by Deanna Chase
I waited until the crash had stopped echoing through the stacks before I pulled myself to my knees. I was blinking like Rip Van Winkle awakened from a nap, and I fumbled to straighten out the ear-piece of my glasses, to get the lenses settled back on my face.
On the bridge of my nose, to be exact. The bridge of the nose that was now at hip-level to the rest of the world, as I knelt by the wreckage of the Death Sled. Hip-level. Or, to be more specific, crotch-level.
With a sickening swoop in the pit of my stomach, I recognized that khaki crotch. Even without my glasses properly placed, I knew the crisp cotton fabric. I’d spent enough days staring at it across the library. I’d wasted enough day-dreams about the package behind it, about the manly gifts of my Imaginary Boyfriend.
Jason.
Jason Templeton.
The man who now cleared his throat and took a single, polite step backward.
“I’m sorry!” I gasped, finally forcing my glasses back on my nose. My embarrassment crisped the back of my neck. At the crash of the cart, people had come running—Evelyn, and Harold, and at least two other patrons.
Harold stepped forward and righted the Sled. Evelyn started to collect the books, clicking her tongue over them as if they were naughty children. The patrons stared at me as if I were some sort of freak—I mean, what sort of librarian sends books crashing to the floor in the middle of a quiet afternoon of study?
Jason was trying to keep from laughing. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I didn’t mean—”
“Are you all right?” Harold interrupted, taking advantage of the situation to reach for my forearm and haul me to my feet.
“Harold!” Evelyn said, as if he were responsible for the chaos I’d created. “This cart is dangerous! Someone might have been hurt. Can you fix the wheel?”
Even though he was besotted by my spell, Harold managed to turn to his direct supervisor. “Sure thing,” he said.
“Well, take care of it now, so that this doesn’t happen again.”
Harold looked at me solicitously, but I assured him that I was fine. I raised my voice to let the others know as well, and it took only a few minutes for the patrons to return to their work. Evelyn shook her head and went back to her office.
That left me with Jason. With Jason of the Impeccably Pressed Khakis. The khakis that I had just studied much too closely. “I’m sorry,” I said for a third time.
“I don’t think you have anything to apologize for.”
“I’ve never done that sort of thing before.”
“What? Knocking over a book cart?”
“No. Kneeling—” I realized that I did not have a dignified way to complete my sentence. “Yeah. That’s what I meant. Knocking over a book cart.”
“No blood, no foul.” Jason shrugged, and his smile was blinding enough that I nearly forgot my mortification.
I don’t know what possessed me. Maybe it was a bounce-back from my grimoire spell. Maybe it was the wild confidence that had fueled my morning of foundation research. Maybe it was the realization that it was time to move this relationship forward, time to push Jason from the “Imaginary” category over to “Real.” But I heard myself speaking before I had even thought through the words in my head. “I’ve been wondering,” I said, and my voice was calm and collected, as if I spoke to dream boyfriends every day of my life. “Would you like to come over for dinner on Friday?”
“Friday?” For just a second, he looked surprised.
Had I been too forward? Had I been too bold, to propose the first night of the weekend? Um, that would be tomorrow night. Had I ruined my entire romance before it even had a chance to start?
He shook his head. “My schedule is crazy this semester. I have office hours on Friday afternoon. Then I go to dinner with Ekaterina. It’s a standing thing—wind up the work week, you know?”
“Oh!” I said, cursing the Russian ballerina princess. It made sense that he’d see her after office hours. If she was his star grad student, he probably had to give her a lot of support, a lot of personal attention.
“Any other night, though,” Jason was saying. “Any weeknight, I mean.”
Any weeknight. He was offering me any night, Monday through Thursday. Any night, we could wrap up our work here at the library and head out to my cottage. I could send Neko packing (lucky me, that my familiar was free to roam), and I could whip up a little something special….
“Thursday!” I said, like a drowning woman who had just found a raft.
He grinned. “Like a week from today?”
