by Annie Harper
Grace says, mostly to herself while Avery has a momentary crisis of reality. “Just a random anonymous donation, I guess. I wonder how they got in. We need to beef up security big time. Unless people want to break in and leave fat checks, then who am I stop—”
“Donation!” Avery blurts. Grace stares at her open-mouthed and mid-sentence. “I, uh. The shop. The blankets? The shop that donated the blankets? What were they called? Sweetie? Sweets. Sweet Chics. I bet they did it.”
Grace thinks, then nods. “That makes sense. Yes.”
Her definitive conclusion makes Avery feel a million times better. Of course it was the shop. Of course it wasn’t… that’s impossible… She glances at the snow globe again before handing everything back to Grace. They stare at each other awkwardly, then look away from each other awkwardly. Now that the mystery is solved, and Avery isn’t going to jail for dognapping, she can only think of the night before, when she told Grace in no uncertain terms that she liked her and wanted to be with her. And now here she is. And there Grace is.
From behind them, Tino bellows with laughter, and Grace clears her throat. “I’m just gonna…” She shuffles to the desk. Avery could join Tino and Deb and the other volunteers at the impromptu party. She planned to hang out with Rudy today, though. And maybe Grace would rather she left now.
“Avery? Would you mind coming with me?”
Grace hesitates at the doorway to the back, then leads Avery into the office, where she notes the adoption form and cash with a pleased quirk of her mouth. “Filled out the appropriate paperwork and everything.” She’s unusually shy and hesitant as she retrieves something from a desk drawer, tucking whatever it is behind her back and looking at her feet. “Um.” Grace nibbles her bottom lip, then looks up at Avery from beneath her lashes. “I was planning on going to your place and making this big gesture, but you beat me to it.” She holds out a red envelope and pulls her lip between her teeth.
Avery opens the envelope and immediately tears up. “Oh! Pepper!” It’s a photo of Pepper, sitting serenely next to Santa Claus on the day of the adoption event. There’s also a card with a golden retriever wearing reindeer ears, and inside Grace has written: I’m sorry. Give me a second chance?
“I was going to write ‘do you like me back; check yes or no.’” Grace’s cheeks darken with a blush. Her face turns more serious. “Avery, I like that you’re mellow and laid-back and I shouldn’t have gotten angry at you for being yourself. It was my insecurities that were the problem, not you. I talk this big game about being able to let go so easily when these dogs find their happiness somewhere else, and then I find someone I like so much and I was so afraid that you would disappear and just move on to the next person that I couldn’t deal with it.”
Heart racing, Avery forces a poker-face, and asks, monotone. “Do you have a pen I could borrow?” Grace stares at her. “Never mind, here’s one.” Avery snags a pen from the desk, hunches over, draws a little empty box, writes “yes” over it, and marks it with a check mark. “Here you go,” she says, handing it back to Grace. “Official forms are very important.”
Grace glances at it, then launches herself into Avery’s arms and plants a hard, eager kiss on Avery’s lips. Avery pulls her closer, tilting her head and parting her lips until they fit together just right. “Merry Christmas, Avery.”
Avery lifts her hand to trace the curves of Grace’s beaming, bright smile: the smile that changed everything one dreary hopeless night, bringing Avery a joyfulness she’d forgotten. A moment of hope, a moment of joy. A moment of grace.
The End
* * *
About the Author: Lilah Suzanne has been writing actively since the sixth grade, when a literary magazine published her essay about an uncle who lost his life to AIDS. A freelance writer from North Carolina, she spends most of her time behind a computer screen, but on the rare occasion she ventures outside she enjoys museums, libraries, live concerts, and quiet walks in the woods. Lilah is the author of the Interlude Press books Spice, Pivot and Slip, and the Amazon bestselling Spotlight series: Broken Records, Burning Tracks and Blended Notes.
Shelved
by Lynn Charles
900 History
Heavy blue-gray clouds and a bitter wind propelled Karina Ness into the library. On days like this, when most people hunkered down with a blanket and cup of tea, Karina preferred to begin here. The paycheck didn’t hurt either. Rows upon rows of handheld fantasy worlds, tales of ordinary and extraordinary lives, brightened the darkest of days and lightened the foulest of moods.
