The Librarian of Boone's Hollow - Kim Vogel Sawyer Page 0,3
thought her chest might burst from impatience, a voice crackled in her ear. “Georgetown. Your number, please.”
Addie recited her family’s number and pressed the phone tight against her ear while shifting from foot to foot. She willed Mother to answer quickly and ease her fears, as she’d done since Addie was a child of six. Even though she hadn’t been born to Penrose and Fern Cowherd, they’d always treated her as if she had. How she loved and appreciated them for taking in a sad little orphaned girl and giving her such a grand life.
“Miss?”
Addie groaned. The operator’s voice again. Which meant the line must be busy. Sociable Mother was probably talking to one of her many friends.
“That number is not in service.”
Addie drew back and frowned at the telephone. Had she given the wrong series of numbers? Granted, she hadn’t called for quite a while, but surely she hadn’t forgotten her parents’ number. She closed her eyes and searched her memory. No, she’d been correct. “Are you sure you connected it properly?”
A huff met her ear. “Yes, miss, I’m sure. The number is not in service.”
Maybe the telephone was broken. Telephones could break, couldn’t they? Addie took a slow breath, forcing her racing pulse to calm. Daddy would be at the bank. Although she hated to bother him at work, this was an emergency. “All right, then, please dial Georgetown Citizens Bank.” She gave the number and gnawed a hangnail on her thumb, her pulse galloping.
“Citizens Bank. May I help you?”
Addie didn’t recognize the man’s voice, but she’d been away long enough to forget many of her father’s coworkers. At least she’d reached the right place. “Yes. I’d like to speak to Mr. Cowherd, please.”
“Penrose Cowherd?”
How many men with the surname Cowherd worked at the bank? “Yes, Penrose Cowherd.”
“He’s no longer employed here, miss.”
Addie’s legs turned to jelly. She slumped against the wall and slid down until her bottom met the narrow bench. She clung to the telephone receiver the way a drowning man gripped a life preserver. “What do you mean he isn’t employed there? He’s been employed there my whole life.” Except for the two-year period when the bank was forced to close its doors. But the moment they’d opened again, the president had put Daddy back to work.
“Am I speaking to Addie?”
She managed a raspy yes.
“Addie, this is Mr. Bowles.”
Oh, yes, Mr. Bowles—a middle-aged man with coal-black hair and a mustache to match. He’d given her clove-flavored candy sticks on visits to the bank when she was a little girl. She could speak freely with him. “Mr. Bowles, I don’t understand. Why is Daddy not employed there anymore?”
“The bank got bought out. The new owner let go any man older than fifty-five. Your daddy’s in his sixties, so…”
“When did this happen?”
“Last October.”
“October?” She squawked the word. Seven months ago? How could she not have known? Yes, Daddy had been home her entire Christmas break. But when she asked why he wasn’t going to work, he kissed her cheek and said, “I’d rather spend the time with you, sugar dumplin’.” She’d never suspected he wasn’t telling the full truth. “They probably can’t afford to keep the telephone connected.”
She didn’t realize she’d spoken the thought until Mr. Bowles’s voice rumbled in her ear. “They lost the house a month ago. According to bank gossip, they took a room in Mrs. Fee’s boardinghouse.”
Addie envisioned the huge clapboard building on a rise at the edge of town. With peeling paint, missing spindles on its porch railing, and a dirt yard dotted with weeds, the Fee boardinghouse was the saddest looking dwelling Addie had ever seen. Even sadder than the ramshackle orphans’ home where she’d spent a dismal nine months before Mother and Daddy adopted her. Tears pricked, and she bit the inside of her lip—the tactic she’d used since childhood to prevent herself from crying.
“I can give you the number there, if you want it.”
She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the wooden barrier. Her chest ached. She could hardly bear to think of her beloved parents residing in a room in the Fee boardinghouse.
“Addie? Do you want the boardinghouse’s number?”
If she didn’t say something, Mr. Bowles would think she’d hung up. She swallowed a knot of agony and forced her tight vocal cords to speak. “Yes. Thank you.” She didn’t have anything on which to write, but she chanted the number to herself as she hung up and then hooked her finger in the dial.