Checked Out, page 10
She paused in the process of setting out flour and sugar and closed her eyes. With a focus she hadn’t felt for weeks, she concentrated on the moment when she’d called the woman at Interpol to make that appointment. Perhaps there was a remnant of her voice somewhere in her mind speaking to the contact, or the usual mental note she made after conversations and observations.
The old her would have been able to flick easily from note to note. Many were still there — the names of CIA agents and their idiosyncrasies, which email chain would move one report to the proper handling on the Homeland Security side of the ledger, who actually ran a CIA station when the chief was a political appointee and wouldn’t last. Her career had been one of knowing people and understanding how information moved, like a waystation.
She grew aware of a glow, as if someone had turned on a light inside her mind. The coin murmured gently, ::This is what I can do.::
It was easier to concentrate, and there were fewer dark corners for anything to hide. Why would this memory even want to hide?
Then.
Oh.
::That was it? You were asking about a job?::
“Apparently.” Her mind had tucked away the phone call because recalling it tugged open the feeling that had been buried behind bone aches, a bruised liver, cracked ribs, stitches, and the good/bad of pain pills. Prodding at any memory related to Paris brought back the memory of the explosion, and, as Dr. Shrink pointed out, she didn’t recall it, she relived it, which triggered post-traumatic stress. “Nothing earthshaking. I’d grown to hate my job. Well, damn.”
::This upsets you?::
“Dr. Shrink was right. I can’t go back to where I used to be — I don’t want to.” What had been a promising career had derailed after that poisonous election. New top dogs had started a purge, conducted through whispers. For several years she’d thought she’d had a run of bad luck when it came to assignments and a missed promotion. When she’d complained on the quiet to a colleague in another intelligence system, they’d casually delivered the reality she hadn’t wanted to accept.
“Haven’t you realized that people like you are being sidelined under this new guy? Some people who’ve been held in check have a neon green light for their paranoia and crazy. Everybody out here knows the Americans are cleaning house. You’re firing interpreters with twenty years in because they were born in one of those ‘shithole’ countries. I used to know six out queers in my line of communication, and you’re the last one. Family ties that were once considered part of your character and ties to your own homeland are now liabilities because hating each other is the priority,” he’d said.
Wondering how she’d managed to blind herself to the obvious sea change, she’d asked, “Like a civil servant mother in the diplomatic corps who’d worked for Clinton, then Bush, then Obama?”
“Like that. And let’s just say as light-skinned as you are, it’s not light enough for the new overlords’ purity standards.”
They’d only had to look into her jacket to find so many strikes against her. Diversity groups she’d joined, outreach in recruiting when asked, her own emails that had shared the department’s own Gay Pride and Black History Month events. Bit by bit, she’d become a glorified admin assistant, relaying documents and gossip, none of it of a serious nature. The pandemic had made it worse, freezing everyone in place and creating cracks in formerly smooth channels.
By the time saner leadership had made a very slow turn back, the damage to her trajectory had been done. She faced the unthinkable: a decade and a half of her life with little to show for it and the prospect of starting over or getting out. The contact at Interpol had been the right person to ask about opportunities without it getting around. No wonder she hadn’t made any notes on the appointment.
“I think I’ve been in my own way all this time. My boss isn’t holding his breath that I’ll come back as soon as possible. I’m a placeholder they probably want to leave because I have no upward mobility.”
::You can have so much more that’s just as important. Nations rise and fall. People live and die. But I know that love persists in the air, the water, the light, and all that it touches. It is never wasted.::
She’d chosen a meaningful path of service, like her mother and grandmother. The path had become a dead end, and she’d finally accepted it. She’d been ready to change her life. Now that she was finally feeling alive, wasn’t she still ready?
Peri looked down at the array of ingredients. With time and focus she had no doubt that she could produce a decent batch of sugar cookies. It was a week and a day until she had to share them at the Christmas Eve party.
She had the impression of amusement. ::Making cookies is very hard. So hard.::
“I need to be realistic about whether I can do this. Cookies, I mean.” She meant more than cookies.
::Absolutely.::
“I definitely need some help. From an expert.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. Three hours to wait until the library opened.
::By the way, it’s not my name, but you can call me Nomisma.::
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE POLITE TAP ON Lisette’s office door was, as usual, expected. They’d been open for five whole minutes and no one had yet. She glanced up with a greeting smile.
“Excuse me, ma’am? I have questions related to making cookies, and I was hoping you could help me by answering them completely.”
Her lips quivered at the effort not to laugh, and loudly. “I can direct you to our cookery section and help you find online resources, such as videos, to assist you.”
“I noted on the website that you have a service called Book-a-Librarian.”
“If you would like a librarian’s focused attention to help you find those resources, it’s available.”
Peri, looking rested and very casual in khaki slacks and a snug black turtleneck, approached Lisette’s desk. She set down a napkin with a misshapen blob on it. “I think I need more hands-on help than that.”
Lisette selected a pencil from the cup on her desk and poked the innocent little cookie that never hurt anyone and yet was so, so awful. “You’ve achieved something quite difficult here. Burned at the edges, raw in the middle. In fact, I’m not sure one morsel of this cookie is properly cooked. Are you sure you need help?”