As she prepared the circulation desk for opening, soft snow began to fall—a sure sign of autumn’s departure into winter. By the time she unlocked the door to let patrons in, the ground had a light covering of wet snow. Huge flakes dotted Mrs. McCallister’s navy coat as she shuffled in the door. They balanced on the tips of little Emma Raman’s coal black eye lashes as she slipped her books into the return slot one by one by one.
“I’m gonna build a snowman after lib’ary time, Miss Karina!” Emma said, as she scooped up her now-empty bag. “Or maybe a snow dog!”
Karina voted for the dog and suggested tortilla chip ears, much to Emma’s delight. Mr. Foster arrived and took his seat in the computer room to begin his daily hunt for World War II photographs. Karina never could get him to share what he did with the photos once he found them, if he did anything at all. If it was a slow day, she would sit next to him and listen to the same two stories he was willing to share: the one about the pretty woman at the bar in Germany who would slip him a free pint on Saturdays, and the one about the prettier woman who waited for him at home.
As a child, her father had tormented her about her love of books, telling her she’d end up a lonely old maid librarian. “Your nose in a book and your head up your ass,” he’d mutter in the midst of a rant about her uselessness. He reminded her more of Mr. Wormwood, the horrible father in Matilda, than any sensible father should.
He never understood that librarians were heroes. They listened and never judged. Librarians helped find answers to the questions that sometimes kept Karina up at night as she grew into an adult: Why does my father hate me? Am I really a lesbian? What are the literary differences between Emerson and Thoreau?
They helped her believe, in spite of her father’s awfulness, there was nothing she couldn’t do. With that belief, she studied English at State and now worked toward her master’s in library science.
She would be another young girl’s hero.
During school breaks, she worked here, at Piedmont County Library, serving the two cities in the largely industrial county, Linden and Harding. While frustrations existed with the old-school director and administrators, she delighted in doing for the town’s more curious population what the librarians of her childhood had done for her.
On this snowy late November morning, she was halfway through shelving fiction when she scented a newly familiar cologne. She slotted the last of the James Patterson books between “How many?” and “Books Do You Write?” and peeked around the corner. It was the third time in as many days the man had come. He was a strikingly handsome Black man and carried a sporty, well-used backpack, heavy with a laptop and various supplies. When concentrating—not that she ever stared at him—he would slowly rub his short, coiled, salt and pepper hair. Today he wore a soft, rusty orange sweatshirt that absolutely did not bring out his—
“Excuse me? Miss?”
—deep brown eyes and ridiculously pleasant smile. None of these features would ever, in a million years, make her drop whatever might be in her hand. Like a book. A book that now rested on her newly aching foot.
“Oh! Are you okay?” The man was at her side with her dropped book in hand before she could so much as form a complete sentence. He was not only strikingly handsome, but tall and broad and incredibly cozy looking on such a blustery day.
“I’m good,” she managed a
nd plucked the book from his hand. She glanced at the spine label—PEA for T.R. Pearson—and blindly shoved the book into a shelf. “Did you need any help?”
“I did. Do. It’s my computer, so I’m not sure if you can—”
She followed him to his laptop and missed half of what he said. Men never caught her attention, especially men who were clearly old enough to be her father. Or not. She mulled over his potential age, and—he was still talking. He touched her arm.
“Miss? Do you know how to work around the templates?”
She sat next to him and looked at his laptop. Ludicrously handsome or not, he had a mess on his hands. His document had once been a résumé, but now looked as if words had been thrown at the computer screen to see which ones would stick.
“Oh. God,” she said and offered a pained smile. “This is a mess.”
“Yes. I noticed.” He sounded perturbed; she hoped at technology and not the help. “I tried to paste in this job description from another file and—”
“Kerflooey.”
