“Let’s rock this bitch,” I said, getting comfy at my desk chair and firing up my laptop. It was going to be another long night.
“Blair!” My face snapped off the desk, where I’d been resting for only a moment. Just resting my eyes. For a second.
I looked up and met the eyes of Madeline, peering down at me with concern. Shit.
“I wasn’t sleeping. I swear.” I tried to covertly wipe my mouth, where I could feel a little bit of wetness, but she saw it anyway. She saw everything.
“Are you sure you’re okay, dear? You look like you’ve been running yourself ragged. Now I know you’re not out getting into trouble, so why aren’t you getting any sleep?” I blinked a few times and tried to get my brain back to full speed.
“I just . . . I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. Just things.”
“Mmmhmmm,” Madeline said, arching one of her perfectly-sculpted eyebrows. “Well, if you want to talk about whatever is keeping you up, you know my door is always open.” Actually, her office didn’t have a door, so that statement was literally true. She patted my shoulder and gave me a smile before striding briskly back to the front desk to supervise the volunteers, who sometimes had a little trouble with the computer.
“Get it together,” I said to myself, shaking my head back and forth to wake up.
The children’s room was empty so luckily no patrons had seen my unplanned nap, but there was plenty of work to do. I just had to keep moving.
I was in the midst of re-shelving some of the picture books when a voice started singing. I peered around the shelves and there was little Drake again, still dressed like a tiny businessman. Poor kid must have to dress like that every day. I couldn’t imagine how those clothes stayed clean, but there wasn’t a stain on them.
“Hi Blair!” he chirruped, waving at me. The woman he’d been with the other day was just behind him.
“Slow down, Drake. No running.” He turned around and gave her a look.
“You’re not my mommy.” I had to cover my mouth so I didn’t laugh, because his tone was so sassy.
“No, I’m not your mommy, but your daddy put me in charge and that means you have to listen to me. You know what happens when you don’t listen and then I tell daddy.” She put her hands on her hips and gave him “the look”. He gave her one right back, his hands on his hips too.
This kid was killing me.
“Drake,” she said, a warning tone in her voice.
“Ada,” he said in the same tone. That was it, I lost it.
They both looked up at me.
“I’m sorry. I know it’s not funny,” I said to Ada, who was apparently not Drake’s mother. Interesting. His father must be wealthy, if he had a nanny to watch his son, and also if he dressed him that well every day.
“Hey, Drake, how about you stop harassing Ada and come and pick out a book with me?” I leaned over and put my hands on my knees to speak to him at his level. It seemed so rude to look down at a kid when you were talking to them.
He grinned at me and held out his hand.
“Okay!” He hauled me down to the first shelf and pointed. “I want that one.”
Demanding little thing.
“Drake, how do we ask for something we want?” Ada said as she walked around the corner to supervise.
He sighed as if we were really putting him out.
“May I please have the green one?” I pulled the book he had been pointing to off the shelf and handed it to him. It was a classic, one of those books we’d had to replace and repair so many times we kept three copies on hand.
“Blair, would you please read this to me?” He was definitely doing his utmost to be very polite now.
“I would be happy to read this to you, as long as no other children need my help. If they do, maybe Ada could read it to you?” I looked up at her, hoping that would be something she’d be okay with doing. I was sure it had to be part of her job description.
“No, I want you to read it.” He took my hand again and hauled me into the room filled with squishy beanbags and tiny plastic chairs. I brought over my own chair and got one for Ada. She thanked me and sat down, crossing her ankles and looking like she’d rather be somewhere else.
Drake sat down in front of me and propped his hands on his crossed legs and stared at me. I couldn’t even deal with how cute he was.
I started the story, and he listened to me with rapt attention. Usually kids his age were too busy staring at the pictures and trying to tell me that they knew what they were, or asking me questions, to listen to the story. But Drake was silent the entire time.
I finished the story with a flourish and closed the book.
“Did you like the story, Drake?”
“Yes, Blair,” he said, smiling.
“Would you like to take the book home with you for a few days so you can get your daddy to read it to you?” His eyes lit up even more and he nodded.
“Can we, Ada?” She nodded and I went to get the information so Drake could get a library card. We had special ones for kids, and I was betting Drake would get a kick out of having his own card to be responsible for.
“Do you mind filling this out? It’s just a basic form and then we need a signature at the bottom.” I gave the paperwork to Ada, who filled it out as Drake talked about how many books he was going to take home and read.
“And someday soon, you’ll learn how to read and then you can read them to me. How does that sound?” He jumped up and down in excitement.
“Darn, we’re late for meeting your father. I’m just going to call him and tell him to meet us here,” Ada said to Drake, who was still talking about books. He was going to be one of my special ones. The kids who got obsessed with books, which blossomed into a lifelong love of reading. Or at least that was how it played out in my ideal scenario.
I was so busy watching Drake hop around, I didn’t see anyone enter the children’s room. But then Drake froze mid-bounce, screamed “DADDY!” and flung himself across the room toward a man who looked like a carbon copy of his son, only older.
