Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Tabitha
While the nice dad explains this very interesting proposition, I can feel James glaring at me.
Sure, I’m supposed to be working. Helping customers. Selling books. Assisting people in signing up for library cards. But he can handle it.
“Listen,” the dad says. “My partners and I run a private school, and we’re working on putting a library together. We’d love to hire you.”
I’m completely taken aback. “Oh. But I have a job.”
“Just temporarily. To give us advice on how to stock it, how to design the whole thing.”
I consider this. It might be a nice side gig. “Well, that’s really nice of you to think of me. I’ll think about it. Give me your number and I’ll follow up.”
He shakes my hand and leaves me a business card.
I turn to James, who’s just finished helping someone pick out a stack of books. He has an odd look on his face, and I don’t like it.
“You’re acting weird again.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Tabitha.”
If I were sitting, I would have to squeeze my legs together when he calls me Tabitha. The best I can do is cross one foot over the other while I stand here. Thank god for this roomy poncho hiding the way my nipples harden when he says that.
How dare my body react this way to an incomprehensible man?
He doesn’t know what I mean? Fine. Forget it. I don’t have the patience for this level of denial.
“Okay,” I say, crossing my arms. “We have all day. You may as well tell me why you were in such a pissy mood when you wrote the email that destroyed my proposal.”
I cannot wait to hear this.
What follows, however, is a story about his sister being truly awful about settling their father’s estate.
“We’re so close to wrapping things up, if only she would move her things out. But she insists on dragging her feet. As a fellow trustee, that means she’s complicating everything. And she’s portraying me as the bad guy to everyone. I’ve lost friends over this narrative.”
It seems to me his sister is having trouble separating her grief from the objects that represent their father.
It seems to me that James hasn’t dealt with his grief at all.
“…and the longer I have to wait to prepare the house for sale, the more we’ll have to pay in taxes, insurance, and keeping the lights on. It’s a lot of money, and it’s going to hurt all of us in the end.”
“And so you sent that nasty email, wrecking all my hopes and dreams,” I say.
Perhaps that was too harsh. The man looks as if I’ve stabbed him in the gut.
“I was too hasty in sending that email.”
“I want you to promise me something,” I say.
“What is it?”
“Sit down with your sister and work things out. She’s the only family you have. I have nobody, and I would kill to have a sister looking out for me, even if she was awful sometimes.”
“You don’t understand the situation,” he says.
“You’re right,” I answer. “I don’t. I don’t have an inheritance or an estate to sort out.
When my dad died, everything went to me, which wasn’t much.
He put his heart and soul into his restaurant, but it wasn’t enough.
He was bankrupt when he passed. We fought and fought about it, and he never forgave me for going off to college.
He wanted me to stay and help him. He said he couldn’t trust anyone outside the family to run the business.
Well, we weren’t much of a family after all. ”
“I’m sorry, Tabitha.”
I don’t enjoy talking about my father. I can’t do it without getting emotional. And I’ll be damned if I let James see me cry.
“Thank you. I’m going to take a walk.”
He starts, “If there’s anything I can do…”
I leave quickly, because I’ve heard that line before. People mean well, but often the thing you need is out of any human’s scope of capability.
James needs practice with “peopling” anyway.
After walking around the bazaar for five minutes to calm my nerves, I take out the business card that nice dad gave me.
I text the phone number on the card.
Thanks so much for the offer. I think I’d like to do it. As long as it doesn’t conflict with my schedule at the public library.
He replies quickly:
I didn’t want to say anything in front of that man, because I didn’t know if he was your boss. But it’s actually a full-time position we’d like to offer you.
Seriously?
Dead serious. After you help us establish the library, we’d love to hire you as our full-time librarian.
In shock, I tell him I need time to think it over.
I walk back to the tent to find James in his usual state: brooding about something.
“Where did you go?”
“I told you I was going for a walk. I needed to clear my head.”
He splutters. “But I was worried about you.”
“Sorry for not asking permission first.”
“That’s not what I meant. It’s just difficult to know what you’ll do and what you’ll say from one moment to the next.”
I take a moment to process this reply, then receive a call from the library director.
“Hello?”
“Tabitha, I’m so sorry. I’ve just spoken to the commissioners, and we didn’t get the extra funding for the children’s annex.”
I don’t hear the rest of what he has to say, because he’s just hammered the last nail in the coffin.
I hang up and turn to James. “Well, you won’t have to deal with my mood swings for much longer.”
“I said nothing about mood swings. What do you mean?”
I shrug. “I didn’t get the extra funding for an expansion. So I’ve decided to take a job somewhere else.”
He looks like I’ve just surgically removed his heart without anesthesia.
“Where?” James asks, his throat bobbing.
I give a rueful smile. “Does it matter?”
“Absolutely it does.”
“At Price Day School.”
He scoffs. “You can’t be serious. You love your job.”
“I don’t love it when people stand in my way.”
“Who’s standing in your way?”
“You are.”
He blinks at me. “I am?”
“You really are dense, aren’t you? Your opinion matters. If you say that the children’s department doesn’t need more space, then I have nowhere else to go.”
He replies quietly. “Perhaps I can put in a good word for you and convince the commissioners…”
I nod toward a crowd of teenagers headed our way. “We’ve got work to do.”