Chapter Twenty-Five
When Diana arrives at work the following morning, Camille waits in her office.
Two large Sully’s coffee cups sit in the middle of the desk.
Diana pauses in the hallway and tries to guess why Camille is here.
Is Camille angry she worked from home yesterday?
Did she forget a deadline or a meeting? Anything is possible, Diana thinks.
“There you are,” Camille says, standing up and smiling.
She wouldn’t be smiling if I messed up. Or bringing me coffee.
“Did we have a meeting? I’m sorry I forgot, Camille.”
“No, no, I wanted to talk with you before we both got busy with our days.” She points to the desk. “I got you a cappuccino.”
Dropping her bag on her desk, Diana picks up the drink. Still hot. Camille hasn’t been waiting long. “Thank you. What can I do for you?”
Instead of responding, Camille closes Diana’s office door.
Maybe I did screw up, Diana thinks.
Camille sits back down, and Diana follows suit. She slowly places the cappuccino on the desk. I shouldn’t hold a hot drink if I’m about to hear bad news.
“I’ll get right to it. Are you planning to attend the Spring Fling next week? Paul has a last-minute business trip, so he’s out,” Camille says. “I’ll be solo and could use backup.”
The Spring Fling, the library’s annual fundraiser, is one area where Diana doesn’t get involved, except to approve the vendor contracts and make sure the bills are paid. “Is there an issue with the budget?”
“The budget is under our projections, actually. I’m asking if you’re planning to attend.
You skipped it last year, which was the right thing to do.
How about going this year? It’ll be good for you to be out there, talking to people.
You may even have fun.” Camille finishes with a theatrical swoop of her arms.
Diana grimaces. She hasn’t been to a party since before Tom’s death. Is she ready to put herself out there?
When she returned to work after Tom’s funeral, putting herself out there, even talking to anyone, was too much, and Diana retreated.
She barely made eye contact with her coworkers, and she avoided the library’s patrons, taking the service stairs to her office instead of walking by the main desk.
She ate lunch in her office with the door closed and declined as many meeting invitations as she could.
She would have stayed like that forever had it not been for Camille. After the third time of Diana giving her regrets to the all-staff meeting, Camille came into her office and made it clear the time had come to reengage. “Diana,” she said. “Enough hiding.”
Diana looked up from the quarter-end financial statements.
Camille had an expression Diana hadn’t seen since before Tom was diagnosed.
She was irritated, and Diana was relieved to be the recipient of an emotion other than pity.
She thought of her coworkers, how they donated vacation and sick time to her so she could spend Tom’s last days at his side, how they dropped off food while he was in hospice, how they crowded the church at his funeral. She had been hiding from them.
She acquiesced to Camille’s demand, but that first all-staff meeting had been brutal.
The hugs from the children’s library staff, the way Leonard in security patted her shoulder without saying a word, the promises of ongoing prayers from Ruth, the head of janitorial—they all did her in, and as soon as she could, Diana escaped back to her office.
She hadn’t heard her door open. She hadn’t realized Camille was there, until her strong arms wrapped around her.
“It will get easier,” Camille whispered, perhaps anticipating the end of Diana’s suffering, a time when grief wasn’t her first thought in the morning and her last late at night. “It will.”
Eventually Camille was right: It did get easier.
Diana stopped collapsing after chats with colleagues, even with Ruth’s continued prayers and Leonard’s sorrowful shoulder taps.
By the first anniversary of Tom’s death, minutes could go by when she wouldn’t think of him.
Sometimes, hours went by before he came to mind.
She didn’t realize the change at first, only that she felt lighter and that the days passed by more quickly.
But now, because of that letter, she’s back to focusing on Tom all the time. The loss of him is a ringing in her ears and a jabbing, sharp pain in her ribs, as if her body is punishing her for having put him aside.
Camille speaks again, bringing Diana back from the past. “I have another motive for having you join me: I want you to run next year’s Spring Fling committee.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“This fundraiser is one of the last areas where you can build experience, and it’s time for you to get involved.
Staffing the Spring Fling is the perfect first step.
