BRIAR CREEK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
“Oh, no,” Mimi said. “You really don’t want to do that.”
“Yes, I do!” Bill insisted. “In fact, I demand it.”
Mimi sighed. She gave Bill an exasperated look like she didn’t think he had the sense to look both ways before he crossed the street. “Fine. There is no need to do a recount. It was unanimous. Everyone voted for Carrie.”
Bill gasped as if she’d slapped him. “That can’t be.”
His gaze scoured the room, but everyone avoided eye contact.
“Is this true? Doug?” Bill glowered at an older gentleman sitting in the back row. “Look at me, Doug.”
Doug Dowd, wearing a pressed shirt with a string tie, twisted his gloves in his hands and glanced quickly up and over the top of Bill’s head.
It was enough. Bill turned to frown at another older and chunkier man in the third row. “Warren?”
Warren was braver than Doug. He raised his hands in a placating gesture and said, “Now don’t go taking it all personal, Bill.”
“I can assure you, Warren,” Bill snapped. “It is personal.”
Lindsey would have felt sorry for him if he weren’t such a pompous windbag.
“Well, I suppose there’s nothing more to be said.” He stomped over to his chair and gathered his overcoat and briefcase.
He had trouble tying his scarf around his neck as his hands were shaking. The entire room watched him go; no one offered to help him. Now Lindsey did feel bad for him.
She rose from her window seat and gestured to Mimi that she was going to check on him. Mimi gave her a nod of thanks.
Bill must have been moving at a small run, because Lindsey didn’t catch him until he was just stepping out the front door into the cold.
“Mr. Sint, Bill!” she called.
He spun around quickly as if he had been expecting someone to call him back. He looked disappointed to find that it was Lindsey.
“What?” he snapped. “Are you here to gloat about your victory?”
“Excuse me?” she asked. The blast of cold air made her long to step back into the toasty library, but she didn’t want to offend him any more than she already had.
“Library directors don’t attend Friends’ meetings,” he said. “Unless, they’re presenting some information. But not you, oh, no, you were there to witness me getting voted out of office. What did I ever do to you?”
“I’m sorry,” Lindsey said. “But I had nothing to do with how the vote went.”
“Of course you did,” he argued. “Everyone wants to impress our new, little library director. Did you tell them all how to vote and then decide to show up to make sure they did?”
“No!”
“Ha!” He scoffed. “Well, now you’ve got what you wanted. Little Carrie Rushton will run around and do your bidding with no ambitions for the group other than to fund your ridiculous children’s programs. I hope you’re happy.”
Lindsey wanted to tell him that the more he opened his mouth, the more she was delighted with the outcome of the election. But it didn’t seem like the most diplomatic way to assuage the ruffled emotions of the former president.
“Your service over the years has been much appreciated,” Lindsey said. “We would welcome your advice and input in any capacity you care to share it.”
“Get stuffed!” Bill snapped, and he tossed his scarf around his throat and strode off into the night.
As she watched him stomp toward the parking lot, she saw Marjorie Bilson come hurrying up the walk. She was a tiny thing, petite and skinny and full of nervous energy. She reminded Lindsey of a sparrow, hopping about with sharp eyes, a sharp beak and plain brown feathers. She too was a member of the Friends, which Lindsey found odd since Marjorie was not much of a reader.
Marjorie stopped next to Bill and put her hand on his arm. Lindsey had noticed that the tiny woman looked at Bill with a certain amount of worship in her brown eyes. Lindsey couldn’t see why, but who was she to judge.
Bill shrugged her off and said some terse words that were muffled by his scarf. Marjorie emitted a shriek of horror, which even from thirty feet away, Lindsey heard quite clearly. Then she clapped a mittened hand over her mouth and followed Bill out to the parking lot.
This couldn’t be good. Marjorie was probably the only person who would have voted for Bill, and obviously, she had missed the vote. Lindsey wondered if Bill would demand a new election based upon that alone.
She stepped back into the warm library with a sigh. She could feel a pair of eyes watching her and she turned to find the indomitable Ms. Cole, who ran their circulation desk, watching her.
“Mr. Tupper never had any problems with Bill as the president of the Friends of the Library,” she said. She gave Lindsey a look of disapproval over the upper edge of her reading glasses.
