Falling for Trouble

by Sarah Title

  The idea of going to that musty old building full of crabby old people was not inspiring Joanna to do any great favors for Granny. Maybe she could get her an e-reader.

  Or maybe she could suck it up and do one favor for Granny, who had taken care of her through all of her miscreant days and asked for little in return and who was laid up and only wanted a good book to read. Maybe the library wasn’t as bad as it used to be.

  Except that nothing in Halikarnassus ever changed.

  Joanna braced herself, picked up Granny’s car keys, and headed for the library.

  Chapter Seven

  Granny always prided herself on not being a stereotypical old lady. She didn’t let her hair go gently gray, but dyed it blonder and blonder every year. She refused to wear pants with an elastic waist unless she was exercising. She read, she traveled, and she refused to talk about millennials like they were going to destroy the moral fabric of society.

  So why in the name of pants, Joanna wondered, did she drive such an old-lady car?

  To be fair, the car was the same car she’d had for the past dozen years or so, and a dozen years ago, she wasn’t such an old lady. Still, maneuvering the giant sedan around Halikarnassus’s little streets was something Joanna was not used to.

  Also, the car had a cassette player, a technology that had been outdated before Joanna was born.

  As she backed out of the driveway looking like a contortionist trying to see behind her, Joanna promised herself that if she ever sold her soul to the corporate rock machine again, she would buy Granny a new car. A much smaller car. Maybe a Mini Cooper. With a sunroof. Granny would like a sunroof. Anything that wasn’t a size that could comfortably house a family of five.

  Joanna should have just walked to the library, she thought as she boated down the familiar roads. But she had a list of other errands to run—once Granny got started on things she needed, the floodgates that were trying not to inconvenience Joanna burst.

  Well, at least Joanna was useful.

  She rolled down the window and rested her elbow on the door, trying to look cool and ironic in Granny’s boat car. She fiddled with the radio because the indie rock station she’d grown up with now played nothing but country. Joanna could do a lot of things, but new-school radio country was not one of them. She finally found some music she recognized and mostly liked.

  This was living. Mediocre music in an unmaneu-verable car in a suburban town she hated.

  She turned into the library parking lot, surprised to see it full. She didn’t remember the library ever being crowded. Mrs. Pratt seemed to prefer it if people didn’t come to the library at all. Maybe that was just Joanna. Maybe now, everyone in Halikarnassus came to ogle Foxy Librarian’s legs.

  A car was pulling out, so Joanna signaled that she was going to attempt to steer her ship into the spot. The driver waved at her. “Just pull out of the damn spot, please,” Joanna muttered. Not that she was in a hurry. But come on.

  While she waited, not waving, Joanna half heard the DJ announce the next song. “Coming back from a disastrous first show with the Penny Lickers, when their lead guitarist froze like a bunny in headlights and was kicked out of the band. Oh, folks, it’s moments like this that YouTube was meant for. Let’s show these poor girls some love, shall we? Here’s the latest . . . from Bunny Slippers.”

  She was halfway into the spot and trying to turn off the damn radio, so she didn’t see the kid running toward the parking lot. But she did hear the kid’s mom scream.

  Snapping her head up, Joanna slammed on the brakes as the mom scooped up a squirming kid from right in front of the car. Joanna’s stomach dropped, but she threw on the parking brake and jumped out of the car.

  “Oh my God, I didn’t see—”

  “Are you crazy?” the mom screamed at her. The kid, who had been looking dazed, started wailing. “Watch where you’re driving!”

  “I didn’t see him! He ran out in front of the car!”

  “You could have—”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Joanna hurried onto the sidewalk to . . . she didn’t know what. Throw herself at the mercy of the woman whose child she almost ran over?

  The woman turned away, shielding her screaming kid from Joanna. She was cooing at the child, trying to calm him down.

  “I’m so sorry—”

  “Learn how to drive.” The woman turned just enough to spit the angry words at Joanna.

  They stood there for a moment, staring at each other, as the kid, apparently done crying, squirmed and tried to get down from his mother’s arms.

  “Oh. My. God. Joanna Green?”

  Joanna’s eyes widened at the tone in the woman’s voice. It was not a kind tone. She looked at her for a moment, then . . .

  “Holy shit. Kristin Walsh?”

  “Holy shit!” the kid shouted, clapping his hands.

  This was why Joanna didn’t want to go out in public in Halikarnassus, to avoid this exact situation. Not the vehicular manslaughter, although her hands were still shaking enough for her to admit that, yes, had she thought of it, she also would have thought to avoid that. Mostly, she wanted to avoid people like Kristin Walsh.

  “It’s Kristin Klomberg now,” Joanna’s high school tormentor said, wrapping her left hand protectively around her son’s head as he laughed and cursed. Her big ol’ diamond glinted in the sun.

  “Of course it is,” Joanna muttered. Of course Kristin Walsh would marry the guy who practically inherited the mayorship of the town.

  “What are you doing here? I thought you were a big fancy rock star?” Kristin sneered. “Oh, that’s right. I think I heard something about that.” Her tone turned sweet, like honey. Like really bitchy honey. “You screwed that up somehow, didn’t you? As usual.”

