Chapter Two The Vacation Day of Doom
I woke up that morning and had a blissful minute stretching in bed before I remembered the horrific call with Sara.
That she heard me moan a fictional character’s name.
That she said not to come in until I heard from our boss, her uncle.
My face grew hot, my heart sped, and I could only too easily imagine the knowing look Sara would give Gemma and Ahmad when they wondered if I was out sick.
They’d ask her what she knew, she’d duck her head, lower her voice. ..and spill everything.
I knew she would because I had seen her do the exact same thing dozens of times. Just last week she told me Ahmad and George from sales went on a date and now weren’t speaking. It wasn’t the kind of necessary gossip between women—Hey, did we all get the same bonus this year?—but the mean girl kind.
Sara was a gossip dealer, but I had always turned a blind eye to it.
Well, I guess that wasn’t true. I had been a willing listener if it meant that I was on the inside, protected from Sara’s words.
Sara liked me best when I didn’t contradict her, and I’d been happy to play along, counted as a friend to someone at least.
Only now I had given her something she couldn’t resist and she was going to do all she could to make sure I didn’t have a job because of a misunderstanding—an embarrassing one, to be sure, but not as terrible as she thought it was. I was just...trying to bring a book to life.
It was a sad morning of apple slices and peanut butter for breakfast, and trying to coax Ginger out of the basement to no avail.
I couldn’t text Fern—how would I explain why I wasn’t at work?
—and couldn’t stay home with my thoughts any longer, so I got in my little electric car and drove to the one place I could think of—the library.
It had been years since I was inside the Mayfair Public Library during the day.
After seasons of scurrying to the holds shelf during closing hour or dropping off returns in the dewy morning before work, I forgot how magical the building looked inside.
Our public library had been well endowed from the start, so it looked more like a university library.
The ceilings were high set and Corinthian columns lined the interior.
What made it transcendent though, was the morning sun streaming through stained-glass windows and skylights.
With that mix of colored and clear-white light, the library spun magic.
At the front, I scanned a table of new release titles I’d seen trending, but nothing caught my eye.
It was hard to pick up a new series, especially without having read the author before.
Sometimes I felt like half reader, half fraud.
Sure, I read a lot, but I always came back to the same series.
I was more likely to read fan fiction set in the Landsome Roads world than I was to pick up that trendy stand-alone with the teal cover.
I dove farther into the stacks and passed a man reading a magazine, his carpetbag propped up against his chair.
A woman worked at a community puzzle table.
Except for a few staff members, everyone in the library was older than me.
I supposed I could find women my age in the children’s section, women who had chosen a different life path and now had something to show for it—new life!
—while I had a pending legal battle with my soon-to-be former employer.
I walked the fantasy section, dismayed to see I’d already read the majority of the romantasy titles.
I picked a few adventure fantasy books at random and read the back.
Fewer books made it to stage two: reading the first pages of chapter one.
Some of the right words were there—castle, wizard, great battle—but where was the forbidden love, the inn room with one bed?
Plus, the character names, the name of the kingdom were too unfamiliar, and required too much effort in a moment where I just wanted to read and.
..what? Feel comforted? Was I one of those readers?
Yet, that morning while still in bed, I found I couldn’t continue reading the first book of Landsome Roads. It only brought back last night’s awful occurrence and I didn’t want my favorite series to be forever marred by that association.
Maybe I’d get a graphic novel, something with killer artwork. I could read in a sunny chair surrounded by the beautiful library before treating myself to lunch out. I tried to force a smile. It was a good idea in theory. How many days had I sat at Tempo wishing I could do just this?
But I wasn’t feeling it. I wasn’t feeling much of anything that morning.
I sighed and pushed my hair back over my shoulders.
I couldn’t remember if I had brushed it.
My hair was thick and long, to the middle of my back.
My clothing that day, an uninspired set of cargo pants and chunky sweater.
I was sure I looked abysmal, not cute enough for a day of errands and luncheon, but I would force myself to feel better, be better.
