Read on Arrival

by Nora Page

  Amy-Ray wiped her eyes. “I see why Dixie had such fun with this, but I don’t have time for it.” She yanked the book from its companions and tossed it at Cleo. “Enjoy! Consider it a gift from Dixie.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Back in the safety of her car, Cleo opened the book with a shaky hand. A station wagon pulled into the Healing Hands lot and parked beside them. Its door slammed and locks beeped. Rush-hour traffic rumbled by on the street. Cleo opened the front cover, looking for the bookplate. The Catalpa Springs Public Library marked all its books with a pretty sticker, a woodblock print of the library with its name and founding date forming the border.

  No bookplate.

  Cleo turned to the cover. No barcode. She checked the back inside cover. No checkout slip either. Dixie had checked out Luck and Lore when due dates were stamped on a card tucked in a paper sleeve. The borrower’s name was written in too. Now a machine spit out return slips that looked like supermarket receipts, and privacy concerns wouldn’t allow patron identities and reading tastes on full display.

  “This isn’t it,” Cleo said, disappointment overpowering her earlier fear that they’d met a killer. “It’s not the library’s copy.”

  “It’s interesting that Amy-Ray has this book,” Henry said, ever looking on the bright side.

  Cleo flipped pages. At the title page, she stopped and read an inscription in red ink. “To Amy-Ray. Good luck. Dixie.”

  “Not exactly maternal and gushy,” Henry said, “but Dixie clearly valued the book and wanted her daughter to have a copy.”

  Unseemly vexation welled in Cleo. “Dixie went out and bought this copy, didn’t she? She had enough money to buy books. Oh, I suppose I should be happy. At least she didn’t steal it from another library.”

  Henry politely shifted the conversation. “I’ll be interested to read it, to see what made this such a treasure.”

  Cleo handed it to him with a huff and started her car. “I still think it’s more about how Dixie got her copy. She said her luck turned the day she checked it out, the day she stole my birthday wishes. If she’d truly wanted her daughter to have good luck, she should have given Amy-Ray the library’s copy.”

  “Amy-Ray seems to be all about winning too,” Henry said, stroking his beard.

  Cleo pondered that as her engine hummed. “Amy-Ray said it wouldn’t be as ‘fun’ to win the family home without Dixie there. But those two never got along, by all accounts. What if Amy-Ray realized she’d have more fun without her mother in the house? Everyone in town and her brother too would still know that she’d been victorious.”

  They both peered out toward Healing Hands. A figure in pale lavender scrubs watched from the front window. Amy-Ray saw them looking and waved.

  Henry automatically waved back. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  Cleo was more than happy to. She pulled into the busy street, intending to go back the way they’d come. She found herself in the wrong lane at a turn. She quickly decided it might be the right lane after all. “Won’t this street take us past the Claymore Library? I suppose we should stop in so I can see what Belle’s been up to over here.”

  Henry closed Luck and Lore and shifted uneasily. “If we must,” he said grimly. “But if Belle is there, I’m bolting. She’s been calling me, leaving messages, wanting me to come over and help her pick out more books to discard. I cannot be a part of book tossing!”

  Cleo felt a teenage glee that sweet, sensible Henry hadn’t succumbed to Belle’s sway like Mercer and her library board. She parked on the street in front of the library, allowing for easy fleeing if necessary. She scanned their surroundings but saw no sign of a red truck, mini-pony, disco bookmobile, or flirty innobrarian.

  As they walked up the steps, Cleo made sure to appreciate the good points of the Claymore Library. It was sturdy. A sign confirmed this, marking the seventies-era cement-block structure as an emergency hurricane and tornado shelter. Cleo thought she’d enjoy riding out a storm in a library. Books were an essential element of her emergency kit, along with nonperishables, cat food, flashlights, and batteries.

  They entered through glass doors, and Cleo revised her earlier thoughts. A storm had swept through the Claymore Library, a Belle disaster. “Good gracious!” Cleo blinked into a bright, empty gleam. The last time she’d visited—maybe a year ago—bookshelves had filled the front room. She’d been a smidge envious of the many display spaces.

