Sorcery and the Single Girl Page 12

  I put on my best librarian smile. “They wouldn’t be anything without people from the neighborhood joining us.”

  My words sounded fake in my own ears, but they seemed to please the local matron. As I dug for something a little more sincere to deliver as a follow-up, I felt small hands tugging at my skirt.

  “Now, Nicholas, you know that we don’t do that.”

  Well, maybe Nicholas’s mother knew that he wasn’t supposed to tug on every last pleat in my colonial garment, but Nicholas himself seemed distinctly unaware of that fine point of etiquette. His toddler’s cheeks were smeared with something that looked like strawberry jam, and his tousled hair screamed “Dennis the Menace.” Especially the “menace” part.

  I had noticed the kid during my presentation. He had taken advantage of the lowered lights and the quiet crowd to demand his sippy cup, and then had dropped the damn thing on the floor. Repeatedly. Despite his mother’s stage whisper that he sit down. Despite the hissed complaints of other patrons. Despite my attempts to incinerate him with glares from the lectern.

  His success at prying open the top of the supposedly-indestructible sippy cup and spilling the contents all over the conference room floor was merely an added benefit for those of us who got to maintain the Peabridge’s space.

  Now, Nicholas buried his face in my embroidered overskirt. What sort of mother uses sticky peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as a (blatantly unsuccessful) quietness bribe? I could only hope that the library would consider my dry-cleaning bill a reimbursable business expense. Or maybe I could conjure up some sort of cleaning spell. There had to be something practical in all those books lining my basement walls.

  Sometimes, I wondered why I had launched the Peabridge’s program of community open houses on the second Monday of every month.

  “That was excellent!”

  I finally managed to extricate myself from Nicholas’s unwelcome embrace as I turned toward my boss’s voice. Evelyn was standing beside the lectern, resting her hands on the wooden surface as if she longed to take her own place on the podium. She was dressed in one of her boxiest suits, determined as ever to be a grand ambassador for the Peabridge. At least this ensemble featured a cool blue bouclé, a soothing complement to her graying hair. She generally favored muddy browns and acid greens, colors that competed violently against her complexion. I was afraid to rave about the improvement, though, lest she detect my criticism of her past sartorial splendor.

  “Thanks,” I said, gathering up my notes.

  “Well, with ten of these under your belt, I have to say that you’ve really mastered the art of handling this audience.”

  I stood a little straighter. I did do a good job of finding topics that would interest our neighborhood scholars. And I managed to keep my training sessions light and informative.

  “Stop it, you brat!” The shout came from the doorway, and I looked up just in time to see a linen skirt swirl over the threshold, flouncing toward the library’s lobby. I wasn’t surprised to see darling Nicholas standing in the aisle, scrunching up his face in preparation for a deafening bellow. I wondered what poor person he’d attacked. Then, I asked myself if I was a terrible human being for feeling grateful that the victim was not me.

  I settled for making a face and cocking a half smile toward Evelyn. “Maybe we need to set an age limit on these things.”

  “And miss out on mothers in the neighborhood, who might not have any other way to get here without bringing the younger ones?”

  The worst thing was, she was serious. And no self-respecting Nicholas-terror would ever think to harass her. She looked downright evil—like a fairy-tale witch, if I did say so myself. And every little child knew that it was a witch who captured Hansel and Gretel, who kept them in a cage and readied them for the oven.

  Poor Evelyn. She didn’t even get the benefits of magical powers, but she was stuck with the stereotype.

  “I’d better get upstairs,” I said. “Some of these people might need coffee to sustain them on their long walk home.”

  “There’s the spirit,” Evelyn said, and I thought that she was going to separate my shoulder as she clapped a pleased hand down on my colonial garment.

  I wasn’t actually all that eager to staff the coffee bar—I desperately wanted to work on a new research project I’d just begun, involving medical treatments developed in the colonies prior to the Revolution. No, lattes were not my friend, but I wasn’t about to get stuck cleaning up Nicholas’s sippy cup disaster.