“Oh, I need help.”
Her conversation with Sansa came back to Lisette. Thank goodness there was no sign of her today. Lisette thought of telling Peri to ask Sansa, or to refer her to one of the old-timers she knew who had time and would enjoy giving someone a cooking lesson in the service of Christmas cookies. There was an entire series of online beginner’s how-tos on chocolate chip cookies, free with a library card and taught by an actual culinary instructor.
She said none of those things, heaven help her. She was not a fling person, but what more could this be than a fling? It sure as hell wasn’t about cookies. “Have a seat, please. Well, for the sake of Sansa’s long tradition of excellence at the cookie exchange, I will be happy to assist you.”
There was genuine relief in Peri’s smile. “I’m truly grateful.”
“Wait until after the help to be grateful. There’s only one way to make good cookies, and that’s my way.”
Peri opened her mouth as if she would argue, then only asked, “What would work for you, in terms of schedule?”
Lisette checked her phone, flicking through the calendar days. “It’s Tuesday, let’s see, Friends of the Library thank-you tonight, staff event tomorrow night. I need to wrap my Secret Santa. Okay. Thursday is the big shopping trip with Sansa — so much butter. Let me know if you need anything.” She had never, in her entire life, spoken so quickly. “Friday night is the annual viewing of The Long Kiss Goodnight. Which is a Christmas movie. Sansa and I will put together the party favors for Christmas Eve and Chelsea will fangirl on Geena Davis because who doesn’t? I have a dinner meeting with the Rotary on Saturday. Sunday afternoon I want to go to the Unitarian Solstice concert, and of course that night is the Solstice Candle Lighting, which I never miss. You should come, it’s very peaceful. I was going to do my main baking on Monday night, cookie decorating Tuesday night, then stacking and presentation platter Wednesday afternoon right after the library closes early for Christmas Eve.”
She stumbled to a stop and finally looked up.
Peri had a dazed look in her eyes, and who could blame her? Lisette didn’t even know what she’d just said. She knew what she hadn’t done, which was answer the question about what schedule would work for her for a cookie baking lesson.
“Um, well, I wouldn’t want to disrupt your official baking schedule and spoil your chance at the coveted Silver Pinecone.”
“Sansa’s a stickler when it comes to judging. She’s such a dork about the holidays.”
“And you’re not?”
Lisette looked at Peri over the top of her glasses. “Let me guess. You hate the holidays.”
“I don’t hate them.”
“You don’t have an ugly Christmas sweater, do you?”
“No, though I am aware that that’s a thing.” With something like dread, she asked, “Are they required?”
“Not mandatory, no. But I will tell you that there are knitters in this town with legit Ugly Christmas sweater side hustles.”
“You’re making that up.”
“I’m not. Look, why don’t we do all of the baking together on Monday night? At my place because I don’t know for sure what the Frizells might have.”
“Perfect. I’ll bring the supplies I bought.” Peri held out her phone. “My deets, if you need to change plans or something.”
Lisette snapped a picture of the display and forbore to mention that she might have already looked it up in the patron database. Taking one of her cards, she wrote her home address and cell phone number on the back. “This is my info.”
She didn’t add, “It’s a date,” because there was a chance, a very slim one, that it really was about cookies.
But she didn’t think so.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ONE OF LISETTE’S EARLIEST memories was being wrapped so tight in a coat and two layers of pajamas that she could hardly move. The sharp tang of pine had tickled at her nose and her cheek had been nestled against the scratchy boiled wool of her mother’s cranberry-red winter peacoat — the same coat Lisette had chosen to wear tonight. Her mother had wrapped her soft knitted scarf so it encased them both, and she could hear her mother’s heartbeat.
It had been dark, very dark. And then it was light. Quiet, and then there was singing. Her mother had never missed the Solstice ceremony, though back when Lisette was a child it was always candles. Now she carried what looked like an old-fashioned hurricane lantern with a white candle inside, but it was battery-powered with an LED light.
She’d known that tonight would be the night she missed her father the most. His emails and pictures said he was having the time of his retired life traveling through Scotland. She didn’t begrudge him his travel, but she missed him nonetheless. Winter Solstice had been the time they’d acknowledged the hole left in both their lives by the loss of wife and mother.
It was a sharp, clear night with no moon to take away from the sparkling stars. With the quiet melodies from the afternoon concert still in her head, she used her phone as a flashlight to avoid mud slicks and lumps of ice left by plows.
Greetings were warm, but somber. There was time for merriment later. She supposed she wasn’t surprised to see Peri on the other side of the gathering. The purple cap she’d bought at the Market suited her, and for once the woman seemed well wrapped up with a scarf wound around her throat and lower jaw.
They exchanged nods. It was nearly eight o’clock. Glancing around the gathering circle she caught Sansa’s eye, then Chelsea’s. Mr. Taylor returned her nod — he was a pain in her hinder but never seemed to carry his conflict with the library’s collection policy into the rest of the world. She was pleased to see Jules with their boyfriend and other staff members with their families.
