“How’s he doing?” Ingrid asked, glad for the distraction. From the corner of her eye she saw Matt tapping on his BlackBerry.
“Good. He’s good,” Emily said. “A little more absentminded than usual, but that’s probably because he’s busy working on a new series of paintings. They’re beautiful and haunted-looking, trails that lead nowhere, some kind of mountain with a silver gate. He hasn’t shown in New York in a long time and his gallery is very excited.”
“Good to hear; please tell him we say hello,” Ingrid said, handing Emily her stack of novels.
So far, after Lionel’s resurrection there had been nothing from the Council. No messages from the oracle, no indication that they had even noticed or cared. It was a bit unsettling, and Ingrid wondered if they had followed the rules too closely. If the Council didn’t care if the rules were broken, perhaps they should have used their magic a long time ago.
There were a few more patrons in line stocking up on books for the long weekend, which kept Ingrid busy. See, she wanted to shout to their pompous mayor, people still use the library—it was still relevant to daily life. There wasn’t much hope, however. She had heard that they planned to move the architectural archive to a warehouse with a tiny office, but that was only because the bequest could afford it; as for the library itself, its future was grim.
At last the line dwindled and it was just Ingrid and Matt again. The silence between them was going to drive her mad, so she decided to take action.
“Let’s see what’s keeping her,” she told him, as she finished tidying up the main desk. She walked briskly to the back office, where Caitlin was sitting at her desk, pursing her lips and surveying her reflection in her compact mirror.
“You know Matt is here, don’t you?” Ingrid asked.
“I know, I’m so late.” Caitlin sighed, snapping the compact shut. “He doesn’t mind, of course, but I hate to make him wait. You know he’s a stickler for time! Always so prompt; he makes me look so bad. I guess it’s just part of his personality. Did you know his father was captain of the force before he retired? And his grandfather, too. Runs in the family—isn’t that sweet?” It was as if the girl had developed a personality overnight. Suddenly she was a chatterbox; you couldn’t shut her up. The staff was well-informed of her dear Matthew’s eating habits (he took most of his meals at the diner by the highway), political views (like Ingrid, he didn’t vote for the current mayor), and ex-girlfriends (not many). Ingrid was finding it increasingly difficult to refrain from hexing her. All it would take was thirteen black candles and a pentagram and that silly girl wouldn’t know why she was breaking out in boils.
Ingrid would prefer not to know so much about Matt Noble. Especially since the picture Caitlin painted was of a simple, honest, hardworking guy, someone she couldn’t help but respect and admire, if only from afar.
“Do you think this looks right, Hudson?” Caitlin asked, fretting about her outfit, a white linen dress that showed a hint of her tanned cleavage.
Hudson arched an eyebrow. “Considering I helped you pick it out, I think it’s fabulous.”
“You look great,” Tabitha agreed, looking on enviously. She wasn’t showing yet, except for a slight puffiness in her cheeks and the requisite bout of morning sickness. “Where is he taking you, again?”
“To the outdoor opera, you know, by the beach? I can’t remember which one.”
“It’s Wagner, the Ring cycle,” Ingrid said icily. She had made plans to see it as well. The North Hampton orchestra performed an abridged instrumental version every year over the Fourth of July holiday, with a fireworks show at the end. Ingrid had been planning to attend with her family, but Freya had canceled on her at the last minute, and Joanna had begged off the yearly tradition, saying she really didn’t feel up to all the Sturm und Drang this summer. Ingrid had decided to skip it, as she didn’t feel like attending the opera alone.
“Hold on,” Hudson said and tightened the belt around Caitlin’s waist to further exaggerate the dress’s hourglass silhouette. “That’s better.” He nodded approvingly. The traitor was Caitlin’s new best friend, Ingrid lamented. Hudson had the soul of a thirteen-year-old girl. He couldn’t help but swoon at a new love affair. It certainly beat recapping last night’s reality shows.
Caitlin blushed and giggled, and Ingrid tried not to listen, telling herself that she was not jealous, she was not jealous! If only there was something she could do to stop feeling the way she did. She could help other women with their problems and yet she couldn’t seem to fix her own. Freya would tell her to take one of her love potions and steal him away. But Ingrid didn’t want that. She didn’t want him to like her due to some magic trickery. Not that she liked him, anyway. Right? It was getting harder and harder to fool herself into indifference. She liked Matt Noble, and it wasn’t just because he was now out of reach. Ingrid did not suffer from the affliction of loving men she could not have. To be honest, she had never loved any man, not one in her long life. She preferred her own company. So this infatuation with Matt came at just the wrong time. She thought he liked her, and so it had piqued her interest. She had been wrong about his attraction, but now she could not seem to do anything about her feelings.
Hudson whispered something in Caitlin’s ear that made the girl blush furiously, making her look even prettier than she already was. “Well, if you really want to know,” she said, and Ingrid could not help but overhear, “tonight’s his lucky night!”
“Lucky night for what?” Tabitha asked. “Oh! Oh!” she said, as she realized what Hudson and Caitlin were talking about and giggled naughtily.
“We’ve been seeing each other for two weeks now and I think it’s time,” Caitlin said primly.
“Is that some sort of rule I’m not aware of?” Hudson asked. “The two-week shag?” He turned to Ingrid and Tabitha expectantly.
“Not for me,” Tabitha chortled. “Chad was a one-night stand.”
“Tab, you slut,” Hudson teased. “A one-night stand that lasted fifteen years, huh?”
“I guess so.” She smiled.
“What about you, Ingrid?”
Ingrid crossed her arms. Some days she really did feel like the world’s oldest virgin. “A lady never tells.” She shook her head at her colleagues and excused herself to the restroom. Caitlin followed her.
At the washbasins, Caitlin suddenly blurted, “I swear, it’s so weird—the whole time I was sure he was always here to see you.” She ran the tap and washed her hands. “He asked about you constantly.”
Ingrid looked up with a start. “Really?”
“Yeah. What kind of books you liked to read. What kind of work you did with those drawings. I thought he had a crush on you . . .” Caitlin pressed her lips together tightly to blot her lipstick. “But it turns out he kept talking about you because he was so nervous because he was talking to me! Isn’t that funny?”
Hilarious. Ingrid slammed the bathroom door and went back out to the main desk. The detective, the subject of all the gossip in the backroom, looked up from the book he was reading. He placed the book on the table. J. J. Ramsey Baker’s opus, the thousand-page doorstop that Ingrid could not get anyone to borrow and read.
“Did you like it?” she asked sweetly.
Matt Noble thought for a moment. “It was . . . interesting but not really my sort of thing.”
“What kind of books do you like, then?” Ingrid asked a bit defensively.
“I don’t know . . .” He shrugged. She was right, she thought, pleased. He wasn’t much of a reader, just a library lurker. He was probably one of those weirdos who liked to nap in the carrels.
“Well, what’s your favorite book?” she asked, feeling confident that he would not be able to name one, or if he did, it would be something like . . .