“How did you get him to step in for the original music director?” I asked.
“Actually, he contacted us.”
Roma looked at her with surprise. “Really? I didn’t know that.”
“Oh, yes,” Violet said, brushing invisible lint off of her T-shirt. “He’d heard about Zinia needing emergency surgery—apparently they’re close friends—and he’d had an unexpected cancellation in his own schedule. So he told Zinia he’d step up. He got in touch with us, and that was that.”
“That was convenient,” I said.
“Yes, it was,” Violet said. “Somehow I don’t think we’re going to be that lucky twice.”
I heard the street door below open and someone started up the stairs. After a moment Ami appeared, in denim shorts and a tank top, eating what had to be a container of Tubby’s frozen yogurt. She licked the stubby wooden spoon—at Tubby’s they didn’t use plastic spoons—and smiled at us. “Hi,” she said. “I’m here to get Rebecca.” Her voice went up at the end of the sentence, making it sound like a question, like she wasn’t quite sure if she was at the right place at the right time.
“I’m ready,” Rebecca said from the doorway. I lifted her tote bag down and handed it to her. Thank you, she mouthed. She pulled her scarf out of the top of the bag and held it up. “I found my scarf,” she said to Ami. “I guess I left it here last time.”
“I told you it was probably here,” Violet said.
“Mmmm, good,” Ami said around a mouthful of yogurt and strawberries. “But I would’ve made you another one.”
“I like this one,” Rebecca said, tucking the length of fabric back in her tote. “It’s the first scarf you made.”
Ami smiled at her over the cardboard cup in her hand. “You’re such a mushball, Rebbie. You have everything I ever gave you—every present, every piece of paper.”
“She has every piece of paper everyone ever gave her,” Violet said tartly.
“Violet Cole, are you implying that I’m a pack rat?” Rebecca asked, hands on her hips in mock outrage, eyes twinkling.
“No,” Violet said. “I’m coming right out and saying it. Rebecca, you are a pack rat.”
Rebecca drew herself up to her full five-foot-threeinches. “I prefer to think of myself as an environmentalist and conservator of history.”
Violet shook her head slightly. “And I prefer to think of myself as twenty-five and hot as a two-dollar pistol. Doesn’t make it true.”
Everyone laughed. Hearing the elegant, composed Violet say “hot as a two-dollar pistol” was kind of like hearing a two-year-old repeat an off-color word. Maybe you shouldn’t laugh, but you couldn’t quite help it.
Ami came up the last couple of steps then and took Rebecca’s bag.
Rebecca turned to me, reached over and pushed back a few stray strands of hair that had fallen on my cheek. “I’ll get my scissors out this weekend and just give you a little more shape,” she said with a smile.
I smiled back at her. “Thank you.”
“Are you ready?” Ami asked. She held up her cardboard cup. “I have one of these for you, packed in some ice down in the car.”
Rebecca’s smile got even bigger. “You are a darling girl,” she said, hooking her arm through the younger woman’s. She gave me a little wave with her free hand and they disappeared down the stairs.
I could feel Hercules wriggling inside the bag again. “I have to get going, too,” I said to Violet and Roma. “See you next time.” I started down the steps, holding my bag close to my hip. “Okay,” I whispered. “We’re going.”
I walked quickly to the library. There were a lot of people out in the downtown, but it was deserted at the library. Jason was at the checkout desk.
“Quiet night?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, brushing a lock of blond hair out of his eyes. “Nobody’s been in since suppertime.” He pointed to the book carts behind him. “All those new kids’ books are ready to go on the shelves.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s a big help.” Jason was my summer intern, and a real find. He looked like a teen-magazine heartthrob, with blond hair and an easy smile, but he lived and breathed books. He wanted to be a writer and he was working his way through the classics—Faulkner, Dostoyevsky, Hemingway.
“Where’s Abigail?” I asked.
Jason pointed over his head. “She’s in the workroom, getting all those magazines ready for the yard sale.”
I headed for my office first and let Hercules loose. He poked his head out of the bag, blinked and sniffed my desktop, then came all the way out and walked over a stack of files to the edge of the desk, where he jumped into my chair. Which set the chair spinning.
I darted around the side of the desk and stopped the chair. Hercules looked woozily up at me.
I reached down to pat his head. “Stay here,” I said. “I’ll be back.”
I started for the second floor but couldn’t resist detouring over to the computer room. True to his word, Oren had assembled all six carrels and chairs. I ran my finger over the closest table. There was no dust, no dirt on the light wood. That was Oren. A computer box sat next to each workstation. As soon as Larry had the wiring fixed and the new outlets working, I could set up the computers, and after a hundred years the Mayville Heights Free Public Library would be part of the electronic age.
Abigail was in the workroom next door to the staff lounge. She was sitting on the floor, two rows of stacked and tied magazines behind her. “Hi,” I said.
She looked up and smiled. Her gray hair was pulled back in a tight braid and her rimless reading glasses had slipped down to the end of her nose. She’d told me she’d started going gray in her twenties. Now, a couple of decades later, her hair was a beautiful mix of red and silver. Somehow it didn’t make her look old—just smarter. Self-consciously I touched my own mussed hair.
“Did you do all this tonight?” I asked.
She pulled a knot tight in the string around a stack of magazines and set them behind her. “Yes, I did,” she said. “It’s been very quiet.” She gestured to the back of the room. “I found some foam board in the cupboard. Do you mind if we use it for posters?”
“No. That’s a great idea.”
Abigail stood up and surveyed her work. “If it’s like this tomorrow night I should be able to finish these and start on the hardcovers,” she said.
“That would be great,” I said.
I headed back downstairs. It was almost eight o’clock, closing time. Jason was going through each section on the main floor, turning off lights and shelving the occasional book as he went. I walked over to the magazines and gathered up a couple of issues that had been left out of their slots. Then I lined up the book carts at the desk and shut down the computer.
Abigail came down the steps carrying her bike helmet as Jason turned off the last bank of lights. Only the overhead above the circulation desk stayed lit. I walked Abigail to the entrance, let her out, and waited for Jason, who was gathering his knapsack, jamming even more books inside. He swung it up onto his shoulder and hurried over to me.
“See you tomorrow,” he said.
“Have a good night,” I said. I locked the doors and shut the ironwork gate, but left it unlocked.
Hercules was on the floor in front of the desk when I opened my office door.
“Do you want to look around before we leave?” I asked. He came right over to the open door and looked out, checking right and left. I crouched beside him. “No hiding, and you come when I call,” I said, wagging my finger at him. He batted it out of the way, so I stood up and headed for the stairs. Herc padded behind me.
Except for a bit of trim the new reception and checkout desk was finished. There was some painting to do and lots more books to be shelved, and of course we didn’t have a meeting room, but for the first time I had a sense of how the building was going to look when it was finally finished.