Page 32 of Where You're Planted

“It’s called stalking, and it’s honestly a little scary at this point,” Marianne said.

Kai rolled their eyes. “It’s literally our job to find information.”

“Oh, kid,” Irma said, “I don’t judge, but it’s straight-up gossip. Call it what it is.”

“I can’t help it if his interns are obsessed with him,” Kai said, raising their hands in defense. “Two minutes with the Madisons, and they just offer up this shit. Apparently, his marriage ended horribly.That’swhy he doesn’t do relationships.”

“Well, there you go,” Tansy muttered. Whether he had a reason or not, he was still some no-strings-attached, perpetual-bachelor type who probably slept with women once and discarded them. Although the marriage part did surprise her.

“He seems very interested in you,” Irma added, nodding at Tansy.

“This is what I’m saying. Dude’s always claiming he’ssobusy, but he managed to hang around doing nothing for that class, and suddenly he’s gone from putting off that firstfestival meeting to springing another surprise meeting on you yesterday?” Kai scooped a massive glop of mud, murmuring, “Wax on, wax off,” as they smeared it across a horizontal seam and scraped it away.

It was true. Jack had requested—demanded—another meeting after Greta’s retirement breakfast yesterday, pulling in Ian and Kai for note-taking, although it had felt oddly like he just didn’t want to be alone with her. And after their short, awkward meeting the week before, when she’d fully jumped him and then couldn’t stop laughing, she hadn’t fought him over it because any chance to get more involved could only be good for the library.

“He only wanted that meeting because he’s too uptight to let me do anything without his approval.” Tansy unpeeled a few inches of tape from the roll, smoothing it as she followed the seam. “Trust me, I’m the worst part of that guy’s day.”

Kai laughed but then frowned and said more seriously, “Come on. Not really. You’re just, like, the release valve on everything else that makes his day bad. He’s the same for you. You guys bicker like it’s some kind of weird emotional purging therapy.”

Yesterday, they’d fought over the bird migration game Tansy wanted to run behind the library. He didn’t want guests trampling an overgrown area which, as far as she could tell, was nothing more than a dumping ground for fallen trees, and by the end of their spat, she’d snapped, “Ugh,youshould migrate!” By that point, Kai and Ian were fully ignoring them, sketching goofy animal doodles back and forth in their notebooks.

“A,” Tansy began, “that sounds incredibly toxic, so thanks for giving me something new to feel bad about, and B,whatother things make his day bad? What does he honestly haveto complain about? The county reopened his park with a full ribbon-cutting ceremony and press coverage.”

“Well,” Kai said, head tilting and eyebrows drawing together. They scraped the excess mud off onto the edge of the container. “I mean, they’re open, but it’s hard to operate with no budget.”

“What are you talking about?”

Kai let out a nervous laugh, hesitating to say more, eyes darting over Tansy’s shoulder to the others, who were starting on the opposite wall. That hesitation made Tansy straighten. It wasn’t like Kai not to speak their mind. Tansy suddenly felt the weight of her interim titles.

“Really,” she said, tearing the tape free from the roll. “I want to know.”

“They were supposed to start this expansion project this year, but instead, the commissioner froze their operating budget. They can’t buy plants or supplies of any kind, can’t contract out specialized work. In fact, Jack paid for the bee removal out of his own pocket. And the greenhouse is so old, when the mechanical shit in there got damaged, they couldn’t find half the parts needed to fix it. Now, when they get access back to their expansion funds, a huge chunk is going to flood projects that the county won’t cover. They cut a ribbon, yeah, but there’s still ashit tonof red tape.”

“This came from the interns?” Tansy asked.

Kai shrugged. “And Ian.”

“Ian,” Tansy repeated. Her mind was circling around the new information like a toy boat in a bathtub-drain whirlpool. If all of it was true, then she could relate to the stress Jack probably felt, the frustration of trying to do the same job with his hands tied and legs kicked out from under him. Even if the cards she’d been dealt were objectively worse.

But she didn’t want toempathizewith Jack. He was an ass and the person she’d funneled all her frustration at every day instead of at the nebulous web of library board members, admin, and county politicians who were responsible for the library’s situation.

“You two are getting close,” Tansy said, still wrapping her mind around this development.

“I mean…not likereallyclose.” Kai resumed laying the mud, this time far more carefully, with all their focus.

“It’s okay if you are. Just because Jack and I don’t get along doesn’t mean—”

“Please,” Kai scoffed. But color bloomed across the apples of their cheeks, and they picked at their chipped black nail polish. “Ian’s like a…a goldendoodle. Too nice.”

“What’s wrong with nice?” Marianne piped up.

Kai looked to Irma for backup, who was—God, climbing the stepladder to mud the top of a vertical seam.

Tansy quickly traded places with her.

As Irma passed up her supplies, she said, “You know I’m all for a walking red flag with great abs in fiction. But in real life…there are valid reasons they genetically engineered the goldendoodle. Even-tempered, loyal, intelligent…”

“Simple,” Kai argued. “Vanilla.”

---