Chapter 1
Hayley
“Y’all cannot be serious,” I say as I take in the heap of junk littering the corner of the library’s parking lot.
The monstrosity looks like it needs a tow truck to take it to its eternal resting place in the junkyard, not at all like a vehicle primed and ready for its reincarnated life as Little Creek’s new bookmobile.
“Deadly serious.” Evangeline breathes the words out, also staring at what has become my newest worst nightmare, dethroning my recurring irrational fear of getting stuck inside the It’s a Small World ride at Disney World.
“Maybe we shouldn’t use the word deadly.” Martha winces.
I’m sandwiched between our small town’s other two librarians, the three of us in a disbelieving stupor, still trying to make sense of the .
. . thing . . . parked cattywampus and taking up multiple parking spaces.
When Marge from the town council had dropped by yesterday to say there would be a surprise waiting for us in the morning, not in a million years would our imaginations have come up with something like this.
And our imaginations are Olympic-level, let me tell you. We’re librarians, after all. We practically marinate in the creative realms, and yet we’ve still been blindsided.
“Yeah, new rule. Deadly and all of its synonyms are no longer a part of our vocabulary when referring to—” I wave my hand in front of me, gesturing to the heap of metal.
Someone has an even better imagination than we do to think this relic could ever function in a literary capacity. The paint is chipping and peeling, the seams are flaking iron oxide at an alarming rate, and I can’t imagine the mechanicals under the hood are in any better condition.
Bookmobiles are to bibliophiles what ice cream trucks are to children. This thing is more like a horror movie waiting to happen.
It still needs a name, though.
I swipe my hand in its general direction again. “Cletus.”
Martha whips her head toward me, her wide, caramel-colored eyes disbelieving. “Cletus? Really?”
Evangeline lets out a soft laugh. “Hadn’t you noticed Hayley’s little quirk of naming everything?”
Martha shakes her head, her curly hair growing bigger by the second due to the humidity in the air.
She says she hates the wild volume because it makes her look like Medusa and scares the kids during story time, but I think it’s because she finds it harder to go unnoticed when her hair is practically screaming for attention like a beauty pageant contestant armed with Aqua Net.
“Okay, fine. But Cletus?” she huffs.
I shrug, not seeing why she’s so put out with my choice. “It looks like a Cletus to me.”
She turns so her whole body is facing me. “The name Cletus is of Greek origin. It means ‘illustrious.’” Now it’s her turn to wave her hand at the unwanted automotive hand-me-down. “Does that thing look illustrious to you?”
I purse my lips and pretend to inspect the newly acquired bookmobile, hiding another wince by tapping my mouth with my finger. “It does have a certain je ne sais quoi about it.”
“If je ne sais quoi means ‘tetanus shot,’” Evangeline mumbles more to herself but loud enough that we can hear.
“The definition is actually a quality that cannot be described,” Martha supplies helpfully, which is no help at all. “And that, ladies”—she punctuates by pointing a finger at Cletus—“can be described with a litany of negative adjectives.”
“We’re in the foothills of southeastern Tennessee, not the cliffs of Santorini, so of course I meant the hillbilly version of Cletus and not the Greek rendition.”
I’m sorry, but when I think of Greek names, Zeus and Poseidon and Hercules pop into my head.
Not Cletus. Cletus is the hunched man who used to live on the edge of town in a run-down old hunting cabin people only talked about in whispers.
He never showered, never shaved, never laundered his clothes, and had an illegal moonshine still he’d built himself out of a Dutch oven, along with a few bungee cords, a lunchbox-type cooler he stole from a construction site, and a rusty refrigerator coil, also suspected of being stolen from a trash heap.
You have to admit, if people were vehicles, the nightmare in front of us would remind anyone of that type of Cletus.
“Maybe we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” Evangeline’s voice holds a note of forced optimism.
Optimism I’m just not seeing at the moment.
Martha’s eyes brighten at the word horse.
