Libby the Librarian: A Rom Com Novella Read online

  Libby the Librarian

  By

  Alice Bex

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Libby the Librarian: A Rom Com Novella ©2013 Alice Bex. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Cover Art © ikopylov-Bigstock.com

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

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  One

  My name is Libby Liebowitz and I’m a librarian. When you know that, you know almost everything. I live alone in a one bedroom cottage with three cats—Dickens, Poe, and Kipling—and 2,374 books, which I rearrange every Sunday. Sometimes, I organize them by genre; sometimes, by date of publication; and sometimes, I shelve them in the order in which they were read. Every once in a while—if I’m feeling really radical—I reclassify them by the color of their spines.

  I’m a research librarian for a university. My specialty is English literature. I assist academics and graduate students in locating materials they need for their research.

  That’s how I came to be friends with Adam—or Dr. Adam Hughes, PhD, according to the plaque on his office door. Adam came in looking for a back-issue of an obscure academic journal. I had to borrow it from one of our sister institutions, and when it arrived in the mail three weeks later, I took it straight down to his office.

  While I was there, I told him a knock-knock joke involving the poet Shelly, a goat in a boat and the current president of the United States. I made up that joke myself, and I think it’s frig’n hilarious, but no one ever laughs when I tell it. Adam laughed. In other words, Adam gets me. People rarely get me, so we’ve been friends ever since.

  Usually, when a man and a woman spend a lot of time together, people assume they either used to have sex, are currently having sex, or will be having sex in the near future. People never assume that about Adam and me. He’s a hottie, and I’m a nottie.

  Adam almost always has a girlfriend—more often than not, they are graduate students—but his girlfriends never mind me. I befriend them, one after another. Sometimes, I’m sad when Adam breaks up with his latest—sometimes not—but I don’t usually stay friends with his exes.

  Which brings me to the day when all that started to change. It began with a repeat of a conversation Adam and I have had over and over. We were in my office. Adam was sitting on my desk. I was pretending to have some very important task to perform so he’d shut up and go away. My look-busy-and-he’ll-go-away strategy was failing miserably.

  “But I know you’ll like Keith,” Adam insisted.

  “You always say that when you’re trying to set me up, and I never ever do.”

  “You liked Phil-the-physicist.”

  “I concede that I did find Phil-the-physicist mildly attractive. However, if you will recall, the feeling wasn’t mutual.”

  “Well, that was just bad luck.”

  “Was it?”

  “Yes, you’re a great girl!”

  “Damn me with faint praise.”

  “But you are. You are great. You’re smart. You’re funny.”

  I hate when people describe me as smart and funny. That’s code for “nice girl, but ugly.” Adam should know better. I’ve tried to explain it to him, but, even as intelligent as he is, there are some things he just doesn’t understand about women. At least not-beautiful women. To be fair, I’m the only woman in his life who doesn’t fall into the beautiful category. Even his mother is beautiful. Granted, once you get an eyeful of Adam you realize how shocking it would be if she were not.

  “Since when do men go for smart? Or funny?”

  “I do. Name one woman I’ve dated who doesn’t have an above-average IQ.”

  “Name one woman you’ve dated who doesn’t look like she just gave up modeling for academia.”

  “Shasta has a crooked nose, and she’s my favorite girlfriend of all time.”

  “Crooked nose! Forsooth!” I pounded the top of my desk once, for emphasis. “I still don’t understand why you broke up with her.”

  “She broke up with me. You know, you insist on using expressions like forsooth, and yet you wonder why men find you intimidating.”

  “It’s not so much that they find me intimidating, as it is that they find me unattractive.”

  As usual, we were getting nowhere. I know Adam just wants me to be happy, but he has developed this irritating habit of acting like he’s responsible for finding me dates. When he finally wears me down—which he inevitably does—these dates generally consist of me and whomever Adam has decided is “perfect for me” sitting in a restaurant across from Adam and his current lady-love and trying not to watch as they pretend they aren’t groping each other under the table. On numerous occasions, I’ve explained to him how uncomfortable this behavior makes other people, but, as usual, he believes I’m not qualified to assess what makes other people uncomfortable. I’m what Adam describes as an “outlier.” In other words, I’m his weird friend.

  After I said that thing about men finding me unattractive, I thought I had Adam stymied, but no. He had gone quiet, not because I had vanquished him with my superior wit and intellect, but because he was thinking.

  “You know, all you’re really lacking is a little inner confidence. You believe men are going to find you unattractive. Then you behave in an off-putting manner, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

  “I could have all the inner confidence in the world, and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

  “I disagree. However—“

  Adam was staring at me like I was a horse at auction, and he was trying to decide whether I still had a few good years left, or if today was the day I got shipped off to the glue factory.

  “How old are you?” Adam asked.

  “You know how old I am.”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  “Almost thirty.”

  “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way—“ Adam said.

