by Cecily Wolfe
“Why are you in such a hurry?” he asked, stepping beside her and looking back and forth to be sure no other cars were coming before taking her elbow in his hand and walking into the crosswalk. She followed along, quiet until they reached the other side of the street.
“I don’t know. Honestly, this whole job thing is kind of freaking me out. I mean, I want it, of course, and I need it. You know I need it, since the Palmerston kids don’t need watched anymore and there aren’t a whole lot of places that would hire me just for the summer.”
He nodded, remembering that she had a work-study job lined up at Kent State so she would have part-time work while she was in school. The most important part of that job, though, was that it would be flexible according to her class schedule, which was not true for all employers.
“I’ve been thinking about it, too.”
When he stopped talking, Maya stopped walking, so he did, too.
“And?” she asked, frowning at him. A long strand of her dark brown hair had escaped her ponytail, and he wanted to reach out and touch it before sliding it behind her ear. What was he thinking?
This was plain weird, to have these thoughts about Maya, Maya, who he had wrestled in his front yard over Frisbees, and tackled in the swimming pool when they played catch with those squishy mesh balls his mom found at the Dollar Tree back when they were in middle school.
He had touched her so many times, but the way he wanted to touch her now was definitely different. The long hair fluttered beside Maya’s head as she stared at him, and now he thought of tucking the hair back while leaning in to kiss her and . . .
“Let me know when the spaceship lands and you can talk again, okay?”
She shook her head and turned away, but he still held her elbow and trailed behind, trying to pull his thoughts together.
“I don’t want this to come between us. I know how much you need a job like this, and you must know how much I want it, too, for different reasons,” he explained.
Maya didn’t speak for a few moments after he spoke, but then she sighed, her gaze remaining in front of her.
“Yeah, I know. I think if you’re an assistant Lindsay would have you help with programs, and that would be great if you could work with Andrea and Steve and the kids more,” she shook her head before continuing. “I wish there were two positions.”
He let go of her and stepped away enough to be able to move in front of her, but kept up the pace as he walked backwards, facing her as he agreed.
“If it was up to her, I’m sure Lindsay would hire us both. But whoever gets it, we’ll be fine. We’d each be happy for the other one, right?”
Waiting for her to nod, he wasn’t prepared when she reached out and grabbed him by the front of his jacket, bringing them both to a stop.
“You’ll be happy for me, because it’s going to be me with the name tag with my actual name on it this summer.”
He couldn’t help but laugh, and as she let him go, they started to walk again.
“I don’t know why we can’t have name tags with our names now. Library Volunteer sounds so impersonal.”
When they had started helping at the library, Lindsay had shown them where she had two lanyards, blue to match the library’s logo, hanging on a small hook in the staff break room. They both held laminated name badges in the clamped end, printed with the words Library Volunteer. Every day that they worked, they had to wear them so patrons would know that they were helping, but not actually librarians, so that if they couldn’t answer someone’s question or if the patron was asking something beyond their knowledge, it would be easier to explain that and direct them to the front desk for help.
The two of them had spent way too much time joking about the name tags, so much that it had become old and only came up now and again when something brought it to mind.
“You can still volunteer this summer, right?” she asked. It was true, so he nodded, wondering what that had to do with anything.
“When I have my own name tag, I’ll put in a good word and see if Lindsay will get you one, since it’s your last summer volunteering. That has to count for something, right?”
She was smirking, and while a part of him was a little annoyed that she assumed she would be chosen for the job, a larger part recognized that this was who she was, who he had come to know over the past six years. That larger part also wanted to kiss that smirk right off her face.
Turning away from Maya, he shrugged.
“It’s not a big deal.”
He could sense her eyes on him as he kept walking, both of them aware that he was lying.
Chapter Seven
Maya had almost forgotten about the prom assignment she had given Connor, with whatever was going on between them on the walk to the library. She had only been joking, sort of.
When it came down to the facts of the situation, she really needed a paying job for the summer, and if wasn’t going to happen at the library, she would have to quit volunteering there and find something else. Something else in a town where work was scarce and nobody was going to hire a kid for a few months, knowing she would be quitting when the summer was hardly over.