Lindsey sighed. Mr. Tupper, the former director of the Briar Creek Public Library, had been perfect in Ms. Cole’s estimation. In the nine months Lindsey had been here, Ms. Cole had never missed an opportunity to make a comment that found Lindsey wanting in comparison to the hallowed Mr. Tupper.
Always a monochromatic dresser, Ms. Cole was usually in shades of gray or beige. Today, she had thrown caution to the wind and she was in varying shades of purple, from her opaque violet stockings and grape lollipop wool skirt to her bulky lavender sweater. Instead of softening her mannish features, however, the pastel colors seemed to wash out the skin tone on her portly person, leaving her looking a bit jaundiced.
“Mr. Tupper was an extraordinary man,” Lindsey said. She had discovered that if she praised Mr. Tupper right away, it saved her from having to listen to even more of Ms. Cole’s critique of her performance in comparison to her predecessor.
With a curt nod, Ms. Cole glanced back at her computer and the stack of books she was checking in. She was clearly pleased that Lindsey had come to revere the legend that was Mr. Tupper.
The circulation desk was quiet, as was the rest of the library. Lindsey glanced around the room, soaking up the homey atmosphere. The children’s area had been picked up, and Beth sat at her desk in the middle of it, cutting out snowflakes for her story time craft the next day.
Jessica was manning the reference desk on the adult side of the library. Two high school students were quizzing her about a list of books they needed for their required reading. They appeared to be asking for the CliffsNotes version, which Jessica was providing but also discouraging.
Two people were on the bank of Internet computers at the end of the room, and one patron had fallen asleep in the cushy chair by the magazines.
Lindsey made her way over there. She wanted to wake the poor guy before Ms. Cole saw him. She had been known to drop the heaviest book she could find beside an unsuspecting snoozer, giving the poor person a small heart attack.
As Lindsey got closer, she recognized the sleeper. It was her friend library board member Milton Duffy. His bald head shone under the overhead lights and his mouth was slightly agape, framed by his silver goatee.
Lindsey gently shook his arm. “Milton, psst, Milton.”
He jolted awake and leaned forward with his reading glasses in one hand and his favorite yoga magazine in the other.
He turned, and when his bright green eyes met hers, he grinned. “Lindsey, you’re just the person I was looking for. Just give me a moment.”
“Certainly.”
He rose from his seat and assumed the mountain pose. From here he went into a deep forward bend. Milton was a certified yogi and Lindsey had learned not to rush him when he was in a posture. She waited as he slowly rose to an upright position, vertebra by vertebra.
With a deep breath in and a sharp exhale, he gave her his full attention.
“So, how did the election for the Friends go?” he asked.
As always, Lindsey was surprised by how deeply in the loop Milton was about the library’s goings-on. She should be used to it by now. As the chairman of the library board, he generally knew what was happening even before Lindsey did.
“Carrie Rushton won,” Lindsey said. “I’m surprised you weren’t there, Milton; you’re a member of the Friends.”
“I felt it might be a conflict of interest, what with me being on the library board and all,” he said.
Lindsey just stared at him.
“Okay,” he relented. “Bill and I have a history and I didn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize Carrie winning the election.”
Lindsey raised her eyebrows. What sort of history could Bill and Milton have? How could he just throw that out there and not tell her any more? She continued to stare at him, unblinking.
“Oh, fine,” he said.
Lindsey grinned. The unblinking stare, it worked every time.
“We both dated my Anna in high school, but she chose me and Bill has never gotten over it.”
Milton brushed an invisible piece of lint off his navy track suit. He didn’t meet Lindsey’s gaze and she got the feeling he was embarrassed.
“Why do I think there is more to this story?” she asked.
“Not really,” Milton said. Then he sighed. “Bill is a very bitter man. He never got over losing Anna to me and tried to best me at everything I have ever done. I went to Yale, he went to Princeton. I bought the oldest house in town. He inherited his family’s estate, which is the biggest house in Briar Creek. I married Anna, he married her cousin. It’s ridiculous. You’d think after sixty years the man would get over it.”
“I can see why you abstained,” Lindsey said. “That was a good call.”
Milton opened his mouth to say something, but just then Ms. Cole announced that the library would be closing in ten minutes. Lindsey glanced at her watch in surprise. Where had the evening gone?
She heard the sound of footsteps and saw that the Friends were making their way down the stairs at the end of the room. Ms. Cole heard them, too, and she hushed them as only Ms. Cole could do. It sounded like something between a snake’s hiss and the crack of a whip.
