The Lending Library

by Fogelson, Aliza

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2020 by Aliza Fogelson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503904019

  ISBN-10: 1503904016

  Cover design and illustration by Kimberly Glyder

  For my parents, who have encouraged my love of books and my dream of being a writer every step of the way

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  HUMMINGBIRD CAKE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  —ONE—

  November 2007

  I was sniffing glue again.

  “Ahem.” Kendra delicately cleared her throat as she rounded the stack and caught me in my favorite spot at the Chatsworth Library, the squishy chair in the key-shaped nook. I was now holding the book innocently in my hands, like a normal library-goer. Which I was. Except for my overwhelmingly passionate desire to read books and reread them, hold them, surround myself with them, and yes . . . sometimes even smell them. It wasn’t just the heady scent of glue in the spine. It was also the scent of the pages—timeworn or slicked with new ink—and the old cloth cases, how the linen had aged. The smell of imagination and escape.

  I wouldn’t have been surprised if Kendra had some secret book-adoring practices of her own. At least, I hoped she did. After all, Kendra was the librarian at Chatsworth Elementary School, where I started teaching art last fall.

  “I’m going to check this out. You ready, Dodie?” Kendra gestured toward the novel I was holding, A Charmed Life.

  “Yep.” With one last longing glance at all the treasures lining the shelves, I followed her to the circulation desk.

  Both our phones made the shloomping sound of a new text message. I dug my phone out of my “I Brake for Books” tote, and Kendra and I both gasped as we read our friend Sullivan’s text:

  ALL CLEAR! Heading out to Addis Ababa tomorrow. Olive’s in 20?

  “She’s really going!” Kendra said.

  “This is so exciting!” I clapped my hands. Kendra raised an eyebrow. But how could I not be excited? A baby! Sullivan’s baby!

  On our way, I typed back.

  Hurry! Have to pack etc . . . plus they just took the cc chip cookies out of the oven!

  Twenty minutes later Kendra and I burst through the doors of the café. Sullivan was shaking her head as we sat down. “We missed it?” I cried, my grin fading quickly. “I risked my life and limb for a cookie, and they’re gone?”

  “Hey!” Kendra objected. “I wasn’t driving that fast.”

  “That’s because I made you slow down.”

  “Wasn’t the idea to get here quickly?” Kendra said, smiling in spite of herself.

  “Well, you didn’t exactly succeed,” Sullivan pointed out. “But did you really think I wouldn’t have saved you a reward for your efforts?” She handed both of us a wax paper sack. I could feel the warm cookie steaming up the insides. My mouth watered.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re the best!”

  “I even waited to eat mine,” Sullivan said proudly. I could tell by the tiny streak of chocolate in the corner of her mouth that she hadn’t completely waited . . . but who could blame her? Olive’s straight-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies were legendary—more warm dough than actual cookie, which was just how I (and, apparently, most of the other residents of Chatsworth) liked it. After having caught me licking the beaters all through childhood, my mother always joked that it was no coincidence my nickname, Do, was pronounced the same way.

  None of us spoke as we savored the cookies. We got lost in the Madagascar vanilla mixed with heady cinnamon and neon-yellow eggs fresh from the farm blended with deep, almost smoky-tasting chocolate chips. I was drunk on pastry. As I sucked the last bit of melted chocolate off my finger, the world slowly seeped back into focus.

  “Okay, tell us everything,” Kendra said as soon as we finished.

  “The passport and clearances from the US Embassy finally came through, so I can go back to Ethiopia and bring him here!”

  “Congratulations! That’s amazing!” I wiped away a tear. They both looked at me strangely. “It’s just so great.”

  Sullivan was my best friend from art school and the reason I now lived in Chatsworth. A little more than two years earlier, she had decided she wanted to be a mother and had started the adoption process. After tons of paperwork and sleepless nights, she had met her son six months ago. The wait since then had been excruciating. Now she could finally bring him home.

  “What time is your flight?”

  “Ten p.m.”

  “Okay, I’ll be by tomorrow morning with a few things.” I had actually devoted a corner of my coat closet to presents for the new baby for the last six months—onesies, blankets, books. The pile was starting to get a little overwhelming.

  “Are you ready to be a mother?” Kendra asked.

  “I am so ready. Um . . . speaking of mothers, what is mine doing here?” Sullivan asked, looking over our shoulders as Mackie O’Reilly made her way over.

  “Surprise! I had a feeling I might find you girls here. I’m taking you shopping, Sullivan.” Mackie’s sparkling venetian-blue eyes and heart-shaped face hinted at the youthful beauty she had maintained through the years.

  Sullivan got up and flashed us a grin. “Sorry, ladies; Gramma calls.”

  “Of course,” Kendra said, hugging Sullivan goodbye. “Safe travels!”

  “I’m so happy for you. Can’t wait to meet him.”