  I hate when people say that. It invariably means they are about to say something terribly insulting, yet you will not be allowed to take offense.

  Adam continued. “You’re twenty-nine. That’s not very old, but I’ll bet if I had a random sample of strangers evaluate your wardrobe, they’d guess it belonged to a woman in her fifties.”

  That was insulting, and he wasn’t even done yet.

  “And another thing—“

  That’s another expression I hate. It means, “I’m not finished insulting you, so don’t you dare walk away.” Not that I could have walked away. Adam was between me and the door. He was on my side of the desk now and was scrutinizing my face in a most unflattering manner.

  “You don’t wear any makeup, do you?”

  “I do! I’m wearing mascara. And concealer.”

  The concealer was for the zit on my nose. I wasn’t going to go around with that thing flashing red all day. Whether Adam believes it or not, I do have standards. I don’t go out of my way to be unkempt or slovenly. I’m clean. I bathe regularly. I make an effort to wear socks that match. It’s just that I’ve never enjoyed putting on makeup or fiddling with my hair, and it’s bec
ome sort of a principle-of-the-thing situation. Why should I make a big effort to try to attract the attention of men who are just going to end up rejecting me? It seems much more dignified not to try in the first place.

  “You know it’s funny that you should happen to bring up Shasta,” Adam said.

  “I didn’t bring her up. You did.”

  “You’re right. I did. Anyway, I ran into Shasta today. She’s back working at the hair salon, while she finishes her thesis. You know, she asked about you?”

  “That’s nice.”

  “How about we all get together? The three of us.”

  “Sure.”

  Why not? There was nothing weird about the three of us getting together.

  There was, however, something weird about the way Adam was looking at me. He never pays much attention to what I look like, unless I’m about to meet some guy he’s trying to set me up with, and then he generally limits his critical observation to ensuring that I don’t have anything in my teeth.

  We got together three days later for lunch. Adam, Shasta and me. I was half-way through my lettuce, pickle and tomato sandwich before it dawned on me that I was being set up. I don’t mean that Adam had jumped to the erroneous assumption that I am a lesbian and had decided that Shasta and I were made for each other. No, I mean “set up” in the sense of duped, hoodwinked and bamboozled.

  My first clue was when Shasta and Adam began discussing my hair like I wasn’t even present at the table.

  “I think we should go darker,” Shasta said.

  Adam disagreed. He’d like to see what I looked like as a blond.

  “Excuse me,” I interrupted. “I like my hair the color it is.”

  “I suppose we could just do a cut,” Shasta said. “I’m thinking short and sort of wispy around the face. That would bring out her eyes.”

  “Who is this mysterious ‘we’ you keep referring to?” I asked.

  They looked at each other. Then they looked at me.

  “Shasta thinks it would be fun to give you a makeover,” Adam said.

  “Fun for whom?” I shot back.

  “Don’t you think it would be fun?”

  “I think it’s absurd.”

  “Why?”

  Shasta was keeping quiet. She has never liked conflict, which may explain why she and Adam are no longer an item. Shasta is a sweet girl, really, and I hated to seem ungrateful.

  “I just don’t see the point,” I said.

  “Does everything have to have a point?” asked Adam.

  “Yes. Otherwise, life is pointless.”

  “And what’s the point of rearranging your books every Sunday?”

  I wish he didn’t know about that. I get a little defensive about my eccentricities.

  “It’s nice to have a change every once in a while,” I said.

  “My point, exactly.”

  Shasta finally opened her mouth. “I love doing makeovers. I would enjoy it. Really, I would.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But I’m not going blond!”

  They both looked shocked that I’d been so easy to convince.

  The salon where Shasta works is closed on Sundays, so she took advantage of the day off to come over and get started on what she insisted on referring to as my “personal transformation.” She hadn’t even gotten all her paraphernalia spread out on my kitchen table before Adam showed up, uninvited. At least, I hadn’t invited him. Shasta seemed to be expecting him, though, which made me wonder if the two of them might not be on the verge of getting back together. I hoped they were. Shasta is one of the few of the many women I’ve seen come and go who is good enough for Adam. She’s smart, funny and beautiful. She is also nice. Which, in my book, is more important than the other three combined. Adam doesn’t always go for nice. I sincerely hope that the morning he wakes up and decides it’s time he committed to someone for the rest of his living days, he’ll happen to be dating someone nice. And no one is nicer than Shasta.

  It was obvious that Shasta had given a lot of thought to this “personal transformation” of mine, and she was transparently worried that by implying I wasn’t perfect beyond improving upon she was doing irreparable damage to my fragile self-esteem.

  She needn’t have worried. Very little—I’d go so far as to say none—of my identity is tied up in my beauty, or lack thereof. But I couldn’t very well come straight out and say that, not with Adam propped up on my kitchen counter. It was too embarrassing. Besides, although I was confident that Shasta would immediately grasp my meaning, it would take extensive explanation to make Adam understand. Being trimmed and fluffed and highlighted left me with no excess energy to try and make Adam understand anything.

