Amy’s Novel Romance

As the library door swung open, the sudden glare blinded Amy for a second, and she had to blink to see the customer approaching her at the reference desk. When she saw him clearly, she had to blink again, dazzled. He was tall, with broad shoulders and an athletic build, and was so handsome that she forgot to breathe for a second. His dark hair was cut long in the front, and he reflexively tossed it back as he looked around, then noticed her and headed straight toward her. When he smiled, his perfect face was even more appealing.

He had just a hint of a shadow of a beard, like he hadn’t shaved for a day. He seemed to feel her looking at it and self-consciously rubbed a hand over his jaw. His fingers were strong and powerful, fingernails clipped and buffed. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and folded neatly below the elbow, showing off his strong arms. His eyes were deep brown, and they were fixed on her as he seemed to take in not just her face, but her entire being, looking at her in a way that made her tingle with something that felt like desire.

“I’m sorry to stare,” he said. His voice was deep and rich and caressing. “You just look so beautiful standing there with the sunlight behind your hair. I didn’t expect to walk into a library and fall in love at first sight.”

She smiled. “There’s no such thing as love at first sight.”

“Isn’t there?” He kept gazing at her. He put his hands on the counter and leaned in a little. “How about destiny, then?” Her breathing suddenly quickened and her face felt warm as she stared down at the counter where her hand and his were very close together. He slowly moved his hand, and their fingers touched like an electrical shock. She looked up and their eyes locked as they leaned closer and closer, utterly unable to resist each other.

“Amy!” Vera Meyer’s voice was louder and shriller than you’d expect in a library. Amy closed her eyes just for a moment, and when she opened them again, of course the handsome man had disappeared and a smiling Mrs. Meyer was striding toward her from the Head Librarian’s office behind the stacks. “Your volunteers are in the conference room. I’ll cover for you here. Good luck with the planning!”

The conference room was on the third floor, and Amy decided to walk up the stairs, hoping to regain just a hint of the magical romantic fantasy she had just indulged in. But she couldn’t recapture the rapturous feeling, and when she tried, she realized she had recreated the hero from the very romantic movie she had watched last night. Again. And she knew she’d probably find another romantic movie with a handsome hero tonight. She wouldn’t be able to resist. These fantasies were her only romantic life.

Amy was 35 years old, smart, educated, employed, a good listener, and attractive. She was popular with other women and had many friends, but somehow The Boyfriend had never materialized. Her few dates had been unsuccessful, if success is defined by a second date. After the guy who couldn’t stop bragging about his business, and the guy who kept criticizing her favorite books, and the guy who spent the meal discussing the unhealthiness of all the food, and the guy who kept answering his phone (“Sorry, I have to take this”), and the guy who drove like a maniac… well, Amy had deleted her dating apps. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome, she told herself.

Her mother and her girlfriends had stopped trying to match her up with their acquaintances. She took a pottery class hoping to meet a handsome artist, but the other students were all women and except for producing a mug with a comically large handle, it was pretty much a waste of time. She went to a speed dating night at a local bar but all the men seemed strange and grotesque under the party lights. Plus, it was so noisy that she felt like everyone was shouting, and she still couldn’t hear a lot of what was said to her.

So now she pinned her hopes for romance on a chance encounter. Like the handsome stranger at the reference desk, but real. She had surreptitiously observed all the likely men in the neighborhood. For a long time, she’d had a crush on the red-headed fireman at the firehouse across the street, which was probably why she’d come up with the library speed dating idea in the first place.

It was a small library, and in addition to staffing the reference desk and whatever else was needed, she was responsible for planning the library’s community events. There were story hours for kids every week, a current events discussion group the second Wednesday of every month, the annual book sale, and a couple of other fund-raisers.

Amy had always wanted to expand beyond those traditional public library offerings. Her children’s Halloween festival, with readings of spooky books, face-painting, and a trick-or-treat game had been a huge success. For February, she wanted to do something Valentine’s themed, and proposed a Library Speed Dating night for neighborhood singles who wanted to meet people who liked to read. She had a really clever idea about each participant choosing a book as a conversation starter, and planned to set up a cart with all romance-themed books for them.

But at the staff meeting when she proposed it, nobody else was enthusiastic. The interns didn’t dare open their mouths, but she could tell they thought it was a very lame idea. Senior Assistant Librarian Karen Hampshire, in her 80s, considered it an extremely undignified thing to do in a library, and said so, at length. A couple of part-timers seemed pretty neutral. The decision, obviously, lay with Mrs. Meyer, the Head Librarian, who liked Amy’s enthusiasm but obviously had her doubts.

