For a few days, everything was beautiful.
Was this what all the poets rambled on about? Wesley and I spent every evening together, and somehow the flowers seemed brighter, the bus always arrived on time, and I found ten dollars in the pocket of my jeans. The universe conspired to make my day great, and my nights - well, those were even better.
Most of the time we hung out at Wesley's house. He gave me the official grand tour - not just the bedroom - and we walked through all of the wood-paneled rooms. Offhandedly he mentioned that the insurance money from his parents' death, held by his aunt and uncle for so many years, was what had allowed him to make the purchase.
"Kind of sucks, doesn't it?" he said one afternoon. "Living in a nice place only because my parents died."
"They would want you to be comfortable," I said. Wesley closed his eyes but nodded.
Work, surprisingly, wasn't terrible. Matteo was still giving me his I Know Something is Up look, but he was so busy wrapping up his workload that he didn't notice if I blushed when Wesley was within a twenty-foot radius.
Melissa was busy as well, and I noticed that she frantically clicked away from her screen when I dropped by her desk. I was desperate to pry but managed to hold myself back.
On Matteo's last day we threw him a surprise party; when he walked into the staff area he was met with vanilla cake (his favorite), chocolate chip cookies (also his favorite) and Doritos (turned out he had a lot of favorites). I told myself not to cry and immediately failed at my task. I blubbed into his arms, told him he was betraying the library, and made him promise to visit at least twice a week.
When I was younger I read a series of books about a girl with a photographic memory. I was maybe ten or eleven, so this was a Very Cool Skill. I ran around saying "Snap" and pretending to take a picture with my eyes - clearly I wasn't very bright. I thought that if I said "Snap" enough times, I would remember absolutely everything I saw. It never worked.
I wished I had that skill. I wanted to remember absolutely everything: the way Matteo had a piece of cake in his hair; how Wesley's arms looked as he leaned against the doorway; how Melissa swatted Paige the page away from her cake; how the sunlight slanted into the room. If only the moment could be a picture, one where I could step into the image and inhabit it again. I wanted everything to slow down.
I knew that this would be my baseline. For the rest of my career, I would compare my job to these early days, when I worked with the nicest people I had ever met.
Snap.
---
The text message, when it came, was unexpected.
I was in my kitchen, puttering around and wondering if it would be hygienic to make a sandwich on my counter because I was out of plates. My phone pinged just as I decided to go for it.
I've been fired, it said.
My heart briefly stopped as I scanned the name - but it was just an anonymous number that had texted me. Not someone I knew. Not Wesley.
Then I saw that the other person was still writing.
It's Scott, the next message said. I brought up the weird spreadsheets to my boss. Now I've been fired for "insubordinate actions."
"What?" I said out loud, as if my plants were listening. I abandoned my sandwich and sat on my couch, staring at the pixels on the screen.
Are you serious? I texted back. That doesn't make any sense.
My phone buzzed with an incoming call, and I was so surprised that I almost dropped it.
"Wesley gave me your number," Scott said, skipping any introductions. He sounded absolutely wretched, his voice torn and ragged. "I can't believe it."
"Walk me through what happened," I said, hunching in on myself. I didn't know Scott that well, and it felt strange to have him call me, of all people.
Scott's sigh came through loudly over the phone. "Those spreadsheets were bothering me. Really bothering me. I went to my boss about them. Sat down with him, walked through the numbers, and asked what I was missing. He said he would look into it. Then, just this morning, I get called into his office and I'm told to pack all my stuff up."
"For insubordination?" I said. "You were just asking about public budget numbers."
"Exactly! Anyone could have access to those numbers. The thing is, no one looks at those documents. Way too dry."
The hand was going numb so I put Scott on speaker and placed my phone on my rickety coffee table. "Why did you look through those numbers in the first place?"
He huffed. "Because these budget cuts don't make sense! We scrimp so much at Riverside, and I know Northern Ridge isn't much better. Obviously the money is being funneled into the Main branch. But I thought that money was being spent on programming and outreach - not disappearing into the void."
"I feel like we're both circling around something that we don't want to say." I crossed my legs, then uncrossed them, then crossed them again.
"I'll say it. It's fraud, or theft, or money laundering, or something else."
There it was, dangling in front of us.
I thought of Katherine Jaworski, the Cherryhill Library CEO, with her bright toenails and simple dresses. Did she know anything about this?
"Have you told Wesley?" I asked. "Now that he's managing Northern Ridge - even temporarily - maybe he'll have some sort of influence."
"I thought you should do it," Scott said. "It's obvious you two are close."
I cringed, wondering just how much I had given away in the past few weeks.
"What are you going to do?" I asked. "Go to a reporter? The union?"
"Probably both," Scott sighed. "It's been a bit of a whirlwind. I'd like to hear what Wesley has to say before I take this any further. Maybe I have been insubordinate and there's a nice and easy explanation for all this? Or I'm just getting in my own head. I'm not sure what to think any longer."
"Me neither." Only minutes ago I'd been concerned about freaky bacteria getting on my sandwich. Now I wondered how to bring up to Wesley that we may or may not have been working for a corrupt organization.
"Let me know what he says, okay?" There was a brief noise in the background of the call. "Look, I need to go, I'm calling an employment lawyer."
"Why me?" I suddenly burst out. "Why are you telling me?"
He was silent for a moment. "If Wesley trusts you, then I trust you."
He hung up shortly afterward, and I stared at my phone, wondering if that conversation had really happened.
---
"Can I talk to you?"
Wesley looked up from his computer. He'd been sitting in his office, the door open, when I'd knocked.
"Of course," he said, very much Professional Wesley Who Has Never Kissed An Employee. I hadn't seen him last night, after my call with Scott - I needed time to process everything. I'd gone through the budget sheets again and had run into the same issues Scott had seen.
I closed the door even as Wesley raised his eyebrow. We tried to limit the amount of time seen together at the office - and a closed door was certainly an invitation for gossip.
"Did you hear Scott got fired?" I asked.
Wesley was aghast. "What are you talking about?"
I filled him in: the spreadsheets, the inexplicable numbers, insubordination. "He wanted your opinion. Maybe you know something we don't."
Wesley groaned, and I sympathized with his position. He was being torn between his friends and his job. "Off the top of my head, no. Remember, I'm just temporarily filling in for Lakshmi. It's not like they indoctrinate me with all the juicy secrets right away."
"Will you look into it?" I asked.
"Of course." Then he offered me a lopsided grin. "Now get out of here, before people think we're doing what I actually want to be doing with you."
"Ha." I winked at him despite the awful feeling in my stomach. "Thanks for looking."
"Hopefully it's nothing."
"I hope so, too."
Would Scott really have been fired over nothing? I sat at my own desk, my head buzzing with anxiety. When another text came in I hoped it would be Scott, explaining he had been reinstated and everything had been one big mistake.
Instead it was from Matteo. Grand opening!!! New Sunrise location!!! Don't miss it!
He's attached a selfie of him kissing Rob's cheek. The background looked to be the new restaurant, complete with new tables and a wooden bar.
Can't wait! I texted back, once Matteo had sent me the date and time.
Despite everything, there was still something positive to look forward to. For the rest of the afternoon I forced myself to fantasize about nachos and peanuts and free drinks instead of focusing on the feeling in my gut that things just weren't right.