Ollie sat on the ground in the circular center of the first floor, packing newly cleaned books, and feeling more than a little embarrassed after freaking out on Noble. The man had just looked so horrified and guilty, as if it was Noble’s fault Ollie had freaked out. It wasn’t. Just Ollie’s dumb brain being stupid.
He sighed as he sealed the box he’d been working on. Pushing it aside, instead of grabbing another box and more books, he stared off blankly, trying not to think. Which was easier to do at the moment because he was tired, so…zoning out for the win.
Ollie blinked, flinching when someone else’s shadow joined his own. Looking back, he relaxed on finding Jahla there.
In a long-sleeved shirt that was half white and half black, with a diagonal zipper separating the colors, along with baggy black cargo pants, and her normal boots, her locs were down, and there was a stiff smile on her face as she held up a paper Burger King bag and drinks carrier containing two cups. “Just me. I brought food. Though whether fast food is actually food is always in question.”
He eyed the bag. “Nuggets?”
“Yep, and onion rings. I got you Sprite to drink.”
“Yay!” he said with as much cheer as he could. He wasn’t feeling that cheerful, but he was trying. As she pulled out their food and used the bag as a tray, he snagged a nugget and took a bite, swallowing before asking, “What about everyone else?”
“They decided to go out to eat, but figured you wouldn’t want to.”
They were right, so he didn’t bother getting offended that they hadn’t asked him. Though he must have missed them leaving while he was in back. “What about Noble?”
The man was out buying more tape and a few other things, as he, in fact, had been wrong, and there hadn’t actually been any in that supply room, making his meltdown even more worthless.
“I texted him and he said he’d pick something up on the way back and just eat it while driving.”
“Ah,” he murmured before finishing his nugget and taking a drink from his soda.
“Have you contacted that specialized cleaning company yet?” She eyed the multiple large stacks of closed boxes sitting near the open hall that led to the wheelchair accessible public side entrance and exit. Near those stacks was an empty heavy-duty cart, and a packaging scale with multiple sharpies scattered beside it. But that was not all the boxes, because to his left were at least fifty more, and they had yet to be weighed.
Ollie cleared his throat. “Yeah, there is a stack of printed shipping labels on the circulation desk—near where Red is currently napping—that are waiting for me to match them up with the weights written on the boxes by the elevator. I suppose I should work on that after eating. I plan to have Noble help me load up the library van with as many as is safe weight-wise, and do several runs to the post office.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to just schedule pickups?” she asked.
“I could, but I figured it may be better to do it ourselves, as they can be finicky, and I don’t want someone to have to sit here waiting for people to arrive and waste time.”
Jahla snorted. “Right, there were a few times they never showed up, and then that one time they did, with not enough space for what we needed hauled away, even after warning them.”
“Yep,” he said after eating another nugget and an onion ring. “How’s the progress upstairs?”
With Ollie’s throat still acting up, and it becoming apparent that the respirator was causing him to cough more, not to mention hurting his still very tender face, he’d been sent down to the first floor, along with Noble, to focus on packing while everyone else continued to clean.
“Taking a break from cleaning to move more books out of the soot-filled room. But I'm sure we will either reach or pass the halfway point today.”
“We’ve made good progress. But it took time to set up and get ready for what we were doing, so I imagine the second half will go faster. That being said, tell everyone to only bring out as many books as you think you can get through today. I want to remove and toss the current tarps tonight, so we can put new ones down tomorrow after a quick wipe down of the floors. The current ones are pretty covered and it’ll make it harder to actually clean without spreading more soot if we keep going with them.”
“I’ll let them know when they come back.”
With a smile he hoped wasn’t strained, he chimed, “All in all, I think we’ll finish in time. Soon enough, we will be back to normal here, with the public running around again. And just in time for Halloween. Thought that is another headache with everything we will have to either cancel or jam into the schedule next week—ha. No worries, I have already started messing with the schedule…”
Jahla eyed him, a frown on her face. “Ollie…you don’t have to fake it.”
His smile faltered. “Fake what?”
“Being happy and cheerful?”
Ollie cleared his throat, avoiding her gaze as he wrung his hands together and carefully lied. “I’m not.”
“You suck at lying. Especially when you are lying about something pertaining to yourself.”
He huffed. “I’m not that bad at it.” He wasn’t great at lying. Okay, he was pretty terrible at lying especially when the person actually knew him. “I’m fine. And I have a cheerful personality, so soon enough, it won’t be fake.”
“Mhm,” she grunted in disbelief, before eyeing him way too speculatively and saying, “Ollie, maybe it would be good for you to talk to someone about what happened. You know, professionally?”