“Um, yes.” Like a week from today. An entire week. What was I thinking? Was the power of an Imaginary Boyfriend so strong that he could make me forget the days of the week? Romeo and Juliet had an easier time planning their balcony trysts. “Exactly like that.”
“What time?”
“Eight?”
“Eight.” He nodded and treated me to another one of his grins. “Where do you live?”
That’s right! He didn’t know! He didn’t realize that my home was so close to the library. I told him about the cottage, and he was suitably impressed.
“All right, then,” he said. “Next Thursday, eight. The cottage in the garden.” He took a step toward me. For just a moment, I thought that he was going to kiss me. Me. The librarian standing like an idiot, with twisted glasses and a rucked up colonial skirt. I took a step toward him, which made him move away.
“I—” he said, and he gestured toward the shelves behind me.
“What?” I asked, trying to hide my confusion.
“I was going to get an atlas.”
“An atlas?” I might never have heard of the word before.
“From that shelf over there. Behind you.”
“Oh! An atlas!” Of course. I was an idiot. That was why he’d come over here in the first place. Why he’d been in range of the Death Sled. I stepped to the side. “I need to get back to my desk, anyway.”
“I’ll see you next Thursday, then.”
I was dialing Melissa’s phone number before I sat down at my desk.
Chapter 12
Melissa replaced the pot of Caramel Karma coffee on its heating element and gestured toward the canisters of loose tea, silently asking me if I wanted my preferred form of caffeine. I shook my head. As it was, I was almost bouncing off the ceiling. 11:15, and Clara had not yet made her appearance.
“Go on,” I said, and I could hear the nervousness in my voice. “Who knows when she’ll get here? Tell me about last night’s dating game.”
Melissa glanced at the red-X’ed calendar and sighed. “This one was a Washington Today.”
I grimaced. The magazine was known for its funky articles about D.C. life, but its restaurant critics were more discerning than its personals editor. Most of the men Melissa had met through the ads had grossly overstated their qualifications. I’d encouraged her to stop using the silly thing—married men looking for action on the side, shrimpy self-professed giants, and “fit” poster boys for obesity clinics were not going to make Melissa happy. (Not, I hasten to add, that there’s anything wrong with short or fat men—just short or fat men who lie about their status to unsuspecting, open-hearted bakers whose biological clocks are ticking louder than Big Ben.)
“So,” I said, fiddling with a packet of turbinado sugar. “What did this one say?”
She looked up at the ceiling, as if the ad were printed there. “Single White Male, thirty-eight years old, brown hair, green eyes.”
“Thirty-eight!”
“That’s what he said,” she replied grimly. “I thought that I could make the age difference work. After all, we all know that women are more mature than men.”
I gave her a look that told her exactly what I thought of that logic, but I waved a hand to get her to go on. She continued to recite: “Gourmet chef in brown paper package. Can spice things up with salsa or cool them down with raita. Take a chance and feed your curiosity today.”
I frowned. “A little gimmicky.”
“Come on. I’m a baker. He should have been perfect for me.”
“And?”
“Who knew that McDonalds is experimenting with recycled brown paper bags? And that they actually offer a raita burger?” I shook my head as Melissa went on. “Only in major metropolitan areas, but still. And a salsa burger? Did you know that they’re testing them in the southwest right now?”
“This guy owns a McDonalds?”
She nodded grimly. “Thirteen of them. He’s a franchise king. A graduate of Hamburger University.”
I couldn’t keep from laughing. “You’ve always said not to be too snobby about things like education.”
“Want a coupon for a free Big Mac? I have several.”
I swallowed hard. Poor Melissa, with her child-like preference for plain burgers. That special sauce would all be wasted on her. “But how was he, aside from that?”
“There wasn’t any ‘aside from that.’ Our conversation was all-McDonald’s, all-time. Oh, except for one thing. The “thirty-eight” was a typo.”
“A typo?”
“He meant to say forty-eight. At least, that’s what I’d imagine, given his appearance. Or maybe he’s a youthful fifty-eight.”
