‘Take what back? It’s the damn truth.’
‘Izzy, I’m sorry,’ said Alice, after a moment. ‘It – it really was an accident. Look, I’ll see if I can find someone to fix it over the weekend.’
‘You didn’t need to be mean, Beth Pinker.’
‘Shoot. Your skin’s thinner than a dragonfly’s wing.’
‘Can you two stop bickering and enter your books? I’d like to be out of here by midnight.’
‘I can’t enter mine because you haven’t done yours, and if I bring my books over we’re just going to get those mixed up with the ones by your feet.’
‘The books by my feet, Izzy Brady, are the ones you left yesterday because you couldn’t be bothered to shelve them.’
‘I told you Mother had to pick me up early so she could get to her quilting circle!’
‘Oh, well. We can’t get in the way of a damn quilting circle, can we?’
Their voices had reached a pitch. Beth eyed Izzy from the corner of the room, where she had just emptied her own saddlebags, along with a lunch pail and an empty lemonade bottle.
‘Ah, shucks. You know what we need?’
‘What?’ said Izzy, suspiciously.
‘We need to let our hair down a little. We’re all work and no play.’ She grinned. ‘I think we need to have us a meeting.’
‘We’re having a meeting,’ said Margery.
‘Not this kind of meeting.’ Beth strode past them, stepping neatly over the books. She opened the door and stepped outside, where her little brother was sitting on the steps, waiting. The women occasionally bought Bryn a poke of candies in return for running errands, and he looked up hopefully. ‘Bryn, go tell Mr Van Cleve that Alice here has to stay late for a meeting on library policy and that we’ll walk her home when we’re done. Then head over to Mrs Brady’s and tell her the same – actually, don’t tell her it’s library policy. She’ll be down here faster than you can say Mrs Lena B. Nofcier. Tell her … tell her we’re cleaning our saddles. Then you tell Mama the same thing, and I’ll buy you a twist of Tootsie Rolls.’
Margery narrowed her eyes. ‘This had better not be –’
‘I’ll be right back. And, hey – Bryn? Bryn! You tell Daddy I was smoking and I’ll rip your damn ears off, one after the other. You hear me?’
‘What is going on?’ said Alice, as they heard Beth’s footsteps disappear down the road.
‘I could ask the same thing,’ said a voice.
Margery looked up to see Sophia standing in the doorway, her hands clasped together and her bag tucked under her arm. One eyebrow rose at the sight of the chaos. ‘Oh, my days. You said it was bad. You didn’t tell me I was going to want to run screaming back to Louisville.’
Alice and Izzy stared at the tall woman in the immaculate blue dress. Sophia looked back at them. ‘Well, I don’t know why you all are just sitting there catching flies. You should be working!’ Sophia put down her bag and untied her scarf. ‘I told William, and I’ll tell you. I’ll work the evenings, and I’ll do it with the door bolted, so nobody’s going to get aerated about me being here. Those are my terms. And I want the wage we discussed.’
‘Fine by me,’ said Margery.
The two younger women, bemused, turned and looked at Margery. Margery smiled. ‘Izzy, Alice, this is Miss Sophia. This is our fifth librarian.’
Sophia Kenworth, Margery advised them as they began to get to grips with the stacks of books, had spent eight years at the coloured library in Louisville, in a building so large that it had divided its books not just into sections but into whole floors. It served professors, lecturers from Kentucky State University, and had a system of professionally produced cards and stamps that would be used to leave date marks when anything came in and out. Sophia had undergone formal training, and an apprenticeship, and her job had only come to an end when her mother died and William had had his accident within three short months of each other, forcing her to leave Louisville to look after him.
‘That’s what we need here,’ Sophia said, as she sifted through the books, lifting each to examine its spine. ‘We need systems. You leave it with me.’
An hour later the library doors were bolted, most of the books were off the floor and Sophia was whisking through the pages of the ledger, making soft sounds of disapproval. Beth, meanwhile, had returned and was now holding a large Mason jar of coloured liquid under Alice’s nose.
‘I don’t know …’ Alice said.
‘Just sip it. Go on. It’s not going to kill you. It’s Apple Pie moonshine.’
Alice looked at Margery, who had already declined. Nobody seemed surprised that Margery didn’t drink moonshine.
Alice raised the jar to her lips, hesitated, and lost her nerve again. ‘What’s going to happen if I go home drunk?’
‘Well, I guess you’ll go home drunk,’ said Beth.
‘I don’t know … Can’t someone else try it first?’
‘Well, Izzy ain’t going to, is she?’
‘Says who?’ said Izzy.
‘Oh, boy. Here we go,’ said Beth, laughing. She took the jar from Alice’s hands and passed it to Izzy. With an impish grin, Izzy took the jar in two hands and raised it to her mouth. She took a swig, coughing and spluttering, her eyes widening as she tried to hand the jar back. ‘You’re not meant to be glugging it!’ said Beth, and took a small sip. ‘You drink like that and you’ll be blind by Tuesday.’
‘Give it here,’ said Alice. She looked down at the contents and took a breath.
You are too impulsive, Alice.
She took a sip, feeling the alcohol burn a mercury path down her throat. She clamped her eyes shut, waiting for them to stop watering. It was actually delicious.
‘Good?’ Beth’s mischievous eyes were on her when she opened them again.
She nodded mutely, and swallowed. ‘Surprisingly,’ she croaked. ‘Yes. Let me have another.’
Something shifted in Alice that evening. She was tired of the eyes of the town on her, sick of being monitored and talked about and judged. She was sick of being married to a man whom everyone else thought was the Good Lord Almighty and who could barely bring himself to look at her.
Alice had come halfway across the world to find that, yet again, she was considered wanting. Well, she thought, if that was what everyone thought, she might as well live up to it.
She took another sip, and then another, batting away Beth’s hands when she shouted, ‘Steady now, girl.’ She felt, she told them, when she finally handed it back, pleasantly squiffy.
‘Pleasantly squiffy!’ Beth mimicked, and the girls fell about laughing. Margery smiled, despite herself.
‘Well, I have no idea what kind of library this is,’ said Sophia, from the corner.
‘They just need to let off steam, is all,’ said Margery. ‘They’ve been working hard.’
‘We have been working hard! And now we need music!’ said Beth, holding up a hand. ‘Let’s fetch Mr Guisler’s gramophone. He’ll lend it to us.’
Margery shook her head. ‘Leave Fred out of it. He doesn’t need to see this.’
‘You mean he doesn’t need to see Alice all inebriated,’ said Beth, slyly.
‘What?’ Alice looked up.
‘Don’t tease her,’ said Margery. ‘She’s married, anyway.’
‘In theory,’ muttered Alice, who was having trouble focusing.
‘Yeah. Just be like Margery and do what you want when you want.’ Beth looked sideways at her. ‘With who you want.’
‘You want me to be ashamed of how I live my life, Beth Pinker? Because you’ll be waiting halfway to the heavens falling down.’
‘Hey,’ said Beth. ‘If I had a man as handsome as Sven Gustavsson come a-courting me, I’d have a ring on my finger so fast he wouldn’t even know how he’d found himself at church. You want to take a bite out of the apple before you put it in the basket, that’s up to you. Just make sure you keep hold of the basket.’
‘What if I don’t want a basket?’