Sharon slid the window open.
“Sharon, Doctor Bentley said he was in a hurry for me to get here. Can you check to see what he’s doing?”
A shake of the head. “Be careful. He gets mad if you just call him ‘Doctor’ anymore. It’s ‘Councilman Doctor Bentley.’ And he’s doing the same thing he’s always doing. Reading political magazines and fishing magazines. We’ve only had two appointments this entire afternoon. I’m bored out of my head, like most days.”
“Then why—”
“He likes to make everyone wait at least twenty minutes, so they know he’s important.” She looked at the clock and smiled hopefully at Serenity. “Shouldn’t be much longer.”
Serenity went back to her plastic chair and picked up a fishing magazine stuck among the children’s literature. After a few more minutes, something buzzed on Sharon’s desk and she showed Serenity back to an exam room.
Serenity tried to take a chair.
“Oh, no,” said Sharon. “You sit up there. On the table. The doctor likes all visitors to sit on the exam table.”
“Really? The children’s exam table?”
“Really.”
Serenity looked for an easy way to climb up on the table in a short skirt and high heels.
“I can give you a gown, if that will help,” Sharon said. Serenity glared at her and Sharon added, “He actually prefers that you wear the gown. The drug reps have learned to just go along.”
“Well, I haven’t.” Serenity turned around and backed up to the table until her butt touched it. Then she jumped, pushed back, and landed on the table with as much decorum as she could muster. She thought she had salvaged a shred of her dignity until she heard the table’s paper cover crackling under her butt.
Recovering her patient smile, she said, “We’ll be fine.”
Sharon left her alone. After a few more minutes, the door opened and Bentley stepped into the room wearing a long white lab coat with a pocket full of pens and instruments. Serenity forced an even bigger smile and started to say hi as Bentley looked down at his clipboard and yelled over his shoulder. “Sharon! Tell our next young patient he will have to wait while I deal with more government bureaucracy.”
Then he closed the door and glowered down at Serenity.
Still smiling, she said, “Councilman Doctor, I wanted to discuss ways we can both fulfill our shared desire of making lives better for the people of this city we both love so much.” It sounded even cheesier now than when she had rehearsed it.
“Lie-brarian.” He waved a finger at Serenity’s face. “I know why you’re here. You’re just a lie-brarian, telling any lie to keep your feather-bedding government job.”
Serenity thought about telling him what he could do with her job, thought for the millionth time about giving up and going south to the beach. At forty-five, she still had the legs to get a cocktail waitress job on the Panhandle, fight off old men at night and bake her troubles away on the hot sand during the day. It would probably pay more than the library, and be a hell of a lot more fun.
She had just the right comment for Bentley on the tip of her tongue and opened her mouth, ready to let the words fly like cannonballs. Then she thought how quickly Bentley would find a TV news camera. On screen, he would turn into a kindly grandfather, shocked at what the librarian had said to him. He would use her comment to tear down her library. She could run away to the beach, but her books could not.
“I don’t care about my job,” she said. “I care about making Maddington a city built on books and knowledge and the power of information. And you’ll see that the budget I’m submitting complies with everything the council has directed me to—”
“Lies! Lies! Serenity girl, you sat there in the council chambers and promised that this expansion was cancelled.”
“No, sir. The council suspended expansion funding for this year, along with most other funding—at your demand. You’ll see that the only token funding keeping the expansion alive for later is our Special Projects fund, which comes from donations. And the Special Projects fund has no taxpayer money—”
“Lies. Who do you think makes those donations? Taxpayers. Taxpayers who are sick and tired of your begging and your bake sales and car washes and fundraisers.”
True. If she had a dime for every neighbor and relative who’d told her they were sick of fundraisers—well, she’d have enough dimes to pay for internet. Which reminded her.
“Councilman, all we need right now is a small advance for this week only, from the funding scheduled for next quarter. Not an increase in funding. Just a small accounting juggle, really.”
“Ha! Ha! So you’re in trouble. I knew it.” He waved his finger in her face again and Serenity dreamed of reaching out and breaking it off. “One more failing government operation that we’re going to close to save the people of this city money.”
“There is plenty of money for the library in Maddington, Councilman. Maddington is a thriving tech center. Look at all the money those companies in Research Park bring in. We only—”
“You only want to rob those businesses of money they’ve rightfully earned. Business is the lifeblood of Maddington. They generously give us a little money for our city, and for civic organizations like yours to play with, as long as you stay out of their way.” He leaned forward. “Your job is to take as little of their money as you can. And that is why we are going to reduce your government-boondoggle library until it’s small enough to drown in a bathtub.”
She hopped off the table and waved a finger in his face. “Maddington’s books are never going to be drowned.” Then she remembered to be polite and added, “Sir.”
“How dare you talk back to a representative of the people?” He scrawled his name at the bottom of a form and shoved it at her. “Pay your deductible on the way out.”
Serenity scanned the paper and looked back at him. “You’re billing this as an office visit?”
“Only way I can get paid. Everything has a price, dear.”
Serenity opened her mouth to object but he pulled a rectal thermometer out of his pocket.
“What?” he said. “You want me to take your temperature?”
six
lovin’ joe
SEEING THE WATER always brought Serenity comfort. Their small house on the lake felt rooted in the wild-violet-covered hill that slanted down and connected to the lake, and the lake connected to… Well, Serenity was not sure what it connected to, but when she was home, she felt connected to the house and the land and the water and to whatever it was that she felt a need to be a part of.
She stepped into the kitchen from the garage and dropped her keys into the bowl her son had made at Camp McDowell so many years ago. Then she looked out through the French doors at Joe, who was next to the grill on their weathered gray deck. The lake was in the distance. Joe still looked like Waylon Jennings, she thought. Shaggy brown hair, scruffy beard, wide shoulders. The reading glasses that were a new addition last year had slid down to the tip of his nose and he was doing something with his hands that she couldn’t see.
Joe turned back to a cookbook on a rack and she saw that his big hands were kneading a dry rub into a white slab of fish. She watched the rhythm: hard, soft, smooth, working the flavor in. She remembered what she had thought the first time she felt those hands, back when she was young and had foolish thoughts.
Yeah, she told herself, like those thoughts were gone now. She stood there a minute, enjoying the watching and dreaming, then opened the refrigerator and took out two Rocket Republic brews.
She sneaked up on him. “Babe,” she said as she kissed the back of his neck.