“Hi, Drake,” he said, scooping his son up and hugging him. “Did you miss me, little fellow?” I had to brace myself against the desk as the words reached my ears. He had an accent. A British one. There was something about a British accent that had always made me quiver deep down inside and touched me in places a regular New England accent just couldn’t reach.
I watched the father with his son and I couldn’t help but see how their hair was the exact same color, the stubborn chin identical. But the eyes . . .
Drake’s eyes were a bright sky blue, but his father’s were diluted. So pale, they were like a drop of blue ink dissolved in a glass of water.
They were captivating.
And they were looking at me.
I looked away, but not quick enough. I could almost feel Ada judging me as Drake’s dad carried him back over to us. I got behind the desk and smoothed my dress. It was one of my favorites. I felt like a sassy 1950s lady in the cherry print and petticoat to make the skirt flare out. Well, normally I felt sassy. Right now I felt like an idiot.
“Did you make a friend, Drake?” I was going to orgasm just from this man’s voice. Clearly, I was having a mental breakdown from lack of sleep. Raine was going to die when I told her about this later.
“That’s Blair. She takes care of the books.” You had to love kid logic.
“It is very nice to meet you, Blair. I hope this little tyke hasn’t been too much trouble.” And then he smiled and I had to sit down.
“Uh, no. Not at all. He’s been a perfect,” I choked on my own air, “a perfect gentleman.” I wasn’t going to snitch on him for being disrespectful, but I was sure Ada would get right on that. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her pursing her lips. For a nanny, she didn’t seem as if she liked kids very much.
“See, Daddy? I was good.” I didn’t think Drake could grasp what a wink meant yet, or else I would have totally shared one with him.
&nbs
p; I wanted to know if “Daddy” had a name, but it seemed awkward to ask.
“Drake and I were just filling out paperwork so he can get his very own library card.” I glanced down and saw Ada had filled out all the information but had neglected to sign the form. “I just need an adult’s signature to get the card made.” I handed him the clipboard and a pen, hoping the expression on my face was neutral. Score. Now I could see what his first name was.
“Well now, your very own library card. Are you going to take very good care of it and not lose it? Only very special children get to have library cards,” Drake’s father said.
“I take good care of it, Daddy. I’s promise,” Drake said holding up his pinky. His father leaned down and linked his pinky with his son’s, pulling Drake’s hand up to his mouth to kiss it. Then Drake did the same thing with his father’s hand. My heart turned into liquid and I had to look away to wipe my suddenly watering eyes because I couldn’t deal with how sweet it was.
I turned and Ada caught me again with her judgey eyes.
“Okay, I’m going to go get this card made, alright, Drake?” Drake nodded, his hand still in his dad’s.
I took the application to the back room where we printed the cards, staring down at the signature. Crap. It was a scrawl. The only thing I could make out was a D. Like father, like son.
I got the card printed out with Drake’s name on it. At the very least, I knew what their last name was. Lord help me. It was Bennet. With just one T. As in Elizabeth Bennet, the heroine of one of my all-time favorite books.
The universe was either sending me a signal, or I was reading too much into things. As a writer, it was my job to take a seemingly ordinary situation and make it into something else. I was probably just being ridiculous.
I got the card made and brought it back, only to find Drake dragging his dad around to show him the books.
“Here you go, Drake,” I said, holding out the card and leaning down. “If you see right here, it says your name. That says Drake and that says Bennet.”
“That’s my name,” he said, taking the card from my hand.
“Hold on, Drake, what do you say to the lovely librarian?” Lovely? I was lovely? I felt my cheeks blush.
“Thank you,” Drake said, waving the card around.
“You’re very welcome,” I said, standing up. Drake’s father was at least nine inches (give or take) taller than me, without my heels on. Tall men were one of Earth’s greatest resources.
“I’m sorry, but we’ve got to be going. Thank you again for the card. I’m sure he’ll lose it as soon as we leave,” he said, smiling a little.
“Oh, that’s okay. I can just print him another one. It was, um, very nice to meet you.” I thought about shaking his hand, but that seemed like an odd thing to do in this particular situation. So I folded my hands behind my back.
“It was nice to meet you, Blair. I’ll make sure we see each other again. Say good-bye, Drake.”
“Bye-bye!” Drake waved to me and I waved back as Ada took his hand and the three of them left the room.
As soon as they were gone, I leaned against my desk and took a deep breath.
“You’re kidding,” Raine said that night as I gave a dramatic reenactment of meeting Drake’s father that afternoon.
“Would I make something like this up?” I said, realizing too late that yes, I definitely could.
“Dude, you’re a writer. I’m a writer. We make things up for a living.” She gestured to make her point. Raine always had to gesture when she was talking. Even when her hands were full. She had a tendency to spill whatever she was holding.
“Good point, but still. I am not making this up. He was completely real. And gorgeous, and that accent—” I had that tingle again just remembering.
“You’re talking about the dad, right?” It took me a second to realize what she said.
I smacked her on the arm. “Ew, pervert. Yes, the dad. I wish I could have gotten his name. If only the stupid nanny hadn’t filled out the form. Then he would have had to print his name and I would know what it is.”
