Dead over heels - By Charlaine Harris Page 0,22

approaching Beverly from the side, had quietly put down the bag and box. I suddenly knew I couldn’t bear it if Angel defended me here in the library, my own stomping ground.

“Beverly,” I said very quietly, aware that Perry and Sally had looked over curiously. Well, just about everyone was looking over. “Beverly, you are mad at me, but let’s not work it out here. We can go in the staff room or Sam’s office.”

“All you have to do is do your damn job,” Beverly hissed. “You’re sitting on your butt doing nothing, I’m doing all the work.”

There’s very little point carrying on a conversation with someone who is absolutely convinced you are wrong and bad. Instead of thinking of strategies I found myself speculating, not for the first time, on Beverly’s mental health. But I had to defuse the situation somehow; Angel’s face had gone blank and she was concentrating on Beverly as a target. If Beverly took one step closer to me, Angel would hit her. And then where would we be?

“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Maybe you’ve been doing too much of the work and I haven’t been pulling my share. Why don’t we talk to Sam about it?”

“He’ll just side with you,” Beverly said, but there wasn’t quite as much repressed fury in her voice as before.

“I’ll call him right now,” I said, and lifted the phone and punched in the correct numbers.

“Sam,” I said briskly when he picked up the receiver, “Beverly and I are having some problems working together. Beverly feels she’s carrying too heavy a load.”

“She does,” Sam said thoughtfully. I heard his chair creak as he leaned back. “It has been more work for her, not having a full-time librarian in that section.”

“We’d better make an appointment to meet with you and discuss it,” I said very evenly. “In your office.”

“Roe, do you have a situation out there?”

“As soon as possible,” I said, so calmly I could have been discussing spraying the roses for aphids.

“Right. I gotcha. Okay, then, one o’clock today when you get off.”

“That’s fine. I’ll tell her.”

“We’re to meet in his office at one o’clock,” I told Beverly, putting the phone down very gently. To my relief, her posture was less aggressive. Sally had gone back to talking to her son, but Perry’s eyes remained on us watchfully. Arthur was browsing through the new books, though he’d completed checking out the videos. A couple of other patrons who had tried to listen without showing overt attention, courteous Southerners that they were, went back to their activities with some relief.

Beverly turned to resume work, I thought, and spotted Angel. “Whatchu lookin‘ at?” Beverly snarled, in an exaggerated street drawl. The two women stared at each other for a long minute. But even Beverly had to concede defeat against Angel, and with a “Humph!” to show contempt and save face, Beverly returned to her book cart.

I bent back over the book on my desk and put my hands down in my lap to hide their shaking. Tears stung my eyes. Things happening in public were so much worse than things happening in private, and if anything had happened in the library ... if it had come to blows between Angel and Beverly ... in the library!

Oh, I just hated for people to see me cry. And of course there weren’t any Kleenex in my desk drawer. A crying child had used the last one two days ago and I’d forgotten to restock. Hellfire and damnation.

A hand appeared under my nose, a white cotton handkerchief in it. The hand dropped the handkerchief on the desk, and I swooped it up gratefully and applied it to my dripping eyes and nose.

“Thanks, Arthur,” I said in the clogged voice that is one of the more attractive features of crying.

“Don’t mention it,” he said. “How’d you know it was me?”

“I remember your hands,” I said without thinking.

I looked up in horror when I realized what I’d said, and saw that Arthur’s face was slowly flushing red, as it always had when he ... well, when we had personal moments.

If today got any better, I’d just spend tomorrow locked in the attic of my house. It’d be a safer place.

Angel was standing at a discreet distance, her eyes on Beverly, who had gone back to shelving books. At the front desk, Lillian was now eyeing Arthur and me with avid curiosity. Sally was gone, and Perry was watering the large, ugly potted plant (I am not