I took the long way to the special collections room via the children’s department and was greeted by utter bedlam. Outside Mrs. Stubblefield’s office, I could hear the mayor’s wife complaining about an unwarranted thirty-six-dollar late fee assigned to her account. There was a book cart parked in the middle of the reading room, covered in jumbled books. From the thick layer of dust settled on their spines, it was clear nobody cared whether they needed to be reshelved. In nonfiction, the Golightly sisters were fighting over the last available copy of The Secret. I stared in slackjawed horror at a silverfish crawling over the opened pages of the massive dictionary kept near the reference desk.
I’d had postapocalyptic nightmares like this, dreams of walking into the library and finding it ravaged, abandoned to scavengers and, possibly, zombies. Apparently, abandoning the library to Mrs. Stubblefield and her niece was not much better. And none of this bothered me nearly as much as walking into the children’s department, which looked like Paris circa 1944. Books were scattered like dead birds across the floor, split open, their spines cracking. The stuffed Mother Goose was in an anatomically correct position with Humpty Dumpty. The bookshelf containing the baby and toddler books had collapsed and was leaning against the wall, broken and discarded. Three little girls were running around the Storytime Carpet, spiking paperback copies of Junie B. Jones like footballs. Ten-year-old twins Jake and Josh Richards sat in the corner, furtively drawing breasts on the women in the Illustrated History books.
Seven-year-old Jimmy Tipton, who had been repeatedly warned not to bring juice to the library, was tossing prechewed Gummy Bears through the puppet theater. His mother, who had been warned not to bring Jimmy to the library, was nowhere in sight. I was prepared to let it go. To walk away. It was someone else’s problem. And then I saw Jimmy rip his juice box open and start to pour juice on the carpet. The carpet I’d installed with my own two hands.
“Stop!” I thundered in a voice not my own. It resonated inside my skull, echoing out over the children in waves. I could see everything, every page in every book. Every drop of blood coursing through the children’s veins. Every drop of Hawaiian Punch dripping onto the carpet. “Stop what you’re doing right now!”
The children froze. Their arms fell to their sides, and they awaited orders. To think of all the time and frustration this could have saved me during Story Hours.
“This is not how I taught you to behave in the library. This is not how I taught you to treat books. I want you to erase every mark. I want you to put everything away,” I intoned. “Everything. Even if you didn’t touch it, put it in its proper place.”
The kids scrambled to do my bidding. Even the kids who didn’t know the Dewey Decimal System, or their alphabet, were shelving books. I handed Jimmy a roll of paper towels from behind the counter.
“Blot,” I told him, and marched into the special collections room.
I was nose-deep in a rare edition of History of Hematology when Mrs. Stubblefield peeked around the corner. I caught her in my peripheral super-vision but deliberately ignored her until she was standing right in front of me. She jumped when I snapped the book shut and offered a sharp, sweet grin.
“Hi, Mrs. Stubblefield!” I chirped, cheerful to the point that it pained me.
She blanched, clearly expecting me to indulge in some sort of Texas Chainsaw Fired Employee Revenge Fantasy.
I stretched out to scan her mind. She put up no resistance, and I was overwhelmed with chaotic images. I saw whimsically tilted stacks of unshelved books left untouched for weeks. Mrs. Stubblefield finding my reminder (written in red Sharpie) on the calendar to call the exterminator for our annual spraying two months after the silverfish invaded.
Posey sending out a Story Time flyer with the word “public” spelled without an “l.” Mrs.
Stubblefield fruitlessly trying to reset the server when the online card catalog crashed.
“You asked to see me?” she asked as I enjoyed her memory of the library board standing around her desk, demanding to know how she had lost control of the place so quickly. Before I could speak, Mrs. Stubblefield blurted out, “We were hoping you might come back to your position as director of juvenile services. There would be a decrease in pay, of course, and you would have to take on more evening and weekend hours. I would hope that you would take these inconveniences in stride and recognize this offer for the gesture that it is.”
In other words, the library board was telling her to give me my job back, but she wanted my tail tucked between my legs when I returned.
I smirked nastily. “I guess that budget issue cleared itself up, hmm?”