“Ker—flooey. Yes.” He smiled as Karina scooted closer to the screen. “I haven’t had to prepare a résumé since college, and that was on a typewriter. I’m feeling a bit—”
“It’s okay. These templates are evil. Have you thought about making one on your own? No one’s looking for fancy fonts and headings anymore.”
“They’re not?”
“No. And I’d—” She pointed to his mouse. “May I?” Once in control of the file, she skimmed through and slipped everything into its proper spot. Templates were evil but manageable, if you were crazy enough to know how to outsmart them. “Can I suggest something else?” He nodded, not taking his eyes off the screen. “I’d get rid of the objective, and, if you’ve owned a business as long as this says—”
“Well, I’m not lying about it!”
“No, no. I mean—of course not—since you’ve owned a business this long…” She continued to scroll and point and surreptitiously take note of his name and any other bits of information she could gather. Wesley Lloyd: age forty-six; bachelor’s degree in English from State; lived up on Garfield Road, probably in the new apartments. “Employers will want to know the details about your business and your day-to-day responsibilities. You can list earlier employers and the dates you worked for them, but shouldn’t need any other details.”
“Maybe I should tweet them my résumé.” He smiled again and air-thumbed a fake text.
“That would be awesome. No more social anxiety. No more hideous résumés. ‘I have experience. Hire me.’”
“My résumé is not hideous.” He squinted and stared at the laptop screen. “Anymore. How’d you do that?”
“We have résumé building classes the third Thursday of every month if you want to—”
“No. Absolutely—no. I hate these damned machines. Fought them tooth and nail up at the store until I couldn’t fight anymore.” He tapped her hand to take the mouse and fix a typo. “Which might explain why we went belly up.”
“Westland Sporting Goods over in Harding,” she said, reading. “You always had bikes or skis out on the sidewalk?”
“That’s me. Was me.” Mr. Lloyd sighed and stared at his résumé with disgust. “Isn’t me anymore.”
“Look, the lack of a POS system didn’t put you under. Big Box Whatsits up in Greendale is what put you under.”
“That too. Either way, I’m too young to retire and too old to hire, and, as you see, I’m horrible at computers. This job hunt should go beautifully.”
“You have tons of hirable experience. Certainly someone—”
“Thank you,” Mr. Lloyd said as he looked at her name tag, “Karina. You’ve been a great help.”
Karina smiled and pointed to the description of his qualifications. “Don’t sell yourself short, Mr. Lloyd. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Wes,” he said. “Mr. Lloyd was my father.”
Snow had piled, wet and heavy, throughout the day. As Karina trudged down Chestnut Street, the wind whipped her eyes, but the trees lining the road met the storm head-on, bright and bountiful with snow. Mother Nature seemed to be bringing Christmas a little early this year, which was fine with Karina. She had always had to look outside her home for any holiday spirit, and once this storm ended, the scenery would be perfectly set for daydreaming. Or… wallowing in the loneliness the season could bring.
But Uncle Tony’s barbershop sign shone ahead of her with the promise of a pot of hot water for cocoa and an empty booth so she could finish winter break homework to the din of the barbershop’s constant soundtrack. The junky old space heater would be waiting for her in the corner. And the best promise of all, she would have an evening with her favorite man on the planet.
“Rina!” Tony sang as soon as the bell chimed behind her. “It’s coming down, huh?”
“Down? It’s freaking sideways, Uncle Tony.” She shrugged off her coat, shook the snow from it, and kissed Tony’s scruffy cheek on her way to hang it up. “Oh, and half of your “o” is out again.”
“Maybe you could change the name to Tiny’s,” Wilson said. Karina never knew if Wilson was his first or last name, but she delighted in him either way. He was a tiny Black man, skinny and full of mischief and good humor. Tony had said Wilson reminded him of Sammy Davis, Jr., and, after Karina asked her mom who the hell that was, she couldn’t argue. As a younger girl, she had asked him if he could tap dance like Sammy Davis. He stood and did a simple soft shoe; she had been forever smitten. “Might be cheaper than getting that damned thing fixed all the time.”
Tony grunted, wiped the stray hair from Wilson’s shoulders, and released his chair to floor level. “Maybe Santa will bring me a new sign.”
