by Mia Archer
I was an outlier in that sense.
“They’re right on the other side of those shelves right in front of you,” the girl said with a smile that melted my heart and got me hot and bothered at the same time. Damn. Having a smile like that wasn’t fair. She should have a concealed weapon’s permit, because she was making me weak in the knees just from a simple look!
No, I was being crazy. I turned and moved back towards the romance section. Girls like that weren’t into girls. At all. I sighed as I thought of the bane of my dating life. Or lack thereof because no one in their right mind was willing to relocate to small town America considering they’d either escaped their own small town once upon a time or they’d heard horror stories from other girls they’d dated who’d escaped.
I thumbed through the romance novels. They were helpfully divided up by author and my mom had been very specific about what she was looking for. It amazed me that she could figure out a computer well enough to look up new novels coming out by her favorite authors, but she still refused to use an ereader. Only dead trees and ink for her.
I peered around the edge of the romance shelves and over to the new librarian. I still didn’t even have her name, though I’d be sure to fix that when I made my way up to chat with Ethel again. She was so gorgeous. I had to get to know her better.
Though I knew that was a dangerous game. Indulging in girl crushes with straight girls could be a dangerous thing. I’d learned that one the hard way in my teen years back when I still made the mistake of confusing best friends for romantic partners.
No, I wasn’t going to play that game anymore. What I was going to do was concentrate on getting all the books my mom wanted and worry about my own love life later. It was a damn shame I couldn’t pick out some romance books to tide me over, but they didn’t even stock that sort of romance book at this library. No audience.
I needed to take my own advice and get a damn ereader. At least them I’d have some outlet.
3
Kirsten
I let out a sigh and a heave as I finished with the last big pile of books for the day. The kids who came in after school really did a number on the place. I’d considered complaining to the board that we were basically a glorified and woefully understaffed babysitting service in the afternoon, but I figured that was a fight for when I’d been on the job for a little longer.
“Long day?” Ethel called from her perch up front.
“You have no idea,” I said. “I caught a couple of teenagers back in the romance section getting frisky with each other.”
“Well at least they were in the right section for that sort of thing. That’s the only place in this town you’ll stand a chance of getting a decent sex education,” she said.
I barked out a laugh. Sometimes Ethel could really surprise me with her view of the world.
“I suppose you have a point there,” I said.
“Besides, finding a couple of kids making out in the romance section is nothing compared to some of the things I’ve found over the years. Would you believe your friend Darcy Thomas was conceived right in front of those encyclopedias you’ve been weeding?”
I grimaced and shook my head as I moved up to the front desk. I leaned on it and looked at people walking past in the town square outside. A few cars drove by as I thought of that unpleasant image. I knew Darcy’s parents, and that wasn’t an image I needed in my head.
“Thanks for that, Ethel,” I said.
“If I have to live with the horror of finding them en flagrante then I figure I should share the pain with someone,” she said. “You do use hand sanitizer after you’ve touched the books, don’t you?”
“Always,” I said. “Though I’m guessing anything left over from Darcy’s conception a couple of decades back has long since disappeared.”
“Right. Tell that to the unfortunate products of the sex ed they offer in this town,” she said.
I laughed again. “I didn’t know you were so progressive about that sort of thing.”
“I am when you see how many kids are getting knocked up because they don’t know any better,” Ethel muttered.
“Well I think I’m going to go over the budget numbers you put together today,” I said. “Any surprises in there?”
I glanced back through the library, going over a mental list of everything I needed to get done before we opened the doors tomorrow. I was supposed to be off tomorrow, but it was a weekend and that meant I had to be here manning the desk if I wanted the library to be open for the four hours we were supposed to be open.
I glanced over the children’s area and thought to that girl earlier in the day. She’d been striking with her red hair that was almost orange. She had freckles and green eyes that caught my attention and held it. She’d also seemed distracted while she was staring at me, and I’d almost thought she was a mom come to pick up one of her kids from storytime early, only there were no kids in the group that looked like her.
To say that she was distracting would be one hell of an understatement, though. That girl was gorgeous, easily the hottest woman I’d seen coming through the library since I started here a month ago, and I couldn’t get her out of my head. Looking over at the romance section or the children’s area was enough to bring her back to the forefront of my imagination. I thought of a few things I wouldn’t mind doing with her.
And promptly chased all those thoughts out of my head. The girl was going back to look at novels in the romance section. I knew for a fact that we didn’t have any LGBT romance books back there. Partly because no one had ever asked for them and partly because I’m sure anyone buying books worried about their long term career prospects the moment one of the overly religious nutters in this town discovered that sort of thing was back there.
I still remembered a protest from when I was younger with an honest-to-goodness picket line out in front of the library because the people from one of the more evangelically inclined churches in town thought romance novels was the equivalent of stocking pornography.
