Chapter 5
Pete
So I got all the information about the kid I’m supposed to be babysitting today. I also saw the numbers, and the chief wasn’t joking when he said that she was making a substantial donation. A seven-figure donation. One that’s more than three times the amount of our annual budget.
Of course he wasn’t going to say no to that, and I feel like I’m not doing my duty if I don’t do the little bit that’s required of me in order for the station to get such a windfall. I think about what we could do with more than one million dollars and honestly, my mouth starts to water.
Currently, while I’m still thinking about the girl next door, I’m not going to my Friday night date, I’m going to my Tuesday afternoon drawing class. Now, I’m expecting this woman to be in her fifties, a grandmotherly type who’s making a little extra income on the side teaching dudes like me to draw. Or more likely, most of her clients are like a ten-year-old and I’m going to be the oddball. Still, she has to know that I’m at least a teenager, since I texted her from my phone and was asking about myself. I wasn’t a parent asking for classes for my kid.
Actually, I hadn’t even considered that this might be a little bit awkward. She might be expecting someone young and cute. Instead, she’s going to get me. Well, she’s just going to have to deal with it.
I walk into the library. I’m not unfamiliar with it. I’ve done demonstrations here for groups of kids, and I feel about it the way I feel about school, only less strongly. I’ve done the same thing at the school, given demonstrations, and every time I walk out, I feel like I’ve been set free once again. I don’t ever want to go back and be stuck in there.
The library is a little different. I do have some good memories here, but I was the typical boy who couldn’t stand to sit still, and wiggled and jiggled my way through any kind of story hour, ripping out of the building as soon as I was allowed, and reveling in my freedom.
Actually, I feel bad for the teachers and other people who had to try to contain me when I was a kid. I had more energy than I knew what to do with, and I hated being corralled or contained.
Even though I’m a rule follower now, and even back then I was to some extent, I still prefer to be outside. That’s part of the reason I love my job.
Regardless, my eyes scan around the room, and I try to figure out who is my instructor. She specifically said she’d be at a table in the corner, and since our library is small, just one room, there are only four corners. One of them houses the librarian’s desk, and I assume that if she were the librarian, she would have told me.
Plus, the librarian is talking, with a pencil stuck in the bun she has her hair in. Actually, now that I look, it looks like a pencil and a knitting needle. I wonder if she lost one of those. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. She’s not my instructor. Of this I am certain.
I take another look around the room and my eyes catch on a desk in the corner. I see the crayon box. I see a slim woman sitting beside it. She has her head down, and she’s doodling on a piece of paper, a sketchbook beside her.
She looks young, if I go by the frame of her body. But, she glances up, looking around looking for someone, and our eyes meet.
I yank my eyes away from hers but not before I see her open her eyes in mortification.
It’s Naked Woman from the animal rights rally a year ago.
I tell myself to calm down. I wish I was wearing my uniform, so I could be here in an official capacity, but I did not have the foresight to do that. So all of a sudden I am in the peculiar position of needing to pretend that I’m in the library looking for a library book.
I take breath. I can do this. She doesn’t realize that I’m the person who’s supposed to be meeting her, and she is never going to find that out if I have anything to do with it.
“May I help you, Officer Pete?” The Librarian, I think her name is Verity, has appeared at my elbow, and I didn’t even realize it.
I try not to jump out of my skin. All of my senses are on high alert. The same way they would be if I were in a dangerous situation in my official capacity as a police officer.
“I’m looking for a library book on... girls.”
I want to slap my forehead and close my eyes and sink into the floor. Why? Why was that the word that came to my mind?
Probably because I’m still stewing over the fact that I’m going to be babysitting a ten-year-old girl and know nothing about her gender, or about children in general.
The librarian has backed away from me, her eyes drawn down, and she says, quietly, but with enough disdain that I know she does not approve. “We don’t have books like that, Officer Pete. You’ll need to go to the adult bookstore in the next town over.”
I know she’s about ready to spin on her foot and walk away from me, giving me the cold shoulder like I would deserve, if that’s actually what I meant.
“No. You don’t understand,” I say quickly, thinking I can salvage the situation. Hopefully I can.
“I have a girl.”
“You have a daughter?” She turns around and says the words loud enough that I feel every single eye in the library is directed at me. That was the exact opposite of what I was trying to have happen. I was trying to get attention off of me.
Plus, I don’t have a girl. I was just trying to get the words out.
“No.”
“Then what do you mean?” she asks, once again looking suspicious.
“I am providing security for a girl.”
“I would think that you would learn how to provide security at whatever training facility you attended in order to become a police officer,” Verity says, sounding very formal. I know she has been confused by my whiplash answers.
“No.” I take a deep breath, and say to her, “Just let me say this. I am out of my depth here.”
“I understand. I haven’t seen you in the library in an actual I-want-to-borrow-a-book capacity, ever. So I would think that you would be out of your depth.”
Oh she has no clue.
“I am providing security for a 10-year-old girl, and I don’t know anything about girls. Do you have a book about – I wrack my brain for the name of the class about kids that I was forced to take in college, that I mostly slept through. But I attended every class, because I will follow the rules, remember?