“Santa’s not coming if you don’t decorate,” Karina said, bending to find a wall outlet for her laptop. “When are you going to put up the tree?”
“It’s not even December.”
Karina tapped the bank calendar that hung next to his station. “It will be tomorrow.”
“I dunno, Rina. I’m thinking maybe skipping Christmas decorating this year.”
“What? Why?”
“You’re old enough to not need it and it’s not like my customers—”
“Hey now!” Wilson interrupted. “I like your little tree. It reminds me of my nini’s. She had that silver thing with the—”
“Grandma’s holiday discotheque,” Tony said, clearly familiar with the tale. “Everything rotated: the silver tree, the neon lights she shone on it, the train going around underneath.” Tony opened up his appointment book. “Two weeks? Yeah… my tree is not a disco ball and I’m not so fond of Christmas anyway. You’re gonna have to get your ho-ho-ho spirit somewhere else this year.”
“Uncle Tony,” Karina scolded after Wilson left. “What’s gotten into you today?”
“Nothing, Rina. I’m fine.”
He swept the floor, turned his back to her, and swept harder. Usually, his personality matched that of a typical neighborhood barber—friendly, outgoing, and quick-witted. He sparked conversation with clients using his shirts from obscure sports teams around the country: Peoria Rivermen, El Camino Warriors, and Steel City Yellow Jackets.
Unlike his customers’ often-conservative hair and short cuts, he wore his thick Italian hair in a mop of loose, black curls. Recently, his mop had gained a few grays that mixed in like strands of Christmas tinsel. Karina had always thought his perennial tan and pointed nose and chin made him handsome in an unordinary way. “Remnants of my mother’s sharp personality,” he’d always say about his nose.
It was Tony’s second Christmas alone since his divorce from her aunt, but maybe loneliness had set in stronger, now that the pain and embarrassment had settled. Or maybe a good snowfall made him feel cold and solitary like Karina—and hopelessly so at that.
He propped the broom against
a wall. “What’re you studying today? Give me a lesson.”
“I have a paper due over break for my Lit for Youth class. I have no idea what I’m talking about. But I’ll be convincing the professor that I do.”
“Maybe you should have gone to law school. You’re a master at convincing.”
Karina considered Tony, his posture, and the rarely seen scowl on his face. “Maybe you should put up your Christmas tree.”
“Maybe you should mind your own business.”
Karina closed her laptop at the sting of his tone. “Should I go home? You’re a grouch today.”
“No, Rina, wait. I’m sorry.” He flopped into a barber chair. It squeaked when he landed; the vinyl moaned under his weight. “Tell you what. Aunt Jodi hated real trees. I haven’t had one in years.”
“Let’s go get one then. You can have one here and in your apartment!”
“Here is fine.” He stood and gently smacked her back with the towel that perpetually decorated his left shoulder. “Let me have one place where I can wallow in self-pity, huh?”
Over the years, he had listened to her wallow over school troubles and painful breakups, and he always took time with her when her dad’s words stung harder than usual. After listening, he’d tell her to Quitcherbitchin’ and get busy doing something. Coming from him, it snapped her out of her melancholy and got her on her feet again. “I could tell you to ‘quitcherbitchin,’” she offered.
“And I could tell you to start working on your paper, Miss Librarian.” He hovered and stared at her screen until she pulled up the Word document and typed an entire sentence. “We’ll go to the tree farm tomorrow after work?”
Old Man Peters arrived for his weekly buzz cut, and the rhythm of the barbershop picked up again: white noise to Karina’s studying, a steady comfort like Uncle Tony’s ever-present—if occasionally grouchy—love.
* * *
The following day, after reminding Mr. Evanston that he had been banned from the library for two weeks because he kept asking women if he could touch their hair, Karina was able to escape the circulation desk and hide in the stacks to pull requested holds. Wes camped out in his usual seat surrounded by colored pens, a leather notebook, and, of course, his spiffy new laptop. When she arrived at the OR-RA row of Fiction, Wes flagged her over.
