I jumped off the couch and snapped the TV off. My entire brain was overloading. “No, no, no. Let me explain—”
“First you get pushy at lunch telling everyone theyhaveto watch this series, and now this...call? I gotta say, I’m feeling very violated right now. Don’t come in tomorrow until I talk to Ed.”
“Sara, you don’t understand—”
The line went dead.
Chapter Two: The Vacation Day of Doom
Iwoke up that morningand had a blissful minute stretching in bed before I remembered the horrific call with Sara. That she heard me moan a fictional character’s name. That she said not to come in until I heard from our boss, her uncle. My face grew hot, my heart sped, and I could only too easily imagine the knowing look Sara would give Gemma and Ahmad when they wondered if I was out sick. They’d ask her what she knew, she’d duck her head, lower her voice...and spill everything.
I knew she would because I had seen her do the exact same thing dozens of times. Just last week she told me Ahmad and George from sales went on a date and now weren’t speaking. It wasn’t the kind of necessary gossip between women—Hey, did we all get the same bonus this year?—but the mean girl kind.
Sara was a gossip dealer, but I had always turned a blind eye to it. Well, I guess that wasn’t true. I had been a willing listener if it meant that I was on the inside, protected from Sara’s words. Sara liked me best when I didn’t contradict her, and I’d been happy to play along, counted as a friend to someone at least.
Only now I had given her something she couldn’t resist and she was going to do all she could to make sure I didn’t have a job because of a misunderstanding—an embarrassing one, to be sure, but not as terrible as she thought it was. I was just...trying to bring a book to life.
It was a sad morning of apple slices and peanut butter for breakfast, and trying to coax Ginger out of the basement to no avail. I couldn’t text Fern—how would I explain why I wasn’t at work?—and couldn’t stay home with my thoughts any longer, so I got in my little electric car and drove to the one place I could think of—the library.
It had been years since I was inside the Mayfair Public Library during the day. After seasons of scurrying to the holds shelf during closing hour or dropping off returns in the dewy morning before work, I forgot how magical the building looked inside. Our public library had been well endowed from the start, so it looked more like a university library. The ceilings were high set and Corinthian columns lined the interior. What made it transcendent though, was the morning sun streaming through stained-glass windows and skylights. With that mix of colored and clear-white light, the library spun magic.
At the front, I scanned a table of new release titles I’d seen trending, but nothing caught my eye. It was hard to pick up a new series, especially without having read the author before. Sometimes I felt like half reader, half fraud. Sure, I read a lot, but I always came back to the same series. I was more likely to read fan fiction set in theLandsome Roadsworld than I was to pick up that trendy stand-alone with the teal cover.
I dove farther into the stacks and passed a man reading a magazine, his carpetbag propped up against his chair. A woman worked at a community puzzle table. Except for a few staff members, everyone in the library was older than me. I supposed I could find women my age in the children’s section, women who had chosen a different life path and now had something to show for it—new life!—while I had a pending legal battle with my soon-to-be former employer.
I walked the fantasy section, dismayed to see I’d already read the majority of the romantasy titles. I picked a few adventure fantasy books at random and read the back. Fewer books made it to stage two: reading the first pages of chapter one. Some of the right words were there—castle, wizard, great battle—but where was the forbidden love, the inn room with one bed? Plus, the character names, the name of the kingdom were too unfamiliar, and required too much effort in a moment where I just wanted to read and...what? Feel comforted? Was I one ofthosereaders?
Yet, that morning while still in bed, I found I couldn’t continue reading the first book ofLandsome Roads.It only brought back last night’s awful occurrence and I didn’t want my favorite series to be forever marred by that association.
Maybe I’d get a graphic novel, something with killer artwork. I could read in a sunny chair surrounded by the beautiful library before treating myself to lunch out. I tried to force a smile. It was a good idea in theory. How many days had I sat at Tempo wishing I could do just this?
But I wasn’t feeling it. I wasn’t feeling much of anything that morning. I sighed and pushed my hair back over my shoulders. I couldn’t remember if I had brushed it. My hair was thick and long, to the middle of my back. My clothing that day, an uninspired set of cargo pants and chunky sweater. I was sure I looked abysmal, not cute enough for a day of errands and luncheon, but I would force myself to feel better, be better. If I remembered correctly, the graphic novel section was somewhere by the coworking stations.
I wound up in Westerns instead—they must have rearranged the back shelves. I’d never read a Western and wasn’t going to start then, but I meandered through them as I looked for the graphic novels. Then I saw an alcove I hadn’t seen before. So typical to put the kinds of books that interested young people behind all the boomer genres. I stepped through the doorway.
This was a smaller part of the library—certainly older as there were no skylights. I ran a finger along the shelves and kept moving inward.
