“Let me guess, you don’t have flood insurance?”
“Exactly. He’s supposed to finish his report tomorrow and I’m getting estimates on repairs. It’s like a full time job just documenting what’s been lost and trying to find people with time to fix this up when there’s so much storm damage all over the county and everybody wants their stuff fixed like yesterday.”
“Give me a stack of books to look through.”
“Okay.”
She passed me some and gave me a few instructions. In no time, we were plowing through piles of books together, pointing out things and making notes. I wrote out the title of a book on farm implements of the past and saw her handwriting right above mine just like it used to look when we passed notes in class.
“Is this list for you or for insurance?” I asked speculatively.
“It’s mine. I’m going to type one out to submit to them. With estimated costs of each item which is a headache.”
“Okay,” I said.
Underneath where I’d detailed the title, author, publication date and number of pages damaged, I wrote, you’re so beautiful.
I gave her the notepad back without comment and took out another book to examine. When I glanced at her sideways, I knew she’d seen it. She was smiling and chewing her lip and looking at me. When our eyes met, her cheeks turned pink. I loved making her blush. She got back to work and went through several titles before I was finished with the collector’s guide to model tractors.
“It is not necessary to have a book about this,” I said. “Who would read this?”
“Look at the due dates in front,” she said with a snort.
I flipped to the inside of the front cover and saw column after column of date stamps where it had been checked out, “People around here really have nothing better to do? Don’t they have HBO Max?”
“Apparently not. Plus I think the overlap between HBO Max subscribers and model tractor enthusiasts isn’t very big.”
“So I should take those off my Tinder profile?” I joked.
“In my experience at this library, unless you’re trying to pick up a very overweight fifty-something man, saying you like model tractors isn’t exactly good bait for what you want to catch. Lead with the fact that you’re willing to share your HBO Max password with the right woman,” she said.
“So you’re just after me for my password?”
“I wouldn’t say no to the password,” she joked.
“It’s Chucknorrisbestactor1 with a capital C.”
“Wait. You still like Chuck Norris?”
“Seems that way. Also it’s a joke. My brother Greg, you know, the smart one.” I rolled my eyes.
“I do know your only brother, Drew,” she said with an eye roll back.
“When he was in high school, he was an alternate on the academic decathlon team. He had to play one day because somebody was sick, and he rang in on this question about who was nominated for Best Actor for Godfather part one and two. He said Chuck Norris. They lost the match. I never let him live it down.”
“Al Pacino,” she said knowledgeably. “My dad loved those movies.”
“Of course he did. They were about rich white men with power,” I said sarcastically.
“That’s not nice,” she said crisply.
“No, but it’s true.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t true,” she said softly. “I know he was very unkind to you. He had rigid ideas of what my life should look like and his values were very different from mine.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said that. You know how I felt about him, and it wasn’t worth saying because it hurt you.”
“Damn.”
“What?”
“You’ve grown up,” she said with a flicker of a smile. “Back when we were dating, you would’ve gone to your death before you apologized for anything.”
“I was a stubborn son of a bitch. I think I proved that when I chose my bad reasons over your right to make your own decisions. And I’m sorry for that, too.”
“Is this a grovel? I’m not sure how I feel about a grovel,” she teased.
“It isn’t. But it looks like you have more collectible old crap guides. Do I have to look at them or can we quietly throw them away?”
“You have to look at them carefully. I may quiz you later,” she said jokingly.
She passed me the notebook when she finished writing up the book she had examined. Beneath where she’d noted the damage to the volume, she’d written back, You’re not so bad yourself, old man.
“Old man?”
“You’re a year older than me and I’m officially planning to get myself another cat for my birthday. Game over.”
He chuckled and shook his head. We checked the state of the books and recorded the damage. We didn’t talk much for over an hour, just passed the notebook back and forth, making notes and exchanging silly messages.
SOUVENIR SPOONS: A COLLECTOR’S GUIDE? Really? I wrote.