Monday was rainy and cool and windy, which made it an excellent library day. From opening to close, we were busy providing all the things that libraries do, from finding the perfect book for an eleven-year-old boy to tracking down a copy of a decade-old magazine to recommending materials on how to start your own worm farm.
Tuesday was a bookmobile day. “Which makes it a good day,” I told Eddie as I gave him a cuddle before putting him into the cat carrier. “And since we’re headed southwest instead of southeast, Thessie is meeting us at the library this morning. What do you think of that?”
If he thought anything of it, he didn’t say. He was too busy rearranging the towel on the bottom of the carrier to his satisfaction.
Thessie arrived just as I was backing the bookmobile out of the detached garage. I stopped and opened the door for her. “Good morning, sunshine.”
“Morning!” She bounded up the stairs and into her seat. “Hey there, Eddie.”
“Speaking of Eddie,” I said, “we need to make a quick stop on the way out of town. Aunt Frances called this morning. One of her boarders has knitted a blanket for him.”
“You hear that, Mr. Ed?” Thessie looked down. “You’re going to get an upgrade from that ratty old towel.”
It hadn’t been ratty a few weeks ago. Back in my pre-Eddie days it had been my second-best bath towel. Now it had threads pulled out of it, and the corners were chewed to shreds. Eddie was almost as hard on towels as he was on paper products. What he was going to do to Paulette’s handmade blanket I didn’t want to think.
We drove through the back streets of Chilson and stopped at the curb in front of the boardinghouse. My aunt was waiting on the porch. “I’ll be right back,” I said.
Aunt Frances met me on the sidewalk. “Here it is. Sorry about the color, but Paulette wanted that particular type of yarn for Eddie’s blanket and the yarn store didn’t have enough of anything else.”
I took the small, cat-sized blanket from her. It was soft and cuddly and warm… and so pink that every other color in the world would look washed out next to it. “Aren’t cats color-blind?” I asked. “Tell Paulette thanks very much. Is she here? I have a couple of minutes. I can tell her myself.”
Aunt Frances sighed. “Gone up to Mackinac Island with Leo.” She rubbed at her eyes, and that’s when I noticed how red they were.
“You’re not getting sick, are you?” I asked. Which was unthinkable, because my aunt never got sick.
“Not sleeping for beans,” she said. “It’s all… that.” She tipped her head at the boardinghouse. “I need help.”
I heard Thessie come down the steps. “Aunt Frances, have you met Thessie Dyer? Thessie, this is Frances Pixley, my aunt.”
They exchanged nice-to-meet-yous; then Thessie asked, “What do you need help with? We’re great at helping people find what they need on the bookmobile.”
Aunt Frances smiled. “You’re a sweet girl, but I’m afraid the solution to my problem isn’t on the bookmobile. Unless…” She looked at me. “Unless, my dearest niece, my smart niece, my perceptive niece can find an answer.”
My aunt was one of the most capable people I knew. She changed her own oil, was comfortable with power tools, and dealt with noisy neighbors herself instead of calling the police. To see her doubting herself was like the ground falling away from underneath my feet. “With Deena and Quincy?”
She nodded. “And Paulette and Leo.” Her voice strung out the words tight. “This is all wrong and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Who’s Deena?” Thessie asked. “And those other people?”
Aunt Frances and I looked at her, then at each other. The matchmaking efforts were all done undercover; no one except the two of us had ever known about them. I lowered my voice. “She can keep a secret.”
“So young?” Aunt Frances murmured.
“I’m not that young,” Thessie protested. “I’m seventeen. I’ll be a senior in high school.”
Aunt Frances nodded. “And I’m going to guess that not only are you smart, but you have all sorts of ideas about how to fix the world.”
“Well…” Thessie scuffed her toe on the sidewalk.
“She does,” I told Aunt Frances. “Maybe she can help.” Which would be a good thing, because I didn’t have any advice regarding other people’s love lives. Managing my own was often more than I could handle.
So Aunt Frances told Thessie about the summer boarders, about the secret matchmaking, about her years of success, and about this year’s impending doom. Thessie started to grin a little when she heard the ages of some of the players, but when Aunt Frances said, “We all need love, no matter how old we are,” the girl stopped smiling and started nodding.
“I just don’t know what to do.” Aunt Frances gripped and ungripped her hands. “It’s a ghastly mess and I’m afraid it’s going to end badly for everyone.”
Thessie looked concerned. “So Deena should have been with Harris, but instead she’s with Quincy. And Quincy’s match was Paulette, but instead she’s with Leo. This leaves Zofia, who was Leo’s match, with Harris, who is young enough to be her grandson.”
“In a nutshell,” Aunt Frances said sadly. “Nothing I’ve tried has worked. Do you have any ideas? Anything at all?”
“Hmmm.”
Thessie was going into think mode. I could tell from the small vertical crease between her eyebrows that the problem was getting the full force of her concentration. “I’ll let you know,” I said, “if she gets any ideas. Sorry, Aunt Frances, but we have to leave right now if we’re going to keep to the schedule.”
I gave her a quick hug, tugged on Thessie’s elbow, and escorted her back to the bookmobile. Through the window I gave my pensive-looking aunt Frances a cheery wave and we were off.
Thessie was silent for a few miles. Then she smiled and said, “I know. What she needs to do is have a party. We’ll invite all the boarders and anyone who has met them. Then we’ll get people to say how good Deena and Harris look together, how Paulette and Quincy look like they’d make the perfect couple, and how Zofia and Leo already seem as if they’re married. If we can get those ideas into their heads, maybe that will help.” She rattled on with idea after idea, each one more bizarre than the last.
I sighed. It had been accidental and with the best of intentions, but I’d created a monster.
• • •
The next day was a library day. I spent the morning working on a new policy for the display of artwork, a policy I’d thought about writing only after I’d helped put together a display of local artwork earlier that summer. I’d suffered pointed comments from two library board members about the inappropriateness of displaying seminude sketches in a public library and it was time to formalize things. My lunch hour was spent speed-reading reviews for books to add to the purchasing list, and then it was back to drafting the artwork policy.
By early afternoon, my eyes felt as if they were permanently focused at computer-screen distance. I pushed myself back from the desk and stood up, stretching, then winced at the tightness in my muscles. Maybe all those articles about getting up to move every half hour were right. I made a mental note to start doing that. Starting tomorrow. Next week at the latest.
The break room was empty, but considering that it was only an hour past lunchtime, that was only fitting. I poured myself a cup of coffee and stood there for a moment, feeling somewhat bereft. Not that I had to have someone around to talk to every minute of the day, but a certain amount of companionship was expected in a library. So, where were my companions?
I moseyed down the hall. At the front desk, Donna was helping a young mother and her two children check out teetering stacks of picture books. In the main library, Holly was showing a middle schooler the secrets of the Dewey decimal system. In the back room, Josh was elbow-deep in cables and electronics parts, muttering words that sounded suspiciously like curses.