‘The loser I was waiting for never showed up. His name was Sylvester.’
‘Sylvester?’ said Lois as she waited to cross the road to the library. ‘No-one’s called Sylvester.’
‘Exactly,’ said Steph. ‘It’s a sign which I should have seen as soon as he came up as a match. I’m sending you the picture of him.’
‘Oh God, Steph.’ Sylvester was a thick-necked, shaven-headed man with quite frightening eyes.
‘I know. Lucky escape.’
‘Definitely.’ said Lois smiling to herself as she headed towards the library. She loved hearing about Steph’s dating so much that part of her would be sorry if she ever found Mr Right. ‘I need to go. Tell Andrew I said he should pull his socks up.’
‘Will do. Good luck, Lois.’
‘Thanks.’ She wheeled her bike into the library figuring that there must be somewhere she could leave it rather than outside.
‘You can’t bring that in here!’
It was the retired librarian. What was she doing here? Behind the desk? Quickly, Lois decided that this moment could make or break how today and maybe the rest of the job went for her.
Seeing a door marked ‘Office’ to her left, she said, ‘I’m going to leave it in the office in case it rains.’ She purposefully manhandled the bike through the office door, closed it behind her and sighed heavily. This wasn’t how she thought the day was going to go.
She pulled out her phone and called Robert.
‘Morning Lois,’ he said jovially. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Robert, I thought Rosemary at Croftwood Library had retired on Friday?’ Lois said in a low voice so as not to be overheard by anyone who might be listening on the other side of the door.
‘Well, yes. Why do you ask?’
‘She’s here, Robert. Behind the desk as if nothing’s changed.’
‘Oh, I see. Yes, we did wonder whether something like this might happen.’
Brilliant. And absolutely typical that despite thinking this might happen no-one did anything to stop it or at least warn her.
‘What am I supposed to do? I can hardly throw her out, can I?’
‘On the contrary, Lois. I’m not condoning forcibly removing her, but you are the interim manager and must run things as you see fit.’
Somehow, she hadn’t expected that. ‘Oh, right. Thanks, Robert.’
She ended the call, took off her cycle helmet and pulled her hair into a bun. She could do this. What had she said to Steph about not wanting to be a pushover anymore? With a smile plastered on her face, she opened the door and headed for the desk.
‘Good morning, Rosemary. We haven’t met officially, I’m Lois Morgan. Interim manager.’ She held her hand out and looked Rosemary firmly in the eye. ‘What can I do for you this morning?’
Rosemary did at least have the good grace to look taken aback and Lois smiled inside, feeling that she had managed a tiny victory.
‘Well…I imagine that you will need help to find your feet. Linda will be of some help of course but –’
‘Thank you so much for thinking of me but Linda and I will be fine.’ Lois made sure to sound firm, then added conspiratorially, ‘This isn’t my first time working in a library.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Rosemary looked downcast and for a split-second, Lois felt a pang of guilt. ‘Well, I must be going then.’
Lois felt it was best not to say anything more in case she caved in and offered Rosemary an extra couple of weeks work as a handover. After all, if she wanted to be here so badly, why hadn’t she stuck it out until the library closed down instead of retiring?
Once Rosemary had gone and Lois could get behind the desk, she was shocked by the amount of paperwork everywhere. She removed a sheaf of paper from the computer keyboard, switched it on and logged in. Out of interest, she went to look at the borrowings from the Saturday that had just gone. Nothing.
When Linda appeared from some re-shelving she’d been doing, Lois asked her about it.
