Waylay was standing on a chair trying to reach the Pop-Tarts I’d hidden above the fridge.
“You’re so jumpy,” she accused.
Carefully, I closed the door, leaving all thoughts of urinating men in the outside world. “Put the Pop-Tarts down. We’re having eggs for breakfast.”
“Aww. Man.”
I ignored her disdain and placed the house’s only skillet on the stove. “How do you feel about going to the library today?”
The Knockemout Public Library was a sanctuary of cool and quiet in the Virginia summer swelter. It was a light, bright space with white oak shelves and farm-style work tables. Pairs of overstuffed armchairs were clustered by the tall windows.
Just inside the door was a large community bulletin board. Everything from piano lessons to yard sale announcements and charity bike rides dotted the corkboard in evenly spaced increments. Beneath it sat a gray-washed table displaying several genres of books from steamy romance to autobiographies to poetry.
Glossy green plants in blue and yellow pots added life on shelves and sunny, flat surfaces. There was a colorful kids section with bright wallpaper and a rainbow of floor cushions. Quiet instrumental music murmured from hidden speakers. It felt more like a high-end spa than a public library. I approved.
Behind the long, low circulation desk was a woman who caught the eye. Tan skin. Red lipstick. Long, sleek blonde hair streaked with a warm purpley-pink. The frames of her glasses were blue and a tiny stud winked in her nose.
The only thing that screamed “librarian” about her was the large stack of hardbacks she carried.
“Hey, Way,” she called. “You got a line already upstairs.”
“Thanks, Sloane.”
“You have a line for what?” I asked.
“Nothing,” my niece mumbled.
“Tech support,” the attractive and surprisingly loud librarian announced. “We get a lot of older folks who don’t have access to their own eleven-year-olds to fix their phones and Kindles and tablets.”
I recalled Liza’s comment at dinner the night before.
Which made me recall Knox and his penis this morning.
Whoops.
“The computers are over there near the coffee bar and the restrooms, Aunt Naomi. I’ll be on the second floor if you need anything.”
“Coffee bar?” I parroted, trying not to think of my nearly naked next-door neighbor.
But my charge was already striding purposefully past the book stacks toward an open staircase in the back.
The librarian tossed me a curious look as she shelved a Stephen King novel. “You’re not Tina,” she said.
“How’d you know?”
“I’ve never seen Tina so much as drop Waylay off here, let alone willingly cross the threshold.”
“Tina’s my sister,” I explained.
“I gathered that from the whole you look almost exactly alike thing. How long have you been in town? I can’t believe there hasn’t been a trail of hot gossip blazed to my doorstep.”
“I got in yesterday.”
“Ah. My day off. I knew I shouldn’t have buried myself in my fourth rewatch of Ted Lasso,” she complained to no one. “Anyway, I’m Sloane.” She juggled novels in order to hold out a hand.
I shook it tentatively, not wanting to dislodge the twenty pounds of literature she still held. “Naomi.”
“Welcome to Knockemout, Naomi. Your niece is a godsend.”