“I like the idea, Amy, but I’m not sure we have enough singles in the neighborhood who like to read and are also looking for love.”

Amy had already looked around, trying to spot likelies, and she had to reluctantly agree. “You may be right. Could we try broader outreach? Posters in other libraries around the city?”

Mrs. Meyer suddenly sat up straight. “OR!” She exclaimed, obviously excited by her idea. “We could keep it in the neighborhood and just open it to everyone. Instead of speed dating for love, we could make it about making friends. We could call it Speed Dating for Friends!”

“Speed Friending,” said Amy, automatically. She looked around, and no one seemed excited about this either, except Mrs. Meyer, but she was really all that mattered. “That might work. It would be a good way for people to meet their neighbors. The week after Valentine’s Day, maybe?”

And a tradition was born, Speed Friending for Stronger Communities. It wasn’t romantic, but Amy had to admit it was a lot of fun, and she got to know the names and stories of a lot of local people, young and old. The cute fireman never came, but after the time she’d seen a very blonde woman in very short shorts plant a big kiss on his mouth, she’d given up on him anyway. He was quite handsome, but she suspected he might not be very interested in books. Only on TV had she ever actually encountered breathtakingly handsome men who also appreciated literature, but she told herself it must happen sometimes.

This was the fourth year of the Speed Friending event. The first year, there had been about 20 people, and she’d had to recruit pretty hard to get them to show up. This year, there were over 50 signed up, and they were going to have to split the group in half to fit everyone in, and turn the reading room into a second space for neighbors to circulate from chair to chair and chat. The annual event had become popular beyond anyone’s expectations.

Amy reached the top of the stairs and paused for a moment to catch her breath. She wondered which volunteers were waiting, and if maybe, just maybe, there would be a new one, a handsome stranger, and her Big Romance would begin. And just for a moment, when she went through the doorway into the conference room, she thought just maybe this time would be the time, because there was a man there she didn’t recognize.

He was animatedly talking to Sarah and Rachel, the middle aged women who were the backbone of the volunteer organization. When they both waved at Amy, he turned, and her heart plunged. Nope. He was a lot older than his expertly dyed and styled hair would have suggested from the back, and she could tell his broad shoulders were enhanced by the expensive running jacket he wore. He stood and held out his hand. “Hi, I’m Steve!” He boomed. “I hope you’ll let me join in. I have some business background that might be helpful.”

Amy recognized his type. A recently retired businessman who fancied himself a problem-solver. She always wondered why those guys picked a library for their volunteer focus. But they never lasted long, anyway. Either they would get miffed that their advice wasn’t welcomed and fade away, or if they seemed reasonable and rich enough, Vera Meyer and Amy would recruit them onto the advisory board, a flattering enough invitation to usually secure a generous annual donation.

But he wasn’t boyfriend material. Too old. Too insufferable. No romance there.

Amy looked around the room affectionately at her regular crew. Some were weekly library volunteers and some just did community events, but they were all kind, good hearted people. Rachel and Sarah did anything that needed doing, and were as indispensable in the library family as Amy herself. Another indispensable was Bruce, who had been volunteering for years. He was efficient, thorough, and shy enough that Amy really knew nothing about him except he was married and often got dropped off at the library by his wife. High schooler Teresa, who had done more community service hours for the library than anyone in history, had brought three of her friends to help with the event. And there was a smattering of other familiar faces. Amy sneaked a look at the sign-in sheet to remember all their names. Eleven in all, a good group.

They had produced this event before, and with Rachel holding “the binder,” they quickly went through the various steps and people volunteered to do whatever they enjoyed the most — welcoming the attendees, setting up a book carts for people to choose “conversation starters,” decorating, refreshments, and so forth. Steve made a number of suggestions about what books should be chosen (he’d written two), what bakery they should use for refreshments (Rachel and Sarah always made cookies), and activities that were irrelevant, but he didn’t actually volunteer for anything. Amy could tell he was getting irritated and made a mental note to thank him for his ideas after the meeting, and feel him out on joining the board.

The day of the event came. In the past, the committee had only participated if an extra partner was needed. Now, with such a big group of volunteers, several of them could participate. The teenagers had no interest in having serial conversations with mostly older strangers, so Amy assigned them to keep an eye on the proceedings, make sure the refreshments were stocked and everyone knew where the bathrooms were and so forth. Bruce was too shy to consider talking about himself to so many people, so he sat behind the desk handing out name cards and checking people off a list, straightening out little problems and making it all run smoothly. Sarah and Rachel stood around keeping an eye on things, though between Bruce’s quiet competence and the friendly smiles of the teenagers, no problems arose. Everyone else joined in the Speed Friending, including a delighted Vera Meyer.