  Nothing remained except a single pedestal holding a lone book. Cleo approached tentatively, feeling unsteady from the emptiness and the white marble tile, as glossy as oiled ice.

  “What is this book?” she murmured. It was thick and cracked open. If Belle wanted to create a sense of anticipation, she’d achieved it.

  “Wait until you see,” Henry said darkly. “I won’t give away the surprise.”

  Cleo suspected she wasn’t going to like the surprise. She peered down at the book before drawing back with a puff of disgust. “It’s a fake!”

  The mock book was wooden and hollowed out to reveal a tablet, the electronic kind, flashing images of books. Cleo sighed. “You did try to warn me.”

  “I didn’t want to go into disturbing detail,” Henry said, looking around. “Besides, you have to experience it.”

  A weary voice affirmed Henry’s statement before Cleo could. “You certainly do.”

  Cleo looked up to see Sara Martinez, fellow librarian. Sara was in her late fifties, a usually cheerful woman, well rounded in her reading and her figure, with a healthy sense of humor and a bubbly nature. She seemed deflated today. Cleo could understand why.

  “Sara,” Cleo said, down-pitching her tone to funereal. “I am so sorry.” She didn’t need to elaborate about what.

  Her fellow librarian looked warily over her shoulders. “You will be, Cleo. I hear she’s coming for you next.” She lowered her voice. “We need to talk, but not here.”

  Cleo had already seen enough of here. She and Henry followed Sara to her office, a closet-like space with a view of the back parking lot, a massive air conditioner, and ventilation pipes. Sara had made the space cozy with framed photographs of magnificent libraries, cathedrals of books from all over the world.

  Sara closed the door behind them and offered them seats. Cleo and Henry sat with their knees touching each other and bumping Sara’s desk. Sara kept her voice low. “I should apologize to you, Cleo. Our director sent a glowing recommendation letter for Belle Beauchamp to your library board. I tried to get her to tone it down or be brutally honest, but she’s desperate to get Belle out of here.”

  Cleo bit her lip. “Thank you for trying,” she said, although it hardly helped. Seeing Sara’s anxious expression, she said, “Our board president is infatuated with her. I’m hoping it’ll pass or that I can convince Belle that libraries aren’t for her.”

  Sara sniffed and pushed back a curl among the bouncy layers framing her face. “Good luck with that. We can’t get her to do any actual library work except for tossing out books. Oh, and she likes interacting with the public, but that’s to throw parties and make the kids happy with candy and that little horse. The horse is cute …”

  They all agreed on the cuteness of Lilliput. Cleo didn’t bring up Lilliput’s fondness for munching periodicals. She suspected Sara already knew.

  Sara sighed heavily. “We got tricked. Our director was lured in by Belle’s résumé and her flashy presentations, all her charts and numbers. But that’s the trouble—Belle thinks the value of libraries can only be measured in numbers. Libraries are so much more than that! They’re for learning, refuge, relaxation … and fun too, of course. Libraries are tons of fun already!” Sara slumped back in her seat. “I’m feeling so scattered that I can’t even come up with the right words.”

  Cleo said she understood completely.

  Sara sputtered out more affronts, turning to Henry. “Mr. Lafayette, you were here when she tried to throw out our historical collection. I appreciate how you helped. We’ve ma
naged to save a lot by stashing books in the back. She’s not interested in the stacks. She doesn’t think our ‘clients’ will go back there. But, oh, this is bad: now she wants to turn our nonfiction wing into a movie lounge. It’s like she’s trying to undo everything a decent library does! I hope she’ll move on soon.” Sara pursed her lips before adding. “Sorry! I know that means you might get stuck with her.”

  Cleo managed sympathetic sounds, holding in the groaning dread she felt. If a bigger library with more staff hadn’t stopped Belle, how could she and Leanna hope to?

  “I wish her parents had moved down to Florida like they wanted,” Sara said. “Then Belle would be down there with them. I’m being awful! Her parents are nice people. Belle is too, just not when it comes to libraries. She changed so much after she moved up to Atlanta …”

  Cleo had sunk into worries. She registered Sara’s words and shook her head sharply to refocus. “You knew Belle when she was growing up here?” Sara was younger than Belle, but from the area. They could easily have known each other.

