Lending a Paw(21)
Everyone suddenly focused on me. The silence was so sudden that I thought my ears had stopped working.
“Minnie?” my aunt asked softly. “Is this true? Are you all right?”
Her kindness almost undid me. I nodded and gripped my coffee cup tight. “Ed . . . we’d . . . I’d stopped by that old township hall . . . and . . . and heard something. It was at an old farmhouse. I called 911, but it was too late.”
“Poor Minnie.” Aunt Frances put her hand over mine. “How horrible for you.”
“Yes. And Stan . . .” I swallowed. “I knew him.”
The boarders murmured sympathy. The pressure from Aunt Frances’s hand grew intense. “You knew him? Stan . . . ?”
“Stan Larabee. He’s the one who donated the money for the bookmobile, remember? You said you didn’t know him, last fall when we started planning everything.”
“Yes, I remember saying that.” She released my hand. I stared at my skin, where a white mark showed how her hand had lain.
“You poor thing,” Paulette said, “having to see something like that.”
The others chimed in, asking questions that ranged from who, to how, to why, to when, and to where. All of them asked something, all of them except Aunt Frances, who sat through the remainder of the meal without eating another bite of breakfast.
• • •
I spent the rest of Saturday in the library and barely noticed the passing hours. This was easy to do since the bookmobile’s circulation was separate from the main library and had been shoehorned into a windowless space that had once been the newspaper archives.
My idea had been to get the newspapers microfilmed and donate the print copies to the local historical society to free up the space. Stephen’s objection had been predictable. “Who’s going to pay for the microfilming? It’s not a cheap endeavor, Minnie. Not cheap at all.”
After I’d found, applied for, and been awarded a grant that covered a majority of the costs, Stephen had said, “Even if it’s empty, that room isn’t big enough to house a bookmobile collection.” After I’d found a system of shelving that went floor to ceiling, Stephen had sighed. “Now, Minnie, please don’t take this the wrong way, but height is not one of your sterling qualities.” But I’d been ready for that objection and handed over a catalog of library ladders before he finished his sentence.
The room was high and stark and I loved every inch of it. A few weeks back I’d convinced the janitor—with the help of some fresh doughnuts—to install a tiny drop leaf desk for one of the bookmobile’s laptop computers. I puttered away the rest of Saturday morning, the afternoon, and half the evening, moving from desk to shelves to desk, comparing the main library’s top circulating items against what was checked out on the bookmobile, comparing the checkouts against the lists of top bookmobile books other librarians had sent me, poking around, researching, thinking, and poking some more.
Early on, I tried to call Kristen, but was dumped into her voice mail. I sat there, gripping my cell phone, surprised at the depth of my disappointment. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted to talk to my best friend. I left a short message to call and went back to work.
The huge breakfast I’d eaten lasted me until midafternoon, and I ignored the gnawing in my stomach until I got a headache. By the time I walked home, took some ibuprofen, and ate cold cereal for supper, I was tired enough to crawl into bed with a book and an Eddie. I drifted to sleep so fast that I didn’t have time to wonder why I’d worked so hard all day.
• • •
Sunday morning, I woke to darkness and rain dripping off the eaves of the houseboat. A morning made for sleeping in. I rolled over, vaguely heard an Eddie-squawk, and closed my eyes.
Bright sunlight in my face woke me. I squinted at the clock. “Half past ten?” I grabbed the clock and pulled it closer. Sure enough, most of the morning was gone. By the time I was showered, dressed, and full of another bowl of cereal, the sky was so blue it was hard to believe it had been pouring rain three hours earlier.
My left-hand neighbor, Louisa Axford, nodded at me as I came out on deck. “Rain before seven, done by eleven,” she said from the comfort of her chaise lounge. “You must be busy up there at your library. I haven’t seen you in days, seems like.”
“Friday was the first bookmobile run.”
“That’s right.” She smiled. Everybody did when you mentioned the bookmobile. “Shakedown cruise. How did it go? Any problems?”
And to think I’d ever bemoaned the fact that people didn’t read the local newspaper. “The bookmobile ran fine,” I said. “No scratches, no dings, no generator issues, no engine problems.”