  The heat was forecast to break tomorrow, but it was still muggy enough outside to curtail the line of brewed espresso drinkers. At the beginning of the summer, Evelyn had tried setting up industrial-strength blenders to make überpriced coffee milk shakes for our patrons, but even her avarice needed to yield to the truth: we were a library. People expected some modicum of quiet on our premises. Ice cubes being ground for long, earsplitting minutes went too far.

  And so I ended up just pouring a couple of iced coffees, and considered that I’d gotten off easy. In fact, I wouldn’t mind the coffee bar at all, if I didn’t need to waste time foaming milk and making complicated cappuccino orders. See? I wanted to say to Evelyn. I was willing to compromise. She wasn’t interested in compromise, though. She wanted to maximize coffee-based income—a goal that increasingly conflicted with my desire to be a reference librarian.

  I had just wiped down the counter and straightened the ever messy container of individually packaged sweeteners when a familiar voice said, “Is it possible to make a mocha over ice?”

  “Mr. Potter!” I hurried around the counter to give the man a quick embrace. He spent a great deal of his time helping Gran with her concert opera work, but the Peabridge’s guardian angel never failed to stop by the library for my Monday lectures. I hoped that he was pleased with them—it was his generous donation that made the extra sessions possible. The extra sessions, along with the cataloging work that continued downstairs, as we finally started to get our extensive collection under control.

  He laughed at my attention, and I couldn’t help but notice that he stood a little straighter when I stepped back. He even took a moment to smooth his nonexistent tie flat against his chest. If my eyes didn’t deceive me, he actually sucked in his belly a bit, too. Sweet man.

  As I moved behind the bar to make the coffee drink, I said, “And how is poor Beijing holding up under the summer heat?”

  “Perfectly fine,” Mr. Potter laughed. “That little shih tzu has the entire world wrapped around his paws. He has me trained to turn a fan on for him whenever I leave the house. We’ll both be glad when the weather finally catches up with the calendar.”

  “But I’m sure that he repays your attention with flawless loyalty.” Knowing Mr. Potter’s sweet tooth, I held up the canister of whipped cream. He started to shake his head “no” but gave in to his true desire and held his fingers apart about an inch, to indicate a short dollop. I obliged, giving him the huge serving that I knew he really wanted.

  “Loyalty.” He shook his head. “I suppose that’s what some might call it. I’d say he’s just spoiled. But I worry enough about him that I take him with me when I travel. Like this weekend, when I drive to Pittsburgh for my brother’s birthday party. We’re going to a karaoke bar!”

  “That should be fun.” Not that I thought it would really be fun to drive all the way to Pittsburgh. With a yappy shih tzu in the car. To sing karaoke with a bunch of septuagenarians. I’d rather organize my crystal collection.

  “Which brings me to the reason I stopped by.”

  I handed over the iced mocha and smiled inquiringly. Mr. Potter took a moment to sip the beverage and declare it “perfect” before he reached into the pocket of his sports shirt. He handed me a slender envelope, the type that looks like a birthday card with money from an elderly aunt. “Go ahead,” he said. “Open it.”

  Puzzled, but excited like a little kid, I eased my finger under the flap. Two tickets were nestled inside. I fanned them out ag
ainst the envelope and read, “Kennedy Center. Romeo and Juliet.” The date was for Saturday night.

  “I was going to exchange them at the box office,” Mr. Potter said. “But then I realized that I’ve seen enough Romeos and enough Juliets for a lifetime. Perhaps you can find someone to go with?”

  Someone. Graeme.

  All of a sudden, I remembered straddling his lap on the park bench, cringing before the intruding flashlight of Washington’s finest. My cheeks became incandescent.

  “Aha,” Mr. Potter said. “I see that you have someone in mind.”

  I sighed. I’d have thought that my blushing circuits would be long-ago burned out. “I do,” I said, all of a sudden too shy to mention Graeme by name. I could just picture Mr. Potter saying something to Gran, and then my trying to explain my stunning Englishman to my grandmother and mother both, maybe over another of our infamously strained get-to-know-each-other torture brunches. Better to keep my secret a while longer. Until I was certain that it would survive under the nuclear blast of my family’s interest.