  Despite her earlier statement that she’d like to cut my hair short, Shasta had changed her mind. Evidently, there’d been lengthy discussion between Shasta and Adam about my new look. Apparently, they’d settled on something they referred to as Sexy Librarian.

  “Isn’t that a bit cliché?” I protested. “I mean—I am a librarian.”

  “I think it will suit you perfectly,” Shasta said.

  “And don’t you think you’re setting you sights a bit high?” I was being pretty petulant, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Wouldn’t it be better to aim for Mildly-Pretty-in-a-Mousy-Sort-of-Way Librarian? Even that might be overly optimistic.”

  Shasta just laughed, and I caught Adam winking at her over the top of my head, as if I were a little kid who’d just said something stupidly cute.

  “Why are we doing this?” I demanded, of no one in particular. I was starting to feel like a clueless and uncooperative puppy on his first trip to the groomers.

  “It’s fun,” Shasta said. “Aren’t you having fun?”

  “I don’t know, yet.”

  “Well, you will have fun. When you see yourself.”

  “And how long from now will that be?”

  My usual Sunday routine was shot to hell, but I didn’t want to complain about it, or Adam would tease me about my compulsive organizing.

  “I plan to be here all day,” Shasta said.

  That’s what I’d been afraid of. I wondered if Adam was going to insist on hanging around, too, until the bitter end.

  “When you get to a stopping place—“ I had to raise my voice to compete with the blow-dryer, “—I’d like to put a load of laundry in the wash.”

  “Speaking of laundry—“ Adam said, “—next Sunday we’re going shopping.”

  “I don’t need any new clothes.”

  “You say that, but I’ve never seen you in anything I’d call sexy. Librarian, maybe. Middle-aged fashioned-challenged Librarian. ”

  I looked up at Shasta. She avoided my eye. She obviously agreed with Adam, but didn’t like to say so.

  “I think you always look nice. Very neat. Very clean,” she said. “But we thought it might be fun to pick out a few new outfits.”

  “A few?” Adam can be rude, sometimes.

  “Yes. A few—“ Shasta said, “—the girl’s a librarian. She’s not made of money. Unless you’re planning on buying her a whole new wardrobe—“

  That shut Adam up.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Shasta said. “You probably have lots of cute things in your closet that you never wear. After we get done in here, we’ll take a look. ”

  I do tend to have a uniform. Kaki trousers and a button-down shirt. Red, blue or green. It’s very convenient. You can do anything in kakis and a button-down. Sometimes, when I shop at big box stores, I get mistaken for a customer service representative. That’s alright. Customer service is a respectable profession.

  I escaped long enough to put my dirty laundry in the wash, and when I returned to the kitchen, Adam was rummaging through my refrigerator.

  “Still not much of a cook, I see?”

  I’m not, actually, but I didn’t see how that was relevant.

  “There’s stuff to make sandwiches—“ I told him.

  My hair was trimmed and highlighted—although, I hadn’t b
een allowed to look at it—and Shasta moved on to my face.

  She scrubbed and called it “exfoliating.” Then she waxed my eyebrows. That hurt. Finally, she smeared my whole face with green goo.

  “I made you a sandwich,” Adam said. “Pickle, lettuce and tomato. No mustard. Cut on the diagonal.”

  That’s the nice thing about good friends, they know what you like.

  “I’m not sure I can eat with all this muck on my face.”

  “You can if you’re careful,” Shasta said and went over to the counter to make herself a sandwich.

  Two

  I thought Shasta and Adam would never go home. Shasta made a unilateral decision to postpone makeup lessons until the next Sunday. She said that I wouldn’t be able to commit to my new look until I was competent at applying makeup. I never knew that applying makeup required a great deal of skill and expertise, but Shasta seemed to think so. She obviously didn’t believe I’d be a natural. Instead of moving on to makeup, she decided that an assessment of my wardrobe was in order.

  I have my closet organized just so, and I don’t really like other people touching my stuff. Shasta seemed to get that, but Adam didn’t. Or maybe he did and just didn’t care.

  Shasta was shocked that I had so many dresses.

  “But I’ve never seen you in a dress,” she said.

  “I wore dresses in high-school.”

  “You’ve kept these since high-school?”

  I had.

  “You can really still fit into these?”

  I could.

  “Some of these are really cute.” Shasta seemed surprised. “I mean they are totally back in style.”

  “Really?” I don’t pay much attention to things like that, but Shasta does, so I took her word for it.

  “Try one on,” Adam said.

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  “I’d like to see this one on,” Shasta said. She handed me a slim red dress that used to be a favorite of mine, way back when. “Hold on, you need shoes.” There was a pair of heels in the very back of my shoe shelf. Leftovers from my cousin Tabitha’s wedding, in which I had served as a very reluctant bride’s maid. I don’t know why I kept them.