It was too bad the university didn’t have any work for her, but so much of it was closed during the summer, and besides, she could only get work-study as part of her financial aid package, so if she wanted a summer job she’d have to take classes in the summer, which was not happening this year.
“So, did you close the deal with Kaylie?”
The two of them were discarding books, with Maya at the computer to the side of the front desk that was used when they were very busy, and for tasks like this one when they weren’t.
Steve was glancing through a copy of the latest Entertainment Weekly, and Maya knew he would be reading every single article, regardless of topic, as he always did. He didn’t make a sound or move at all to indicate that he had heard Maya, but she kept her voice down anyway.
After all, this was a library.
Connor was using a stamp that read DISCARD to press onto the inside page of each book after Maya scanned them into the software, changing their status to DISCARD. Andrea had recently finished clearing some very old, very well-loved but no longer circulating children’s paperback series off the shelves and there were tons of the thin titles packed onto the cart, which would keep them busy until they had their fifteen-minute break together halfway through their shift.
“What?”
His response was typical Connor, focused on the task at hand. She was sometimes a little envious that he could pay such close attention for so long to whatever he was working on, since her own thoughts wandered all over the place, except when she was completely absorbed in a great book.
“Kaylie. How did it go?”
He frowned but didn’t look at her. Had he forgotten? Pretty soon there would be no one to ask, or at least no one who would be a good fit for their foursome. Maybe it would be nice if he did wait, and ask someone who hadn’t been asked. He was the kind of guy who would do something that gentlemanly, and he would be very sweet about it, too.
Her jealousy was veering dangerously away from his ability to focus to his gentlemanly qualities, and the thought of them being focused on another girl. Not that she had even hinted that she wanted any romantic attention from him, so she didn’t have any excuse.
Keeping his friendship was better than scaring him away, right? Her own frown caught his attention, which was the only way she knew that she was expressing her frustration visibly.
“What’s wrong? Aside from me not answering you.”
Connor lifted the stamp and waved it in the air. Once upon a time, they had engaged in a stamp battle, and while Lindsay hadn’t really approved, she had smiled at the ink on their arms, bared for the heat of the summer. Maya remembered the toddler books that were chewed and worn, and the DISCARD and DONATED BY stamps Connor and she had wielded against each other.
There was a lady in town who liked to use the books for some sort
of artwork that neither of them could figure out, so they had to use the donation stamp, as a rule. Both of them had left with several stamps on their arms that evening, laughing the whole way home.
It was what their relationship was about. Being that relaxed with each other, that trusting.
“Just tired, I guess. Besides, you aren’t answering me. Did she tell you no? Or does she already have a date?”
“Nah, I didn’t get a chance to ask.”
He pressed the stamp onto the ink pad and lifted the cover of the book on his knee, pushing the stamp onto the first page. Maya stopped herself from speaking, waiting instead for him to explain.
“I didn’t see her. I think it’s a good idea, though, and she and Jason get along, too, so it should be fun.”
She nodded, but before she could agree with him, he spoke up.
“But not as fun as staying home, maybe crashing the Detweiler’s swimming pool and seeing which one of us can eat the most brownies in one sitting.”
Unsure how to respond, since that did sound like a good time, Maya kept her mouth shut. She was hungry, and Connor knew that the idea of brownies would distract her.
“We can always do that another time, though. I don’t really get it, but I know the prom is important to you, so I’m in. I’ll ask Kaylie as soon as I see her, hopefully tomorrow.”
Steve must have been listening, although Maya had been sure he was absorbed in the latest exploits of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, which were much more interesting than the present conversation, because without turning away from the magazine, he offered his opinion.
“I would have figured the two of you would go to prom together.”
She leaned back in her chair, away from Connor, and looked out into the adult book shelves. Whatever Connor thought of Steve’s observation, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know by his expression, so she looked out into the stacks where a woman was tapping her index finger along the spines of books in the business section.
“I’ll go see if she needs any help.”
It was a lame excuse to escape the discomfort of Steve’s comment and Connor’s response, but she stood up anyway and began to walk away from them both.
Connor rarely felt the urge to actually hit someone, but if he could have smacked Steve and gotten away with it, now would have been the time.
He was sure that the librarian had no idea why saying that, just now, would cause any problems. Connor wasn’t even sure that it was an actual problem, but he knew that Maya had run away, just as he was aware that his face had become hot, and was more than likely red.
