the new—but occasionally, it got interesting, such as the time Mike Willoughby had tried to sell Trevor Kendall’s lawn mower because he’d left it out in his front yard one too many times.

  “Just ask her, Leigh.”

  “I can’t, Sorayah. I’m too embarrassed.”

  Lindsey heard the whispered conversation behind her, but she didn’t turn around. She could tell by the high pitched voices that they were teenagers, and she figured they were talking about her, but she didn’t want to scare them off by appearing too eager to help. She waited until they got a little closer, and then she tried to engage them with her friendliest smile.

  “Hi, can I help you?” she asked. She was right. They were teenagers. If she had to guess, she’d place them at about fifteen, maybe sixteen. They were both brunette and dressed in shorts and sleeveless blouses.

  “No,” one said at the same time the other said, “Yes.”

  They stared at each other, and Lindsey waited. Finally, the staring contest ended, and one of the girls asked, “How can you look up if a person is who they say they are on the internet?”

  “You mean how do you verify their identity?” Lindsey asked.

  “Yes,” the other one said. “That.”

  “I suppose it depends upon what you know about them,” Lindsey said. “If you know their name and address, there are a million different ways to search for them.”

  “Leigh only has his first name and his handle.”

  “Handle?”

  “Yeah, you know, the handle he goes by on social media. He calls himself—”

  “Sorayah, shh.” Leigh glanced around the library. It was clear she didn’t want anyone to overhear this conversation. Sorayah rolled her eyes. Lindsey tried not to smile.

  “What do you know about him?” Lindsey asked.

  “His name is Josh, but his handle is PancakeBoy,” Leigh whispered. “Oh, and I have his picture.”

  “And you want to know if he’s legit?” Lindsey asked.

  “He’s been asking her out,” Sorayah said. “But he is way too hot to be interested in a high school sophomore.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Leigh said. She tossed her hair over her shoulder.

  “I’m trying to be a good friend,” Sorayah said. “I don’t want to see you abducted by some psycho who preys on teen girls.”

  “But he writes the nicest things,” Leigh said. “He says he loves my eyes and my smile.”

  “That is very sweet, but your friend is righ
t,” Lindsey said. “You can’t be too careful online. Without more information, the easiest way to discover whether Josh is for real is to do a reverse image search.”

  “You can do that?” Leigh asked.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty simple,” Lindsey said. She gestured for the two girls to look at her monitor. She opened up the free search for images, and then opened a second window. “Can you bring up his photo here? I’ll need to upload it into the search engine.”

  “Yeah,” Leigh said. She sounded reluctant, as if afraid that her dreams were about to be shattered.

  Lindsey moved aside so the teen could find his picture. When the girl brought up the photo, Lindsey had to school her features to keep from showing any emotion. But, dang, this was not the photo of a typical teen boy. Oh, he was definitely a teenager, but the picture looked like a professional model with tousled hair, chiseled features, and smoldering eyes. Lindsey had a feeling Sorayah was right. This guy was not what he seemed.

  From there it was a simple upload the image and click search. The browser did the hard work. In mere seconds, several matching pictures popped up. Lindsey clicked on the first one. It linked to a webpage that listed the boy in the picture as an Australian model. In fact, the picture “Josh” had used came right from an Australian magazine called Frankie. The model’s name was Bruce, not Josh, and he was nineteen and lived in Sydney.

  “I’m sorry, but it looks like Josh is not who he says he is,” she said.

  “I knew it,” Sorayah said. “Probably, the person chatting with you is some pervy old man who is just waiting to ask you for nude selfies.”

  Leigh looked as if she might be ill. “I should have known. Why would any guy who looked like that be interested in me?”

  “Hey,” Lindsey said. “Don’t think like that. I’m sure there are plenty of boys at school who would like you if you paid more attention to them instead of some stranger on the internet.”

  “Julian likes you,” Sorayah said. “He asked you to prom and was nice even when you said no.”

  “I’m an idiot,” Leigh said. She looked stricken. “I was so sure Josh was the one. I said no to Julian. So stupid!”

  “Believing in love doesn’t make you stupid,” Lindsey said. “It makes you an optimist. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s probably more likely to be real when it’s with a real person and not through a phone app, don’t you think?”

  Leigh nodded and Sorayah smiled. She threw her arm around her friend and said, “Come on—we must strategize your next play to get Julian to ask you out again.”

  “You’re right,” Leigh said. She glanced at the computer and studied the male model’s photo. “I’m sorry, Josh, but I’m just not that into you anymore.” She pulled out her phone and brought up “Josh’s” profile, then she deleted him. She glanced at her friend and said, “Onward.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Librarian,” Sorayah said.

  “You can call me Lindsey.”

  “Thank you, Lindsey,” Leigh said. She put her hand over her heart. “Truly, that could have been a catastrophe.”

  “My pleasure,” Lindsey said. She watched the two girls walk away with their heads pressed together as they plotted their next move. Not for the first time, she was so happy she wasn’t single anymore. It was just too much work.

  Lindsey opened her Library Journal and began to peruse the articles. She was halfway through a piece about community engagement when she had the peculiar sensation that someone was watching her. Dread thrummed through her. She didn’t look up. She didn’t want to know. She hoped desperately that she was wrong. She flipped the page in the magazine without reading the words.

