#treasure couple

[laislandblog]

🈸️⠀⻡ ⠀߸⠀⠀𖥻⠀𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐡⠀﹆ ♥︎ 🚃 ─

🎋︭︭︭︭ꗄ 𓂅⠀𝚕𝚒︭𝚔𝚎︭ 𝚘𝚛 𝚛𝚎︭𝚋𝚕𝚘︭𝚐 ⭛ 豈 〽️ ➬

aes ⨾ tae ▭ 🚟 𝟵𝟱 𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆︭ ◕ 🉐️ ✧ ៸៸ ⬩﹫𝘄𝗲𝗯

[laislandblog]

🈸️⠀⻡ ⠀߸⠀⠀𖥻⠀𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐡⠀﹆ ♥︎ 🚃 ─ 🎋︭︭︭︭ꗄ 𓂅⠀𝚕𝚒︭𝚔𝚎︭ 𝚘𝚛 𝚛𝚎︭𝚋𝚕𝚘︭𝚐 ⭛ 豈 〽️ ➬aes ⨾ tae ▭ 🚟 𝟵𝟱 𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆︭ ◕ 🉐️ ✧ ៸៸ ⬩﹫𝘄𝗲𝗯

[laislandblog]

╮ꕀ╭♥︎╮ꕀ╭╮@wootaxortofu ╭┄᠁┄┄᠁┄╯┄᠁┄┄᠁╮

╰┄ꕀ┄┄ꕀ┄ ⌕ ¡cons soft : ᘎ

┊ 홪 ៸៸ autoral よ໑ ﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

┊⚝➥ vsco ✕ effect 가 treasure

𖧷

[bannedlibrary]

Day Off and On

The alcohol soaked charcoal briquettes and cedar chips waited for the match. I had the box in my hand and dragged it across the cover creating a bright spark when the phone rang.

I looked toward the little cell phone and thought about throwing it into the woods behind the house. But Ashley might be in trouble at the library or the world might be ending. If it was the latter I would rather watch the Earth burn with a juicy hamburger.

“Hello,” I said.

“Boss, you’re late.”

“Ash, how nice of you to call. Having a fine day off, sure. Getting ready for a busy weekend, you bet. Relaxing. I canceled my appointments because of the book sale this weekend.”

“The whole of them are up in the meeting room right now and they’ve been there almost an hour. I ain’t got no more biscuits to give them. When are you getting here?”

“Who?”

“The Board of Directors,” she said.

“That meeting was moved to next week.”

“They don’t seem to think so.”

“All of them are there?”

“Yep. Every last one except Tyne Johnson, but he died last week. He comes in here you can find yourself a new circulation librarian.”

“Crap. Hold them off for a bit. I’ll jump in the shower and be on my way.”

I hung up and looked down at the hamburger patties, ready and willing, marinated and ready to be set to fire. I sighed and picked them up, walking to the house.

A shower and a short drive later and I pulled in the library parking lot. Not a lot of cars around on a Thursday afternoon, but I spotted a Mercedes, a Jag, and a few of the blue and white propellers of the BMW. The Board had come.

I opened the door to the first floor, coming in the front entrance rather than the staff door. I could see the meeting rooms and the little old round heads and big hair-dos behind the frosted glass.

Ashley was not at the circulation desk as I walked by, but the soccer mom in a yellow polo holding the hand of a child was. The mom’s blond ponytail bobbed and weaved as the child jerked her arm back and forth. Her other hand pulled book after book from a bag.

“I need you to check these in, Evan,” the soccer mom said. Shit, I was supposed to know her name.

“Sure,” I said. I cast a glance at the meeting room and the vultures continued to roost.

“These all need to go in,” she was saying, her hand on one pile. She moved her hand, saying “And these are going out.” Explaining it like I’m her little pile of ADHD giving her arm socket a run for its money.

I scanned all the books in the first pile and looked at her. She looked back.

“Oh, I don’t have my library card.”

The child attached to her wavy arm screamed as a man walked behind them with a cake three feet long, white and red. I knew the guy, one of our transients. Was he delivering cake to to Board?

I looked up their account using the books they returned and checked out the second pile to them. The receipt turned out and she shoved the books in those little tote bags they sell in Wal-Mart to save the planet from all the evil bastards who make paper and plastic. I thanked them and followed the man with the cake.

It had strawberries on it, now that I could see the top. Red icing in swirls on a white field. The cake itself was pink with chunks of strawberry. I know because he was eating it.

“Sorry, sir, but you can’t eat in the library.”

“Ain’t got no place to eat it. Take it back to the shelter, I gotta share.” He put his hand back in the cake and tore off a piece of the moist confection. “Want some?”

“Man, not today, okay? Why don’t you just take it around the side of the building to the court yard.”

“The birds gonna try for it out there. Almost got me twice.” He took a bite of the pile of cake and icing in his hand and smiled.

“Sorry. Outside. Before I have to ask the police if they want some.”

He scowled and lifted the large platter up. I wondered where he got it.

“Excuse me,” an old woman said from the nonfiction shelves. “We’re looking for buried treasure.”

She stood with her partner, both of them holding metal detectors. The made an interesting pair.

“Not sure you’ll find it here,” I said.

The frowned at me. “Not actual treasure here. We need a book on how to work these damn things,” she shook the detector, “and where the sunken ships are.”

I lead them to the books on technology and found one with metal detectors in it. Didn’t have the model they had, but the theory worked.

“What about the books about where the sunken treasure is?” the man asked.

“Don’t think we have those. Never seen any, probably because if there was one someone would steal it for the treasure.”

“We didn’t think of that.”

I nodded sagely and lead them to the section on hidden mysteries of the depths and then to nautical history of the Caribbean. The library has everything.

I walked into the board meeting and the greeted me with strained smiles. I apologized for my tardiness and thanked them for coming.

“We just needed to talk about the fountain,” Mrs. Baker said. “Something needs to be done about the fountain.”

“Mrs. Baker, we don’t have a fountain.”

“Exactly.”

The rest of my day off was spent arguing for books. A riser for the children’s department. A new computer for the circulation desk. Fumigation for the bats in the roof. Anything but a goddamn fountain with their names on it.

We start construction in a month.