  “Thanks, Do,” she said. “I’ll keep you guys posted.”

  “Want to split a scone?” I asked Kendra when they were gone.

  “Sure. Pumpkin caramel?”

  “Why not?”

  On the other side of the café, a young mother was strapping her daughter into a stroller. The little girl had a tiny pink bow in her hair, a ruffled dress, and a grin from ear to ear. The mother plopped a kiss on her forehead. Her husband handed her a coffee.

  “Wouldn’t you like to be that lady right now? Or Sullivan?” I said dreamily. How could anyone not adore babies? With their lovely-smelling skin and their little heads covered with baby-bird fuzz, those dimples denting chubby cheeks, their hiccupy laughs. I had never felt in any rush to get married; I really wanted to be with the right person when that happened. (A good thing, too, since my dating life in Chatsworth had pretty much been nonexistent.) The urge for a baby of my own was like a thirst, though. At thirty-two, I still had time. But I had always envisioned myself married, with at le
ast one child by now, instead of going on a year and a half without a date. And even that one had sucked.

  Because our family was small and I hadn’t had much chance to be around babies growing up, I started babysitting as soon as I was old enough. In fact, I had spent so much time taking care of little ones that by the time I graduated from high school, the money I’d saved up almost covered my first semester of art school. The year after I graduated from college, I worked as an au pair for a family in a suburb of Paris with their adorable Zen-like baby and their three-year-old, who looked like someone out of Madeline and acted as sassy as Matilda. But that was more than five years ago, and none of my friends and neither of my sisters had kids yet, so I was at a serious baby-cuddling deficit.

  Kendra shook her head vehemently, waking me out of my daydream. “Nope. Uh-uh.”

  “You mean not right now,” I clarified.

  “I don’t ever want to have kids.”

  “You just feel that way because you haven’t met the right person yet.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. That’s one of the main reasons I don’t want to have a baby. Once I find that right person, I want to be able to be selfish. I want to stay in bed every weekend until noon.” She grinned wickedly. “When we finally do get out of bed, I want to be able to let my Sunday—or whatever day—take me where it will, without having to repeat the same routine over and over again. And when our currently nonexistent but future fabulously rich friends invite us to spend an impromptu weekend on their yacht in the south of where-the-hell-ever, I want to be able to pack my passport and a bathing suit and go.”

  Okay, well, she did have a point or two there. Even I could see that.

  She wasn’t done. “I mean, all these people who assume I need a child to feel complete . . . doesn’t that say something about their marriages? Shouldn’t it be enough to be madly in love with your husband or wife? I get my fix of kids at work anyway. Not that I won’t be the most amazing aunt to Sullivan’s kid . . . and yours, in the future.”

  I was silent. I could have tried explaining all the reasons children were essential and amazing, but unlike Kendra’s arguments, mine weren’t purely logical. Her point of view made sense. My desire was more than a feeling—I was certain that one of my purposes on earth was to be a mother. Not that I was going to let Kendra—or anyone else—know the depths of how badly I wanted that. I thought what Sullivan was doing—adopting on her own—was incredibly brave.

  Kendra changed the subject. “So how’s school been for you?”

  “There’s this one student I worry about . . . ,” I began.

  Kendra rolled her eyes playfully. “Here comes Savior Dodie again. Always trying to help others, regardless of the cost to her wallet, reputation, or sanity.”

  I put my hands on my hips in mock anger. We both laughed.

  “Elmira Pelle needs my help,” I insisted.

  Kendra knew me so well, even though I had only been in Chatsworth a few months. She and Sullivan had grown up there together, and we had become friends by proxy.

  I owed a lot to Sullivan and couldn’t wait to offer my babysitting skills when she was ready for them. If it hadn’t been for her, I might still have been in New York trying to make it as an artist and failing instead of falling more and more in love with this town and the people in it. I also might have found art school a lot lonelier if not for her. There had been this weird sense of competition between a lot of the students, and Sullivan wasn’t having any of that. Her work happened to be some of the most captivating of anyone’s: these gorgeous photo-realistic paintings that captured the subject’s personality and mood so vividly you felt like you knew them.

  I had gone up to her one day after our studio class. “Could I ask you a question?”

  “Sure. Nice work, by the way.” She gestured to my canvas.

  “Thanks,” I said, though my cheerful portrait seemed juvenile beside hers. “How do you listen so well with your eyes?”

  Sullivan laughed, then—realizing I was serious—cocked her head at me. I fidgeted under the directness of her gaze.

  “You are . . . quirky,” she said after a moment.

  It may not have been the first time I’d been called that. But no one had actually called me out in such a straightforward way. “I don’t know if I would describe myself as quirky.”

  “How many pairs of shoes do you have that aren’t brown or black?”

