A Broom With a View by Rebecca Patrick-Howard Read Free Book Online Page B

this man was being so difficult and the simple act of checking out a book from the library so challenging. It was a library, for crying out loud. She was paying taxes there now, shouldn’t she be allowed to check out books?
    Furthermore, Liza couldn’t figure out why the whole thing was making her so enraged, but she suddenly found herself more than mad–she was livid. This day had not gone as planned.
    As Liza stood there and seethed inwardly, Cotton picked up a silver container, and took a sip from it, and then went back to his fish. It was clear that he was over Liza and had no intentions of continuing the conversation.
    “Look Mary Elizabeth,” Liza hissed, wanting to get her point across but still trying to remember the library manners and rules that had been ingrained within her since childhood.
    Cotton looked up, a piece of white fish meat stuck to his bottom lip. “My name’s not Mary Elizabeth,” he said with a scowl. “My name is–“
    “I know what your name is,” Liza snapped. “It’s from a book. Now you and I both know you can help me. For one thing, I know you did it for that man over there.”
    Liza gestured towards the row of computers where a portly man in a Cincinnati Bengals cap typed happily away on Facebook Chat. “You gave Eddy there a temporary pass and he’s just here in town for railroad business. He doesn’t live here at all; he’s only going to be here for two weeks.”
    Cotton’s eyes grew wide and his mouth dropped open as he quickly looked first at Eddy and then at Liza Jane. “Well I. How did you–“
    Liza knew she should just let it go and go back another day but she’d taken it that far already. Might as well go the rest. “I don’t know why you don’t want to help me but I do know you have those contracts behind you in the top drawer of that black filing cabinet. It would only take a second, you’d be doing the right thing, and that would be the end of that. Do you really want me to call Phyllis?”
    Phyllis, as Liza Jane shouldn’t have known since that was the first time she’d ever been in the library, was the head librarian.
    With his eyes still wide and mouth agape, Cotton was too stunned to protest. Instead, without taking his eyes from Liza, he stood, wiped his hands on a napkin and trotted over to the filing cabinet. He continued to watch Liza as he reached blindly into the drawer and pulled out an application form for a temporary card. He got the right form on the first try without even looking, which made Liza shake her head. She’d known all along that he could issue a card to her. 
    Neither Liza nor Cotton spoke another word to the other. 
    Ten minutes later Liza held a new library card in her hand. It was still warm from the laminating machine.
    However, she’d somehow lost all interest in checking out any books.
     

***
     
    So far the day had been a bit of a bust. So far she’d gotten herself riled up by her ex, destroyed some of her favorite bottles, freaked out her neighbor, and jumped onto the town librarian in front of a room full of people.
    She hoped none of those things would hurt her place as resident healing therapist and day spa owner in Kudzu Valley.
    To her annoyance, she’d gone to that buffet on Cotton’s T-shirt and the waitress had refused to bring her a drink. Instead, she’d glared at Liza and made someone else wait on her.
    And the fried chicken hadn’t even been that good.  
    “Well, I can’t go home,” she muttered to herself as she turned onto Main Street. There was nothing for her to do at the house. She’d already unpacked, didn’t have any books, and the internet guy wasn’t scheduled for another three days. Back in Boston she might have dropped in on a friend or gone to the movies.
    Well, that’s what she would’ve done before the separation and divorce filings. Her friends had all kind of scattered after they’d learned she and Mode had zero chance of reconciliation, as though the divorce was an illness