Janice Johnson - Someone Like Her

Never?

You’re pathetic, she told herself, before stealing another look out to see how he liked his lunch.

Hard to tell, when a man was chewing then swallowing.

It was two o’clock before she could escape, and then not without guilt. But Shea, her assistant cook, had shown up, and Bridget was to come at four to help set the tables for dinner. Lucy could spare a couple of hours.

Adrian had waited with apparent patience, sipping coffee and reading the weekly Middleton Courier.

“My mother’s accident is in here,” he said, closing the newspaper and folding it when Lucy walked up.

“Well, of course it is. I told you, everyone knows her. And we don’t have that many accidents right here in town.”

The editor had referred to her as “the kind woman known affectionately as ‘the hat lady,’” which Lucy had thought was particularly tactful. She was glad he hadn’t mentioned that the hat lady was homeless. From his write-up, it sounded as if she might have been a respectable senior citizen who was borrowing a Safeway shopping cart to get her groceries home, rather than an indigent whose shopping cart was the next thing to a home. Adrian wouldn’t have to be embarrassed after reading the article in the Courier.

“Where do we start?” he asked.

“The library.” Lucy had already decided. “I know Wendy is working this afternoon. She was really fond of your mother.”

He held open the door for her. “She’s the librarian?”

Lucy nodded, and after suggesting they walk since the library was only three blocks away, she said, “Yes. Wendy’s from Yakima, but she married Glenn Monsey who was working for a builder over there. Our old librarian was ready to retire when Glenn decided to come home to work with his dad, who’s a contractor.”

“I hadn’t noticed any new building.”

Was he bored? Or sneering at her town? Just because she sometimes thought Middleton was dull didn’t mean she’d put up with an outsider saying so. Eyeing him suspiciously, she said, “They do more over in Sequim than here in town, but we have new houses, too. Plus, they do remodeling.”

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