Falling in Love (Rockford Falls 5)

18

Drew

I had a sleepless night for the most part. My mind was too occupied going over what happened in Michelle’s basement. It was such a jarring departure from the way we’d avoided each other for years. Like bumping into her in a doorway, having accidental physical contact with her a few weeks ago had unlocked us both and made the past come flooding back. Even when reminders popped up—like the fact she didn’t drink root beer anymore—that so much time had passed, it just made me curious and excited to discover her all over again. I felt like we had a second chance. A chance I didn’t really deserve after the way I’d treated her.

I finished up early at work on purpose. I skipped my lunch break just to wrap up a repair and service so I could be off in time to check on Michelle at the library. I figured she’d be there. I scrubbed my hands in the shop before I left work. No matter how much I worked with the nailbrush, I always had a trace of grease under my nails. That dark half moon reminded me of Michelle’s dad calling me a grease monkey, saying his daughter deserved someone with a career and a future, not somebody who couldn’t even get his hands clean. I felt a pang of regret. He was a snobby old bastard, but he was right about that. We weren’t in the same league. She studied French in Paris the summer after we broke up. She studied abroad for a year in England. The old man loved to brag about it, how sophisticated she was, how she was fluent in three languages. How she had job offers in other countries when she graduated. But she’d come back here anyway. She hadn’t taken the assistant university librarian job at Tulane or the fellowship at Bodleian Library which was at Oxford University in England. I know where it is because I had to look it up on Google after I heard about it from Trixie. Because I sure as hell didn’t know the names of the places she studied or visited.

I worked on cars. She worked for years honing her expertise at the best ways to curate the body of knowledge created by mankind since the printing press was invented. There was more than a slight difference in our abilities and experiences. Just because she had never lorded it over me that she had money and privilege and status, that didn’t mean it didn’t bother me. As adults, the gulf was probably even wider. She’d been expanding her mind all these years. All the while I was thinking about learning how to work on electric cars. It was depressing to think about how far apart we were. Even when we’d been as close as two people could be.

All that kept me awake the night before, but it sure as hell didn’t keep me from seeking her out. When I pulled in to the library, her car was there. I went inside and found her kneeling on a plastic tarp surrounded by piles of books in varying stages of water damage. I watched her for a minute as she selected a volume, noted the title and wrote on her notepad. Then she examined it, made notes and set it aside. As she chose another book, I cleared my throat.

“Need any help, Head Librarian?” I said.

Michelle flashed me a smile. The one that reminded me of her blonde ponytail swishing behind her when she hurried down the high school hallway to give me a kiss between classes. I grinned back at her and tried to pretend I didn’t feel my heart thud like it did back then.

“Pull up a patch of dry plastic,” she said. “I’ll share my paper with you. I stole it from your truck after all.”

“Long day?”

“It’s like I’m working in a mortuary, but all the dead bodies are books,” she sighed. I wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“Have you found any that can be salvaged?”

“The blowers helped a lot with the ones that were the least wet. I think some of the wellness books will survive without getting much bloom if we keep them open for a few days.”

“Bloom?”

“Mold that grows on paper in old books. Moisture is the enemy here. I spent the morning on the phone. The mayor’s pissed off like I did this on purpose. He said I should have made sure the computers were in a safer location. Like, I thought inside the building was safe enough until we had a pop up summer storm. The library board is mostly okay with trying to replace what we can as long as the insurance policy covers it. There’s some disagreement between myself and the insurance adjustor about whether or not the library policy covers water damage. He thinks it qualifies as flooding, and I say it is water damage due to the part of the roof that caved in.”