Libby the Librarian: A Rom Com Novella (3 page)

All week I practiced
applying the eyeliner Shasta had given me. I gradually got better. It still wasn’t as perfect as Shasta’s, but then she’d had years of experience.

Friday morning,
I decided to test drive The Sexy Librarian by wearing the whole getup to work. There was a good reason I chose Friday; I knew for certain that Adam was leaving on Thursday to go out of town and wouldn’t be back until Monday morning. The last thing I needed was him hanging around my office smirking. I felt silly enough already.

Shasta was opening at the Salon, so I stopped by there before I went into work, just in case I’d unwittingly committed some fashion faux pas.
When I got there, she was just turning the lights on.

“Wow!” she said. “You look fabulous!”

“I feel a little ridiculous.”

“Well, you don’t look ridiculous. You did a great job on your eyes. I wasn’t sure—“

I think she was going to say she hadn’t been sure I’d ever get the hang of liquid eye-liner, but she never finished her sentence.

“So, how’s it going with you and Adam?” I couldn’t help asking. I
’m terribly curious, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to quiz Adam on the subject.

“Fine.” Shasta was looking at me like it was a strange question
. She changed the subject. “What are you doing this weekend?”

“The usual.”

“We should do something to celebrate your successful transformation,” Shasta said. “My boyfriend and I are going out this evening. You should come with us.”

“Your boyfriend?”

She hadn’t mentioned any boyfriend.

“Brad. He’s great. You’ll like him.”

Would I? I was still reeling from the revelation that she had a boyfriend. It had seemed obvious to me that she and Adam were on the verge of getting back together. Adam seemed to be under that impression, too. Did Adam know about this alleged boyfriend?

“Has Adam met Brad?” I asked.

“Once, maybe. So, you want to go out for drinks with us this evening?”

I said yes. Better see the competition Adam was up against.
Perhaps, I wasn’t as competent a cupid as I believed myself to be.

The Sexy Librarian turned out to be a big sensation. I was getting a disconcerting level of attention before I even made it into the research department. I couldn’t tell if it was positive attention. Mostly, I think it was consternation tinged with disbelief.

My boss, Dr. Maxwell, didn’t even try to cover up his astonishment.
“What in the world did you do to yourself?”

Tina, his assistant, tried to hush him up, but he ignored her.

“I got a makeover,” I said.

“I’ll say,” Dr. Maxwell said and retreated back into his office.

That was a bit deflating.

The whole morning was a little confusing. Tim, a graduate student who is in the middle of collecting material for his thesis and comes in almost every day, actually ran into a closed door he was so busy staring at me.

Not very flattering. I think he was trying to determine if it was really me or not.

T
he women in the research department were all very nice. They complimented my hair and makeup. Tina called my new look, “stunning,” but I think she was overcompensating for Dr. Maxwell’s bad behavior.

By the end of the day, all I wanted to do was go home, wash my face and lay on the couch in my pajamas, but I couldn’t. I had promised to go out with
Shasta.

Shasta and Brad came by to pick me up.

“I brought you something,” Shasta said, holding up a garment bag. “Go try it on.”

It was a dress. Ti
ny and sparkly and short.

“Isn’t this a little over the top
? Where would I ever wear this?”

“Just try it on,” Shasta said.

I tried it on, just to humor her.

“You might want to ditch the knee socks,“
Shasta said when I came out of my bedroom. Brad didn’t even look up. He was engrossed in his phone.

“Sure,” I said. “If I ever have occasion to wear
this dress, I’ll remember not to pair it with knee socks.”

“I thought you might like to wear it out tonight
.”

“Tonight? I didn’t think we were going anywhere fancy.” Actually Shasta was pretty sparkly herself, except her sparkles came in the form of a halter-top.

“You won’t be out of place, where we’re going,” Shasta insisted.

“I’d be out of place anywhere in this dress. It’s awfully short.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“Right, like I’ve gotten used to high-heels.”

I hadn’t gotten used to high-heels. I had stopped actually falling over, but I still felt like I was going to.

“Speaking of heels—“

“No!” I said. “I am not subjecting myself to this dress and to a pair of high-heels at the same time.”

“I thought you might feel that way
.” Shasta pulled out a cute pair of flats that matched the dress. “You can borrow these. You know, we are almost the same size.”

We might average out to be the same size, but let’s just say that Shasta’s assorted bits and articles are arranged in a far more aesthetically pleasing manner than my own.

I peeled off my knee socks and tried on the flats. They fit.

Shasta insisted on fussing with my hair, but I finally got us out the door. Brad had barely said
a word. Not exactly an intellectual giant, I’m guessing. Shasta could do so much better. Adam, for instance. All is not lost. It’s not like she’s engaged to this Brad guy, or anything.

We went to a club called The Presidio. Shasta had been right. I would have felt much more out of place in
, well—anything I had in my closet.

We sat at the bar for a little
while and then Shasta wanted to dance.

“I don’t dance,” I said.

“Come on,” Shasta insisted. “There’s nothing to it. You just move your body in time to the music.”

She probably believed what she said, but I resemble a
spastic windmill when I dance. She finally gave up, and she and Brad went out on the dance floor without me.

I sat alone at the bar, but not for long. A kind of weird-looking guy came and sat down beside me.

“Hello, Beautiful!” he said.