  Joanna closed her eyes. She really, really wanted to hit Kristin in her perfect little mouth. But Kristin was holding her child, the child Joanna had almost run over with Granny’s giant car, and even though the kid was apparently an uncontrollable speed demon, that didn’t change the fact that Joanna should have been paying better attention.

  Just what she needed. To be beholden to Kristin Walsh-Klomberg.

  “I’m here to take care of my grandmother,” Joanna said through gritted teeth. The other stuff was true, too, but she didn’t need to dwell on it.

  Kristin’s face softened a fraction. “I was so sorry to hear about Peggy. Is she all right? Well, tell her to call me if she needs anything. She has my number.”

  Granny had Kristin Walsh-Klomberg’s number? This small-town garbage was too much.

  “I sure will,” Joanna said in a voice laced with aspartame—sweet and totally fake. Then she remembered that she had nearly run over the woman’s kid. She took a deep breath. “Is he okay?”

  Kristin looked surprised, but just for a second. The kid was twisting to get out of her arms, but Kristin wouldn’t let go. “Wun! Wun!” the kid screeched while Kristin tightened her grip.

  “No running right now, Kale. It’s too dangerous,” she said with a pointed look at Joanna.

  Joanna took another deep, shaky breath. She deserved that. She didn’t like it, but she deserved it.

  Also, the kid was named Kale?

  Kristin turned and moved away from Joanna, holding tight to her squirming toddler as she walked into the parking lot. Joanna heard the beep-beep of her car and watched her strap the kid into a seat in an enormous and very shiny SUV. It took everything in her power not to roll her eyes at the ridiculousness of the car—after all, Joanna was driving a car that was just as gigantic.

  Joanna checked her parking job. It wasn’t the straightest, but she was mostly inside the lines. The idea of getting back in and trying to straighten it out was not appealing—way too many kids coming out of the library for her to feel comfortable doing that. She watched Kristin and kid drive off, and turned and walked into the library.

  * * *

  “Sure, Peggy, no problem.” Liam put away his grant proposal and headed toward the cl
oset where the book group books were stored. One great thing about being a small-town librarian, he was discovering, was the personal relationships he developed with his patrons, who constantly surprised him with their tastes and experiences. The not-so-great thing was that the personal relationships translated into patrons calling him and interrupting his mind-numbing fight with federal government paperwork to put a book club book at the desk for a granddaughter to pick up.

  Of course, he could have gotten someone to pull the book for him. But he still wasn’t comfortable delegating. When he had been at his Big City job, he was the peon, and his superiors were always interrupting him to get him to do simple things like pull books right away.

  Hmm. Maybe he was still a peon. But if he was, then he was a peon for patrons.

  He should probably learn to delegate.

  But if he was honest with himself, he would drop anything for Peggy. She was his favorite patron, and she was injured and homebound, two things that could not be easy for her. He hoped she would be able to make it to the book group. He was really looking forward to hearing her thoughts on the book. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t be overwhelmingly positive—she’d made it clear that she didn’t want to read another really long historical fiction book set in World War II, but she’d been seriously outvoted. What was it with book groups and World War II fiction? And why were all of the books at least five hundred pages?

  He tried to get the self-described white-haired old ladies to mix it up, to stretch their reading wings a little bit. And once or twice a year, they did, mostly because of Peggy’s persuasion. Liam would take that small victory for now, but he wouldn’t give up. He eventually hoped to expand the membership a little bit. Maybe a few men. Or people who didn’t qualify for Medicare.

  Not that he had a problem with Medicare. Or any health care. Heck, didn’t he spend the fall creating programs around the Affordable Care Act?

  He just thought the Halikarnassus Free Public Library Book Group could use some fresh blood.

  And probably a new name.

  HFPLBG. It wasn’t even a good acronym. Acronyms were sacred to librarians.

  He closed the web browser where he had been about to avoid mind-numbing paperwork by looking at YouTube. Which was a terrible and unprofessional use of his time, but Kristin Klomberg had piqued his curiosity.

  He shouldn’t listen to Kristin. She had a nasty tendency to gossip, although, to be fair, so did most people in town. But there was something especially cruel about Kristin’s gossip, especially when it came to Joanna. That was how he’d learned that she was the Joanna Green, when Kristin made a snotty remark about Peggy’s granddaughter being in a trashy, unwashed punk band.

  Unfortunately for Kristin, that was Liam’s favorite kind of music.

  But this morning she came in, practically vibrating with the news that Joanna wasn’t back to take care of Peggy, but because her band had imploded and it was all Joanna’s fault. Liam was surprised. Bunny Slippers wasn’t on his radar anymore, not since their last album, which had managed to sound both overproduced and watered down. Joanna was definitely the best part of the band. Why would they kick her out?

  Because she’s a screwup, Kristin told him, then launched into an explanation of the video she’d found that showed Bunny Slippers opening for the Penny Lickers. (And Liam tried not to be judgmental, but he just could not with that band.) Apparently they got onstage for their first song, and Joanna just froze. She had some kind of hissy fit and ran off the stage.