I wondered what they thought of what they could find on the Internet.
“Kirsten? Are you still with us?”
I blinked and turned back to Ethel. Came crashing back to reality, is more like it. Thoughts of that girl were very distracting. More distracting than any one girl had any right to be.
“Sorry about that Ethel,” I said. “Got distracted thinking about all the stuff I have to have ready before we open tomorrow.”
“You really should have more of a social life, you know. It’s not going to be the end of the world if everything isn’t perfect around here. Especially with the way they’re bleeding us dry on the tax budget.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “I know all about your theory of giving the public what they pay for, but the big secret is that’s probably more likely to get us closed down for good than it is to get us the money we want.”
“You’re the one with the big fancy graduate degree,” Ethel said in a tone of voice that clearly communicated she thought her practical experience in such matters was worth more than any amount of book learning I might have.
I grinned. I wouldn’t expect Ethel to be any other way.
“So do you know anything about that redhead who was in here earlier?”
If I could’ve put my hand over my mouth I would’ve. As it was I figured that would give it away that I was surprised I let that out, so I schooled myself to what I hoped was an impassive and disinterested look. Except I was very interested in learning more about that beauty, even if what I learned was she was a pretty cheerleader type who married young to her good old boy farming boyfriend from high school.
That seemed to be the common story for girls that pretty who were still in this town. Yours truly excepted.
“Savannah? Did she introduce herself to you earlier?”
“Not exactly. She was having trouble finding the romance section so I interrupted storytime to point her in the right direction.”
Ethel barked
out a short laugh. “You must be mistaken. That girl knows exactly where the romance novels are. She comes in and gets a new dozen or so every couple of weeks for her mother. The poor dear smoked a lot when she was younger and doesn’t get out much now as a result.”
“Really?”
Now that was interesting. If she was in there all the time looking for romance books then why would she ask me where they were? Why would she be standing there staring at me otherwise? I felt a hopeful flutter rising in my stomach that I stomped down on. Getting those kinds of hopes up were counterproductive at best, and potentially heartbreaking at worst. Maybe she’d just gotten turned around, though it was hard to imagine getting turned around in a building this small.
“Savannah.” I chuckled. “You can’t get more country than that name, can you?”
“Her mother was from Georgia. Told me she wanted something to remind her of home,” Ethel said. Then she fixed me with a look that was far too sharp for comfort. “Any particular reason for this sudden interest in Ms. Savannah?”
I blushed and barely managed to turn away in time. Ethel was staring at me over her glasses with a look that said she knew entirely too much, or at the very least she suspected something. Either way, I didn’t want her to suspect anything along those lines. Better to look away!
“No reason. I’d just never seen her before and wondered,” I said.
“You never asked me about anyone else you’ve never seen before,” she said so quietly that I wondered if I was even supposed to hear her. Damn it. I was being too obvious. This was dangerous territory.
“So does she have any siblings or anything? I could swear she looked familiar.”
Good one Kirsten. Deflect while also making it seem like I was interested in her for something completely unrelated to the real reason I was so totally into her at the moment. Getting up in somebody’s family business was a common enough theme in this town, and one that would distract Ethel faster than catnip distracted a house cat.
“Oh no. Nothing like that. She would’ve been starting at the high school around the time you were starting in college though. Her dad had a farm out north of town, but they sold all that off. Heart attack, very tragic and…”
Ethel droned on and I nodded at what I thought were the right moments. She could chatter on for days about the family history of just about anyone born and raised in this county, and some of the families in adjacent counties as well.
“Kirsten? What do you think of that?”
I shook my head and came back to reality again. Ethel was looking up at me expectantly. Shit. She’d just said something that required a response, and I had no idea what it was. Yeah, sitting there and nodding along with her had been a great fucking idea.
“I’m sorry. My mind was somewhere else for a minute there. What were you saying?”
“I was saying that all this talk about these families reminded me that I’m having a small cookout at my place in a month or so. I was hoping you might be able to make it?”
I smiled. “I’d be happy to come out to your cookout. How small are we talking?”
“Oh not a big deal. Just some of the people from the board. The mayor. The chief of police and the sheriff if he can make it. A few people on the school board and some other friends of mine,” she said.
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Yeah, just a few people. Why do I feel like I’m walking into the lion’s den with this one?”
Ethel smiled, a twinkle in her eyes. “You’re going to have to get used to dealing with all these people someday. Like it or not you’re a public servant working on the public dime. You have to learn how to kiss ass eventually.”
“Right. You’ll have to teach me all about that when we get closer.”
“Might you be bringing a plus one to the cookout?”
The smile froze on my face. Damn it. I should’ve known she had an ulterior motive for this aside from throwing me to the political wolves in town. Not that there was a chance of me bringing a plus one, but of course that would probably just encourage her to try and set me up with one. Better to be noncommittal.