  As she did, she lifted her head. Her gaze was caught by a man sitting at the table ten feet from her desk. He was holding a gardening magazine and looking over the top of it—at her. Lindsey didn’t have to do a double take to recognize Grady. He lowered the magazine and gave her a closed-lip smile. He looked perfectly normal, but Lindsey still felt a shiver ripple up her spine.

  She pulled out the list she’d kept of his weird behavior and added the date and time and the fact that he was just sitting there, staring at her. She thought about calling Emma, but was staring at someone a criminal offense? He hadn’t said anything or approached her, but he also wasn’t reading. He was staring. At her. She ignored him completely. It went on for an hour.

  When Ann Marie came back, Lindsey all but bolted from the service desk, seeking refuge in her office. She didn’t know why Grady was able to rattle her like this, but she felt uncomfortable in her own skin. She dropped her periodicals onto her desk and let out a pent-up breath. Surely, Grady didn’t think his behavior was okay. Should she have confronted him? She was going to have to. This was completely unacceptable.

  She sank into her office chair and glanced out her office window. Lindsey’s office had two large windows; one looked out over the workroom, and the other, the library. As she glanced at the book stacks, she saw Grady hauling a small table and a chair into the shelves. He turned them so that they faced her office, then he proceeded to sit and stare into her office.

  When she met his gaze, he gave her the same closed-lip smile, and she had the feeling there was some whole other scenario going on in his head, but she had no idea what it was. She didn’t know whether he meant her harm, whether he was just trying to harass her or whether he was completely unhinged behind his genial facade. It was unnerving with a pinch of terrifying.

  Lindsey picked up the phone and called Emma. She’d had enough. She wasn’t going to be nice anymore. When she explained what was happening, Emma interrupted.

  “I’ll be right there,” she said.

  Lindsey put down the phone, wondering whether she’d done the right thing. The introvert inside of her didn’t want to cause a scene. Then she caught a glimpse of Grady, who was still staring, and she knew that she’d been right to call Emma. Clearly, he needed a voice of authority louder than hers telling him to keep his distance, because he wasn’t listening.

  Emma was there within minutes, and Lindsey wondered whether she’d been waiting for a call. From her office, Lindsey saw Emma approach Grady. She sat on the corner of his desk and leaned in. She had the pose of someone who was relaxed, but as they spoke, Lindsey could see Grady get a mutinous look on his face. Emma shook her head. She gestured to the door, and Grady glowered at her.

  Lindsey glanced back down at her desk. She was feeling more and more on edge. Maybe she should have let it go. Maybe Grady would have gotten tired of watching her and just gone away. Then she thought about the text she’d received while shopping for her wedding dress. He wasn’t going to just go away.

  She reminded herself that she hadn’t done anything to cause this and whatever happened was because Grady wasn’t respecting the boundaries she’d set in place. What he was doing right now was straight-up creepy, and it had to be stopped. Feeling better, Lindsey tried to ignore what looked to be a heated exchange between Emma and Grady.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Emma stand with her arms crossed over her chest. Grady pushed back from the desk and stood, too. Then, with one last glare at Emma, he stalked away toward the front of the library. Emma followed him, and Lindsey folded her arms on her desk and put her head down with a sigh. Good. She hoped this would be the end of it.

  It wasn’t.

  * * *

  • • •

  Lindsey was going over the agenda of the next library board meeting with the president, Milton Duffy, in the main part of the library when Mayor Hensen and his right-hand man, Herb Gunderson, came into the building. The mayor was known for his politician’s thousand-watt smile, but at the moment, there was no sign of it. Not even a twitch of his lips.

  “Good afternoon, Mayor, Herb,” Lindsey greeted them.

  “A word, Lindsey,” Mayor Hensen said. He kept walking, not even slowing down, toward Lindsey’s of
fice. She gave Milton a wide-eyed look and followed the mayor into the back of the workroom, where her office was. She felt Ms. Cole watching, and she turned and shrugged with a wide-eyed expression. Ms. Cole, who was not a fan of the mayor, smiled.

  Once in the office, the mayor and Herb took the two seats across from her desk, and Lindsey sat down behind it.

  “Can I get you anything?” she offered. “Coffee, water, soda?”

  “No thank you,” Mayor Hensen said. Herb didn’t say anything, and Lindsey knew that the nature of their relationship meant that the mayor was answering for Herb as well.

  “We’re here to discuss a matter of concern brought to us by a resident of Briar Creek,” Herb said.

  Lindsey felt her heart sink. This was how they always began a discussion when someone wanted to ban a book. While the mayor and Herb tended to be more interested in placating the patron, Lindsey took a hard line on not banning books. Period.

  She straightened her back. If they tried to get rid of one of her paperbound babies, well, there was going to be a fight.

  “Mr. Aaron Grady stopped by my office and told us that he’d been banned from using the library by the chief of police,” Mayor Hensen said. “Is this true?”

  Lindsey felt her face get warm. She did not want to have to explain this situation to the mayor. It was awkward and embarrassing, and in a town where most of the department heads were male, she was afraid this was going to make her look weak and ineffectual. Her resentment spiked. She decided to stick to the facts.

  “I believe Chief Plewicki spoke to him about his inappropriate behavior,” Lindsey said. “Last I saw, she followed him out of the building, and I haven’t heard from her since. I expect she’ll be in touch to give me more details when she gets the chance. If she banned him from the building, that’s welcome news to me.”

  “What was inappropriate about his use of the library?” Herb asked.

  “At the time, he was sitting at a desk and staring at me,” she said.

  The two men exchanged a look.