  I started counting in my head. I was still tallying when she interrupted. “How many times have you brought homemade baked goods to parties? And have you been to Disney World more than three times as an adult . . . by choice?”

  I grinned at her.

  “Yep, okay, that’s what I thought,” she said.

  “So now that we’ve established I’m quirky, are you going to share your secret with me?”

  “There’s no secret. Whenever I can, I do a lot of talking with the subjects before we start. I guess I just look at what’s really there instead of what I want to see or what the subject wants me to see.”

  “Oh,” I said, glancing back at the sketch in front of me. I had drawn the model as though she had starry eyes. It was kind of my signature. But now it felt like I was imposing something on her instead of capturing her.

  Sullivan seemed to sense my disappointment in myself because she quickly said, “This is beautiful. I love the suggestion of light in her eyes.”

  “Thanks.” I smiled, still unconvinced. Sullivan had made me look at things in a new way; it hadn’t occurred to me that I could see if the models would be willing to talk to me and that what they said could inform my portraits.

  “Listen, there’s a group of us who get drinks every Friday night at the Shaggy Dog Pub around seven. Will you come this week?”

  “I’d love to.”

  We ended up staying out till midnight that night and many others. Finally, I was getting to know other students who were passionate about art—who fiercely debated about how to fix the issue of art programs being cut in public schools or whether performance art was pretentious or who the greatest Renaissance painter was.

  After that Sullivan and I always set up our easels next to each other. Sometimes when class ended, we stayed to keep drawing or painting. I could still remember the intense resiny smell of the studio and the squish of the brush into a fresh dollop of paint. In those years, painting always felt like potential.

  By senior year, the faculty members had started to commission Sullivan to paint family portraits and to recommend her to their friends. She mounted a few small shows with other artists and sold all her paintings.

  “You’re going to make a go of this!” I said to her the day after one show over celebratory croissants.

  “Do, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  “You got a solo show in Chelsea, didn’t you?” A little flair of jealousy disappeared into my happiness for her.

  “No. I’m moving back home.”

  “Wait, what?”

  She was making it in New York. That was so rare.

  “I miss small-town life. I’ve had enough of the ninety-nine-cent slice for dinner and mysterious, deafening neighbor noises and seeing rats on the subway and feeling like one myself every time I have to go somewhere at rush hour.”

  “Okay, that’s fair.” I couldn’t deny that I felt the same way, more and more often. “But you’re doing so well. Don’t you want to give it a few more months here?”

  Sullivan was silent. Then she said, “There’s this house I’ve always loved. It’s a little Colonial with an amazing yard bordered by a creek, and I used to pass it on my way to school every day. It’s for sale, and I know I’ll kick myself if I don’t go for it. It’s exactly how I’d want to use the money I’ve earned here from my gallery shows.”

  For the love of a house . . . I understood. I scanned the real estate pages every week even though I wasn’t in the market.

  “What will you do there? Will you still paint and keep representation here
for your work?”

  “Yes and no. I’d like to make a go of it as a portrait painter in Chatsworth. My elementary school art teacher has been doing that for years as a side career, but she’s decided to give it up, which leaves an opening for me since she was pretty much the only game in town.”

  It sounded so much smaller . . . but wonderful. “I’m going to miss you a ton, but I’m happy for you. It’s obvious it’s what you want.”

  “Thanks, Do.” Sullivan hugged me. “And who knows? Maybe when you get sick of this place, I can convince you to move to Chatsworth too.”

  Like pretty much everyone, I’d had my ups and downs with New York. But I couldn’t imagine actually leaving. I would definitely have to visit Sullivan and see the town’s charm for myself, though.

  It took another year and a half before I did. By then, Sullivan’s business was hugely successful—she was turning down commissions from all over the region—and Elizabeth, her on-again, off-again girlfriend from New York, had decamped to Chatsworth and moved in with her.

  I arrived on a fresh spring morning in a rental car. The two-hour drive up had felt liberating after the tight crush of taxi traffic in the city, and there was so much lush green even surrounding the parkway I could tell it was going to be a perfect weekend.

  The town of Chatsworth sat about twelve minutes from the nearest exit, past two towns with friendly-looking little neighborhoods. I slowed down as I approached the center of Chatsworth, where there was a big rotary with a gazebo flanked by trees at its center. A couple and their kids were playing a game of tag around it. On the east side of the rotary, a little street lined with shops unfurled about six blocks. I tooled down the street, continued past the elementary school where I would end up working, and found the neighborhood where Sullivan lived.

  Over the next couple days, Sullivan showed me around town and introduced me to the Chatsworth Library. The feeling I had when I walked in the doors—seeing the floor-to-ceiling windows casting light over the treasures that waited on the worn-wood bookcases dotting the room . . . the reading nook that would become my favorite spot . . . the schoolhouse charm of the building . . . and the reading group deep in conversation—probably cinched it for me.