“We’ll see, Ethel. Now go home.”
“I could say the same for you.”
“Yeah, I’ll head home as soon as I finish prepping for the movie we’re showing tomorrow.”
Ethel sniffed, but she got out her purse which meant she was heading out. I went back to our small “movie room” which was actually a conference room with a projector and a table I could pull out of the way when we were showing films.
The entire time I was distracted, though. I couldn’t get that girl, Savannah, out of my mind. She wasn’t back there getting romance novels for herself, and she had stopped and stared at me with that funny look and a half smile on her face.
Was there more there than just asking directions, or was that just wishful thinking on my part? I just didn’t know, but I would like to find out. It was too bad I’d have to wait a couple of weeks for her to come back in for her next requisition of romance novels.
4
Savannah
I stopped by my mom’s room and looked in on her. She was watching one of her soap operas and I deliberately didn’t look at the screen as I poked my head in. The last thing I needed was to get sucked into the drama of whoever Renaldo had knocked up this week with his evil twin’s baby, or whatever it was they were onto this week.
“You ready for some new books yet mom?” I asked.
She looked up and smiled. “Honey, it’s only been a couple of days since you got the last batch. I’m not going to be ready for at least another week, just like always.”
I sighed. I didn’t mean for her to hear that, but she patted the bed next to her.
“C’mere darling,” she said.
I had no choice but to follow now that she’d invited me in. Leaving would be just as rude. So reluctantly I moved in and tried to ignore the television. I was not going to get sucked into her soap operas again. Sure it’s not like I had much else to do aside from taking care of her, thanks dad and all the money we made selling off the land for making us independently wealthy, at least as that sort of thing was measured around these here parts, but I was not going to get sucked into soaps!
“If you’re bored and want to do something you don’t need my permission to do it,” mom said.
“I know, but I feel bad leaving you here on your own.”
“I’m not so feeble that I can’t get up and do things for myself,” she said. “Besides. I’ve got my phone and you have your phone. If I have an emergency I can call someone. I don’t need you moping around the house all the time. Go out, have a good time. Maybe go on a date or something.”
“Yeah, that’ll be the day,” I muttered.
“I wish you would,” mom said. “I hate to see you cooped up here all the time. At least find something you enjoy doing.”
I thought of one thing I’d enjoy doing. My thoughts drifted to the sexy librarian I saw when I was visiting a couple of days ago. I didn’t even know her name, yet I couldn’t get her out of my head. Thoughts of her dominated my thinking.
Thoughts of her were a big part of the reason why I was so eager to head back into town and get more books for mom.
“I’m demanding that you get out of here,” mom said. “Go have some fun in town. Or as much fun as you can have in town. I know it’s not that exciting for someone young like you.”
I smiled and leaned in to give her a kiss on the forehead. “It might not be all that exciting, but this is home. That’s what matters.”
“Right, well right now I want you to go and do whatever you need to do. I’ll be fine here at the house on my own,” she said.
Part of me was screaming that I should stay here with my mom. I knew she wasn’t that bad, but there was also a worry in the back of my mind that any time I left I could potentially come back to find her in very bad shape. It was a terror that had kept me rooted to the house except for those visits in to the library or the occasional vi
sit to the grocery store.
She was right, though. I really needed to get out there and live my life. As much as I could live my life in this town. And the closest I could get to living right now was going into town and getting another look at that new librarian. I felt ridiculous that I was being controlled so firmly by the brain between my legs, but at the same time she was probably the best looking thing I’d seen in this town since I moved back to take care of my mom.
Besides, I could always say I was looking for books for myself or something. Maybe it was ridiculous going into town just to look at someone who I could never have, but that’s exactly what I was about to do.
“Fine,” I said. I leaned down and kissed mom on the forehead. “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
“Take your time,” she said. “I have my stories to keep me company here.”
“Right. Well I don’t want to get addicted to those again, so I’ll leave you to watch in peace.”
I stepped out of the house and took a deep breath. I loved the smells that were our house. The fields off in the distance. The wind blowing the cornstalks back and forth. The grass rippling in that wind. The familiar smells of our house that my great grandfather built when he first started farming this land a century ago. It was home, and I loved it.
I just wished I could be more honest with my mom about what “having a social life” would really mean, but I wasn’t about to do that. Especially after what happened the last time I started playing fast and loose with who knew about my particular interest in girls. No, in her delicate state I worried that the shock might send her over the edge.
That or, even worse, that she’d react like the last adult who discovered my big secret and try to disown me. I don’t think I could take that with her in her current state. It would be too much for both of us.
No, my life was complicated enough. So I kept my big mouth shut, turned up my favorite country station, and drove into town to stop by and visit the library.