I knew it was mean, but I was sure I’d get a free pass on that one. Mrs. Stubblefield made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
I looked across the hall to the children’s department, a room where I had spent the better part of six years. If you’d asked me as I walked into the library that night whether I wanted my old job back, I probably would have said I’d jump at the chance. But it’s true what they say about going home again. Everything about the library seemed so foreign to me now, almost cold. I loved the kids, the patrons, but I didn’t belong at the library anymore. There was nothing for me there. Plus, I didn’t know whether I could handle rooms full of chattering children with my super hearing.
I smiled. “You know what? No, thanks. I’m doing pretty well. Good luck replacing me, though.”
“Jane, please be reasonable,” Mrs. Stubblefield begged.
“I am being reasonable. I’m not accepting your sad, hobbled excuse for a job offer.
The only reason I came here tonight is that I need a signature here,” I said, pushing the form toward her.
Her eyes scanned the top of the form, with “Federal Bureau of Undead Affairs” in huge Arial font. Understanding flicked across her features, and she turned roughly the shade of wallpaper paste. The moth eyebrows shot to her hairline and fluttered there indefinitely. She stared at the canines I was allowing to edge over my bottom lip. My eyes traced the slightly varicose veins along her throat, her collarbone.
I slid a blood-red ink pen across the table for her. “Oh, wait, it says it has to be signed in black. Silly me, what was I thinking?” I gave her a wide smile. “Red just seems to be my favorite color lately.”
Now fidgeting with the gold cross she wore at her throat, Mrs. Stubblefield signed the paper. She carefully avoided touching any part of the paper where she’d seen my hands.
“Thank you.” I let a low, hungry note creep into my voice as I said, “It’s so good to see you, Mrs. Stubblefield. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. I think I may have to come by more often.”
I stood, refrained from rolling my eyes when Mrs. Stubblefield flinched, and stuck my book on the correct shelf. I reached the door of the special collections room and turned back to my former boss.
“By the way, I’ve always wanted to tell you. Eyebrows. There should be two.”
Mrs. Stubblefield gasped in indignation as I swaggered out. I made a point to be pleasant to Posey as I checked out several volumes on remedial gardening and creating healthy boundaries in adult relationships. (My hope sprang eternal.) And yes, an Aretha Franklin chorus was ringing in my head as I left the building.
“R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me,” I hummed. Gabriel was perched on the Veterans Memorial Fountain across the street, dragging his fingers through the burbling water.
“How did you know I would be here?” I asked when I reached him.
“I made a lucky guess,” he said. He nodded toward the library. “What were you doing?”
“Having a truly excellent moment in my life,” I said, grinning shamelessly. “One of the best ever, to be honest, before and after you came along.”
“I don’t know how to take that,” he said.
“Doesn’t feel too good, does it?”
“How are you?” he asked. He pushed my shirt aside and traced his fingertips along the shiny edges of the scar over my collarbone. “Wood wounds take longer to heal. It will be gone in a few days.”
“I kind of like it,” I said, not bothering to move his hand away. “My very first war wound.”
“So, how are you?” he asked again.
“Recovering,” I said, meeting his gaze. “Zeb’s still a little weirded out. He watched me kill somebody, which was a horrible new experience. Plus, he had semisexual feelings when he watched me wrestle with Missy. I don’t know which was more disturbing for him.
“In another milestone in my emotional development, I sent Jolene a bridal planner specifically written for were-brides,” I said, adding flatly, “and in exchange, Jolene sent me a catalog of bridesmaid hair accessories.”
“I’m very proud of you,” Gabriel told me. “And your parents?”
“Not very proud of me right now,” I said. “And my sister is suing me.”
“I could still talk to them for you,” he offered.
“What would you possibly say? ‘Sorry I bit your daughter?’ They’re just going to have to work it out at their own speed,” I said. “I think Daddy’s going to be OK. In fact, I think he’s kind of leaning toward it being cool to have a vampire daughter. He called yesterday, mentioned that he’d like to talk to you.”
Gabriel made an “uh-oh” face.
“No, I think he just wants to ask you some questions about your Civil War days.
When I told him how old you are, he kind of started drooling.” I laughed.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a friendly chat with a special lady friend’s father,” he said, tugging at his shirt collar. “It will be friendly, won’t it?”