Between the Stacks

Chapter 14

I had no reason to expect the day would be so horrible. No volcanoes exploded as I ate my cereal in the morning. The sky didn't fall in as I took the bus to work. The earth didn't erupt with locusts as I walked to my desk.

And yet, the moment I checked my email, I knew it would all go downhill.

A message had come in just minutes ago from Lakshmi. Can you please meet me in community room B as soon as possible?

There had been no hello, no goodbye. Just one sentence. Lakshmi was usually a stickler about email politeness, so she was clearly thrown off her game.

The library hadn't opened yet. The rows of books were preternaturally quiet as I made my way to room B, the same one where I had talked with Lakshmi yesterday. I suddenly doubted this meeting was about the coffee that we were supposed to have this afternoon.

I knocked on the door as I opened it. "Good morning," I said. I tried to keep my voice neutral.

"Emma." Lakshmi's voice was just as bland. "Have a seat."

She was dressed in a dark suit, the one she normally used for interviews. I felt underdressed in khakis and a polo. I sat in the chair opposite her.

"I'm going to jump right into it," she said. She pushed a thin folder across the table to me. "We received a complaint about you last night."

"A complaint?" We received complaints regularly. This one seemed more serious. A weight settled at the bottom of my stomach. "What happened?"

"You tell me."

I opened the folder and bit back a gasp.

The first piece of paper was a screenshot from the Northern Ridge's Facebook page. A post had been made yesterday afternoon, shortly after I had left for the day. The post was a profile of Ms. Linaberry - the same one I had written and sent to Melissa for review. The blurb talked about her love of romance books and her need for large-print books.

"This wasn't supposed to be posted," I said, trying to choke through the words. My throat was suddenly constricted. "I was looking for Melissa's advice. It wasn't ready to go live."

"That doesn't matter. It did go live - a client profile, one that was posted without permission and one that reveals a health issue."

I wanted to find a nice hole, crawl into it, and die.

"You're the librarian," Lakshmi continued. Her tone was hard and sharp. "Not Melissa. You should have made it clearer that it wasn't meant for posting. Besides, when did we start even thinking about these profiles? Why wasn't I aware?"

I had a flashback of me, Melissa, Matteo, and Rob sitting at the table and plotting ways to win support for the library. "We didn't want to come to you until we had a fully fleshed-out plan."

Lakshmi leaned back in her chair. I could tell she was fighting the instinct to cross her arms. "We? And a plan for what?"

I eyed the small window in the room and wondered if I would be able to wiggle through it to escape this conversation. "Melissa and Matteo." I decided to leave Rob out of it, since he didn't work here. "We were brainstorming ideas to advertise the library. We wanted people to know what we offer."

Lakshmi looked very, very unimpressed.

"This is in context of the budget news," I added. I desperately wanted her to cut me off. Instead, I babbled away. "We figured we could try some small events or other advertising. We were going to come to you once we had a fully fleshed-out plan. This is like pulling a cake out of the oven before it's fully baked."