by Mindy Klasky
CHAPTER 11
IT TOOK A half dozen calls to Melissa to finish dissecting the night before. In between her providing baked goods to customers and my providing reference information to patrons, we worked the entire rainbow of emotions from red anger (over Roger having the gall to make an appointment for me with Clara) to orange speculation (over what, exactly, David’s kiss meant) to yellow caution (over the need to take small, precise steps as I learned more about the actual boundaries of all this witchcraft stuff) to green jealousy (over David’s ability to eat both onion soup and tagliatelle without committing sartorial disaster) to blue sorrow (over that kiss, again, and whether there’d ever be another, and whether I wanted there to be another, and why my years with Scott had left me such an emotional mess) to, finally, violet intrigue (over the powers that I could harness, once I’d done a bit more study).
All in all, it was a very busy morning, made more so by the fact that Harold Weems stopped by my desk on three separate occasions. The first time, he was carrying a small vase filled with yellow mums, a spray of brightly colored dried leaves, and a curling frond of fern. “I thought that these would look nice on your desk,” he’d said, and he blushed crimson.
“Thank you, Harold.” For the first time, a twinge of guilt nibbled at the back of my mind. “They’re lovely.”
An hour later, he’d come by to bring me my mail—the mail that I had thus far managed to pick up from the library’s shipping room every single day of my employment—and an hour after that, he’d stopped by to ask if I’d serve up a cup of coffee for him to sip on his break. At least I was able to give him a staff discount on the coffee.
“I’ve got a very busy afternoon,” I said to the poor guy, trying to head off more hours of witch-inspired attention as I handed him his cup and a cardboard sleeve. I extemporized: “I’m working on a special project for Evelyn.”
“What project?” he asked, perfectly reasonably.
“Umm….” I glanced back at my desk. I obviously wasn’t a practiced liar, if I prepared so poorly. A flash of inspiration hit, though, as I remembered walking home with David the night before. “Foundations! I need to research foundations! Ones that might fund the Peabridge.” That was it. Just like Mr. Shakespeare, who was trying to decide whether to fund another show. If I could find a handy donor or two, the library could be in the black, and I might shed my colonial garb.
“Well, good luck,” Harold said. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“Mm-hmmm.” I muttered noncommittally, and I crossed back to my desk. I’d have to research the collection in my basement to see if there was some sort of counter-spell I could administer. I mean, poor Harold was getting more social skills exercise than he’d had in months, but it was only going to add up to heartbreak.
I glanced toward the second table in the reading room, the one where Jason would sit all afternoon. I could only hope that my spell had worked as strongly on him. My stomach did a somersault, and my fingers curled into fists. Jason, thoroughly bespelled. What a thought….
After all, nothing was going to happen with David. He had flat out said that it was inappropriate for him to have kissed me. And I had a lot more invested in my Imaginary Boyfriend than in my brand new warder—months of getting to know Jason, letting him see the true me as I assisted him with his reference work. I’d spent the time to build a solid base because I didn’t want anyone—myself included—to question if he was only my rebound relationship, after Scott.
I was no fool. I knew all about rebound. I had carefully measured every twinge of interest that I’d ever had for Jason Templeton, making sure that it was true, pure, legitimate. Not some figment of my Scott-tortured mind.
And Jason was real. Jason was my future.
But that future might not arrive if the Peabridge was forced to shut down, despite my cut salary, my charming colonial clothes, and the latte bar that perfumed the lobby. Foundation money. That really wasn’t a bad idea.
Rolling up my proverbial sleeves (my overdress fit too tightly around my forearms to permit the literal action), I dug into Google, refining set after set of search results to track down potential donors. This was the type of research project I loved—one lead ran into another, and I was swept along with the pleasure of learning new things. I was interrupted a few times by patrons, but my enthusiasm did not flag. My printer started to hum as I churned out pages from likely prospects. Some even included grant applications online.
It was mid-afternoon by the time I’d finished by information gathering. The stack on my desk was impressive, if I did say so myself. I glanced toward Evelyn’s office and contemplated telling her about what I’d done, but I figured that it was still such a long shot that there was no reason to raise her hopes. I slipped the materials into a white Tyvek envelope; I’d follow up tomorrow, when I was fresh.
Of course, the rest of my library work had hardly disappeared while I was doing my independent study. I glanced at the massive carts beside the circulation desk. We’d had a number of patrons in for the morning—it seemed as if each person who had walked through the door had carried his own weight in books, returning them to our collection.
Well, no time like the present to get started on reshelving. Besides, Jason would arrive at any moment. He should see me busily working, not waiting for him like some lovesick puppy. Squaring my shoulders, I wrestled one of the heavy wooden carts toward the back of the stacks.
I’ve never been a big fan of shelving. It is actually a lot of work—it’s amazing how many books are on the very bottom row of the collection, or the very top, and how many neighboring books can slip sideways during a one-month check-out span. Inevitably, I end up breaking fingernails (when mine are long enough to break; maybe there’s a reason that I routinely chew them to the quick.)
Today’s job was made more challenging by the fact that I had inadvertently chosen the Death Sled. The Sled was our oldest shelving cart. One wheel locked intermittently to the right, periodically pitching the entire cart to the side with a lurch strong enough to pull a poor librarian’s arms from their sockets. When using the Sled, I’d been known to grunt like Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon.
But today, I was determined to keep those grunts to myself. I strongly suspected that Harold was lurking nearby, ready to leap forward with a helping hand if he sensed my slightest need. And right now, I didn’t want to see the man. Not until I’d figured out some way to recall my spell. Or, at the very least, dilute it.
I finished shelving all the books on the right side of the cart. The last two were destined for bottom shelves in the collection. I knelt down to place the first one, and then I stretched to the next rank of shelves to shove the other one in place. My heel, though, caught the hem of my petticoat, and I heard the fabric start to rip. Swearing a most uncolonial oath, I tried to hop forward, to free my foot. Unfortunately, that only succeeded in throwing my weight against the Death Sled, where one of my long, ruffled sleeves snagged a corner. True to its name, the book cart chose that moment to leap forward at an impossible angle.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a patron standing in the path of the Sled. I threw my hip against the cart, hard, using my full body weight to yank my sleeve free and set the Sled off course. That fine football tactic, though, only upset my fragile, hem-bound balance. As I tumbled to the floor, my mob cap went flying, and my glasses were knocked askew. The Death Sled, weighted on only one side because of my industrious—if unbalanced—shelving, teetered precariously for the longest minute in the history of library science before it crashed to the ground, sending treatises, essays, and bound manuscripts flying.
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 knel
t 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.