I turned my back
to him. I didn’t come here to be mocked.

Shasta and Brad came back.

“Anyone ask for your phone number?” Shasta asked.

“Certainly not.”

“That’s surprising,” Shasta said. “Whenever I come here without a date, I’m swarmed.”

That wasn’t very kind, comparing the two of us. It was a very unShasta-like thing to say.   

“I think I’ll get a taxi home,” I said.

I felt like crying, but I couldn’t or I’d turn out looking like a demented raccoon. I couldn’t even rub my eyes when they itched.

“But we just got here,” Shasta protested.

“I’m not feeling well,” I said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. I wasn’t sick, but I definitely wasn’t feeling well.

Shasta put me in a taxi.

When I got home, I took off the dress and put it back in the garment bag. I’
ll take it by the salon on Monday after work. Shasta has Monday afternoons off, so I won’t even have to see her. Maybe, I was wrong about Shasta. Adam might be better off without her.
 

Monday
, I reverted to kakis and button-downs. Dr. Maxwell was the only one who approved.

Tina said it was a shame. “If I could be so lucky as to look like you, I’d take full advantage of it,” she said.

I’m starting to wonder if everyone is conspiring to make fun of me. I may be getting paranoid.

Adam stopped by my office just before lunch. He’d obviously heard from Shasta. He’d also gotten an earful from at least one of my colleagues—probably Tina.

“Shasta said you two went out Friday night.”

“Brad was there, too.”

“What happened? Shasta said you went home almost as soon as you got there.”

“Nothing happened.”

“Really? Shasta got the impression you were upset about something.”

“I was not upset.” I sounded upset as I denied it, but there was no use going into details. Adam would never understand.

“I don’t know. Shasta is pretty perceptive.”

“Well, this time she happens to be wrong.”

“Why have you gone back to kakis?”

“Why not? This whole thing is silly. Why should I make a fool of myself?”

“You’re not making a fool—“

Dr. Maxwell knocked on the open door to my office. He doesn’t like people to hang around chatting, even when they have nothing better to do.

“I’ll call you tonight,” Adam said as he slid off my desk.

Adam called, as he’d promised, but I didn’t pick up. He called back again. And a third time. He texted: R U OK?  I ignored him.

I got ready for bed early. I fed Dickens, Poe and Kipling. I swept the kitchen floor. I brushed my teeth. I was about to climb under the covers, when the doorbell rang.

I went and peaked out. It was Adam.

I opened the door.

“As you can see, I’m fine. You can go away now. Goodnight!”

I started to shut the door, but Adam stopped me.

“I’m not convinced,” he said. “I think I’ve made a mistake.”

I didn’t want to let him in, but it was obvious he wasn’t going away until he’d said whatever it was he’d come to say, so I shrugged my shoulders and motioned him in like it was some big dispensation on my part. He flopped down on my couch. I stayed standing, close to the door, so he’d get the hint that I wanted him out of there as soon as possible.

“Will you sit down?” he said. “You make me nervous, standing there looking down your nose like that. You remind me of a vulture.”

A vulture?

“Thank you very much!” I didn’t even try to tone down my sarcasm.

“Please, sit down.”

I sat down. As far from the couch as possible.

“Listen—“ Adam said. “Do you have to sit way over there? I feel like I’m talking to a person in the next room.”

“Whatever!” I sounded like a sullen teenager, but I got up and moved to the end of the
sofa.

“Libby, you are my best friend. Maybe the best friend I’ve ever had. Certainly the best female friend I’ve ever had. I think that’s where I may have gone wrong.”

“You’re sorry we’re friends?”

I didn’t think that was what he meant, but he
wasn’t making much sense. That was unusual. He’s generally pretty articulate.

“Of course not, you goof!” he replied and tossed a pillow at me. “I just mean that I may not understand women very well
, and my lack of understanding may have put you in a vulnerable position.”

I still didn’t know where he was going with this, but he’d obviously put a lot of thought into what he w
anted to say, so I decided to hear him out.

“What I mean is—I thought you would gain confidence from looking different on the outside. I think I got things backwards.”

“Maybe.”

“Do you feel beautiful?”

Certainly not. Was he joking?

“I prefer to think of physical beauty as irrelevant.”

“That’s not a real answer.”

He wasn’t going to go away until I answered honestly.

“No.”

“No, what?”

“No. I don’t think I’m beautiful.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Are you done? Can I go back to bed now?”

“Do you still have that dress Shasta gave you? The one you wore the other night?”

Shasta must have given him a pretty detailed account of the whole debacle.

“Yes. I was going to return it, but I haven’t yet.”

“Are you free tomorrow night?”

There was something I wanted to watch on TV. That counted as “plans,” right? 

“I have plans.”

“You mean you plan to clean out your refrigerator or something?”

“Something like that.”

“You don’t even know why I’m asking.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“I know I’ve been pushing you out of your comfort zone.”

“Out of my comfort zone? It’s more like you’ve kidnapped my comfort zone and you’re holding it for ransom.”

“Let’s go back to The Presidio. Just you and me. No pressure. I won’t even make you dance.”

“What’s the point of that?”

“The point is, until you
start to see yourself the way other people see you, changing the way you look on the outside is meaningless.”

“I’d say it’s pretty meaningless, either way.”