Лори Касс: Tailing A Tabby

My fanciful thoughts must have been making me smile, because when I opened the door, the gray-haired gentleman standing outside barked out, “What’s so funny?”

His face was sour with a grimacing frown, as if he was trying to put a bad face on a bad face. My smile stayed determinedly on. “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it? Welcome to the bookmobile.” I lowered the outside steps. “Come on in. We’re glad to have you.”

“I’m here for my wife,” he growled as he thumped up the stairs. “She ordered some books, but she’s got a doctor’s appointment, so she asked me to pick up her holds. What did she order this time, more bodice rippers?”

The sneer in his voice made me want to defend the romance genre, but I swallowed down my reaction and stayed the helpful professional I’d trained to be. Four years of undergraduate work followed by almost three years of graduate study had given me a wide range of knowledge. The subsequent years during which I’d been a librarian had supplied me with the know-how to apply that knowledge. And then there were the lessons my mother had tried to instill in me, starting with “Be nice to people, Minnie.”

I continued to smile, asked for his wife’s name, and handed him the small pile of books she’d requested.

“Is there anything else?” I asked.

He didn’t look up and didn’t look around. “No,” he said shortly. “There’s nothing here for me.”

I almost recommended Beyond Anger: a Guide for Men, but I held back and he stomped out as loudly as he’d stomped in.

“Hey,” Thessie said. “That guy didn’t check out those books!”

“Discretion is the better part of valor.”

“What?”

“I can do it another way.” I started up the computer at the rear desk. When the system came online, I matched the name from the slip of paper I’d removed from the pile of books and pulled up the woman’s library card number. In practically no time, I’d changed her hold books to being checked out.

Thessie watched me from the front, where she was setting up the other computer. Eddie watched me from his favorite bookmobile perch—the top of the passenger’s seat headrest. Thessie looked unhappy. Eddie looked almost asleep.

“I can’t believe you didn’t make him check out those books,” Thessie said. “That’s against the library rules.”

One of the things I’d learned in the six weeks the bookmobile had been on the road was that a bookmobile is not quite like a library. It’s a different creature altogether and, subsequently, the types of behaviors for both patrons and staff are different.

I wasn’t sure how to explain this to Thessie. She was young enough to still be seeing the world in black and white.

“Did you hear him?” she continued. “‘There’s nothing here for me,’ he said, in front of all these books!” She pointed at the shelves. “And even worse”—she whipped around to face Eddie—“he ignored you completely. You’re sitting right there, looking all regal, and he doesn’t say a thing. What kind of person can ignore a cat?”

I knew how she felt, but professionalism dictated that I keep my opinions about patrons to myself. It would be best if I didn’t have any opinions at all, but since I was still living and breathing, I didn’t see that happening.

The sound of multiple pairs of footsteps came across the parking lot. Even before the feet reached the stairs, a woman’s voice called up, “Is Eddie here?”

“He sure is,” Thessie said.

The middle-aged woman, followed by another middle-aged woman, a grandmotherly type, and two preadolescent girls, bounded aboard the bookmobile. “Hello, Bookmobile Lady,” the first woman said, grinning. “And good morning, Bookmobile Girl. We’re going to need a bunch of books, but first we need our Eddie fix.”

All five brushed past us on their way to Eddie’s perch. He graciously allowed their petting, and even lifted his chin while the youngest girl scratched him.

Thessie elbowed me. “Look at that. A month ago, that first lady brought her sister to see Eddie, remember? Then they brought their daughters, and now they brought their mother. Eddie is increasing circulation. Tell that to Mr. Rangel.”

I reached out, picked an Eddie hair off a bookshelf, and handed it to her.

“Well, sure,” she said, putting it in her pocket, “there’s a little bit of a downside.”

I stooped, picked another Eddie hair off the floor, and handed that to her, too.

“Um, Bookmobile Lady?” The grandmotherly woman was poised at my elbow. “Can you help me find a good book?”

“Anything in particular?” Historical novels, I guessed. Maybe a romance.

“Something scary,” she said with relish. “ Silence of the Lambs , The Shining , you know the kind. What do you have that’ll scare the pants off me?”

I smiled. I loved being a librarian. Absolutely loved it.

After I showed her the bookmobile’s small horror section, I helped her elder daughter find the biographies and the granddaughters find the Amish fiction. While I showed the other daughter where the mysteries lived, I overheard Thessie greet a new arrival. I listened to a male request for anything on the Civil War with half an ear, Thessie’s directional response, and his subsequent request a few minutes later, which was to borrow two books even though he didn’t have a library card.

“What do you mean?” he asked Thessie. “The guy I saw in the parking lot said he didn’t have to use a card to check out his wife’s stuff. Why do I need one?”

The granddaughters came up to me, their arms piled high with books to be checked out. I didn’t hear Thessie’s response, but whatever she said resulted in the guy heaving a loud sigh and walking out with heavy, dragging feet.

At the end of the forty-five minutes, when they’d all left, I shut the door and Thessie flopped herself onto the carpeted step that served as both seating and as a step stool to access the higher books.

“Wow, what was with these first two guys?” she asked. “It must be crabby day for men, or something. And that younger one, the guy about your age who wanted to check out books without a library card, did you see? He was wearing socks with sandals.” She gave a fake shudder. “That’s, like, the worst.”

I’d been busy with the Friends of Eddie and hadn’t seen anything but the back of the man’s head. “Oh, I don’t know. He could have been barefoot and tracked in cow manure.”

Thessie snorted a laugh. “Gross. You’re right, that would have been worse.”

“Close the vents, will you?” I asked. “We need to get moving if I’m going to get you back on time.”

• • •

Fifteen minutes later, I dropped Thessie off at her car. She was spending a large chunk of the summer with her grandparents at their home on Five Mile Lake, which was cleverly named for its length. Owing to the narrow and twisting nature of her grandparents’ driveway, she’d made arrangements to leave her car in the township hall’s parking lot, a lovely space with two entrances, the best possible kind of parking lot for bookmobile maneuvering.

When we’d come to a halt, I said, “Don’t worry about those two men today. One bad bookmobile day does not a summer make. It’ll be better on Tuesday.”

She scrunched up her face into something only a mother could love. “I sure hope so. If Tuesday isn’t better, I might have to quit.”

Quit? I knew she was joking, but I didn’t see much humor in it. “I’ll make some arrangements. How about a barbershop quartet at lunchtime?”

She laughed, air-kissed Eddie, told me to say hello to my hot new boyfriend for her, and went out into the afternoon sunshine, her long hair bouncing off her back.