Page 13 of The Fall Back Plan
It’s a ridiculous drink. Super sweet and way too indulgent. I might ruin Lucas and Wayne Oakley’s perception of me if they knew I didn’t drink my coffee black and acrid. But I love it, and I’ll give up my hazelnut lattes when the world runs out of hazelnuts and milk.
The early fall day beckons me to wander down Maple instead of driving home to shower and armor up for the day, so I follow the impulse. The sky is Carolina blue, a color I can’t bring myself to hate even as a Duke graduate, and the temperature tells me it’ll be time to switch to sweaters in a week or so.
I mostly window-shop, noting a few stores I’d like to come back and explore later. Two blocks down, a thrift shop is advertising a “Get Women to Work” event, a clothing drive for professional wardrobe pieces, and I make a mental note. Toward the end of the business district where it changes to municipal buildings, the shops thin out and a familiar building takes shape, one I realize my feet have steered me toward on autopilot.
The Harvest Hollow Library.
I stop at the edge of the small, tidy lawn it sits on, and study the building that had sheltered me from so many things for much of my life here.
It’s in a well-kept and stately renovated home that was willed to the town for use as a library in the early seventies, but the house itself dates back about a hundred years. It’s Craftsman style, with a low-pitched angled roof, overhanging eaves, and a covered front porch, still holding the bin for after-hours book returns and a rolling cart with donated books for sale.
Do I want to go in? It looks so familiar and unchanged on the outside that the first happy sense of nostalgia I’ve had since arriving in town a week ago causes a twinge at the end of my nose, a warning of impending tears.
Another thing that might surprise Cole and Oakley: sometimes I’m sappy.
What if I go in and it’s too different? What if it’s “upgraded” with laminate floors and easy-clean counters? What if it doesn’t smell the same? That would break my heart.
I walk past it, drinking the rest of my coffee as I debate with myself. And then I catch myself smiling. How did I not realize that I impulse bought a house four times bigger than I need because it reminds me of my favorite library?
Two minutes later, my empty coffee cup disposed of, I climb the front steps and smile again at the comfortable rockers and benches sitting on the porch for moms who want to sit in the shade and watch their kids play on the lawn.
The moment my foot touches the familiar oak floor inside, I freeze.
It’s the same. It’s all exactly the same, and the orange-scented furniture oil and the vanilla musk of all the books envelops me and shoves me back in time. I’m ten-year-old Jolie, slipping into the cozy library on a chilly November day, wanting somewhere warm to wait until the early dark fell so I didn’t have to stay in our dirty apartment alone.
The sense memory rushes in with the force of a gut punch, and I give a tiny gasp, like it will equalize my internal pressure, and I can ground myself again in the present.
“May I help you?” asks a voice I know nearly as well as that smell. It’s a pleasant voice, one that asked patient questions and gave even more patient answers.
Mrs. Herring.
I glance over to the circulation desk where she sits, ready to check out books to patrons.
“Just browsing,” I say, and turn to the left, into the stacks. Mrs. Herring was one of my favorite people in Harvest Hollow. Most of my teachers were great, but school itself was sometimes hard because of other kids. But the library had always been the one truly safe space for me in town. Nothing bad ever happened here.
I want desperately to say hello, to tell her that her presence behind the front desk was a gift I didn’t know I’d needed. She’d seemed so old to me then that I assumed she was retired, but she must only be in her late sixties now. I want to talk to her and find out how she’s been. But at the moment, I feel about as tough as a newly hatched baby chick and just as bewildered by this sensory overload. I don’t think I have it in me right this second to stand it if she doesn’t remember me. I had one Mrs. Herring, but she’s had dozens, even hundreds, of lonely Jolies over the years.
The library hasn’t been open long. Less than half an hour, I think, and only a few people have come in so far. I wander the shelves in peace, smiling at the call numbers. The Dewey decimal system is one of the great loves of my life. I tend to fall in love with anything that imposes order on chaos.
It doesn’t take long to wander the entire collection. The library is large for a Craftsman, but even with removing some of the interior walls, the space is limited. There’s a small section near the front of the room by the windows with a handful of tables and chairs, just like when I was a kid. A few copies of the city and county newspapers sit on an accent table, and a low shelf of magazines runs along the wall below the windows.
The only other open spaces on the first floor are the public restrooms and the children’s room with the kid books. The little remaining space is storage, I think. Upstairs, there are small study rooms. I would always invite classmates there if it was ever my turn to host a group project. No way would I have risked bringing them back to my apartment.
The paint on the walls looks as if it’s been refreshed since my time here, and the tables show no wear, so they must be newer too. But the heavy wooden chairs are the same ones I used to sit in for hours, working my way through the stacks of books I’d tote over from the kid’s room, and later, from the main fiction shelves.
I slip into one of the chairs and smooth my hand over the tabletop. All my irritation over the graffiti and the town officials has disappeared, and I close my eyes, taking in these familiar smells and sounds. I never expected Harvest Hollow to feel like home, and in the nine days I’ve been here, it hasn’t. Until now.
“Jolie McGraw? Is that you?”
I open my eyes to smile at Mrs. Herring. She remembers.
“Hey, Mrs. Herring.”
“My goodness, it’s been a minute.” Her keen brown eyes sweep over me, and I note the changes the last decade have wrought on her. Her deep brown skin doesn’t show much evidence of aging, but her short hair shows more silver than before. Her red glasses still hang from a chain around her neck, and she’s still wearing a cardigan. The librarian clichés end there, though.
She’s slim, the kind of thin that you can only get from genes, and that short hair sits in a sassy cut that’s stacked in the back and falls into perfectly formed curls toward the front, one almost but not quite daring to fall over her eye, the other tucked behind her ear. It’s so chic, I kind of want to die.
Her cardigan is black and skims her figure to her waist, draping over a silky cream blouse with a loose floppy bow, and finished off with a pair of plain camel tweed trousers and ballet flats in a cheetah print.