  Sara fiddled with a pencil holder, an art-deco ceramic cat that Leanna would love. “Belle doesn’t remember, or she says she doesn’t, but we overlapped at a summer camp a few years. Not in the same cabin—I’m younger—but we little kids would sneak over and spy on the teens.”

  “I’d heard she went to a summer camp,” Cleo said. “She doesn’t seem like much of a camper. She’s so polished.”

  “Not then she wasn’t. You want to see photos of young Belle?” Sara stood, inching out from behind her cramped desk. “You’ll think we’re awful snoops, but I was telling the other librarians how different Belle used to be. They couldn’t believe it, so we went looking for photos of her in the archives. We keep local yearbooks and newspapers, of course.”

  “Not awful at all,” Cleo said, interest piqued. “You were researching, gathering information, doing what comes naturally for librarians.”

  Sara brightened. “Exactly!” She looked both ways in the hallway before leading them quickly to a back room. “Honestly,” she whispered, “the more I think about Belle’s childhood, the more sympathetic I feel. It’s no wonder she puts on an armor of polish now.”

  Belle, picked on? Cleo could hardly believe it. She seemed so strong.

  Sara was heaving books from a shelf, heavy paged yearbooks, asking how many photos Henry and Cleo wanted to see.

  “All you have,” Cleo said, shooting an apologetic look to Henry. He, however, was looking as interested as she was.

  “Belle was bullied at that camp and probably school too,” Sara said as she got out more books. “She was the awkward kid. The mean girls liked to trick her. I remember the popular, pretty girls laughing because they’d conned poor Belle into thinking a cute boy liked her. They’d steal her clothes, take embarrassing photos. Kids can be so cruel! I guess adults can be too.”

  Sara added a few reels of microfilm to the stack. “See how thorough our ‘research’ was?” she said, looking slightly embarrassed. “We got a bit carried away, but lucky for you, we didn’t get around to reshelving it all. Speaking of which, I should get back to work.” After a scan of the hall, she trotted off.

  Cleo loaded the hulking microfilm machine, marveling at how far technology had come in her lifetime and her career. “I am grateful for technological innovations,” she said, to which Henry heartily agreed. She positioned her bifocals on the viewfinder. Thankfully, Sara had left a sticky note attached to the reel, marking the relevant dates. As the film spun by, she could hear Henry flipping through pages.

  “My goodness,” Cleo said. “Look at this.” She stepped back to let Henry see.

  “Is that Belle?” he asked. Cleo had stopped on a newspaper article about the summer camp. The image was grainy black and white, showing a group shot of the campers, all girls, their names listed in the caption by row.

  They swapped spots and Cleo counted the campers and rows once more to make sure she was looking at the correct person. “Sara’s right. I wouldn’t recognize her, and I like to think I’m good with faces.”

  “She’s in these too,” Henry said, pointing to some open yearbooks. “What a transformation to her hair and clothes. I wonder if she didn’t get plastic surgery too? Her nose looks different.”

  Cleo studied the photos. Young Belle had darker hair. She was a bit plump by the harsh standards of society and Cleo’s doctor. In each photo, her head dipped, and she seemed to sink into the background. “It’s not only her physical appearance, is it?” Cleo said, flipping through an earlier yearbook. “It’s her way of holding herself. She’s head high and confident now. Bold. A presence. In these she looks like she wants to disappear.”

  “It’s good she gained her confidence,” Henry said. He added, “She gained a little too much …”

  Cleo turned a page and was about to keep on flipping when her eyes caught on someone else familiar. “Dixie!” She jabbed her index finger at the page. “They were there the same year!”

  She studied the photo, the years turning back in her head. “I remember Dixie wearing this very dress,” Cleo said, marveling at the memory. The dress featured grapefruit-size yellow daises smattered across a blue background. Dixie would have been twelve or so. “She was spirited,” Cleo said. “Spunky. Always confident. Well, until the end.”

  Cleo tempered her rose-colored memories. Sara had mentioned popular girls playing mean tricks. Cleo could easily see Dixie being one of those bullies. In the photo, Dixie stood with two other girls, one blonde like her, the other a long-locked brunette. They had the confident, hip-jutting pose of girls who know they’re gorgeous, at least on the outside.