” Camille’s serious expression and the firm set of her chin indicate she’s made her decision, and no one, including Diana, will be able to change her mind. Diana attempts to anyway.
“Camille, the Spring Fling is your baby. Having both of us working on it is duplicative, a waste of resources,” Diana says, fully aware of how much Camille hates wasted resources.
“Nice try,” Camille says, with laughter in her voice. “You’re going to fly this one on your own, so someday you can run the entire library.”
“What are you saying?”
“With Malcolm off to college this fall and Paul eligible for retirement next summer, we’ve been talking about moving back to Atlanta.
Our extended family is in Georgia, and I’d like to trade in my boots and parka for Sunday lunch with my sisters.
I need to get my affairs in order here at the library.
That includes getting you ready to take over as director. ”
Diana freezes, the shock of Camille’s news overwhelming her thoughts.
“You don’t need to make any decisions about this today,” Camille continues.
“I can’t give the job to you, of course.
You’ll have to apply and go through the interviewing process.
Having the board on your side would be advantageous, which means you need more face time with them. Say yes to this, Diana.”
If Camille had presented this suggestion before—when Tom was still alive—Diana would have immediately declined, Tom’s career demands taking priority over hers.
It hits her like a clap of thunder on a spectacularly sunny day: She is different. Losing Tom, being on her own, learning he kept secrets from her—all that has changed her. She wants more. She’s not sure what that more might be, but she lets that idea linger.
“Diana?”
“If my parents can watch the kids, I’ll come.”
“Excellent. Ask your mom.”
“Come on, don’t you have better things to do? Like oversee the library? Check on the staff? Do literally anything else?”
“No, actually, I do not.”
Diana fishes her phone out of her bag and texts her mother. Library fundraiser next Friday night. Any chance kids can stay with you and Dad?
“Done,” she says, holding out her phone to Camille.
“Good, now I can go run the library,” Camille says, turning to leave.
Diana’s phone buzzes. Yes, of course. We’ll make it a sleepover.
Camille stops, her hand on the doorframe. “And?”
“She said yes, so I will be your wingman. Or is it wingwoman? Whatever it is, I’ll be there,” Diana says, though she fears attending the Spring Fling will be a mistake.
Camille gives her a thumbs-up and disappears out the door, the sound of her silver bracelets ringing behind her.
Once she’s alone, Diana removes the lid from her coffee and licks the cappuccino’s foam. She hadn’t anticipated this conversation with Camille, but it’s intriguing. She’ll have to give the idea of being library director more thought.
As for the Spring Fling, the last time Diana attended was two years ago, with Tom.
She remembers him asking why the event was scheduled for outside in April, when the probability of a winter chill or a blizzard was a reality.
“Wouldn’t a hotel be smarter?” he said, as he knotted his tie in front of the bedroom mirror.
Diana was in the bathroom applying her makeup, trying for the third time to give herself a smoky eye that didn’t look like she’d been punched in the face.
“I’ve asked about moving it to June, even September.
When I do, I’m told that it wouldn’t be the Spring Fling and what people want is the Spring Fling. ”
They hadn’t yet known he was sick; that would come the following month, like a torpedo stealthily making its way through the cold, dark ocean to its target.
The rest of the night comes to her in bursts of memory: Tom spinning her across the dance floor; kissing him against the leafless maple tree across from Alcott Pond on their walk home; the tree branch that left a large purple bruise on her lower back; and Tom’s fingers holding her chin as he whispered, “I want you.” His voice was urgent and demanding, and they ran home, her feet slipping in her high heels, their hands clasped together.
They left their clothes in a pile by the front door, and after, they fell asleep on the floor of the living room, a scratchy blanket from the back of the sofa thrown hastily over them, Tom’s arm under her shoulder, the other across her waist.
Five months later, he was dead.
Diana stands up and walks across the room to the windows.
She presses her fingers against the glass, watching people stroll along the sidewalk below.
She needs to look at something else, something real.
She focuses on a budding forsythia bush in front of the post office until the memories of that night fade.