A well-oiled machine, that’s what it was, thought Amy with satisfaction. A happy community event she could be proud of. She looked around the room. As usual, no ruggedly handsome single men offering passionate romantic encounters. But she looked forward to the evening anyway. She recognized a number of people from the neighborhood who she hadn’t met, and that was the fun part. Steve was there, holding forth. The woman who owned the bookstore was there. The coffee cart guy. Even Bruce’s wife was there, wearing a name tag that said “Heather.” Amy was very amused to notice that she was very different from Bruce, who always wore dark colors and seemed to disappear in any room. Heather was dressed in purple leggings and a puffer jacket, and as they waited to start, she was the liveliest of a group of laughing people clustered by the Biographies. Go figure, thought Amy, opposites actually do attract.

This year’s Speed Friending event was the best yet, and conversation and laughter filled the library that evening. Towards the end, when the bell rang again and Amy moved to the next seat, she found herself in conversation with Bruce’s wife. After introducing themselves, Amy asked about the book in front of Heather, which she noticed was one of the Oprah Book Club selections Amy kept on an end cap in the fiction section. “Ooooh,” said Heather, “I love the beginning, but I haven’t had a chance to finish it. You’re the librarian, tell me if it has a good ending.”

This was a new one. “Well, Heather,” said Amy, “If you like the beginning, you’ll probably like the rest of it. I’m not going to spoil it for you by telling you what happens. But I think you should stick with it. Actually, now that I think about it, it has a similar love story to the book I chose.” She showed the cover of a relatively obscure novel from the mid twentieth century. She had recently rediscovered it and it had made her think about a creating a display of “forgotten novels” for March.

“My brother talks about that book. I think it’s his favorite book right now, he’s talked about it so many times that I almost feel like I’ve read it.”

Amy’s choice was a haunting and poetic love story, not a book for everyone. It had been fairly popular once, but had fallen out of notice, and Amy had actually saved it from the “weeding” pile. So this was surprising. Amy said, “Your brother must be a person who loves to read.”

“Oh yes, he reads a lot. When we were kids, he was always the smartest kid in class. Boy, were the teachers disappointed when I came along!” Heather laughed merrily. “I was a kind of troublemaker, looking back, but it’s hard to have an older brother who is perfect.”

Now Amy laughed. “Perfect like Mr. Darcy?” Heather looked puzzled and Amy didn’t pursue it. “You should bring your brother in some time. I’d like to meet a perfect man.”

Heather looked even more puzzled. “What do you mean bring him in? You’re the one who recommended the book to him! He’s your greatest admirer. He literally talks about you all the time.”

For just a moment, the earth seemed to come to a stop, and it was like a bolt of lightning when Amy realized. “Bruce,” she said. “Your brother is Bruce? I thought you two were married.”

Heather threw her head back and howled with laughter, so loudly that the entire room went silent. Realizing, she lowered her voice. “You thought Bruce was married to me? What on earth made you think that?”

Amy stammered a little. “Uh, you sometimes drop him off or pick him up, and I guess I just assumed…”

Heather laughed again, not quite as loudly. “Oh, no, he’s just a good brother. I don’t have a car, so he lets me use his to get to work. A lot of days, he just walks home from here, it’s just three miles and he’s a walker.”

Amy looked over her shoulder at Bruce behind the counter. He was watching them but trying to pretend he wasn’t. What a surprising thing to learn about him. She realized he wasn’t bad looking at all. He was the nicest guy in the world. And he loved literature.

The bell rang, the partner groups split and re-formed, and the evening ended shortly after that. As people were saying goodbyes and putting on their coats, Amy could hear Heather and Bruce talking. “No, you go ahead,” he was saying. “I want to stay here and help clear up.”

“Do you want me to come pick you up when you’re done?” asked Heather.

“No, no,” replied Bruce. “I’ll walk. It’s a nice night.”

It wasn’t a nice night at all. It was February, and cold and damp. Three miles.

The high schoolers helped carry all the chairs back to the storage room, and got picked up by various parents. The other volunteers finished their tasks and said goodbye, one by one. Sarah and Rachel left raving about the successful evening, Rachel still clutching the binder possessively. Finally it was just Amy and Bruce, standing at the side entrance while Amy locked the door.

Shyly, Bruce said, “Where are you parked? I can walk you to your car.”

“I have a better idea,” said Amy. “Do you want a ride home?” Bruce looked surprised. Amy had never noticed before what nice eyes he had.

A smile broke out on Bruce’s face before he spoke. “Actually I do want a ride home. Yes, I do.”