“You’re doing it. It’s happening. Pencil me in, though. I need a plus-one the weekend after next for my uncle’s wedding.”
Jack and I have a pact. We’re always each other’s plus-one when needed. Since it’s needed, I surmise his dating-site endeavors have not gone any better for him than I expect they will for me. “I didn’t think you were close to your uncle.”
“I barely know him, but my sister insists I go. She’s bringing a date and told me to do the same, or everyone is going to start thinking I’m gay, which she said is fine, but she still wants to meet my partner.”
I cringe for him. “She thinks you’re in the closet?”
“Apparently,” he states. “I told her I like women, and that if I didn’t, I’d happily say so.”
“Well, on a positive note, it’s nice to know she’d accept you no matter your orientation.”
“Right. Gay is fine. She just can’t accept me as a loser who can’t get a date at all, no matter my sexuality. Somehow that doesn’t feel positive at all.”
One of our morning staff members, Carrie, pokes her head in the door. “We need you, Jack.”
Jack pushes to his feet and waves in her direction. “Coming.”
Carrie disappears, and Jack lingers long enough to say, “The wedding is the Saturday after next. Mark your calendar.”
“Marking it now,” I assure him.
Once he’s departed the room, I consider what I’ve just learned. I decide it’s possible his sister pressured him about his love life to the point he felt he had to join another dating site. I mean, she knows he and I are platonic friends, so bringing me to the wedding won’t end his sister prying into his love life. Needing a date is a logical reason to start a new dating profile. Hiding it from me is another story.
Chapter Twelve
Considering I finished my caffeine-laced latte a good hour too long ago, I’m running on low and am on the hunt for a pick-me-up. At present, I’m standing inside the minuscule break room, which Jack playfully calls “fun size” while filling a mammoth extra-large cup with freshly brewed basic coffee. My coffee love is not reserved for what one might call “upper shelf” beans with printed cups and juiced-up flavors. Hard, dark, and power punched with enough caffeine to pin my eyelids back for days is an afternoon favorite of mine.
I’m just stirring in some powdered creamer when I hear, “Mia Anderson,” from behind me.
I abandon my cup and rotate to find my boss’s boss, Neil Harper, standing in the doorway. Neil is what I call a librarian on stilts, his six-foot-five height made for basketball or high shelves. His ability to reach a book with nothing but a lift of his arm is impressive and enviable, to say the least.
“Mia,” he greets again, a hint of a question mark accenting my name.
The uncertainty doesn’t really surprise me, but I also suspect it’s unrelated to my incredible ability to remain invisible to the masses. I’m not sure how Neil could possibly know my name or anyone else’s. The man doesn’t look down to the level where the rest of us human librarians dwell, let alone mingle with the staff.
“Yes, sir,” I greet, confirming he has the right person.
He registers no relief or emotion whatsoever with scoring the right person he seeks. He hits his point hard and fast, leaving no room for empty space and chitchat. “Kara isn’t coming in. We need you to make her presentation today. Be in the first-floor conference room at two thirty.” He glances at his watch. “It’s ten after ten now. That gives you plenty of time to prepare.” He backs up and disappears out of sight.
I grab the counter behind me, the room spinning. He wants me to what? I attempt to draw in a wheezy breath and fail miserably. I’m hyperventilating and not for the first time in my life. I was twenty-two when I was one of a hundred people in a crash course on inventory control systems. We’d all been assigned a five-minute presentation, but on the day of the actual class, only twenty names were drawn to pull the trigger and grace the stage. I was one of them. I was prepared. I knew the subject. I was sure I’d impress everyone if I just conquered my nerves. None of that is what had happened at all.
I’d walked to the front of the room, knees weak, palms sweaty, stood at the podium, and started reading my notes. It had been uneventful. Someone in the front row had been asleep. Several others hadn’t even been looking at me. It was the first time in my life that being a shadow in a room full of people had felt rather powerful. I could have done almost anything and no one would have noticed. A degree of calmness had splashed me with realization, cold water in the heat of a bad moment.
I’d actually become more confident after that day—until another day, that is. The day my father was humiliated.
I draw in another full breath. I am not my father. He was never invisible. Except maybe now, to my mother, but I can’t go down that rabbit hole right now. I know the material today, just as I did that day so long ago. The material that documents the financial side of the auditorium will be the focus, not what some librarian filling in for Kara has to say, which works just fine for me. I’m going to back off the ledge and stop creating a crisis where there is none.
After pushing off the counter, I hurry out of the break room, exiting to the main library to find Jack and two of our staff members at the service desk, busy tending to a line of eager patrons. I walk behind the desk, pausing beside Jack to lean in near his ear and whisper, “I have to give Kara’s presentation at two thirty. I’m going to the coffee shop next door to prepare.”
I don’t allow him time to ask questions or add to my nervous energy. I hurry to my desk with the hope of packing up and getting out of here without delay. By the time I’ve bagged my MacBook and it and my purse are on my shoulder, that hope is dashed. Jack is standing in front of me. “You’re doing what?”
“Crazy, right?” I say, obviously aware of what he’s talking about. Me doing a presentation isn’t expected. “Kara must be really sick, because this is actually happening.”
“You’re giving the presentation?”
“I’m doing this,” I confirm.
“Can I help?”
“Actually, yes. If I email you the presentation, can you have one of the staff make me forty copies? The attendees all have an email version to follow, but I want something physical for them to focus on that isn’t me.”
“Smart decision. By what time?”
“Two.”
“Done. Do you want me to come over and drill you over lunch?”
He says that as if this is such a big deal that I need to practice, and I don’t choose to be in that headspace right now. “No, thanks,” I say. “I need to get in my own head.”
He studies me a beat, his eyes sharp, before he asks, “You know you can do this, right?”
“We’re going to find out,” I say. “I just hope Kara is okay.”
“I guess I was wrong about how sick she was.”
I bite back a little quip about his dating skills that would be a natural wordplay between us but might give away my seeing his profile on the app last night. Unease is instant, as if I’m walking on a bed of dull nails just sharp and awkward enough to ensure each step torments me. It’s similar to every conversation I have with my mother.
“I’ll come over when I get a break,” he offers, motioning toward the door and the desk. “If I manage a break.”
Ouch, he’s right. He really needs me here. “I can stay.”
“No. No, I’ve got this.”
“I don’t want to desert you.”
“You’re not deserting anyone,” he assures me. “You’re supporting Kara, which is supporting our team.”
He’s right. I know he’s right, but this isn’t how I’d ever imagined myself doing so. “Call me if it gets too busy, and I’ll come back,” I offer.