“So, there you were, having drinks with a fifty-eight-year-old McDonald’s franchisee….”
“At least I had the good sense to plan this one for drinks only. He begged me to join him for dinner, but I told him I already had a commitment. If anyone ever asks, I was helping you bake a tres leche cake last night. You needed it for a work colleague’s birthday.”
“Tres leche. Birthday. Got it.” I shook my head and started to consider the value of yet another this-isn’t-worth-it-why-are-you-pushing-so-hard-to-find-the-man-of-your-dreams speech. Before I could work out a new angle, though, the door to Cake Walk opened.
And a woman walked in.
I recognized her from the photographs that Gran kept around the house. The old ones, of course, since my grandmother had not seen fit to update the collection, intent as she was on keeping me in the dark about Clara’s continued existence. Not that I’m bitter, or anything like that.
She had red hair. She clearly had exploited the skills of Lady Clairol, but if the shade was even close to natural, I could see where I got the russet highlights in my own hair. Her eyes were hidden behind giant sunglasses, as if she thought she was a movie star, tragically misplaced along the C & O Canal in Georgetown. Her skin was pale, a shade or two lighter than my own, and she seemed to have covered up suspected freckles with a heavy coat of makeup. Her neck was starting to sag, and her chin was softened by hints of age.
Hints of age, and the wages of hard living, I thought uncharitably.
I wondered what her eyes looked like behind those absurd sunglasses. Were they the same as mine? Did she have the flecks of gold that made the hazel seem deeper than it actually was?
“Mrs. Madison?” Melissa asked, finally breaking the spell.
“Smythe,” she said, drawing out the “y” into a long vowel, just like Gran did. Of course. She wouldn’t use my father’s last name. She’d left him behind, like she’d left me. Like she’d left Gran. “Clara,” she corrected herself before she extended her hand to Melissa.
My best friend smiled as if she always hosted my long-lost, drug-fiend relatives on a slow Saturday morning in the bakery. “I’m Melissa White,” she said, shaking hands firmly. “And I’m sure you’ve realized that this is Jane.”
I stood there, trying to remember what to say. Had Miss Manners ever written a column about reuniting with parents who abandoned you? With parents who lied to you for a quarter century, and then decided to come back into your life? I’m sure there was some specific etiquette; I just didn’t know what it was.
Once again, Melissa came to my rescue. “Why don’t you two take a seat, and I’ll bring some coffee.” She flashed Clara the smile of a professional hostess. “Cream? Sugar?”
“Thank you. I appreciate the offer, really I do, but I don’t drink coffee.”
Melissa sent me a sideways glance that was meant to carry an entire conversation, like smoke signals across the high plains. “Tea, then? We’ve got a variety of flavors.”
“Oolong?”
Melissa’s smile grew broader. She knew my favorite when she heard it. “With just a bit of cream?”
“Exactly!” Clara looked as if she might clap her hands together in joy. Or relief. I couldn’t help but steal a glance at those hands, and I was strangely relieved to see that they were completely different from my own. Her fingers were thick. Short. Stubby. But the nails were the same—bitten to the quick.
I silently promised to take care of my own nails once and for all. Neko would certainly help me with a manicure. Roger, Neko’s newfound Adonis, had to offer them at his salon. Roger. The man owed me, after getting me into this.
Melissa waved us over to the two-top in the corner, the table that provided the most privacy in the small shop. Clara waited until I sat down; then she took her seat. At first, she put her hands on the table, entwining her fingers, but then she shifted them to her lap. I imagined them clenching and unclenching as our silence stretched out. As if she’d only just remembered that she was wearing Hollywood glasses, she peeled them off, folding them carefully before returning her hands to her lap.
Bingo. Hazel. Gold flecks. More bloodshot than I hoped my own were.
“Jeanette,” she said.
“What!” I couldn’t help myself. She didn’t even remember my name.
“Jane!” She blushed crimson—the same telltale flush that I suffered through every time I was embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Jane.”
“Why did you call me that?”
“It’s your name. The name I gave you. Well, your father and I.”
