The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [87]
“I know you, Rose. You’d never allow yourself to sit still long enough to gather moss.”
“So you think I should go?” Rose asked, turning earnestly toward our mother like a sunflower in the light of approval.
“I think opportunity is knocking,” our mother said, and tapped on the metal arm of her chair for good measure. The contact made a hollow, echoing sound that to Rose sounded ominous and sour.
Before work one morning, Bean drove her car to the mechanic. She had bought it for $300 on the way out of New York—no one, after all, has a car in the city—and now it was nothing but an albatross, a reminder of her need to make an escape. When our father had made a remark about its continued presence as a blight upon the driveway (“What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!”), Bean had taken the hint and called the mechanic’s wife, who had graciously agreed to take it off her hands. Bean knew that making the nine-hour drive back from the city had sucked whatever lifeblood remained in the engine, and to have them buy it was a gesture of goodwill, not commerce. So there it was, gone, and she had a hundred dollars in a purse that had cost five times that, and she was headed to her new, glamorous life as a small-town librarian. The ripest fruit first falls.
But she had to admit that simply being in the library made her peaceful. There was so much to learn and yet nothing, because she knew by heart the way the light fell through each window, every pull in the carpet, the exact smell of the books that clung to her clothes at the end of the day. She felt safe. And Mrs. Landrige, figure of both love and fear, had become so frail. Bean hadn’t noticed the difference until they were together all day—Mrs. Landrige had hardly risen from her chair, and when she did, her brow furrowed at the effort and she used a cane to move slowly across the room.
With two of them there, there was little to do, so Bean was (needlessly) reading shelves, replacing or straightening the occasional volume that had been separated from its flock, when she saw Aidan come in. His hair caught her attention from the corner of her eye, but she had just enough time to brush the dust from her skirt and undo a button on her blouse before she felt the shock of his touch against her elbow. His hand felt warm and sweaty. He carried a stack of slightly rippled pages.
“Father Aidan,” she said. Her library voice had encountered her bar voice and it was low and husky, reverential. “What are you doing here?”
“Can’t get a thing done at the church. People keep coming by. It’s my secret sanctuary, this place.”
“No longer such a secret, I’m afraid, now that you’ve told me,” Bean said. She turned so she faced him, grateful for the unnaturally close personal space allowed by their surroundings. He looked more surfer than priest, sunglasses pushed up in his hair, a loose white shirt over cargo shorts, and impossibly strong calves ending in sandals. Even the hair on his legs glinted in the sunlight, cast copper in the glow.
“There are no secrets in a small town, I guess,” he said.
Oh, if only you knew.
“But I’m glad I ran into you. Are you working?” he continued.
“Vaguely,” Bean said. “What’s up?” She leaned back against the shelves, crossing her legs at the ankle, bringing forward the curve of her hips under the slim skirt she wore. Being Bean, she had flipped through her wardrobe in search of clothing to suit her role, and, being Bean, she had found it. Her blouse was short-sleeved and ruffled, and her skirt was knee-length. She had momentarily considered glasses, but decided against them.
“I’ve been thinking about getting together some of the younger members of the congregation for some community service works. Twentysomethings and young marrieds.”
“Are there that many?” Bean’s impression of church, especially during the summers, was of a great deal of white hair. She stifled the next question, You want me to do community service?
“We’ve probably got fifteen