“You’re quite welcome,” he replies.
At that moment, a young woman exits the main library doors behind us and approaches the exit. “Oh my,” she says. “It’s horrible out there.” She glances at Doug. “Does the gift shop sell umbrellas?”
“Take mine,” I offer, extending my arm to offer her the gift I’d received before her, her shelter from the storm. “And pass it along to someone else who needs it. That’s how it came to me.”
She blinks and says, “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“That’s amazing,” she murmurs, accepting the gift I’ve offered her. “I’ll pass it along as well.”
Doug opens the door for her, and she steps outside. As she disappears into the weather, Doug offers me a smile of approval. I’m smiling, too, until I reach for the door beyond Doug, the one leading to the floor-one zoo, and pause with a realization. Today I have been seen, not just once, but over and over again. By way of Kara’s trust, by way of the man at the table on floor two. By way of Loretta’s kindness. Then there was the note left on my table. And, finally, the man who offered me his umbrella.
I am not invisible, not this one day.
And it’s the wrong day when I have a presentation to deliver.
It’s with this thought that the young woman opens the door and exits into the rain, the umbrella sheltering her and no longer me. Something Jess said to me not too long ago flits through my mind.“If you don’t want to be invisible, stop choosing to be invisible. Don’t dress like every day is a funeral. Wear makeup. Dare to make eye contact.”
“You know what I think, Mia,” she’d said to me one day.
“I can guess,” I’d said. “You don’t have to say it.”
“I think you’re afraid to be seen.”
“That’s silly,” I’d said, waving her off. “Why would I be afraid to be seen?”
“Hiding is always easier than facing judgment, but those who judge you are not worthy of you, anyway.”
If only I were as confident as Jess, but something my mother of all people says often rings true as well:“Fake it until you make it.”Of course, she didn’t make that saying up. Who knows who originally did. Per my mother’s friend who sold Mary Kay cosmetics, pink car and all, it was Mary Kay. Regardless of who said it, faking is all I’ve got right now.
With a deep, calming breath, I enter the main library, only to all but run into Jack. “I was about to come to get you,” he announces. “You only have a few minutes before the meeting starts.” He shifts the topic before I can reply. “I was able to set your presentation material on a table inside the meeting room.” He dares to take a breath, his eyes narrowing on me. “How are you feeling?”
Antsy,I think, feeding off his hyped energy, and not in a good way. My heart is racing. My hands tremble slightly. But I also have a choice to make right now. I can choose to decide luck, like the rain, is on my side or choose to believe the universe has tricked me and set me up for a massive failure. I choose luck today; therefore I say, “I’m ready. Thank you for your help.”
“I’m just sorry I didn’t get over to Caroline’s to give you a pep talk. It’s been insane on our floor. I have to get back.” He glances at his watch. “And you now have about three minutes to get in there.” He squeezes my elbow. “Good luck.” He walks backward, gives me a thumbs-up, and then turns and starts walking away.
I watch him step onto the escalator, the note burning a hole in my bag, the words playing in my head.You look beautiful today.Despite Jack never doing such a thing before, I think in the back of my mind I’d really believed him responsible and motivated by an effort to stirmy confidence. He’s distracted, though, his jittery mood a product of him juggling patrons and long checkout lines upstairs. I know him. I know that means he didn’t have time to come next door and leave me that note.
I know him. I know Jack.
I repeat those words and think of his dating profile that was here one moment and gone the next. I’m reminded of my mother, who I’ve always believed loved and adored my father, but is now out of town with her incredibly good-looking boss. I think of me, waffling between wanting to be seen and not wanting to be seen. Do any of us really know anyone, even ourselves?
Chapter Sixteen
I hurry through the busy main floor of the library, my mind retraveling the past and why I must not let Kara down. Five years ago this month, she came into my little library branch. I was on top of a ladder, seeking a title I suspected had been misfiled. By the end of our first encounter, I’d found out my library was closing due to budget cuts, and Kara would be my new boss at the central library.
She saved my job. I can’t let her down.
Nerves destroy me as I arrive at the meeting room and peek my head inside. There are rows of chairs filled with people, and at the front of it all I spy a projector and a podium.
Neil spots me and motions me toward the front of the room. “We’re waiting on one more board member,” he informs me. He gestures to a steel chair. “Have a seat.”
Just that easily I’m dismissed, and it’s sweet relief until I’m actually sitting down with a good forty sets of eyes. Forty times two is eighty. Eighty eyes on me.
A man walks into the room, and he must be the expected investor as Neil steps to the microphone. I barely hear him as he invites me to speak, but I’m aware of the rain that pelts the glass windows. “Luck of the rain,” I silently murmur. I can do this. Ihaveto do this. Kara is counting on me.
I stand, knees weak, chest tight, but I manage to step to the podium, carefully pressing my hands to the wooden top, hiding their tremble. I will myself to calm down and remember what a teacher told me once. Find one spot at the back of the room, focus there, and hang on to that one spot until you can breathe again.
