“The mural’s growing on me,” Mrs. Battle said grudgingly.
“It’s really good,” Alana said. “He should have formal training, an opportunity for more exposure. He’s a junior, right? I wonder if he’s planning to go to art school.”
“I’m sure he isn’t,” Mrs. Battle said.
“He should.”
Decisively she dragged the slide into her presentation. She knew exactly where it should go and what it should be. The space between the wood shelves lining the east wall and the windows at the top was bare plaster, occasionally adorned with children’s art. Bare plaster, repaired and repainted, would be a perfect canvas for Cody’s drawing, reworked into a mural.
“We should go,” Alana said as she closed down all her windows except PowerPoint. One embarrassing mistake with a chat program had taught her that the safest bet was to have nothing open on her computer she didn’t want shown to a room full of people. “I need to set up the laptop and the projector before people start arriving.”
She helped Mrs. Battle tidy the kitchen, then drove them both to the high school. Cars already crowded the parking spaces closest to the auditorium doors. “I’ll just stop and chat a little,” Mrs. Battle said.
Alana left her to whatever last-minute campaigning she felt necessary and made her way to the front of the auditorium. The technology coordinator had left the projector and a dizzying array of connecting cables, but in a few minutes she had her laptop connected and projecting onto the screen. When she looked up from the keyboard, every seat was taken. People stood in the aisles, with more crowding in the doors at the rear and beside the stage. Mrs. Battle claimed a seat in the front row.
She scanned the sea of faces until an all-too-familiar one caught her attention. Lucas stood at the back of the room. He wore a blazer and jeans, and had his weight braced evenly on both feet, his thumbs stuck in his belt in a universal street-cop stance she found ridiculously endearing. The fire chief, Jackson Marshall, stood at the front of the room in much the same pose. Both men were obviously counting noses, so Alana wasn’t surprised when they met in the middle of the packed staircase. A moment of discussion, then Lucas hopped onto the stage.
“Microphone?”
She unclipped it from the edge of her blouse and handed it to him, sat down on the edge of the stage, and turned on the battery pack at her waist.
“Folks, Chief Marshall asks that anyone who doesn’t have their backside in a seat needs to move into the classrooms down the hall. We’ll broadcast Ms. Wentworth’s presentation to the rooms.”
The tide of humanity ebbed back out into the hallway. Lucas handed her the microphone. “Good luck,” he said quietly.
You’ve done the research. You’ve developed a plan based on that research. Mrs. Battle worked her connections. You will be fine.
Her heart was racing. She cleared her throat as the lights dimmed, then launched into her presentation.
Research, research, research. She laid out the damning statistics on library budget cuts around the country, the complex transition into the digital age. She cited the rising number of visits to libraries on a national, state, and local level, contrasted that with the number of libraries closing or slashing hours.
“But the library is crucial to your community,” she said, then cleared her throat again. A shift of movement at the edge of the stage caught her eye. Lucas braced his shoulder against the wall next to the door leading to the parking lot. Her brain raced as she sipped from the glass of water; probably the position was strategic. Near the exit in case an emergency call came in. In a split second between drinking and swallowing, his expression when he found Tanya freezing and bleeding on the side of a dirt road a mile from home flashed into her brain. He cared. On the surface he was as remote as Chicago or Denver, but that distance only served to wall off how deeply he cared about Walkers Ford.
She’d made a huge mistake, getting involved with Lucas Ridgeway.
But then his lips quirked up in a small smile, and he nodded.