“Minnie, you’re just the person I was hoping to see.” Graydon was in the doorway, buttoning his navy peacoat. “Do you have lunch plans?”
“Nothing that my mother would call a meal.” I tapped the vending machine. “College students, yes. Mom? No.”
Graydon laughed. “Lunch is my treat, if you have time.”
I blinked. Never in the history of my working life had a boss ever taken me out to lunch. There’d been the occasional group outing, but those had been separate checks for all and didn’t count. “That would be nice. Thanks.”
“I’ll defer to your local expertise for a restaurant choice,” Graydon said. “I have no allergies and like almost everything except cottage cheese.”
Since I’d just eaten at Shomin’s and didn’t feel Fat Boys Pizza was a suitable place to take Graydon, there wasn’t any other affordable place open this time of year except the Round Table.
A short walk later, I led the way past the SEAT YOURSELF sign and paused. Sitting in a booth with my boss, a seating arrangement that implied intimacy, would be too weird. Of course, sitting at a table would be weird, too, since the only time I did that was in summer when all the booths were full. Still, a table it was.
“Hey, sunshine.” The diner’s forever waitress, Sabrina, put down glasses of ice water. “Who’s your new friend?”
Graydon held out his hand and introduced himself. “I’m the new library director.”
“Hmm.” Sabrina shook his hand. “Well, you can’t be any worse than the last two. Don’t know that I ever saw that Jennifer in here, and Stephen?” She rolled her eyes. “Chicken sandwich with mayo, chips, and water, every time. Never tipped more than fifty cents. I’ll be right back with a menu.”
I hadn’t had time to ask how her husband, Bill, was doing, but since she was her normal sparkling self, I was pretty sure he was doing okay. He and Sabrina were in their mid-fifties, but Bill was already suffering from macular degeneration. Special treatments down in Traverse City seemed to be slowing the symptoms and maybe even halting them, and we were all hoping he wouldn’t get any worse.
After we ordered—ham and cheese with fries for me, a club sandwich and cup of chicken noodle soup for him—Graydon sat back a little. “Do you mind if I ask a few questions?”
“Fire away,” I said, mirroring his movement. “But just so you know, I’m horrible at mental math.”
He smiled. “Not that kind of questions. Library questions.”
“Way easier. What do you want to know?”
“For one, how long do you think Donna will keep working?”
I laughed. “She works to support her habits. Turns out that traveling to Africa to run marathons and to Norway to snowshoe is expensive. She’s in great shape for any age, let alone someone who’s in her early seventies. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s going to work for another decade.” I thought about it for a moment. “And I wouldn’t be surprised at two.”
It would be a sad day when Donna left her part-time job. She was intelligent, capable, and could be extremely funny. I didn’t like to think about the library without her.
Sabrina slid our plates in front of us. “Cookie’s rolling them out fast today. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Thank you,” Graydon said. “This looks great.”
“Absolutely.” I took hold of the malt vinegar bottle and shook it lightly over my fries. “And tell Cookie thanks, too.”
“The speed isn’t for your sake,” Sabrina said. “He overcooked Otis’s bacon this morning and he’s still trying to recover.” Smirking, she pulled a pencil out of her graying hair bun and went to take orders from a table of EMTs.
“Otis Rahn?” Graydon asked. “The past library board president?”
Nodding, I sprinkled salt on my fries. Cookie never added enough for my taste. “For years and years.” I was about to say how much I missed him, but decided that might not be in my best professional interest.
Graydon took in a few spoonfuls of soup. “What do you think about Kelsey?”
I kept my face blank and wondered what this was all about. “Personally or professionally?” I tacked on a smile at the end of my question because I was afraid it might have come out a little snarky.
“Whatever you feel comfortable telling me.”
To delay giving an answer, I picked up my sandwich and took a bite. It was so good that I took another. Graydon, by this time, had started eating his. “This is very good,” he said.
“Cookie graduated from the culinary program at Northwestern Michigan College. He worked in Chicago for a while, but came home a few years ago.”
“His name isn’t really Cookie, is it?”
“I honestly don’t know.” And I didn’t want to know, either. I enjoyed thinking of him as Cookie. My earlier liking for my new boss was turning to something else. I put my sandwich down. “About Kelsey. And anyone else you might ask about. I’m perfectly comfortable giving you professional assessments, that’s part of my job. But if you want me to—”
Graydon’s cell phone buzzed. “Sorry,” he murmured, looking at the screen. “It’s Trent. I should take this.” He stood and went to the far corner of the room, turning his back to me.
I finished my speech to the back of his head. “But if you want me to spy on my coworkers and report back, that’s not going to happen.”
“What isn’t going to happen?”
I looked up. And smiled at Rafe, who had materialized out of nowhere and was sitting himself at the table. “Curing the common cold in our lifetimes,” I said. “What do you think isn’t going to happen?”
“Right now, I’m concerned that it’s getting hardware for the kitchen cabinets.”
Oh. That. “Um . . .”
He sighed so heavily that hyperventilation was a mild concern. “The one thing I ask you to do. One thing.”
I pushed my plate toward him. “Have some fries. They’ll make you feel better. What are you doing here anyway?”
“Picking up lunch for the admin office.”
“Then you don’t need any of my fries, do you?”
“‘Need’ is such a subjective word. Your fries are hard to resist because you always add the perfect amounts of malt vinegar and salt.”
“It’s one of my proudest accomplishments. And keep your hands off Graydon’s food,” I said as I saw him eyeing the potato chips. “He’s back there, on the phone.”
Rafe turned briefly. “Ah, I could take him.”
A forty-ish man who was either bald or regularly shaved his head, I’d never been able to determine which, dropped a bulging plastic bag on the front counter. “Hey, Niswander. Your order’s up.”
“Thanks, Cookie.” Rafe leaned over to give me a kiss and stood. “See you tonight?”
“I have one stop after work, but that’s it.”
“You’re finally going to stop at the hardware store to look at drawer pulls?”
“Aren’t you cute.” I smiled at him fondly. “See you later.”
He sighed again, but there was a grin in there, so I knew the hardware decision could be put off a little longer.
I turned my attention back to my food. Graydon, however, was still on the phone. What could he and the new library board president be talking about? Okay, any number of things, probably, but what could be so critical that Trent needed to interrupt Graydon’s lunch? From the expression on Graydon’s face, the conversation was not completely positive.
A slightly twitchy feeling started to form in my stomach. I tried to ignore it, or to think it was the result of too much fried food in too short a time. And I almost succeeded until my ears picked up the word “bookmobile.” Startled, I glanced up, directly at Graydon, and found that he was looking straight at me. He half smiled and let his gaze drift past, but I was left with some distinctly uncomfortable knowledge.
My boss and the board president were talking about the bookmobile.
And they were talking about me.