  As I looked at the tickets, I realized I shouldn’t be planning any dates around town. I should be thinking about the Coven, about setting the centerstone. I needed to start working on my magical test, or Samhain would arrive before I knew it.

  But the Kennedy Center? And Romeo and Juliet? And Graeme? “Thank you, Mr. Potter! Thank you so much!”

  “You’ll have to tell me if the play’s the thing, then,” he said. “I’ll be in Pittsburgh all next week, but when I get back, I’ll want a full report!”

  A full report. Well, he might not be getting that. Not if an evening of theater became as supercharged as a tourist turn about the monuments. “Absolutely,” I lied.

  I tried to wave off his money, but he insisted on paying for his iced mocha. “I have an interest in this library, you know. I’d never forgive myself if you went into the red because of caffeine fiends like me.”

  More like whipped cream fiends, I started to say, but I didn’t want to risk hurting his feelings. I clutched the tickets to my chest. “Thank you, Mr. Potter! I really appreciate your thinking of me.”

  “Enjoy, Jane.”

  I watched as he walked across the lobby, taking the time to say goodbye to Evelyn. He would never get over the sorrow of being a widower, but the Peabridge had become something of a second home for him, and I was glad.

  When he got to the library’s glass double doors, he needed to shuffle left, then right, dancing to avoid a messenger bearing a huge vase of flowers. I shot a glance to Evelyn at the same time that she looked at me. Clearly, neither of us was expecting the delivery. Maybe Nancy, helping patrons check out books at the circulation desk? Or the cataloger, working downstairs?

  The messenger approached the front desk, setting down the elaborate display and producing a clipboard. As Nancy signed for the arrangement, Evelyn and I both zeroed in, drawn like hummingbirds to crimson sugar-water.

  Flowers exploded from the vase. There were tall stems of lilies in rich orange and yellow. Daisies brightened the arrangement, and baby’s breath ghosted over broad leaves of greenery. A full dozen red roses were tucked into the explosion of color, their broad petals just beginning to open up.

  A card peeked out from the midst of the arrangement, and my name was prominently displayed in bold Courier type.

  Evelyn sighed. “They’re yours.” She waited for me to pluck the card from its plastic fork. My belly did a somersault, and I wished she would back away, let me read the card in peace.

  Thank you for an arresting Saturday night.

  And it was signed with the initial G.

  Arresting. Well, not exactly. I mean, it wasn’t as if we’d actually been dragged down to the police station. It wasn’t like the policeman had read us our rights before whipping out his handcuffs.

  Handcuffs. Maybe that was the image that got me. Or just the memory of the heat that had melted through my short skirt as I straddled Graeme’s lap. Or the thought that I had been one of those women, the type that gets caught having sex in public. (Almost sex. Whatever.)

  But suddenly, my cheeks were as dark as the roses.

  “What does the card say?” Evelyn asked, holding out a hand as if she expected me to hand over the incriminating evidence.

  “It’s just a little joke,” I said, trying to make an offhand shrug. “It wouldn’t mean anything to you. I mean, um, to anyone. That is, anyone but me.” I gathered up the huge display of flowers and hurried them back to the staff kitchen, where I made a great show of topping off the water in the vase and adding the powdered “life extender.”

  Don’t bother talking to me, I tried to project. I’m much too busy to answer silly questions about flowers. About a card. About a man who would send an entire florist shop to a librarian he’d only met a couple of weeks before.

  Fortunately, by the time I came back to my desk, Evelyn was involved in a discussion with Nicholas’s mother. It looked like a heated confrontation, and I imagined that it involved the uncapped Magic Marker in Evelyn’s hand. I didn’t see immediate evidence of what Nicholas had ruined, but I didn’t waste a lot of time looking.

  Instead, I picked up my telephone handset and stared at the keypad.

  I could picture Graeme’s business card in my mind, even though it was safely tucked away beneath my mattress. The bold silver border glinted in my imagination, and I could see the strong font. His name. His phone number.