  Kristin described it like it was hilarious, like someone just played a funny prank. Liam disengaged from the conversation as quickly as possible, but it was too late. The seed was planted. And the seed grew into a mighty oak of curiosity—not nosiness, he assured himself—and before his conscience could catch up, he was Googling “Bunny Slippers” and “first concert” and “Joanna Green.”

  And there it was. The news was old, in Internet time, but it was there—with videos included! He shouldn’t. But he did.

  Then Peggy called and he was reminded that Joanna’s music career (or apparent lack thereof) was none of his business.

  He went out to grab a copy of the book group book, and when he got to the desk, book in hand, he had a patron waiting. He quickly looked around for Dani, who was supposed to be covering the desk while he fought with paperwork. No Dani. He could hear her voice coming from the children’s area. So she was either helping a patron or practicing her lines for her role in the Halikarnassus Community Theater production of The Crucible. She wasn’t yelling about Satan, so she was probably helping a patron.

  He really had to work on his management skills.

  “Hi, how can I—” He started talking before he even reached the desk, so when he got there he was surprised by the woman standing there. He shouldn’t have been surprised. He knew she was there. That was the whole reason he came out of his office, because there was a person out there.

  Joanna Green really flustered his inner monologue.

  She wasn’t looking at him. He wasn’t even sure that she had heard him. He was struck, once again, how she looked . . . cool. It made him feel like an old fart to think that, but it was true. She wore it like an old leather jacket, comfortable and easy. Her dark hair wasn’t piled up in a messy topknot, but fell in a blunt straight line to her shoulders. She was wearing a worn-looking tank top with a unicorn crying tears of gold coins on it. She had an armful of bracelets on one wrist and a leather cuff on the other. Her nails were painted black, but—and he didn’t know much about manicures—it looked like she had done it herself, and a while ago. And she was scanning the library with a look of wonder that Liam really could not account for. The Halikarnassus Free Public Library was great in a lot of ways, but no one had ever accused it of inspiring wonder.

  “How can I help you?” he recovered smoothly, trying his hardest not to stare, but it was hard. Nobody in Halikarnassus looked like Joanna Green. She was like his teenage dream girl come to life. It was not doing great things for his professionalism.

  “This is the library?” she muttered. Liam wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or not. He cleared his throat.

  She swung an annoyed glance at him.

  She was definitely Peggy’s granddaughter.

  Not that Peggy shot him annoyed glances very often, but he’d seen that look directed at others. And he’d seen that look on Joanna’s face in the photographs Peggy would occasionally parade out, of her adventurous, talented granddaughter who was a badass rock-and-roller. The picture was from high school and included some other Halikarnassus Badass Rock-and-Rollers who were now grown-ups and patrons. They were recognizable from the photo, if he squinted. This woman. She was spot-on. She hadn’t changed a bit.

  You find a look and stick to it, he supposed. Then he remembered the unfortunate frosted tips from his high school yearbook and shuddered.

  “I’m here to get a book for my grandma.” She pushed Peggy’s worn library card across the counter to him.

  “Sure,” he said. “She just called.”

  Joanna rolled her eyes. “Of course she did.”

  “Here you go,” he said, handing the book over. “Already checked out.”

  Joanna took it and the library card from him. “So,” she said. “I thought you were Mr. Big-Time Library Director. How come you’re checking out books to the lowly patrons?”

  He nodded at Mr. Collins, who set a stack of books on the counter. Mr. Collins liked to turn his books in in person so they could get checked in right away. For some reason, he had a thing against the book drop.

  “There’s no such thing as a lowly patron,” Liam said.

  She snorted. “God, you are such a Boy Scout.”

  He was a Boy Scout. Or he had been, back in high school. Then he’d sent his Eagle Scout badge back to national headquarters in solidarity with his gay fellow scouts and rescinded his membership. So, technically, he was not a Boy Scout.

  Probably not something Joanna cared about.
r />   Besides, she wasn’t even paying attention to him anymore. She was looking around again, taking in, well, he didn’t know. It was a great library, but not, like, awe-inspiring.

  She’d looked in wonder in a circle so her back was to the circ desk, and she leaned back and rested her elbows on the worn wooden surface.

  “Why is it that some things completely change and some things don’t change at all?”

  “Hmm?” He wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. Maybe he should offer her a tour. If she’d been gone for a few years, there were definitely some changes in the building. He’d implemented most of the changes. He was pretty proud of them.

  If she thought he was a Boy Scout now, wait until he started talking about user experience data.

  “Why’d you change all this?”

  He didn’t want to be rude. And as a librarian, he’d been asked a lot of pretty stupid questions in his professional life. What’s the name of that one book with the blue cover? Do you have Gandhi’s phone number? Does this smell bad? There were stupid questions, and his colleagues deserved some recognition for not just giving out stupid answers in response but for considering each inquiry with equitable seriousness. But this one always killed him. He didn’t just change stuff on a whim. He studied patron behavior and usage patterns and ADA requirements. He didn’t just move the stacks for fun.

  Although it had been kind of fun.

  “I like it,” she announced.

  “Huh?” A very articulate response to what he belatedly recognized as a compliment.

  “It’s nice. You can actually see the windows.”