I snap my fingers as the name comes to me. “Human development and family studies. Something that tells me how to handle a ten-year-old,” I say. I had absolutely zero intention of doing this. I kind of figured that I would just follow her around and be as invisible as possible. But, now that I’ve stuck my foot in my mouth, I’m just trying to get it out without shoving it the rest of the way to my stomach.
I’m not sure I’m successful. I’m pretty sure my toes are pushing on my esophagus. At least that’s what it feels like in my chest.
“My goodness. Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?” she says, and I feel relief flowing through me, like a cool summer rain. I think I’m out of the woods.
“Follow me,” she says, and she takes off directly toward Naked Animal-Rights Woman.
I want to turn around and walk out of the library, but I can’t risk her stopping and wondering why in the world I didn’t follow her, and striking up a conversation with Naked Animal-Rights Woman, who might be, but I’m not entirely sure, good friends with the librarian.
So, I gird up my loins, understanding the biblical passage all too well right now, and follow her. It takes more courage than one might think.
Of course, the books she wants to show me are right beside Naked Animal-Rights Woman. She is still sitting by herself with a sketchbook in front of her and the crayon sitting sideways, waiting for... Me. Yeah. Only she is never, ever going to find out.
Naked Animal-Rights Woman glances up as we approach her table, and the librarian nods and says, “I see your student has hasn’t shown up yet. I’ll continue keeping an eye out for them.”
“Thank you. I think I was clear about how they could find me, but sometimes people just don’t get it.” She lifts a shoulder, and gives the librarian a sweet smile, before her eyes shift to me, and her expression changes, into one of...dislike? Guilt? Maybe embarrassment, because her cheeks get red, and if I weren’t so uncomfortable myself, feeling my face heating, like it is totally on fire, I might think that her red face is cute. Unfortunately, I’m afraid that mine matches it, and I don’t feel cute. I feel desperate.
“All right. We have several books that match your description. These right here deal with the age range you’re looking at.”
Thanks,” I say, blindly grabbing three books, pretending to peruse them before saying, “I’ll take these.” I reach for my wallet before I realize that we’re in the library, and...it’s not money, but a library card that she wants.
I do not have a library card.
“I suppose you want to get a library card today, too?” Verity says, and I wish we were having this conversation anywhere else. I guess it doesn’t matter that Naked Animal Rights Lady is right beside me, but for some reason, I want to get away from her. Actually, I know why I want to get away from her, and it can’t happen too soon.
“Yes please,” I say, feeling so very humble. It’s funny how a single trip to the library can bring a man to his metaphorical knees.
“All right then. If you’re sure those are the books you want, and you don’t want to look around a little more?” She leaves her question open ended, but I’m shaking my head no before she even stops speaking.
“No. Not at all. These are perfect. Actually, I’m sure that they’ll have everything I would ever need to know, and actually probably far more. I’ll be an expert by the time I’m done.”
I’m rambling and I close my mouth. I need to get out of here. I wish I could calm myself down, but that seems impossible, and that’s annoying, because part of my job is remaining calm in high-stakes situations. This feels like a high-stakes situation on steroids, and I am anything but calm. My heart is thundering. It must be going over two hundred beats a minute, and I feel like I am just run a marathon through the desert. Speaking of, my mouth is dry, and my lips smack and stick together every time I speak. I know my hands are trembling, and I hold the books against my stomach so they don’t tremble in the air.
I just hope my knees hold me while Verity nods, turns, and starts toward the desk.
I practically run after her. I’m like a puppy being pulled on a leash, only I want to run ahead of her. Get there first, throw the books on her desk, and take off.
But I have to live and work in this town. I will see Verity again, and I’m sure she will ask me about it. I can’t tell her the truth, ever, and I don’t want to have that awkward conversation, so I force my feet to plant in front of the desk, and wait while it seems to take an interminable amount of time for her to get my information and get me a library card so I can get the three books I didn’t want in the first place, to read about the ten-year-old girl that I have absolutely zero interest in learning about, so I can get my butt out of the library.
Drawing lessons are not going to happen. I’ll take my chances on whatever comes out of my brush? Pen? Whatever in the world they used to draw on faces. I have no idea, and at this point I don’t care.
By the time I get out of the library, I feel like I barely escaped from the night of horrors, and I practically stumble to my truck, and drive back home to my apartment, hoping that my neighbor might be working, and I can sit, having her soothing, calm voice wash over me.
I go in, throw the books on the table, having zero intention of ever cracking one of them, and hear Trixie say, “Leo and his love bunny! Leo and his love bunny!”
“Pete. My name is Pete,” I say, exasperated at my bird, although I still like him. I’ll be sad when the ladies want him back. I probably ought to ask them what they’re thinking, because I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t watch it themselves. They’re here every day. I just walked by them, although I didn’t stop to talk.
My neighbor doesn’t seem to be around, but it doesn’t matter. I sit down in my chair, relieved I narrowly escaped with...my life? Maybe it wasn’t that dire, but it feels like it. I don’t care if I never see Naked Animal Rights Lady again.
As I sit there, I think that it’s only three days until my date with my neighbor. I’m definitely looking forward to that. No animal-rights ladies allowed.