  I punched in the digits before I could chicken out.

  One ring.

  Two.

  “Henderson.”

  “Hi,” I said. “It’s me. Jane.”

  “Good afternoon,” he said, his voice suddenly much warmer.

  “The flowers are beautiful.”

  “I figured that I owed you something. It’s not every evening that ends with such a…bang. Or shall I say, ‘whimper.’”

  I swallowed hard. And what was I supposed to say to that?

  He went on, before I needed to improvise. “I would have sent them yesterday, but it was impossible to find a flower shop open on Sunday.”

  Besides, I thought, it was much more satisfying to receive them at work. Even if the delivery did make my boss jealous. Especially if. “Graeme,” I said. “I was wondering? If you were serious about next Saturday?”

  “Quite.” I thought I heard a smile behind his reply. Or maybe that was just the British accent.

  “A friend just gave me tickets to Romeo and Juliet.”

  “‘In fair Verona, where we lay our scene’?” he quoted from the play.

  Be still my beating academic heart. “Verona, or the Kennedy Center. Whichever’s closest.”

  “Shall I pick you up at your cottage, then? Before the show?”

  I pictured the limousine and the champagne flutes. And the professionally blank face of the chauffeur, acting as if nothing untoward had happened on our previous outing. And Neko’s boundless curiosity.

  “No!” I gritted my teeth and looked down at my desk, certain that half the library would be glaring at me. I forced my voice into a more Peabridge-appropriate register. “I mean, I have something I need to do on Saturday afternoon. Can we meet at the theater? Maybe grab a nightcap afterward?”

  “I’d love that.” The simple way he said those three words tightened my chest so much that I couldn’t breathe.

  “Wonderful,” I managed to say. I struggled to add something—anything—but I couldn’t string three words together. At last I gasped, “There’s someone coming up to the reference desk.”

  “You’d best go help them, then.”

  “Yes, I’d best.”

  But when I hung up the phone, there was no patron in front of me. Instead, there was only the massive bouquet of flowers. As I gazed at them, I convinced myself that I could see the rose petals stretching wider, reaching out to the mysteries of the world around them.

  Perhaps I should learn a lesson from the natural world. Perhaps it was time for me to start reaching out. T
o start taking risks.

  I hummed to myself as I straightened my desk and finished up my Monday shift.

  11

  I tried not to look forlornly at my wallet where it huddled on the countertop beside the half-full fifth of rum. It had cost me almost forty dollars to get Neko and Jacques out of the house, and if I’d had any more change available, they would have held out for that as well.

  The trade-off had been worthwhile, though. I felt I hadn’t seen Melissa in months; this was our first mojito therapy since the Casablanca get-together. It was only Wednesday night, but we were both free and eager to catch up on work lives, love lives, and other best friend details.

  “What’s that?” Melissa asked, pointing toward a smooth, egg-shaped stone on the kitchen table. It was blood-red, mottled with black splotches. The highly polished rock half filled the palm of her hand.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s an egg, carved out of jasper. At least, I think it’s jasper. That’s what it looks like.”

  “What’s it doing here?”

  “I’m not sure. I found it on the porch when I stepped outside to get the newspaper this morning.”

  She laughed. “Are you in the habit of finding stone eggs on your porch?”

  “You wouldn’t believe half the things Neko drags home.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Um, yes. I would. What are you going to do with it?”

  “I don’t know.” I watched Melissa rub her fingers against it, almost as if it was a worry stone. An involuntary shudder rippled down my spine. “Ugh. How can you stand doing that?”

  She looked up, surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s so rough. Doesn’t it feel like sandpaper on your fingers?”

  “What are you talking about? It’s smooth as silk.”

  I shook my head. It had rasped against my hands when I picked it up. I’d considered throwing it directly into the bushes, but I’d worried about what havoc a contemporary jasper egg might wreak on an eighteenth-century garden. The last thing I needed was Evelyn complaining that I’d compromised the Peabridge grounds.