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“Of course I can carry them, I already am,” Rusty says, making it sound like the most obvious thing in the world.
“All the way to the car?”
“Yes,” Rusty says, even as the stack sways and she nearly goes with it.
Charlie gives me a look that’s half exasperated, half entertained. It’s a pretty frequent emotion for adults to have in Rusty’s presence, particularly for Charlie, Rusty’s stepmom-to-be.
“I gotta get her to her piano lesson and leave enough time to pick books up off the sidewalk,” Charlie says. “See you around! Rusty, you can’t even see over those.”
“Yes I can,” Rusty’s voice says.
“Bye!” I call, and Charlie waves.
I adjust my backpack on my shoulders and grab another book off the shelf. According to the back, it’s got elves and orcs and epic battles, and I put it back. Not my jam.
“Oh hey, Levi,” Charlie’s voice says.
“Hello,” Levi answers.
I freeze, my hand still on the elves/orcs/battles book, because us working together hinged on no one finding out what we were doing and here, on our very first meeting, Charlie’s already seen us in the same place.
I am bad at this.
“June’s over there if you’re looking for her,” Rusty says, and Charlie laughs.
She laughs slightly too hard and I make a face at the book spines in front of me, still frozen in place.
Levi clears his throat.
“Oh,” he says. “Is she?”
“Yes,” Rusty’s voice says. “Though my dad said I shouldn’t bother you about her because you’ve got to figure it out on your—”
“Hey, okay, let’s get these books to the car so you’re not late to your piano lesson!” Charlie says, cutting Rusty off. “I know it’s fun to see Uncle Levi but we’ve gotta jet, kiddo! Later, Levi.”
Figure what out?
“Bye!” shouts Rusty.
“Bye,” says Levi, and I finally take my hand off the book.
Figure what out on his own? Why was Daniel talking to Rusty about Levi and me?
Does literally everyone in town already know about this project somehow?
There are footsteps behind me, and then Levi’s voice.
“I heard you were over here,” he says.
“Ta da,” I say. “It’s me!”
I admit to being slightly rattled right now.
“It’s good that you’re here, actually,” he says, stepping up next to me and also scanning the new releases. “I realized I haven’t a clue where the microfiche readers are.”
He pulls a book off the shelf and peruses it thoughtfully. I take a second and sneak a peek at him, because peeking at Levi is always a good idea.
He’s got on gray pants and a blue-and-green plaid shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a messenger bag over one shoulder. The shirt fits well. The pants fit very well. The muscles in his forearms flex as he flips the book over and puts it back, and I quickly look back at my section of the bookshelf.
“You know where the bathroom by the reference desk is?”
“I do.”
“If you go down the weird hallway to the left, past the nonfiction audiobooks, at the end there’s a spiral staircase that goes into the basement,” I say. “They’re down there with all the local history stuff.”
The library building was originally a hospital, and some of the layout is still weird.
“Ah. I’d have never found that.”
“That’s what reference librarians are for,” I say.
I pause. I pull a random book off the shelf, pretend to look at it, and then glance over at him.
“Did I just get us busted?” I ask, still nervous.
Levi glances over his shoulder at the front door of the library, where Charlie and Rusty disappeared.
“I doubt it,” he says. “Two people being at the same library is hardly gossip-worthy.”
I snort. Levi frowns.
“I may have been gone for a couple years, but I do know that everything here is gossip-worthy,” I say. “Someone’s got new shoes? Gossip. Nod at someone on the street? Gossip. God forbid you exchange words or get coffee with a friend or accept a ride from a member of the opposite sex.”
“What if you sneak into the microfiche room together?” he asks.
“I’m not willing to take that risk,” I say. “I’ll go first. You wait five minutes and then follow. Take evasive maneuvers if necessary.”
“Got it,” he says, glancing at me sideways. “Godspeed, June.”
He’s got that half-smile on his face, the one that hitches one side of his mouth a little higher than the other.
“Thanks,” I say, and turn away from the New Releases shelf. “See you in there.”Our top-secret, very sneaky plan goes off without a hitch and seven minutes later, Levi and I are in the library basement, sitting in front of the microfiche readers.
The whole library smells like books, of course, but this room really smells like books. Behind us are five rows of wooden library shelves, all jammed full of local history — Sprucevale, the Cumberland Valley, the Appalachians, Virginia in general — and to look at them, I’d guess that most books were printed before 1950.