If I remembered correctly, the graphic novel section was somewhere by the coworking stations.
I wound up in Westerns instead—they must have rearranged the back shelves.
I’d never read a Western and wasn’t going to start then, but I meandered through them as I looked for the graphic novels.
Then I saw an alcove I hadn’t seen before.
So typical to put the kinds of books that interested young people behind all the boomer genres. I stepped through the doorway.
This was a smaller part of the library—certainly older as there were no skylights. I ran a finger along the shelves and kept moving inward.
I expected thick, colorful paperbacks, but it seemed I was bleeding genres again.
These were all hardcovers now. My mind went to rare books, but I didn’t think they put those kinds of things out where just anyone could handle them.
They were gorgeous though. Then it hit me—the lack of windows.
They were probably placed where it was dimmer to better preserve them.
It was quiet too—no senior citizens asking how to connect to the Wi-Fi.
I imagined academics setting up shop here, gathering stacks of old books on a table for their research.
Many of the books were leather bound, with the title stamped in gold lettering on the spine.
The scent of almond and vanilla hung in the air.
I passed a great shelf of matching half-binds, the spines green, the pale front threaded with white.
I didn’t realize the Mayfair Public Library had such a prestigious collection.
It made me feel small and ill-educated with my worn favorites and bookmarked listicles recommending the same basic story with different characters.
I could be that kind of reader though—the kind who wandered the library and spent the morning reading feminist philosophy or Hellenistic art history. The kind that didn’t shirk work to read in the bathroom or spend her evenings at home with imaginary characters. A literary lady.
When Ed called me later that day as I assumed he had to, I’d reassure him nothing odd had happened on the phone—I was just reading aloud!—and my academic morning in the library would be proof I was a stable hire.
I just had to pick a likely candidate.
I turned in place. Even among all the beauties, one book stuck out more than the others. The gold page ends made it glow. I reached for it, surprised to find it warm under my hand when, in fact, the room felt quite cool.
The title didn’t matter. The topic didn’t matter. I just had to choose a book, a literary book, and read something other than the story that had overtaken the last decade of my life. Prove to myself that I was the reader I thought I was.
The book slid out thickly, as if caught on the shelf.
It was heavier than I expected. A floral musk bloomed in the air.
I ran my hand over the front of the book.
It was covered in beautiful Celtic knots, hand-painted on the leather.
With details like that, I couldn’t imagine how valuable the text was.
There was no title to tell me what I’d chosen.
I opened to page one—
And suddenly there was a woman, shorter than me by a good measure, holding both of my hands. I took in her straw-colored hair, the eager smile on her face, and yelped. I slipped from her grasp, but she only took my elbows as if we were old friends.
“Dottie,” the woman sang with joy.
“I’m so sorry,” I stammered though I didn’t exactly know why I was apologizing. My eyes flashed around the room. Where was the book I was holding? “I didn’t see anyone else back here. Do we know each other?”
“Yes, yes, we do,” the woman said confidently. “We both love reading, remember?”
“Right,” I said quickly, trying to keep up. “Have you, um, have you read anything good recently?” It was the only question I could think of that didn’t expose my ignorance. I must have met the woman at a book event but forgot her face. Drat, was she on the local book festival board?
The woman dropped my elbows, folded an arm across her waist, and tapped a finger from her free hand on her chin.
She was older than I was, perhaps her late thirties.
I noticed for the first time she was wearing what had to be very expensive khaki-colored separates: a cropped top, drapey pants, and an oversize blazer with a stylish lapel.
It was formfitting where needed and flowy everywhere else.
No, she wasn’t on the book festival board and I had never joined a book club.
I didn’t know where I could have met such an elegant woman.
Unless she was the friend of a friend, someone I had been introduced to at a bridal shower years ago?
“I have, in fact,” the woman said. “I just finished Landsome Roads. Book five was such an odd ending to the series, don’t you think?”