Page 30 of Checking Out the Librarian

BatsandBalls

I pick her a tiny papillon with a very big name

Picture

Connor’s messages before their meeting, while not entirely punctuated, had at least been proofread. Now that he’d met real life Connor, the too-fast fingers and excited texting made sense, but they also hurt his eyes.

He should enjoy this with less judgment, he knew he should. Not punctuating messages was normal, was in fact what everyone else did. No one cared about mistakes in texts and the world would not end if he stopped using periods, too.

Bonus, if he stopped using punctuation, it would annoy his mother. You must not let your standards slip, she’d say if she knew, sloppy thinking begets sloppy living.

But for her to notice, he’d have to text her.

Just sharing a room with Connor’s hair would set hers on fire.

Axel1998

Sorry, not a dog.

There, he sent a photo of the rose.

BatsandBalls

That is one gorgeous Dick

Seond best I’ve seen today

If this man could proofread, weekends driving to the city were absolutely on the table.

BatsandBalls

Sorry for the type-Os!I’m carrying a stack of books

His carbon footprint was so, so, so screwed.

8

USING WORDS

The first two days of the following week were busier than Jonathan had previously experienced at the central library.

One of the branches was closed for painting, carpet, and plumbing upgrades necessitated by a water leak that had begun after closing two Saturdays prior and not been discovered until the subsequent Monday morning. That disaster meant the downtown library was extra busy serving branch patrons as well as their own regulars.

By Wednesday, out-of-school children were arriving like fire ants, and the librarians were fraying around the edges. Jonathan was happy that the next day he stayed until closing, and thus could sleep in and arrive later, an unplanned mercy wrought by the irregular shifts assigned to the newest hire.

He used his hip to push open the door between the storage room and the public area while maneuvering a rolling cart filled with books toward the on-line holds shelves. He didn’t like to let the door clang into the book truck, so he backed through slowly and checked over his shoulder to make sure no patrons blocked his route.

A woman with an auburn ponytail was pulling several illustrated children’s books and easy readers off where they had been stacked on the holds shelf, but she wasn’t in his path.

Jonathan saw a child whip around the end of the shelf, dashing away, but then the cart’s rear wheel jammed.

“Con! Grab her, please!” the woman called.

“Got her.”

He knew that voice. He’d heard it in his ear for an entire night, and now he imagined it while they texted. He looked around, feeling the smile starting to break across his face, despite a tick-tocking feeling deep inside demanding, why is Connor here, this makes no sense, how did he find your work.

He would not listen to panic when he could instead listen to Connor.