She pushed herself through the stacks of shelves into the clearing beyond. She needed to breathe again, to draw oxygen deep into her lungs. She turned her phone over in her palm and her eyes blurred at her watermelon phone case.
Between the melons, she spotted the reading list poking through.
There it was again. That book. The first book on the list. To Kill a Mockingbird. The image of Leilah throwing her head back in glee rushed in, her screams and shouts this morning, her sobbing through the night. Aidan’s eyes, dark rims, unable to give her any words of comfort. Her head was driving her crazy and she needed to get away, leave Wembley, leave her family, leave everything. But still, could a book work those kinds of miracles? At least it was a place to start.
She found a chair – the Crime Thriller guy’s chair, actually – and sank into it, shoving her phone into her bag. The chair was worn in places, the arms had started to fray, but it was comfortable. The sun illuminated the pages of To Kill a Mockingbird. If she was going to do this, it felt like the right kind of position, the right view, the right environment, to turn to Chapter One and begin. But just as she was about to settle in, psyching herself for full immersion, Kyle’s very loud, very patronizing tone pierced her silence. He was dealing with another irrational, irrelevant and annoying customer who had phoned in – but at least that was better than dealing with the irrational, irrelevant, annoying customers in real life. What had Aidan loved about this job so much?
‘No, sir. I think I will have to charge you for the book, if you removed it from the premises without checking it out.’
Kyle’s brows knotted into a frown.
‘Sorry, sir, could you repeat that just a little more slowly for me please?’ And after a beat, ‘Do you have a library card?’
Aleisha couldn’t tune out of the conversation, Kyle was so sodding loud.
‘I’m so sorry, sir, I didn’t realize. When was this? Yesterday? Hmm, yes, thank you, sir. Thank you for letting me know. I’ll investigate and see what I can do … Yes, well, if you don’t have a library card, how about I set one up for you today and take the book out for you, and you can return it when you can. That way I’ll make sure my colleagues can’t charge you when it is returned.’
Aleisha hid herself behind the wing of the chair, frozen, ashamed. She pictured the old man from yesterday, standing in front of her, asking for help. She heard her own voice, harsh, telling him that no, she couldn’t be arsed. Aleisha wanted the chair to eat her whole.
The moment Kyle shoved the handset back onto the desk, he jumped up and turned his head on his neck like a meerkat. Searching for something … for her.
Aleisha kept as low as she could. But it was useless, Kyle knew exactly where she was.
‘Hey Kyle, what’s up?’ she said, as he arrived at her side.
‘You were on shift yesterday, right?’ he asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ve just had a lovely elderly gentleman on the phone, rather distressed, to put it lightly, saying you forced him out of the library. Is that true?’ He was putting on his ‘authoritative’ voice. When Thermos wasn’t around, Kyle took it upon himself to step up to the plate.
‘That’s not exactly what happened. He wanted book recommendations. I don’t do book recommendations.’
‘You need to. Do you want this job?’
She didn’t want it, she needed it. She needed to help Aidan out. Leilah was an artist and a designer – usually she worked with ad agencies around the world and often she was swamped with work. But it came in waves. And her income was sometimes irregular, especially when she was going through one of her bad patches. Aleisha couldn’t lose this job. There’d be nothing else to go to. And, for all its faults, this place was becoming her silent retreat from the chaos that was her home, she knew that much.
She nodded.
‘Do you know how many people could work here, how many people actually wanted to work here?’
Aleisha shook her head.
Kyle continued, his chest expanding. ‘Loads, quite frankly. Dev is always saying we need to do our best to keep people happy, provide a friendly place with book recommendations, the full service, otherwise we’ll lose regulars. If you don’t start actually doing your job, you’ll get sacked, or worse, we’ll just get shut down – and we’ll all lose our jobs.’
Aleisha didn’t believe it. It had been so easy to get in. But she really couldn’t lose her job, and she couldn’t face it if she was responsible for the volunteers, Lucy and Benny, losing their favourite place. Or for Kyle, as much as he annoyed her, losing the only place he could ever be bossy and get away with it, and for Dev who would literally do anything to keep the Harrow Road Library up and running. She pictured this cute building with its windows blocked out, a sign from the council on the door directing people to the Civic Centre instead. It wouldn’t be right. Even though they were never completely rammed with customers, people loved this place. She imagined Aidan in her mind, parroting Uncle Jeremy: ‘Do better.’