Chapter 38: Bonus

Bonus


“Okay guys, the schedules are filled out and checked over. Now we need to get to the actual meeting bit. Anyone have any problems or questions?” I was sitting in my ‘page meeting’, the meeting for the five teenagers employed at the local library to shelve books and keep the library neat. An interesting, engaging job, correct?

“The picture books are really out of order.” Nicole spoke up. “I think we all need to shelf read them.” Shelf reading is basically, putting the books in order. Can you shelf read?

“Yeah. I have been doing the entire row whenever I shelve a picture book.” I added, which was true. Sometimes I got very anal about my job, being the one who had worked there the longest.

“Okay…anything else?” Alicia, our boss asked. No one spoke up, and she looked around. “Well, in that case, we have to go over a few things. The interlibrary message bag needs to be put in the back room each night, otherwise we can’t get stuff to where it needs to go. Charles; do you know that you’re supposed to shelf read the AV magazine stuff? It hasn’t been done in a very long time, and I know we switched some things around…”

Before Charles could answer, there was a knock on the staff room door. The door squeaked open to reveal Kat, one of the circulation desk employees. She looked around the room, and then apologized.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Alicia, but there’s someone who says he needs to talk to Storm, out in the lobby. He said its important?”

“Um…is it okay?” I asked Alicia. She nodded, and I slowly rose and got up. My uncle had mentioned something about coming to the library, but if he was interrupting my meeting, I was going to kill him. I stepped outside of the staff room and shut the door.

“Do you know who?” I asked Kat. She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t even think to ask him who he was. Do you want me to?” She asked as she stood at the threshold between the backroom and the circulation desk. I shook my head.

“I’m going out there right now, what’s the point?” I maneuvered my way around the carts in various stages of being filled with circulation materials to get to the door. It was at a high point in the library’s circulation – a lot of stuff was being returned, which was hell for us pages. I pushed my body weight against the door – I almost never just gently pushed it open – and walked out into the main room of the library.

Kat hadn’t even specified where the person would be. Granted, the library wasn’t huge but there’s a bunch of sections. I looked back towards the circulation desk and realized right away who she had been talking about.

Tall. Dark hair. You could see the toned arm muscles emerging from his black T-shirt. Clean, dark blue, tight jeans. Slowly my eyes rose to his head and realized he wasn’t looking at me. I studied the outline of his face, and just as I was about to run in to the back room, grab my cell phone, and double check, his head turned and his eyes met mine. A slow, sweet smile spread across his face. I walked towards him tentatively, and he opened his arms just a tiny bit, showing recognition. As I closed the final distance to him, I heard his voice in ‘real life’, for the first time.

“Surprise.”