It was a good thing neither Maya or Steve was looking at him, since that was a dead giveaway.
But of what, exactly?
It shouldn’t be this complicated, to tell Maya that he liked her, as more than a friend. That he had been wanting to kiss her when they were alone together, and sometimes when they weren’t. That he didn’t want to go to the prom with Kaylie, or any other girl, but if he had to go, he wanted to go with her. Not on a double date, where she would be with Jason.
A date with just the two of them.
He still thought it would be romantic if they jumped his neighbor’s fence and went swimming instead, knowing that the Detweilers always opened their pool way too early for the season and wouldn’t actually mind if the boy who mowed their lawn along with his own just because he could took a quiet swim with a friend.
A friend.
How long would it be before Maya noticed that he was goofier than usual around her?
“No problem. Don’t hesitate to ask for help next time.”
Maya was speaking to a woman with a small stack of books cradled in one arm as she fished around in her purse with her opposite hand. She smiled at Maya and nodded, and Maya walked around behind the desk to scan the woman’s library card after she pulled it from her purse.
Conner’s gaze shifted over a few feet to meet Steve’s. The librarian shook his head slowly at him, and Connor felt his own eyes widen. Steve knew.
Of course Steve knew. Librarians seemed to know everything, probably because they watched everyone so closely. Connor wondered if they were taught that in library school, like some sort of spy skills course that made them super aware of what was around them. Both Steve and Andrea, not to mention Lindsay, picked up on everything that went on, but were very good about not showing it.
Maybe it was part of that customer service thing, which no one associated with librarians. Most people he knew thought that librarians sat around all day reading, but mostly they helped whoever walked through the door, either by having a story time, keeping kids entertained after school with video games so they wouldn’t be at home alone, or finding them the books or movies they wanted or needed.
“Have a good night.”
Maya waved at the woman, who was smiling, clearly satisfied that Maya had helped her find the books she needed. Now, Maya would be a great librarian. She could be pretty sneaky and always seemed to figure things out . . .
But she hadn’t, had she? Should he be worried that she knew how he felt, and perhaps that was why she was pushing him to ask Kaylie to the prom, hoping he would form an attachment to her instead of Maya?
No, it couldn’t be.
“Just about break time. Should we take one of these to read out loud while we eat our Doritos?”
She waved one of the paperbacks from the cart of discarded books as she spoke, raising her eyebrows and pretending to be serious. He had to laugh, but when he did he saw Steve behind Maya, his head turned away from them both, but shaking from side to side.
Maybe Steve could give him some advice, Connor considered. Then again, Steve had never been married and neither Connor or Maya had ever seen him with a woman. Or man, for that matter. Steve might know a lot from reading and observation, but did he have practical advice from experience? It was hard to tell, but Connor wasn’t sure he wanted to take that chance.
“Nah,” he waved his hand in dismissal at the book. “The treehouse gives me motion sickness.”
Maya’s smile was a comfort. As she slid the book back into its place on the cart, Connor stood up, setting the ink pad and stamps on the second shelf of the cart, which was empty.
“I’m sure the third graders will be happy to get them, though. Who knows what Mrs. Shaw is using for her reading practice nowadays.”
Connor’s grimace was genuine, and he saw it reflected in Maya’s expression. He didn’t expect Steve to chime in.
“She had us reading The Hobbit. I couldn’t go back to Tolkien until I was in college because I was traumatized.”
Connor watched Maya’s expression shift into disbelief as he shook his head.
“How many of the kids could read it? Seriously?”
She asked before Connor could, both of them watching Steve now. Steve just shrugged.
“Some of them didn’t have much trouble, but I couldn’t say Bagginses even though she made me say it over and over, and somehow it always came out as Baggsins.”
He shook his head, looking back at them both now.
“And to what did she subject you guys to?” he asked.
Maya cringed, and Connor took it as a sign that he should answer that one.
“Number the Stars. When we got to eighth grade and the teacher mentioned The Holocaust, we were a hot mess. Talk about traumatic.”
Steve looked away for a moment, then back. He tapped his fingers on his upper arm, as both of his arms were crossed over each other on top of the magazine.