“Did you know that the first bookmobiles precede anything with an engine? Library deliveries to the remote regions of the Appalachian Mountains were made with horses as the means of transportation. It was called the Pack Horse Library Project. I know I have at least one book about it in the children’s section, so I wouldn’t doubt there’s something in both nonfiction and fiction on the adult shelves. We should check it out.”
I cock my hip. “I’m pretty sure this is the perfect time to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Because if this was the 1930s, then that gift horse would be a lame swayback nag.
The kind that would probably keel over on the first strenuous incline to a hollow where we—so sorry, I—would’ve been left stranded to fend off wildlife and the elements or perish. ”
“Someone is being a bit dramatic.” Martha attempts but fails to quell her grin.
“Also, perish could arguably be a synonym of deadly, which we said was no longer in our vocabulary in reference to . . . Cletus.” Evangeline isn’t in the habit of calling nonliving things by human monikers and stumbles over the syllables in her mouth.
I sigh as I let my chin fall to my chest. We’ve gotten off topic. “Explain to me one more time how we inherited Cletus.”
“Mayor Breckenbridge made acquiring a bookmobile for the library one of his reelection campaign promises. He failed to inform the good citizens of Little Creek, however, that when he said bookmobile, what he really meant was turning the beat-up rust bucket on his front lawn into the mobile library.” Evangeline tsks.
“And how did the responsibility of mobile librarian fall on my shoulders again?”
“I can’t drive a manual transmission,” Martha answers simply.
I spin on my heel and clamp desperate fingers to Evangeline’s shoulders, pinning her in place. “You can. My cousin taught you. I’ve seen you driving Tai’s Challenger around town.”
Maybe I’m overreacting. It’s just driving, right?
Not something on par with letting a tarantula walk on your face.
But I can’t shake this queasy feeling in my stomach every time I picture myself behind the wheel.
Like there should be ominous music playing in the background.
If my life were being written by some cosmic author, this is when they’d be cackling with ill-conceived glee at laying down breadcrumbs of foreshadowing for some major event filed under the words conflict and raising the stakes.
Evangeline eases out of my grip, a small, fake-innocent smile playing at her lips. “Ah yes, but you see, it’s your turn.” She says that last bit in a singsong voice.
My jaw slackens. I’ve never hated my words being thrown back in my face more.
She rubs her chin dramatically. “I seem to recall a time when I asked you to help me out with the certain matter of a critter stuck in the book return receptacle. Do you remember what you told me?”
“That it was your turn,” I grind out, then throw my hands up in frustration. “But this is different!”
Her tattooed-on eyebrows rise ever so slowly. “You might possibly need a tetanus shot. I could’ve possibly needed a rabies shot. I think we’re even.”
I seal my lips against the mild curse pushing to be released. Not curse as in a bad word. Curse as in curse. Like hex. No, not like voodoo doll stuff. I’m not into any of that. We live in the South, but New Orleans is another brand of South all together.
No, I just sometimes wish for a tepid inconvenience to be brought down upon another person’s head.
Nothing nefarious. Still this side of innocent.
Like, may you never have matching Tupperware containers and lids.
I don’t want real harm to befall anyone I’m mildly annoyed with, but the idea that they could be somewhat inconvenienced makes me feel better and cools my negative feelings toward them in the moment.
I do not, however, wish these curses on my friends. Ever. And Evangeline is one of my best friends.
Mayor Breckenbridge, though . . . Oh yeah, he definitely deserves a curse.
My nose wrinkles as I think of a particularly bothersome disruption to wish upon him. The Tupperware lid thing isn’t quite annoying enough if I really have to climb behind Cletus’s deathtrap wheel and drive it on our windy, rural back roads.
My lips turn up at the sides. Mayor Breckenbridge, may you only ever find one square of toilet paper left on the roll for the rest of your life.
“Why does she look like she’s hatching an evil plan?” Martha stage-whispers out of the side of her mouth.