“Well, another part of our job as writers is to know things. And if we don’t know them, how to find them.” She ran to her computer and started typing like a madwoman.
“No, Raine. No. We swore we would only use your powers in extreme emergencies.”
She didn’t look up at me.
“There’s a cute guy involved. That qualifies this as an emergency.” Her eyes scanned the screen and then she typed some more. I didn’t possess her magical computer searching prowess, but I knew how to Google.
“Raine, stop.”
“Hell. No.” She banged the keyboard twice and grinned at me, turning her laptop around.
“Voila!” Somehow, she’d hacked into the library database, found the scanned form, put it through some fancy handwriting decoding software that she’d sworn was somehow a work expense and a name popped up.
“Declan. His name is Declan Bennet. Wow. That is a great name,” Raine said, sighing. “That’s a great name for a character. Can we steal it?”
“No, we can’t steal it. We can’t steal names from people we might actually see again, remember?” We’d made a lot of strange rules when we’d been writing our first book. Mostly during our epic procrastination sessions. Some of the rules were ridiculous, but that one was built on sound logic.
“Fine, fine. But now that we know his name, I can look him up, find out where he frequents and you can bump into him, and then bump uglies with him and come home and tell me about it because I really can’t write another boring sex scene.”
My mouth gaped and I stared at Raine for at least ten full seconds before I figured out just what she was asking me to do.
“You’re insane,” was my first reaction. “You are not using me for sex scene ideas.” Not that we hadn’t used our own sexual histories in books before, because we had, especially when we were starting out. The motto was “write what you know” and we definitely did that. But I was going to draw the line at hooking up with a guy for “research”. Hell, no.
“What is so insane about that?” Her eyes went back to the computer and she started typing.
“You are not looking him up right now,” I said, coming around to see what was on her screen, but she jerked it away.
“You can’t stop me. I’ll just wait until you’re sleeping and then I’ll find the information. You have to do this, Blair. We need ideas for this book or we’re going to end up recycling old stuff and it’s going to suck and then the book isn’t going to sell and our publishers will drop us and I was hoping to quit working at the bank soon. I’ve finally got enough saved to do it.” Sure, that was a potential situation, but that didn’t mean I had to go along with her crazy ass plan.
“No. I’m not doing that. And besides, who knows if he’d even be interested in me, or single? He probably has a wife.” Sure, he’d been friendly and he’d called me lovely, but maybe that was just a British thing? I mean, I definitely wasn’t a conventional girl, by anyone’s beauty standards. Not to mention I had no idea about his marital status.
“Well, if you would let me continue my work, then I could find out about his status so we could put that baby to bed and you could get on with things. Why must you make everything difficult?” She batted my hands away and went back to work. It was much easier to let her just do what she wanted. Trying to stop her wouldn’t work. Raine was one stubborn bitch.
Twenty minutes later, she had an entire dossier about Declan (insert middle names) Bennet. She snatched it off the printer and shoved it in my face. I’d been waiting and pretending to work, but really, I was interested.
“Just because I’m reading this, does not mean I condone you stalking him.” My eyes scanned the top line. It couldn’t hurt to look, right?
“Wow, he’s only twenty-two,” I said.
“And his son is three. Well, three years and two months,” Raine said, scanning the information on her computer. Wow, he’d
had a child young. I couldn’t imagine. I’d never even had a pregnancy scare, but Raine had, and I’d remembered how terrifying that had been and I’d only experienced it secondhand.
I scanned quickly down to the section on his marital status. Divorced. I breathed out in relief.
“So there, he’s single,” Raine said, leaning back in her chair and looking triumphant. I should not indulge her in this behavior.
“Just because he’s divorced, doesn’t mean he’s single.”
“According to his social networking pages, it does. And have you gotten to the employment history part?” I hadn’t. I didn’t want to know any more. I slapped the papers down on the desk.
“Enough. I’m not prying into his personal financial information.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you? I go out of my way to get all this good information and you turn your nose up at it.” Raine snatched the papers away and proceeded to read them out loud. I jammed my fingers in my ears and ran to my bedroom, slamming the door. She just kept reading louder, so I turned on my music, blasting Needtobreathe to try to drown her out. She was relentless, but eventually she stopped and went back to work on what we were supposed to be doing.
The list was taped to my door when I finally emerged, and I could hear her humming “Money, Money, Money” by ABBA under her breath.
I fell asleep at my desk again the next day at work. Raine and I had had a bad night of writing, both of us completely stuck on a scene and fresh out of ideas. I didn’t believe in writer’s block. Not really. We had just written ourselves into a corner, and we’d either have to come up with something creative to get out of it, or find out where we went wrong, go back and delete a bunch of words we’d worked so hard on. Deleting words was the worst. It was like murdering something. You could almost see the red trails of blood running down the computer screen.
At least this time I’d woken myself up before Madeline caught me again. Unfortunately, there was a set of unblinking blue eyes staring at me when I awoke, and I had to swallow a scream.