The Solstice celebrant was always from the Norcester Peaceniks and Do Gooders Union of Flower Children. Lisette knew Carmine — everybody did. He always wore a headdress of cedar and holly, and this year it added a foot to his six-foot height. Just as the clock at City Hall chimed for the eighth time, he cleared his throat. “Tonight we welcome the darkness and stand under the stars.”
The streetlamps surrounding the Green went out and one of the little kids giggled.
Maybe it was the combination of the dark, being among friends, and the faint tinkling of the ornament-laden fir tree as it moved in the wind. A year’s accumulation of words never shared and hugs never felt welled up, and hot tears cooled on her cheeks for those few quiet moments with only the stars to see. It was a conundrum that as she counted the six years her mother had been gone, she felt closer to her than ever. Love’s answer to grief, she supposed.
After a minute, Carmine broke the silence. “Into the dark and long night, we bring our light for our loved ones who are missed.”
A soft glow blossomed in front of him as he switched on a slender copper and bronze lantern and held it in front of him. “For my sister Claire. Stupid cancer.”
He nodded at the older man next to him, who lit a slender taper and sheltered the tiny flame with his hand. “For my buddy Lewis, Ninth Infantry.”
Around the circle the remembrances went. Lanterns, candles, and phone lights pushed back the dark. Parents, friends, children, siblings, young and old, in peace and war. Sansa named her older brother, who’d died just before she was born. Chelsea’s father had passed away last year, and she had difficulty saying his name.
When Peri’s turn came she turned on a small LED tea light and said clearly, “For Mary Belle my grandmother and Jacqueline my mother.”
Lisette pictured her mother’s understanding smile and let it calm her when the circle reached her. Clearly and easily she said, “My mother, Lisa.”
The circle finished as Carmine spread his arms as if to gather them all in a gigantic hug. “Children of Love, let’s do our best to honor our missing beloveds with our joyfully spread happiness at the return of the light.”
The flute and oboe duo who had been a staple of Solstice celebrations for the past decade launched into a playful “Here Comes the Sun.” The lights around the Green came on, and the goodies were uncovered at the long refreshment table.
Sansa and Chelsea were chatting with a deputy sheriff and her husband, and Lisette returned greetings from patrons as she drifted toward the urn of hot apple cider. Rusty, Carmine’s partner, happily accepted Lisette’s cash for the local food bank. Their headdress was a match to Carmine’s, and Lisette was treated to a regal bow when she complimented it.
The steam from the hot cider warmed her nose as she sipped. She could no longer resist the urge to look around for Peri and spotted her in the same place she’d been standing all along, lost in thought. Knowing that Peri had only a sister left for family, Lisette let her be for a while longer. Too, in her line of work, Peri might have a colleague who’d died. Or perhaps she was trying to make peace with the events that had injured her so severely.
Whatever it was, sometimes a person simply needed to be left alone. Besides, what had she thought would happen if they spoke?
She didn’t even try to answer the question. Instead, she heard Sansa’s question: “What would your mom have wanted for you?”
Before she could ponder the answer she realized that Peri was walking toward her. It can’t be that simple, she thought. Can it?
CHAPTER TWENTY
::IT’S NOT FOR ANOTHER hour. We could easily fit in another Wynona.:: Nomisma — who’d explained that the word simply meant “coin” in old Greek — could be very single-minded.
“There are only three left. Maybe we should ration.”
Nomisma seemed genuinely puzzled. ::This rationing is very odd. You have such short lives. Why would you delay anything?::
“I’m very aware that life can end in the blink of an eye. I think it’s in our nature to hope that it won’t.”
::But you can have Wynona today and Wynona tomorrow.::
“But I can only have the finale of Wynona for the very first time once.”
::All right. I see that there is a difference.::
They ended up watching an episode anyway because Peri was burning all her energy pacing.
When she finally arrived at the Village Green she’d seen Lisette approaching from the other side in a bright red jacket, white gloves, and knitted white hat — her clothes were cheerful even if her expression was pensive.
When the lights went out Peri relaxed, recalling other December solstices near the equator where the day and night were evenly divided, and a stint in South Africa where it was Summer Solstice today. Maybe all the travel in her teens as her mother moved around the world was why she’d never felt the attachment to the white Christmas trappings. Her grandmother had kept Christmas with a special supper, church, and gifts on Christmas Eve, and volunteering to make and serve food for the less fortunate on Christmas itself.
In spite of her grandmother’s attempts, Baptist faith had never stuck, and all these years later she’d seen the damage done by the idea that someone had to be right about religion. When it came right down to it, Nature would have the final word.
She’d never trusted in divine intervention or magic. But now she had a coin in her pocket that made a compelling case that divinity did exist, though perhaps not in any form people understood. The dark of night, she mused. A time for metaphysics and wondering if her nose would ever feel warm again.
The tall man who’d convened the event spoke into the darkness and a small light shone out. Dark no more.
Nomisma spoke to her, quiet and low, with an edge of some strong feeling Peri hadn’t sensed from the coin before. ::The acolytes of Artemis would do such as this. The dark of mourning was broken by the bonfires of the dead.::
