Her eyes darted to the window I had just closed and then back to me, and she nodded. She knew. And she wasn’t mad. I nodded back to her, and then she stepped away.
I filled a few empty display stands with picture books, straightened the puppets on their rack, and then went back to the main room.
And that’s when I saw Wally’s flower. The red carnation. The water had been changed.
“We should get a better vase,” Beverly said quietly from behind me.
“Yes,” I agreed, “we should.”
But then I changed my mind. “Or not, actually. I think I like that little glass jar. It’s so . . .”
Beverly finished my thought for me. “Wally?”
“Yes,” I said, and I couldn’t help smiling. “It’s so exactly Wally.”
“You were a great help yesterday, with everything. Thank you for that,” Beverly told me.
“Sure.” It felt weird to accept a thank-you when all I did was react. I didn’t think at all; I just did.
And we still lost him.
“You could have taken today off, if you wanted to.”
“I’d rather be here,” I said.
Beverly nodded in shared understanding. “Yes, well, me too.” She smoothed down the sides of her khaki pants with her hands, then clasped them in front of her. “I wanted you to know that I received a call from a patron’s mother. A Mrs. Gabrielle Evans. She wanted to pass on her gratitude at how the library staff handled her daughter.”
“Trina?” I asked.
“Yes, Trina.” Beverly nodded. “I told Mrs. Evans that it was all you, that you took it upon yourself to help her daughter.”
“What’d she say?” I shouldn’t have asked but couldn’t help it. I was sure Mrs. Evans had despised me from the moment she learned I was the one who’d planted the book on Trey.
“She sounded very grateful, Jamie. She said she’d be sending a card to the library to personally thank you.”
“She’s going to thank the boy-crazy kid who put her son in the middle of a cheating scandal?”
“No, Jamie.” Beverly shook her head at me. “She’s going to thank the compassionate kid who helped her daughter through a traumatic experience.”
When she said it like that, it did sound pretty impressive.
Beverly placed her hand on my shoulder and declared, “‘To err is human, to forgive, divine.’”
“You got that from the chair,” I called her out, looking across the library toward Black Hat Guy’s special seat, empty and waiting for him.
“Well, the chair got it from a writer named Alexander Pope,” Beverly replied, “but we’ll have to save our discussion of eighteenth-century poets for a later date. There’s a lot to catch up on today.”
She gave my shoulder a light squeeze, then walked away, smiling and nodding at several patrons on her way back to her office.
My chest filled with a tingly lightness as I walked to the circulation desk. This was the exact opposite, in every possible way, of how I’d felt the day I was called out of the lunchroom and into the principal’s office back in May.
Lenny and Sonia worked side by side at the circ desk, small Sonia with her usual cup of coffee and contagious energy, and tall Lenny with his shaggy gray ponytail and easygoing nature.
I arranged the newspapers, straightened the magazines, and then went outside to hit the book drops. I grabbed two bags but knew it would still be several trips, since I hadn’t checked them at all yesterday.
As I rounded the library and reached the back, I saw a bright red cardinal on top of the audiobook drop. He was round with a full belly, red as Wally’s carnation, and repeated his whistle-call several times. I could see the tiny muscles move in his neck and ripple down his feathered chest as he sang.
Shady was there too, curled up between the two book drops in the shade, head lifted and nose sniffing at the air. He clomped out of his space, climbed his front legs partway up the side of the container, and barked one loud, short, flat bark.
The cardinal took off.
I watched it cross the parking lot in the air and disappear behind another building. Shady watched it fly away, too, barking a few more good riddance yips as it went.
“Very friendly of you, Shady.” I shook my head at him.
Shady trotted over to me and lifted his front paws up onto my legs. I let him sniff my library bags while I scratched him under his chin.
Shady looked different. His eyes were shiny and his fur was clean and smooth, detangled and brushed free of all the grit and dirt that usually clung to him. There was a lumpy cloth bed shoved deep between the drops, right where they backed up to the dogwood bushes. It was black and soft and was already dusted with a fine layer of Shady fur. One of his food bowls was licked clean and the other was full of water.
“Looks like the dog fairy has been visiting you,” I told him, rubbing his back and side. He rolled over when I got to his hip, and his leg started pedaling furiously in the air as I scratched the same spot over and over.
“Well, that’s just embarrassing,” I told him. I scratched him another full minute and then patted his head. “All done now. I’ve got to empty these things. I’ll check on you again later today.”
It took three trips to empty the drops, and each time I came back, Shady looked up at me, practically smiled, and watched me work until I stepped away again.
Back inside, Sonia checked in the items and then passed them to me to double-check.
When the phone rang, she gestured at me to answer it.
It was a reporter from the Biweekly. They wanted an interview with Beverly about yesterday’s incident. I winced at the word incident. How could they sum up a person, a Wally, and his forever death, as an incident? I put the reporter on hold.
“Sonia, it’s someone from the paper. They want to talk to Beverly. How do I transfer the call?”
“Oh, no, Jamie. Don’t transfer it. I’ll take it,” she said quickly, and reached for the phone.
“But they asked for the director,” I said.