  Henry pointed beyond them, to the background. “Look at this. The image is fuzzy, but could that be Belle?”

  They both leaned in, cheek to bushy beard. The figure in the far back, blurred by tall grass and the camera’s focus, seemed to lean out of the frame. “It could be,” Cleo said.

  Henry straightened. “It wasn’t a huge camp. We can assume they knew each other there, even if they weren’t friends.”

  Cleo shut the yearbook. She remembered that she hadn’t told Henry about inadvertently chasing Belle off by asking her about Dixie. She described Belle’s odd, evasive reaction. “I can see why Belle wouldn’t want to remember her, if Dixie was a bully. I wouldn’t want to look back on that.”

  “Perhaps that was why she and Dixie had heated words at the farmers’ market,” Henry said. “If Mary-Rose is right.”

  Cleo had no doubt about Mary-Rose’s memory. Childhood bullying could be a thorn that ached forever. It would be just like Dixie to wiggle that thorn around. “Dixie managed to insult and upset Iris Hays even more when she tried to apologize to her. She blamed Iris for being ‘weak’ and called her health problems her own fault. Maybe she did something similar to Belle.”

  They stacked the books, reeled the microfilm, and thanked Sara again on the way out. Cleo was happy to get back on the road and put Claymore behind them. Driving over the Tallgrass River, she slowed, glancing into the deep, green waters. Their visit hadn’t made her suspect pool any clearer. If anything, knowledge of Belle’s bullied past and Amy-Ray’s supposed “win” only muddied the waters.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Monday morning, Leanna followed Cleo out to the library’s front porch. They stood at the railing, squinting in the sun. Cleo had the same eye-stinging feeling inside, where a fresh rash of shocking paint samples dotted the walls.

  “Are you sure you should do this?” Leanna asked again. “What if you’re only attracting Belle’s innobrating attention to Words on Wheels? The bookmobile could be Catalpa Springs’ last remaining reading refuge. We could keep the books on the road, always roving, so Belle won’t be able to find them and throw them out.”

  Cleo glanced at her young colleague, worried Leanna might be feeling the combined effects of too many paint fumes and the dystopic science fiction she’d been reading lately.

  “It’ll be fine,” Cl
eo said. “Belle needs to see real library work in action. I’ll take her on my bookmobile stops this morning. Then she’s going to bring BOOK IT! to the school’s Fall Fest later on.” She continued on over Leanna’s muttering. “It’ll be fun, and a good opportunity to show her how much the kids love books. I know her party bookmobile will get their attention, but so will Words on Wheels.”

  Cleo wanted to ask Belle about Dixie again too. Belle had taken the weekend off, except for ordering more paint samples and bombarding the library staff and board with emails containing pie charts and “actionables.” The latter included acquiring ribbons and “glamorous” scissors for the grand reopening party and confirming the fondue menu, all of which Cleo promptly acted on. She’d bought yards of red satin ribbon and sharp new silvery shears, and had located a library cookbook with one hundred recipes for fondue.

  “While I’m out, see if you can get the contractor over here, like we talked about,” Cleo said. “His kids are big readers. I’m sure he’ll agree that we can’t possibly move those bookshelves.” She winked at Leanna, reinforcing their plan to have the otherwise honest contractor declare the shelves unmovable. By fib or fight, she was determined to keep the library’s shelves and their books in place. The Catalpa Springs Public Library couldn’t become bookless like BOOK IT! and the gutted Claymore Library.

  “Belle’s not going to like this,” Leanna said with a nervous giggle. “Not the shelves or your day of real work.” She turned on her patent-leather flats and scooted back inside, calling out “Good luck, Miss Cleo,” as the door groaned shut.

  Cleo yearned for a dash of good luck. Bad seemed to have settled in like a stench over her lovely little town. Pat had come by Cleo’s house yesterday, filled with news of more threatening notes. Gabby had spent the weekend running down reports of everything from bad omens to prowlers. All around town, folks were looking over their shoulders, acting twitchy, avoiding others or clumping in groups. Cleo had even spotted a lady avoiding sidewalk cracks and a man tossing salt over his shoulder.