Jenn McKinlay - Due Or Die

“Not very. We were talking about how short A Room with a View would have been if Lucy had picked the right man from the start,” Lindsey said. She glanced at her watch. It was only fifteen minutes past the hour, which gave them plenty of time to finish their discussion. Being employees of the library, both Lindsey and Beth had to confine their crafternoon club time to their lunch hours.

Beth glanced around the group. “Well, I for one am relieved that she picked the clunker first and stayed with him. It made me feel like less of an idiot.”

Violet reached over and patted Beth’s knee in sympathy. “It happens to all of us, hon.”

“Which is why sometimes it is easier to fall in love within the safety of a book,” Nancy agreed.

“I hear that,” Charlene said.

This was one of the many reasons Lindsey loved her crafternoon friends. They were made up of all different ages, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds, but the one thing they had in common was a deep and abiding love of books. Yeah, basically, they were all nerds.

“Well, the only man I plan to date for a while is Austen’s Mr. Darcy,” Beth said. “He always makes such a nice transitional man between boyfriends. Honestly, neither Cecil nor George is really doing it for me.”

Beth had recently gotten out of an unfortunate relationship, and Lindsey was sure it had clouded her reading of the novel.

She knew her own recent breakup had changed her take on the story. Her former fiancé, John, had taken up with one of his graduate students while she was in the midst of being downsized from her archivist job. John was a law professor at Yale and he had never seemed the type to be interested in chasing the cute, young coed, but obviously a good education was no buffer against the male midlife crisis.

Lindsey knew she was better off without him, but still it chafed to be tossed aside after five years of thinking she had found the one, especially when her career had been on the skids as well. She shook her head, refusing to dwell in the past. She had a good job in a nice town where she was surrounded by friends. Where was the down?

“Here you are, dear.” Nancy handed back Lindsey’s scarf, and it was all perfectly tidy with the extra mohair rolled into a neat little ball. How very kind and annoying.

There was a sharp knock on the door frame, and Lindsey turned, expecting to see Ms. Cole, one of her crankier library employees, standing there with her usual scowl of disapproval, but, no, it was Carrie Rushton.

Carrie was a nurse at the local hospital and an über volunteer in the community of Briar Creek. She was on several boards and committees and always seemed to be busy doing something for someone.

“Hi, Lindsey, I hate to interrupt,” she said. “But could I talk to you?”

“Absolutely.” Happy to put her crochet aside so as to not risk tangling what Nancy had untangled, Lindsey carefully tucked it into her canvas tote bag.

She rose to her feet and crossed the room in a few strides. “What can I do for you?”

“Well.” Carrie paused and bit her lip. It looked as if she was trying to decide what to say. “Could you come to our Friends of the Library meeting tonight?”

Carrie was wearing her hospital scrubs under her winter coat, so she was on her way either to or from work. Her long, dark brown hair was knotted at the nape of her neck and fastened into place by a large plastic hair clip. Streaks of gray were just beginning to show at her temples, while a hint of wrinkles had begun to form in the corners of her eyes.

Carrie was on the short side of medium in height, and her figure was gently rounded as if she had been built specifically for giving hugs. She had a maternal softness about her that Lindsey felt sure was one of the reasons she was such a popular nurse.

“Yes, I can make it,” Lindsey said. “Any particular reason?”

Carrie let out a worried sigh. “We’re having the vote tonight.”

BRIAR CREEK

PUBLIC LIBRARY

“Ah,” Lindsey said. Now it was all coming into focus. “Bill Sint is still mad that you’re running against him?”

“He called me a usurper,” Carrie said. She turned her nose up in the air as she said it, and Lindsey could just see Bill saying it in the same snooty way.

“I suppose he could have called you worse,” Lindsey said with a chuckle.

“The way he said it, it didn’t sound like it could be much worse.”

Lindsey patted her shoulder. “I’ll be there to keep the peace. I promise. What time?”

“We’re meeting in the lecture room at seven,” Carrie said.

The library closed at eight, but Lindsey knew that Jessica Gallo, the library assistant for the adult department, was scheduled to work, so the reference desk would be covered and she could attend the meeting.

“I’ll see you-”

“Carrie, what is taking you so long?” a whiny voice interrupted. “I’ve been waiting for hours.”

“Markus, we’ve only been here for five minutes,” Carrie said over her shoulder. She turned back to Lindsey and said, “Sorry, he’s overtired.”

Lindsey raised her eyebrows in surprise. Carrie was apologizing for her husband, Markus Rushton, as if he were a toddler who had missed nap time.

She glanced over Carrie’s shoulder and saw a middle-aged man, bundled from his thick boots and puffy purple coat up to his scarf-wrapped head, stomping his feet behind her as if he were contemplating throwing a tantrum.

“No problem, I’ll…”

“Why do we have to be here anyway?” Markus interrupted her again. “Books are stupid. I mean who wants to waste their time reading when you can watch TV or surf the Net?”

“Excuse me,” Lindsey said.

She glanced more closely at Markus and could just make out a beaky nose and a pair of eyes that were too close together. That was all the skin he had exposed. She bit back the suggestion that he take his scarf and go for a full head wrap, but just barely.

“Oh, you’re her , the new librarian,” he said. He looked her up and down. “I thought people said you were hot.”

“Markus!” Carrie gasped, obviously horrified.

“What?” he asked. “The way everyone was talking about her, I expected a little more Baywatch Pam Anderson and a little less old Meg Ryan.”

Lindsey blinked at him. She had no idea what to say to this. Obviously, Markus found her lacking in the looks department, but she was hard pressed to think of that as a bad thing.

Lindsey pulled her gaze away from him and looked at Carrie. “About tonight, yes, I’ll be there.”

“Thanks,” Carrie said.

“Yippity-do, can we go now?” Markus asked. “Sheesh, if you ask me, they should just sell all these old books and turn this building into someplace fun, like an arcade with mini golf. Now that would be cool.”

He turned on his heel and stomped toward the exit as if expecting Carrie to follow on his heels like a faithful puppy.

Lindsey pressed her lips together to keep herself from saying what she was thinking, which would have blistered Markus Rushton even through the layers of his purple puffy coat.

“I’m so sorry,” Carrie said. Her face flushed a deep shade of crimson. “He’s not much of a reader.”

Lindsey forced her lips to curve up. “That’s all right, not everyone is a book person.”

Carrie squeezed her hand in thanks and turned to go. “I’d better…I’ll see you later.”

“I’ll be there,” Lindsey said.

The group was silent when she sat back down in her seat. They must have heard. Lindsey blew out a breath, not knowing what to say.

“Mark Rushton is as stupid now as he was as a child,” Nancy Peyton finally said. “He went from having his mama take care of him to having his wife take care of him. I hate to say it, but that man is a dreadful waste of space.”