“No, I’ll do it. She shouldn’t have to.” Sonia was sure. “Not about this.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s”—she searched for words—“it’s too hard for her.”
“Because of Wally?”
“No, Jamie.” She looked like she was done, but then decided to tell me, “Because of her sister.”
I shook my head, still gripping the receiver against my chest. “I don’t understand.”
“Let me take the call and I’ll explain after,” Sonia said, reaching for the phone again.
“No. It’s just a reporter. She can wait. What’s going on with her sister?” I demanded, my voice shaking the tiniest bit.
“Beverly lost her sister. Years ago. Unexpectedly.”
My mouth fell open, slowly at first, then all at once.
“It was a car accident, when they were younger. The accident was covered in all the papers and it was on the news and Beverly was hounded by reporters with tons of questions and, I don’t know, it was really terrible for her. She won’t even talk about it.”
The sister she played library with, the sister I’d asked about being a librarian now.
“How do you know—”
“Lenny, of course. At some point she told Lenny.”
Everyone talks to Lenny, I heard in my head.
“She didn’t tell him much. He looked it up after and found the articles. The reporters were relentless with Beverly. There was even an editorial about that, about how some of them mistreated her just to get their scoop.”
I let my body drop onto the stool behind me. “She used to play library with her sister, when they were little,” I said. The image of it filled my head: the tea table, the rows of books, the stamp with no ink.
Sonia seemed to be picturing it, too. Then she told me, “They were walking home together and a car came right up onto the sidewalk and hit her. That was it. If it had been another foot over, Beverly would have
been hit, too.”
“But why?” I asked, unwilling to accept that explanation. “How?”
“A DUI.”
“Driving under the influence?”
“Yes,” Sonia said, anger and despair both tied up in that one word. “Drunk driver.”
“Oh my God.”
“So I’ll take the call for her. I can at least do that,” Sonia said.
Her very own sister.
Standing right next to her.
I handed Sonia the phone. She held her hand over the mouthpiece and took a deep breath.
“I can’t believe it,” I said to myself. Poor Beverly. No wonder she’d gone pale when I’d asked if her sister was a librarian like her.
My shoulders drooped even more and I stared at the square tiles on the floor. They were one foot wide. One foot more this way, I thought, and Beverly would have been hurt, too, maybe killed. Two feet more that way, and maybe her sister would still be here today. Such a small amount of space making such a big difference—it was mind-blowing to think about.
“That’s beyond sad,” I said, looking at Sonia, my eyes pleading. I wanted her to say something, anything, to make me feel better.
But she didn’t.
“Sad doesn’t even begin to cover it,” she answered. Then she took the reporter’s call.
Black Hat Guy
I couldn’t help but stare when Black Hat Guy bounced into the library that afternoon at exactly 4:05. It was because I could see skin.
His heavy black sweatshirt was gone. He wore his same winter hat and rugged jeans, but his top half was draped in a baggy peach-colored T-shirt.
And I was pretty sure I knew where his sweatshirt had gone.
Black Hat Guy walked right back to the nonfiction stacks, found his dog book, and returned to his chair. He plugged in his phone, pulled a pen and a small spiral notebook out of his backpack, opened his book, and began reading.
Sonia was working the circ desk. She was off today, fidgety in a weird way. She had already dropped a home decorating book, which was so heavy it practically sounded like thunder when it hit the ground. She also dropped a DVD case, which opened on impact and sent the silver disc rolling in circles on the floor. She used her foot to stop it, clamping it with her wedge espadrille like a bug you wanted to trap but not squish all over the bottom of your shoe.
Sonia was a wreck because Beverly was meeting with Mayor Trippley at town hall, presenting our case to keep the library. Beverly had done her research and was very prepared. I knew because she practiced her speech on Lenny and me. She showed us charts of services provided and graphs of patron traffic by the hour, and even a list of other possible ways to address town budget issues.
Beverly was on Operation Save Library, and I knew she would succeed.
I guessed Sonia wasn’t so sure, though.
I guessed Sonia was stuck thinking about what would happen if Beverly didn’t succeed, about what would happen if the library disappeared.
This library was everything to Sonia. She had started volunteering at the library when she was my age—because she wanted to, not because she had to. Then she started officially working at the library the day she turned sixteen and had been here ever since. Sonia knew the library like it was an extension of her own body. She knew every warped floorboard, every dent in the plaster walls, every book on the shelves. Sonia knew which bangs and clanks in the pipes could be ignored and which required a call to the plumber. Losing the library would be like losing a part of herself.
No wonder she was so nervous.
I looked over at Black Hat Guy resting in his special chair, charging his phone. Where would he go every afternoon if the library wasn’t here for him?
And what about the people who came every day to use our computers and printer because they didn’t have their own? What about all the parents and kids who came here for books and movies they wouldn’t have access to otherwise?
And what would have happened to Wally? If he hadn’t been at the library that Tuesday, would he have been home, alone, collapsed on the floor, for hours, maybe days, before someone found him?
I shook that thought out of my head.
Beverly was probably wrapping up her presentation at this exact moment, shaking the mayor’s hand and thanking him for his willingness to do the right thing for the people of Foxfield. Beverly would save the library.