Her voice was deeper than I’d expected, as if it had been sanded down by too much whiskey and too many cigarettes. She spoke in short, sharp sentences, reinforcing that she was every bit as nervous as I was.
I supposed that should have made it easier for me. I should have realized just how much we had in common, how much we both were suffering. After all, I’d read my Shakespeare. I knew how grateful mothers were when they found their lost children. In Winter’s Tale, Hermione’s reunion with Perdita was joyous; it finally awakened the entire mourning kingdom. But I didn’t feel joyful. I didn’t feel grateful. I felt more as if I’d like to exit, pursued by a bear. Anything but continue to sit here and make small talk.
“Gran always called me Jane.”
Clara pursed her lips. “She would. She never liked the name Jeanette. She thought it was fussy. She even made me put ‘Jane’ on your birth certificate, but I’ve always thought of you as Jeanette.”
Gran was right! I wanted to shout. Melissa spared me the need to reply when she carried our tea over to the table. She used one of her cork-backed trays, and she shifted mugs, hot water, tea strainers, loose tea, and cream with the ease of familiarity. The coup de grace, though, was the platter of Sugar Suns, iced lemon cookies that always made me smile. “Thanks,” I said, but she disappeared behind the counter before I could beg her to sit down and join us.
Clara and I busied ourselves with our tea. She liked it much weaker than I did; I almost asked her why she didn’t just wave her tea strainer over the steam that rose from her mug. I heard the words before I said them, though, and knew that they would sound too snarky. I settled for passing her the cream and taking odd satisfaction that she took more than a “bit.” She added a downright dollop.
“So. Jane.”
I wanted to click my tongue and roll my eyes and toss my hair in a perfect approximation of teen-aged frustration. After all, Clara had been exempted from dealing with me when I was stuck in those terrible years. Thrusting down my annoyance, I settled for stating her name in the exact tone that she had used. “Clara,” I said, and I watched her shift back on her chair.
“I’m not surprised that you’re angry with me,” she said. “My counselor said that
you probably would be.”
“Your counselor?” I did not like the idea that Clara had been talking about me with strangers. I mean, I’d gone out of my way not to talk about her. Even Melissa hadn’t heard the constant monologue inside my head, my ceaseless questions about what Clara wanted, why she was returning to my life now, what she would be like, what all this would mean.
“She’s my…I guess you’d say that she’s my spiritual advisor.” Clara smiled for the first time since entering the bakery.
I bit off a Sun ray and let the sugary frosting mingle with the tart cookie on my tongue. I chewed a few times, remembering Gran’s constant admonitions not to wolf my food, and then I said, “What religion?”
Clara lifted her chin as if I’d challenged her. “The Universal Family of Light.”
Uh-huh.
So, she belonged to a cult. I immediately pictured her in a white robe, offering up all her worldly belongings to some wrinkled old man in a loincloth. Clara was waiting for a response, and I dug deep into the civility well. “I don’t think they mentioned that one in catechism.”
She smiled ruefully. “And I’m sure your grandmother didn’t bring it up.”
“Leave Gran out of this! She wasn’t responsible for teaching me about your church!” I was surprised by the strength of my reaction, by my need to protect Gran.
Especially, a voice whispered at the back of my mind, when Gran had not protected me. She hadn’t given me the facts that I needed to know; she hadn’t told me about Clara in the first place. It was as if she’d sent me out on a first date without any prior discussion of birds, bees, or the wayward hands of teen-aged boys. She’d left me vulnerable, and I hated the feeling.
“I didn’t mean to criticize your grandmother,” Clara said. “It’s just that she’s never approved of the Family.”
“What sort of things do you believe?” I asked, because I needed to say something, and I didn’t want to dwell any more on Gran and her role in this whole strange reunion.
“We believe in the harmonic balance of the world. We believe that there are some places that are holy, sacred wells where the powers of the ancients can still be felt. We believe that there are certain perfect structures that can bring us enlightenment and power, by bringing our own warped bodies and minds into proper alignment.”