Chapter 2
The reasons I’m not heroine material, based on genre:
Sci-fi—I’m afraid of heights. I have trouble even crossing bridges and would pass out if forced to, say, go to the top of the Space Needle (ask me how I know). There’s no way that I could explore intergalactic regions and interact with extraterrestrial intelligence from a spaceship in actual space.
Western—I’m allergic to horses. I found this out the hard way one year in sleepaway camp.
I was so excited to flex my inner Annie Oakley only to find out that if I got within ten feet of a horse, my eyes would swell shut and I’d break out in a rash that would give me the nickname Blind Ketchup Girl for a week.
A little on the nose, as far as demeaning names go, but nine-year-old bullies aren’t particularly bright.
The point is, you really can’t have a compelling western without horses.
Mystery/Thriller/Suspense—A search-and-rescue team had to get me out of a corn maze once. Also, I’ve never been able to win even a single game of Clue. Being able to puzzle out scenarios seems like a pretty basic prerequisite for the genre.
Fantasy—Sadly, I have no magical powers with which to save humanity.
Historical—Automatically disqualified by being born in the current century. Also, I’m kind of partial to breathing deeply and thus would refuse to wear a corset. There’s also my love of indoor plumbing.
And that leaves romance. This genre took me a little longer than the others to realize I also didn’t qualify for a leading role.
My ex-fiancé, Brett, was the first to let me in on the secret, although I missed the clues to begin with because, as I’ve established, I’d never make it as a mystery-solving sleuth.
But looking back, I can see the hints along the way even before he sat me down for the big reveal.
The ebbing interest in his eyes when he looked at me. The loss of touch that coincided with the loss of my hair. The tie of attraction that had at one time bound him to me unraveling, until one day it just wasn’t there anymore. At least for him.
At first, I convinced myself Brett’s actions and words had nothing to do with my heroine status and everything to do with demoting him from leading man to villain.
I mean, it was classic villainous behavior for him to have such a shallow depth of feeling that he was no longer attracted to me and stopped loving me when I developed alopecia, an autoimmune disease in which my T cells sound the bugle cry to attack my hair follicles like the swarm of bees that kept Winnie the Pooh from the honey in the tree (that’s probably a strange analogy, but I subbed for Martha at story time yesterday and the toddlers and preschoolers made buzzing sounds when we came to that page, so it’s still fresh in my mind).
That reflects on Brett and his character, not me.
If it were true love, then when my hair fell out—first in patches, then at an increased rate that I ended up shaving the remaining valiant strands that had resisted the attack—he would’ve still run his fingers over the soft buzz of fuzz around my crown, kissed the widening spots that were as smooth as a baby’s bottom, and tried to convince me that I was still beautiful, hair or no hair.
But Brett’s rejection wasn’t a quiet confession in an empty room. It was more like a kid at the top of a mountain shouting into the wind so his words bounce off the range in an endless echo. The same words reverberating over and over and over again.
There’s a study someone conducted somewhere about how a person can disbelieve something told to them once as a lie, but when that same thing is repeated x amount of times, they accept it as truth. I can probably look up the study in the reference section, but I really don’t want to.
The point is, Brett might have been the first voice to tell me I’m not heroine material, but it wasn’t until I kept hearing the echo from sources all around me that I began to believe he might be right.
Echoes like the ones from romance books themselves, in fact.
I pick up a stack of books from a basket at the end of the A–E aisle of fiction.
Books that people have taken off the shelves to look at but ultimately decided not to check out.
Instead of reshelving the titles themselves, we encourage patrons to place the books in the baskets so we librarians can reshelve them properly.
You’d be surprised how many people will just put a book willy-nilly on a shelf instead of paying attention to alphabetical and numerical order.
Melvil Dewey would roll over in his grave.
I shuffle the trio of books, looking at their covers.
Romances, all of them. And all proving my point.
The first is a bodice-ripper from the early 2000s, with a Fabio-esque cover model.
His luscious locks flow in the breeze, and the woman in his arms, décolletage on full display, has a head of hair that Pantene would be privileged to put in one of their commercials.
The next is a book with a contemporary setting.