She had to.
The phone rang, and when Sonia reached to answer it, she knocked the receiver off the cradle and onto the floor.
“Dios mío,” Sonia cried under her breath.
Lenny swooped in and scooped the phone off the floor, took the call, and then directed Sonia downstairs for a break.
“There’s a fresh pot of coffee, decaf coffee, brewing right now,” he told her, his hands on her shoulders, “and some pretty spectacular chia-seed bars on the staff table waiting for you to try.”
Sonia looked at him and let out a deep breath.
“Go ahead,” Lenny encouraged her. “Take as long as you need. Jamie and I have everything covered up here, don’t we, J?”
“Yep, we’ve got it,” I told Sonia, and I smiled extra big to convince her.
Lenny manned the circ desk and I found myself drawn back to the bulletin board. I had just cleaned it but it was somehow a mess again, all the current notices I had hung in orderly rows covered by crookedly slapped-on papers: a violin performance at a nearby church, an open-mic night at a coffee shop, an advertisement for personal training, an apartment for rent.
And this: Animal Welfare Organization seeking volunteers.
I read the flyer.
The Animal Welfare Organization had a shelter a few miles away and was looking for people to help socialize the animals. Cats needed to be played with, brushed, and handled. Dogs needed to be groomed, walked, and taught basic commands. The AWO would offer free training in exchange for a commitment of eight hours per week of volunteer service.
I pulled the flyer off the board, folded it in half, and tucked it under my arm while I cleared out the rest of the unapproved junk on the wall. When I was finished, I saw Black Hat Guy’s chair empty, the book, notebook, and phone all waiting for his return. Probably a bathroom break.
Before I even thought it through all the way, I walked over to his chair and slid the folded paper inside his dog book, right where the pen was holding his page.
I took half a minute then to act like I was searching the bookshelf directly behind his chair, just for cover, then stepped away.
The bells jingled.
“Good afternoon, Jim,” Lenny greeted the mailman as he hoisted a thick stack of mail onto the counter.
“How you doing, Lenny?” Jim answered back.
“Good, Jim. It’s all good.” Lenny offered his regular fist-bump move, and Jim met it with his right fist. “Just these going out today.” Lenny handed him a few envelopes.
“All right.” Jim stashed them into the bag strapped diagonally across his chest. “Have a good one,” he said, and the bells jingled behind him as the door closed.
“Now that’s a job I would really love,” Lenny confided.
“Mailman?” I asked.
“Yep. If I got a walking town, I mean. I wouldn’t want to spend my day in a truck driving house to house, but if I could be on foot . . .” Lenny’s face got all dreamy. “Outside all day, breathing fresh air, getting exercise, seeing different people all day long.”
“What about when it’s freezing out? Or hailing and windy? That doesn’t sound so great to me,” I pointed out.
“If it’s cold, you dress for it. Rain? Dress for it. There’s gear for weather. That’s not hard. Not a problem at all.”
“You know what?” I could easily picture him in uniform, walking the sidewalks, house to house, shop to shop, delivering mail. “I could totally see you as a mailman.”
“Me too. Totally.” Lenny shrugged his shoulders back and straightened his posture to his towering height.
“Excep
t you’d never finish your route,” I added.
“What?”
“You would stop to talk to everybody and make a million friends. Everyone would wait for you by their mailbox and hit you with all their problems and invite you in for tea and you’d never get your route done. Ever. That would be your every day. Because you’re so easy to talk to.”
“Oh, stop with the flattery.” Lenny fake-shoved me away, acting bashful.
“It’s true and you know it.” I fake-shoved him back.
“Yeah.” He dropped his shoulders and let out a dramatic sigh. “You’re right. I’d be the worst mailman ever. Fired my first week. Scratch that idea.”
“It’s scratched. Besides, the library needs you more.” I grinned at him.
“You’re a peach, Jamie, you know that? A fresh organic peach,” Lenny said. “Speaking of which, those chia-seed bars downstairs have organic peach in them, and peach nectar. You gotta try them. They’re great. You have to like cinnamon, though. I misread ‘teaspoon’ as ‘tablespoon.’”
“Oh God.”
“It’s okay. Cinnamon is good for you. It’s medicinal.”
Black Hat Guy returned to his chair then. He found the flyer inside his book, looked up and scanned the room in confusion, and then bent down over the paper and read it.
I watched him from the circ desk, peeking from behind a magazine I held in front of my face as cover.
“Very discreet,” Lenny said under his breath, like he was not at all impressed with my undercover skills.
I would be as good a spy as Lenny would a mailman.
Then the bells jingled again and Beverly was there.
And she wasn’t smiling.
“Where’s the petition, Lenny?” she asked without even saying hello.
“I have it. Downstairs. In my bag,” Lenny answered like a kid in trouble.
“Go get it,” she ordered, then softened her voice a bit and added, “Please. We need it. Now.”
Sonia hurried up the stairs then, not looking any more relaxed than she had when she went down. “What happened?” she asked Beverly.
“He didn’t buy it. Trippley didn’t buy any of it. Repairing this building is too expensive. Cutting the library solves his problem perfectly.”
A Kind of Paradise Page 14
