Between the Stacks

Epilogue

Real life had a funny habit of moving on.

I grew up reading countless books that ended at the perfect moment: the two main characters get married. The adventurer returns home. The evil villain is destroyed. There's no worrying about what happens after.

Reality is messier. It involves things like scary-looking lawyers, and money laundering, and a front-page special of The Globe and Mail announcing that Katherine Jaworski would be behind bars for the next eight years after embezzling public funds. The real kicker, of course, was that she had done everything out in the open. No one would willingly slog through sheets of budget information.

(Well, no one except Scott, who was happily reinstated in his old position. I'd gone back to my same job as well; other than cleaning mysterious substances off bathroom floors, it really was a dream job.)

All things considered, it was no surprise the library system had been having such budget issues. With Katherine gone, both the Northern Ridge and Riverside branches would stay open. When we found out, Wesley and I celebrated with ice cream in bed.

With the budget threat gone, Lakshmi returned from her stress leave; she happily told us that she'd spent the last two months discovering a love of hiking. She kept trying to convince me to join her on "just a long walk, really," but I knew that was code for A Hike That Would Probably Kill Me. But she channeled this new energy into a lunchtime walking club, which had exploded in popularity.

A few weeks after Lakshmi's return, Melissa quietly pulled me aside and started bawling; she had submitted a request for education leave. She was going back to school to get her master's degree so that she could apply for an official librarian position. The degree was online, so it wasn't as if she was disappearing into the void, and we would still get together most weekends for brunch. (She would rather die than miss weekend brunch.) Still, there would be a Melissa-shaped hole in my day.

At least I still had Ms. Linaberry. Most days of the week she dropped by the reference desk and updated me on all the gossip in her new nursing home; apparently one of the chefs was sleeping with the hairdresser, and it was causing "hot goss," as she called it. Seeing her was always one of the highlights of my day.

Then, of course, there was Wesley.

One day Wesley asked me over to his house, and on the front porch, Kermit was leaning against the front door with a pink sticky note that said Will you be my girlfriend? It was silly and fun and when he opened the door, I answered him with a kiss.

---

In the months after Katherine was hauled away, we settled into a new routine. Once a month, me, Wesley, Lakshmi, Rob, Matteo and Melissa would meet at Sunrise for dinner.

Tonight Rob sat across from me, his arm draped across the back of Matteo's chair. Lakshmi and Melissa were arguing passionately about if it was ethical to rank the hotness of fictional characters. And Wesley sat beside me, his foot occasionally nudging mine.

Wesley had gone back to the Riverside Branch. It was hard to see him less, but my productivity certainly shot up; I wasn't distracted by his jawline or his eyes or the way he smiled. As another upside, we no longer had to worry about the policy preventing supervisors from dating employees. I was free to canoodle as much as I wanted.

"You look happy," Wesley said. He plucked the macchiato cherry from his drink and placed it in mine.

"I am," I said, taking the cherry and eating it. Modern-day chivalry at its finest. "Are we still good for the weekend?"

"We sure are." On Friday we were driving up to Toronto to see Wesley's aunt and uncle. Ever since Wesley and I went official, Tomoko had texted me at least weekly. Sometimes she wanted to send a dirty joke, other times she asked for book recommendations. Next month they were going to make the trip to Cherryhill to meet my parents. Something like that would have scared me once, but not any more.

Across the table, Rob whispered something into Matteo's ear, and both of them couldn't stop snickering. Things were different. Rob had opened his new franchise; Matteo had quit; Melissa was starting a new degree; Lakshmi had discovered a new hobby. And surprisingly, I wasn't thinking about the way things had been a few months ago. I was thinking of things as they were now: a new normal, and that was okay.

"Can I ask you a question?" Wesley asked.

"Shoot," I said.

"When I first started at Northern Ridge," he said. "A few months ago, back when I was being sneaky. It seemed like we got off on the wrong foot right away. Was it my charming good looks? My devastating smile?"

"Ignoring the sabotage part?" I poked his arm.

He grinned. "Ignoring the sabotage part."

"It was the dumbest thing," I said. "To be fair, I was thrown off when you walked in. Like you said, charming good looks."

"I try." He winked.

"So here comes this attractive man, strolling through the doors, and I was kind of freaking out a bit. Then you opened your mouth and you saw the book in my hand that I was shelving, and you said I hate that book."

He frowned, trying to remember. "What was the book?"

"Twilight!" I poked him in the arm. "It does have issues. A lot of them. But you can pry Edward Cullen out of my cold, dead hands."

Wesley grimaced. "Edward Cullen ranks last on the list of best fictional vampires."

Melissa, who had overheard, shook her head. "You're dating him?" she asked me. "Despite his terrible vampire opinions?"

"Despite his terrible vampire opinions," I repeated. Just for emphasis I kissed him on the cheek.

The evening wrapped up after Rob and Matteo treated us to free dessert. The six of us promised to meet back together in a month – and we actually meant it. Of course, I'd see them all various points over the next few weeks, but there was something magic about having everyone together.

"Are you cold?" Wesley asked, once we were on the sidewalk. He slipped off his cardigan and draped it over me. (A man with a cardigan! I swooned.)

"It's sweater weather," I said, tucking the cardigan closer over my shoulders. "This is peak book season."

"Well, we're going to our usual spot, right?" Wesley asked.

"Of course," I said. It wasn't a long walk, and it even felt romantic with the fairy lights strung between the downtown streetlamps. We walked passed countless restaurants and small stores until we arrived at our hangout.

"Is it strange that we spend our time here?" I asked.

The Main branch had longer opening hours than either the Northern Ridge or Riverside Branch. Somehow the library seemed like a different world at night. I felt like if I turned down a different hallway, I would end up in an enchanted forest, or a sky of cotton candy clouds, or an endless sea of planets.

"Not at all," Wesley said. Some nights we would wander downtown, grab dessert at a nearby restaurant, then walk to the Library. We would browse the stacks, our fingers skimming over the spines of books.

Tonight there was only the occasional student and the late-shift librarians. Wesley and I wandered towards the romance section, where we enjoyed laughing at the covers. Shirtless men in kilts, women in scandalously-low dresses.

"Would you wear something like this?" I asked, pointing to a cowboy in leather chaps.

"Haven't you seen my closet?" he said. We both smiled at each other and laughed.

I'd always been worried about my future; if I could get a job, if I could keep my job, if I would ever feel content. But standing there, between the stacks, I felt like the girl in the clouds: soaring whichever way I wanted. I could dive into books, into stories, and return comfortably to my own life. Wesley and I could do whatever we felt like. We could stay in Cherryhill, or move to Vancouver, or live in a fort of books. Anything.

Stories were wonderful. But for the first time in my life, reality was better.