The Friends immediately quieted down. Most of them waved and kept on walking out of the building, but Carrie and Mimi stopped by Milton and Lindsey to talk.
Milton pumped Carrie’s hand up and down in congratulations and she beamed.
“I’m so excited,” Carrie said in a rush. “Mimi and I have a ton of ideas to help get some cash flowing into the Friends’ bank account. Warren told me we have some rare books that have been donated to the Friends. If we can’t use them in the library, I bet we could sell them in an on-line auction and make a fortune.”
“She’s going to be a great president,” Mimi said. “No more of Bill’s spinning his wheels in indecision. We’re going to make some changes.”
“That’s wond-” Lindsey began but she was interrupted.
“The library is now closed!” Ms. Cole barked from behind the circulation desk and they all jumped.
The others exchanged startled glances and hurried toward the door.
“We’ll talk more tomorrow,” Milton said to Lindsey. “Ladies, may I escort you to your cars?”
Mimi simpered and Carrie grinned as Milton bundled up and led them out the front door into the brisk January air.
Lindsey helped shut down the building, switching off the computers, copiers and coffeepots and finally setting the alarm. Even after almost a year, she still got tense when she only had fifteen seconds to get out the back door after she activated the system.
Per usual, Ms. Cole set off across the parking lot to her compact sedan without so much as a good night.
“Do you think the lemon is aware of how off-putting her personality is?” Beth asked Jessica and Lindsey as they stood, watching the older woman stride away.
“I think she likes who she is,” Jessica said. “The lemon is all about maintaining order, and I think the library gives her a place, her own little corner of the universe, to maintain order within. I think it gives the lemon a purpose.”
“That sounds about right,” Lindsey said. “And I do think she enjoys her work in her own way.”
Ms. Cole had been nicknamed the lemon long before Lindsey had come to work in Briar Creek, so she didn’t feel it was her place to tell the staff not to call her that. Besides, with Ms. Cole’s perpetual pucker of disapproval, it was hard to argue against the name, as it was a dead-accurate description.
“Do either of you want a ride?” Jessica offered. “You’re going to freeze biking home in this.”
“We’re tough,” Beth said. As if to prove it, she made a muscle with her right arm, which was completely invisible under her bulky coat.
“Crazy is more like it,” Jessica said, and she climbed into her car with a smile and a wave.
Lindsey thought she might be onto something with the crazy comment. When she had moved from New Haven to Briar Creek, Lindsey had committed to a greener lifestyle and sold her car. She hadn’t really considered how cold that lifestyle would be, however, when winter came.
“Buck up,” Beth said, as if sensing her unhappiness about the bike ride ahead. “Just think how much better your butt looks now that you’re biking every day.”
“Yeah, and I’m going to need a firm behind to keep people from noticing the toes that go missing due to hypothermia,” Lindsey said.
“Are we feeling a little whiny?” Beth asked.
“No, yes, a little,” Lindsey said.
“Come on, get moving, you’ll warm up and feel better and you can reward yourself with a decadent dessert when you get home.”
Beth wrapped her scarf about her head, dumped her purse and book bag in the basket on her bike and set off on her cruiser.
Lindsey watched the blinking light on Beth’s bike alerting motorists to her presence, then followed her example, trying to ignore the stinging cold that made her eyes tear up.
What had she been thinking when she sold her car? On Sunday, she was going to look at the classifieds. Surely, there was a small economical and environmental vehicle out there that wouldn’t harm the planet and could get her from point A to point B and keep her from feeling like a human Popsicle.
Mercifully, Briar Creek was a small town and she only had about a mile to go to get to her house. She followed Beth to the end of Main Street, where the road forked. Beth went to the left toward her beach house and Lindsey to the right to her top-floor apartment in an old captain’s house.
At least the roads were clear now. Last week, after a snow storm, she’d had to walk for three days until the bicycle path was clear enough to be used again.
With her long, curly blond hair stuffed securely in her helmet as extra insulation, her ears were completely muffled and it took her a second to register the sound of a car engine coming in her direction.
She knew even with her blinky light on, she was not very visible, so she glanced over her shoulder to see where the car was, and her heart stopped in her throat. With its high beams on and its engine revving, the car was headed straight for her.