Evangeline lifts a hand to shield her eyes from the sun, squinting. “Is it revenge evil or overthrow-the-government evil?”
“Um.” Martha frowns. “Both?”
Evangeline lowers her hand and flicks me lightly on the forehead. “I love ya, Hayley, but I don’t have money to bail you out of jail, so just don’t, okay?”
I snort and plant a palm on my hip. “One, I’m as sweet as peach pie so I don’t know what y’all are even talking about, and, two, like Sheriff Jacobs would ever arrest me.
I babysit his kids on every single date night he takes with his wife.
If he puts me in a cell, he’s going to have to be the warden of his own brood of inmates, and we all know that’s unlikely to happen. ”
“It is kind of ironic how unruly the sheriff’s own children are,” Martha agrees.
“Anyway, I wasn’t scheming anything nefarious, thank you very much. It’s nice to see what y’all truly think of me.”
“I truly think you’re a force to be reckoned with.” Evangeline loops her arm through mine.
“Peach-pie sweet but with a hefty splash of spicy bourbon added to the recipe.” Martha links her arm with mine on the other side.
I take in a deep, bracing lungful of air and let it out slowly.
“I guess Cletus and I should get better acquainted. Maybe we can come to some kind of agreement for our working relationship.” I force cheerfulness into my voice.
“He won’t break down on the side of the road and leave me stranded, and I won’t accidentally forget to put the parking brake on and hope he rolls off the side of a mountain. ”
“That’s the spirit?” Martha’s voice pitches high at the end. “Okay, ladies, I’m off to get ready for preschool story time.” She unhooks her arm and gracefully glides toward the library’s entrance like some kind of literary book fairy. It’s no wonder all the kids who come in love her.
Evangeline moves to stand in front of me.
Her eyes have lost their teasing glint, and she’s looking at me seriously.
The early morning sun is hanging in the sky just behind her head, casting her in a slightly shadowed silhouette.
“Tell me the truth. Are you really scared to drive that thing? Because if you are, you don’t have to do it.
I mean, you were right. I know how to drive a stick shift now too.
Driving that thing isn’t exactly on my bucket list, but you shouldn’t be afraid of coming to work just because of Mayor Breckenbridge’s, uh, generosity. ”
I snort at her liberal use of the word. Mayor Breckenbridge wasn’t thinking of anyone but himself if he’d planned all along to bestow this hunk of junk on us.
But it’s not fair to ask Evangeline to shoulder the responsibility either.
I may be more than a little nervous at the idea of driving Cletus farther than ten feet, but Evangeline has faced enough fears and been brave beyond measure this year alone.
She’s earned herself a nice long reprieve.
I let my gaze roam over the beautifully artistic tattoo inking her bald scalp.
The lacework lines, colorful bouquet of flowers, and the striking image of a rising phoenix.
A few months ago, she’d been hiding the fact that she has alopecia, afraid her friends and the townspeople would view and treat her differently simply because she’d lost her hair to the autoimmune disease.
She’d nearly given up on the idea that anyone would ever love her or find her beautiful just the way she is.
Now she more often than not forgoes wearing any of her wigs, proudly displaying her new tattoo that Tai created for her and making us all gag with the very public displays of affection she and my cousin can’t seem to stop putting on.
I might have thought an extra second before setting them up if I’d known I’d have to endure so much PDA.
Oh, who am I kidding? I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. At least the back corner of the reference section is finally getting some foot traffic, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, there’s no way I’m going to ask her to do this instead of doing it myself. Like she said, driving Cletus isn’t high on her bucket list. But it is on mine.
I mean, the words Drive Cletus obviously aren’t written down physically on a piece of paper anywhere, but I can remedy that real quick since I add to my bucket list (if that’s what we’re going to call it) every day anyway. Literally.
Every day starts with a blank page in the little notebook I carry around with me, looking for something to jot down and check off. All under the same heading: Make It Count.
I can never pay back my debt, but I’m really hoping I can pay it forward.