Page 12

The board thanks her, and Mr. Whitcomb turns to me. “Ms. Sutton. You have three minutes.”

I stand up. I put my petition on the desk, all six pages, and then I tell him what it says.

“Your letter says our service model is obsolete. Obsolete means out of date and no longer useful. Our circulation is up nine percent over three years, when we’re only open five days a week in a town that lost its mill. Three years ago, I sent this board a modernization proposal for the branch, and I heard nothing back. If our library is obsolete, I’d like to know what the county calls the branches that are open six days a week and haven’t grown at all.”

Kessler opens the binder.

“This is the only town on Earth with orcs living in it, and the county wants to close its library the same year. I’ve got four kids and a dog every Thursday at ten for story time, and we haven’t been closed for one in four years. I’ve got an orc in your back row who can’t read a word of English, and he’s been in my library every single day it was open for almost two weeks learning how to read. How many times has this board been in it since I started? None. Not once in four years.”

Whitcomb looks at the back wall. Yorrel’s ears are as far forward as they go.

“Ms. Sutton, your three minutes—”

“I know, but you’re going to listen a little longer. You put the word obsolete in a letter. You mailed it, because not one of you wanted to drive forty minutes and say it to my face.” My voice is going up, and I let it. “And here’s what happens next, because I looked. You did this to Millbrook. You handed them the building, volunteers opened it two mornings a week, and story hour was the first thing to go. Three years later the kids were gone. Nobody drives forty minutes to the county library for a picture book. You know that.”

Fran has her hand over her eyes. Behind her, somebody says “Amen” under their breath. It’s Birdie.

I keep going. I tell them about the water stain and the kids who named it. I tell them about FREE TO ALL over the door, and that the man who paid for the building meant it. I say obsolete four more times, and I say fuck once, in front of the county board, which Fran is going to bring up at Christmas. Whitcomb tries twice more to stop me, and both times I say “I’m almost done” and keep going. I’m not almost done. At eleven minutes I’ve said all of it, and I sit down. My hands are shaking. I feel great.

Nobody says anything. Then Yorrel hums, one note, from the back wall, and the water pitcher on the board’s desk rings. Three men look at a pitcher. I could kiss him.

The board votes three to nothing. The Venn’s Crossing branch closes on the thirty-first of December. I knew it was coming, and it still knocks the wind out of me. The building goes back to the town, and the town can run the library itself if it can pay for it. We have until the twentieth of November to answer.

“That’s the offer,” Whitcomb says. “It’s a generous one.”

“It’s a building you don’t want and a bill we can’t afford,” I say, quietly.

“Ms. Sutton.” It’s a warning.

“I know. I know. I’m done.”

It’s raining on the way home. He hasn’t said a word since the parking lot. I’m driving too fast. I know it, and he probably knows it too.

“Say it,” I say at the next red light. “Whatever it is.”

“Tell me again about the county board.” I look at him. He’s looking at the road. “I wish to hate them in greater detail.”

So I quickly tell him the whole thing again. I do Whitcomb’s voice. I do Kessler and his binder. Yorrel asks how I know about the three-year figure, so I tell him about the town next to ours and about how the kids stopped going to the library. When I get to the part about the water pitcher ringing, I notice my speech has slowed down. I’m just talking. It’s hard to stay furious at the board when Yorrel is so calm.

“What would you have said,” he asks, “if they had given you a twelfth minute?”

“I’d have thanked them.”

“Thanked them?”

“Yep, for the letter. I’d have said, ‘Thank you for the letter, it’s the first thing the county has mailed me in four years that wasn’t a bill. I’m going to frame it and hang it in my hall next to my report card.’” I take the curve at the mill road. “Then I’d have asked Whitcomb if he’s ever read a book, or if he had to make his way through college with CliffsNotes.”

His ears go all the way forward. “Good,” he says, and nothing else. I’m sure he doesn’t know what CliffsNotes are, but he gets the idea.

Neither of us talks for the last five miles, and I’m not thinking about the board. Yorrel wanted to hear everything I wanted to say. I don’t know what to do with a guy who asks me for more. So I keep driving, and I don’t look at him, because if I look at him I’m going to cry or kiss him, and I’m doing sixty on a wet highway.

By the time I take the exit, the meeting is the farthest thing from my mind. I’m turned on, and I want to fuck him. I’ve wanted to since he asked for the twelfth minute, and there isn’t room in this car. His knees are against the dash.

“I’m going to the library,” I say when we get to Cedar Street.

“It is closed.”

“Good thing I have the keys. We’re not doing this in a Corolla.”