He could hear Ms Lortz moving about in the room behind the checkout desk, and he looked around thoughtfully. There was nothing to see except books -there was not even one old pensioner reading the paper or leafing through a magazine. It seemed odd. He wouldn't have expected a small-town library like this to be doing a booming business on a weekday afternoon, but no one at all?
Well, there was Mr Peckham, he thought, but he finished the paper and went home. Dreadfully thin paper on Friday, you know. Thin dust, too. And then he realized he only had the word of Ms Lortz that a Mr Peckham had ever been here at all.
True enough - but why would she lie?
He didn't know, and doubted very much that she had, but the fact that he was questioning the honesty of a sweet-faced woman he had just met highlighted the central puzzling fact of this meeting: he didn't like her. Sweet face or not, he didn't like her one bit.
It's the posters. You were prepared not to like ANYBODY that would put up posters like that in a children's reading room. But it doesn't matter, because a side-trip is all it is. Get the books and get out.
He shifted on the bench, looked up, and saw a motto on the walclass="underline"
If you would know how a man treats his wife and his children, see how he treats his books.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sam didn't care much for that little homily, either. He didn't know exactly why . . . except that maybe he thought a man, even a bookworm, might be expected to treat his family a little better than his reading matter. The motto, painted in gold leaf on a length of varnished oak, glared down at him nevertheless, seeming to suggest he better think again.
Before he could, Ms Lortz returned, lifting a gate in the checkout desk, stepping through it, and lowering it neatly behind her again.
'I think I've got what you need,' she said cheerfuly. 'I hope you'll agree.'
She handed him two books. One was The Speaker's Companion, edited by Kent Adelmen, and the other was Best Loved Poems of the American People. The contents of this latter book, according to the jacket (which was, in its turn, protected by a tough plastic overjacket), had not been edited, exactly, but selected by one Hazel Felleman. 'Poems of life!' the jacket promised. 'Poems of home and mother! Poems of laughter and whimsey! The poems most frequently asked for by the readers of the New York Times Book Review!' It further advised that Hazel Felleman 'has been able to keep her finger on the poetry pulse of the American people.'
Sam looked at her with some doubt, and she read his mind effortlessly.
'Yes, I know, they look old-fashioned,' she said. 'Especially nowadays, when self-help books are all the rage. I imagine if you went to one of the chain bookstores in the Cedar Rapids mall, you could find a dozen books designed to help the beginning public speaker. But none of them would be as good as these, Sam. I really believe these are the best helps there are for men and women who are new to the art of public speaking.'
'Amateurs, in other words,' Sam said, grinning.
'Well, yes. Take Best Loved Poems, for instance. The second section of the book - it begins on page sixtyfive, if memory serves - is called "Inspiration". You can almost surely find something there which will make a suitable climax to your little talk, Sam. And you're apt to find that your listeners will remember a well-chosen verse even if they forget everything else. Especially if they're a little-'
'Drunk,' he said.
'Tight was the word I would have used,' she said with gentle reproof, 'although I suppose you know them better than I do.' But the gaze she shot at him suggested that she was only saying this because she was polite.
She held up The Speaker's Companion. The jacket was a cartoonist's drawing of a bunting-draped hall. Small groups of men in old-fashioned evening dress were seated at tables with drinks in front of them. They were all yucking it up. The man behind the podium - also in evening dress and clearly the after-dinner speaker - was grinning triumphantly down at them. It was clear he was a roaring success.
'There's a section at the beginning on the theory of after-dinner speeches,' said Ms Lortz, 'but since you don't strike me as the sort of man who wants to make a career out of this - '
'You've got that right,' Sam agreed fervently.
'- I suggest you go directly to the middle section, which is called "Lively Speaking." There you will find jokes and stories divided into three categories: "Easing Them In," "Softening Them Up," and "Finishing Them Off."
Sounds like a manual for gigolos, Sam thought but did not say.
She read his mind again. 'A little suggestive, I suppose - but these books were published in a simpler, more innocent time. The late thirties, to be exact.'
'Much more innocent, right,' Sam said, thinking of deserted dust-bowl farms, little girls in flour-sack dresses, and rusty, thrown-together Hoovervilles surrounded by police wielding truncheons.
'But both books still work,' she said, tapping them for emphasis, 'and that's the important thing in business, isn't it, Sam? Results?'
'Yes ... I guess it is.'
He looked at her thoughtfully, and Ms Lortz raised her eyebrows - a trifle defensively, perhaps. 'A penny for your thoughts,' she said.
'I was thinking that this has been a fairly rare occurrence in my adult life,' he said. 'Not unheard-of, nothing like that, but rare. I came in here to get a couple of books to liven up my speech, and you seem to have given me exactly what I came for. How often does something like that happen in a world where you usually can't even get a couple of good lambchops at the grocery store when you've got your face fixed for them?' She smiled. It appeared to be a smile of genuine pleasure . . . except Sam noticed once again that her eyes did not smile. He didn't think they had changed expression since he had first come upon her - or she upon him - in the Children's Library. They just went on watching. 'I think I've just been paid a compliment!'
'Yes, ma'am. You have.'
'I thank you, Sam. I thank you very kindly. They say flattery will get you everywhere, but I'm afraid I'm still going to have to ask you for two dollars.'
'You are?'
'That's the charge for issuing an adult library card,' she said, 'but it's good for three years, and renewal is only fifty cents. Now, is that a deal, or what?'
'It sounds fine to me.'
'Then step right this way,' she said, and Sam followed her to the checkout desk.
3
She gave him a card to fill out - on it he wrote his name, address, telephone numbers, and place of business.
'I see you live on Kelton Avenue. Nice!'
'Well, I like it.'
'The houses are lovely and big - you should be married.'
He started a little. 'How did you know I wasn't married?'
'The same way you knew I wasn't,' she said. Her smile had become a trifle sly, a trifle catlike. 'Nothing on the third left.'