Chapter 2
The Substitute
Ben had known Lucy Harper for twelve years and had apparently never noticed she could silence a room by lifting one eyebrow.
He discovered this during the volunteer meeting.
"No climbing on the shelving," Lucy told the group gathered in the community room. "No open flames inside the library. No moving tables without checking the floor plan. And no glitter."
A teenager near the back raised his hand. "What if the glitter is biodegradable?"
"Especially then. Biodegradable glitter is still glitter. It simply ruins the carpet with environmental integrity."
Ben bit the inside of his cheek.
Lucy noticed.
Her eyebrow rose.
He immediately looked serious.
Mara had described the festival as "a few neighborhood events.
" Ben had imagined folding chairs, paper leaves, maybe moving some boxes.
Instead, Lucy had a project board covering an entire wall.
Orange cards represented events. Yellow cards represented vendors.
Green cards represented volunteers. Red cards, according to a handwritten key, represented "things that can become emergencies if ignored. "
Ben respected red cards.
After the meeting, Lucy handed him a clipboard.
"You have a list."
"Of course I have a list."
"Mara said you needed physical labor."
"This is the physical labor list."
He scanned it. "Build portable display wall. Repair three folding tables. Pick up pumpkins. Hang exterior lights. Move projection screen. Test courtyard outlets."
"You can say no."
The words came too quickly, as if she had already prepared for him to.
Ben looked up.
"I didn't say no."
"You looked alarmed."
"I was impressed."
Lucy blinked. "By the list?"
"By the fact that the list has subheadings."
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
Ben felt an odd little shift in his chest.
He had always thought of Lucy as Mara's calm friend.
The one who remembered birthdays, brought extra sunscreen, and showed up to Carter family dinners carrying dessert even though Ben's mother told her not to bring anything.
She had been around so long that he had filed her in the mental category of familiar people.
But familiar was not the same as known.
He looked at her now: dark auburn hair pinned into a loose knot, green sweater sleeves pushed to her elbows, a pencil tucked behind one ear. There was a smudge of blue ink on the side of her hand.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing."
"You were staring."
"I was trying to understand why there are four different types of tape on your desk."
"They have different purposes."
"Of course they do."
Her eyes narrowed, but he could see the smile she was hiding.
They spent the next hour in the courtyard measuring the brick wall where the outdoor movie screen would hang. Lucy held one end of the tape measure while Ben climbed a ladder.
"Two inches left," she called.
He moved the bracket.
"Your other left."
He looked down. "I only have the standard number of lefts."
"You are currently proving otherwise."
A gust of cool wind moved through the courtyard, carrying the smell of leaves and coffee from the cafe on the corner.
Ben adjusted the bracket and looked toward the street.
Cedar Street was busy without being loud: parents pushing strollers, students cutting through on bikes, an older man walking a terrier in a tiny orange sweater.
"You really do all of this every year?" he asked.
Lucy looked around the courtyard.
"The festival?"
"All of it."
She shrugged. "Someone has to."
Ben heard something in the answer that sounded less like pride than habit.
"Mara usually helps."
"Mara mostly steals my snacks and volunteers for the fun jobs."
"Sounds like her."
Lucy smiled up at him.
For a second, Ben forgot about the bracket in his hand.
Then the ladder shifted slightly beneath his boot.
Lucy grabbed both sides of it.
"Careful."
"I'm a firefighter."
"Firefighters can still fall off ladders."
"You say that like you've researched it."
"I research everything."
"Noted."
When he climbed down, Lucy still had one hand on the ladder.
They were closer than he expected.
She looked up at him, then stepped back quickly.
"Tomorrow," she said, consulting her clipboard, "we start the portable display wall."
Ben nodded.
"Six?"
"Six."
He picked up his toolbox.
"See you then, boss."
Lucy stared after him.
He did not know why that made him grin all the way to his truck.
Before Lucy could leave for the day, Ben caught Caleb trying to carry six folding chairs at once.
"One at a time," Ben said.
"I can do six."
"You can drop six."
Caleb looked offended, but he lowered four. Ben carried the others beside him.
Lucy watched from the desk. Ben did not talk down to the teenager. He did not take over. He simply walked with him, explaining how to stack the chairs so the legs would not scrape the floor.
When they returned, Caleb said, "Mr. Carter says if we set up the movie chairs in rows of eight, we can make an aisle wide enough for the stroller families."
"Mr. Carter?" Ben repeated.
Caleb grinned. "Respect your elders."
Lucy laughed before she could stop herself.
Later, after the volunteers left, she found Ben collecting stray tape from the floor.
"You didn't have to stay for cleanup."
"You say that a lot."
"Because you keep staying."
He straightened. "Maybe I like it here."
Lucy looked around the quiet library. "The fluorescent lighting? The suspicious printer?"
"The company."
Her breath caught.
Ben seemed to realize what he had said. He rubbed the back of his neck.
"I mean the volunteers. The community. All of it."
"Right."
Lucy hated the small dip of disappointment that followed.
Ben picked up the last strip of tape.
"See you tomorrow?"
"You're scheduled for six."
"That wasn't the question."
Lucy looked at him.
There was no teasing in his face.
"Yes," she said. "See you tomorrow."
He smiled and left.
Lucy stood alone at the desk for several seconds before realizing she was smiling too.