The military man with a black past has a high and tight crew cut, but the woman he’s staring at broodily has a mane of curls running the full length of her back. The third is much the same.
I don’t have to read the stories within to know that (A) every hero dreams of running his fingers through the woman’s hair, and (B) every hero equates anything false—I’m talking even a little bit of lipstick or rouge, in the case of the bodice-ripper—as some sort of moral deficiency in the heroine, stripping her of heroine status.
Yep. I no longer have any hair for a man to be tempted by (A).
The disease that started as alopecia areata, or spot balding, has progressed past even alopecia totalis, where I didn’t have any hair on my head but still had hair on other places on my body.
Now, it’s alopecia universalis, which, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, is a complete and universal loss of hair.
Everywhere. I no longer have to shave my legs (yay!), but I also have lost characteristics that are essentially associated with being human.
The face radically changes when it no longer sports eyebrows or eyelashes.
Which, of course, leads to (B) and the fact that not only do I apply makeup, as do probably ninety-five percent of modern women, but a lot of what I wear is fake. Fake eyelashes. Fake temporary eyebrow tattoos. Fake hair in the form of a wig.
I quickly reshelve the trio of books and make my way back to the front desk.
I don’t often think of my character status anymore.
Not since I moved to Little Creek and began my fresh start, anyway.
But for some reason, my stalking of Tai Davis earlier brought it all back.
Maybe because I wasn’t able to clearly classify him, although, again, I’m not sure why I even tried.
I don’t often make a habit of judging people without talking to them first. Even then, I try to give them the benefit of the doubt if the first impression isn’t the best. Life isn’t a Jane Austen retelling of Pride and Prejudice.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Hayley looks up from the computer where the library’s catalog is glowing on the screen. “Can you call me at exactly 7:10 tonight?”
“That’s a really specific time. What would happen if I called at 7:09 or 7:11?” My fingers graze the zipper of my skirt, which has scooted to its current and erroneous position in front of my hip bone. Taking the waist, I rotate the material an inch to the left to put it back in place.
“I might either be the victim or the perpetrator of a murder.” Hayley spins the desk chair to face me.
The bookmarks by the checkout area are askew, so I reach over and fix the stack. “If you think you might be murdered, then don’t do whatever it is you’re planning on doing. Same advice if you think you might be the one on the other side of the trigger.”
“Or—” she draws the word out—“you can call me at exactly 7:10 like a good friend and citizen. Really, Evangeline, you might be considered an accessory if you don’t make the call. Sheriff Jacobs is just looking for a good bust on which to build his new reelection campaign.”
“And arresting a couple of small-town librarians will give that to him?”
“I don’t know.” She winks. “I heard a rumor that librarians have a wild side.”
At this my composure cracks and I let out the small laugh I’d been holding back. “Let me guess, another first date tonight?”
She nods, her thick bangs bouncing a little with the motion.
“I need a way-out call. 7:10 is the perfect time. We’re supposed to meet at the Tasty Tortellini at 6:30.
That gives a ten-minute buffer if he’s running late, plus thirty minutes to order and deduce if he’s some weirdo who collects his own toenail clippings in a jar or Chris Hemsworth’s equally hot but less famous long-lost brother.
The food comes, I take a couple delicious bites of their portobello ravioli in Parmesan cream sauce, then you call.
If the date is going horribly, then I pretend you’re having an emergency and I have to leave right away—taking my meal to go, of course.
But if the date is going well, then I’ll tell you I’ll see you at work tomorrow and then give you the juicy details in the morning. ”
“He’s going to know exactly what you’re doing,” I warn.
Hayley shrugs. “So what? If I leave, I won’t care if he does. If I stay, then he knows I’m interested. Win-win, if you ask me.” She leans forward and captures my hands, begging over them. “Please? I promise I’ll return the favor next time you go out on a first date.”
I snort. “You know I don’t date.”
“Then I promise to feed your cat the next time you go home to see your grandparents.”
Kitty Purry is rather independent, and I can leave her with some extra food and water over a weekend, but she did give me the stink eye last time I came back from a visit home, hiding under the bed for two days at the perfect distance where I could almost reach her but not quite as punishment. “Fine.”
Hayley springs from the chair. “You’re the best!”
See? Sidekick material.