Page 94 of Twilight at Croftwood Library
‘But all of that aside, what do you think you can bring to us?’
‘The past few months have made me realise how libraries can bring the community together and make a difference. I’d love to be involved in setting up some initiatives to broaden the library’s offer beyond day-to-day lending.’ If she could do something here along the lines of what she’d done at Croftwood, it might be so perfect that the pay cut and the possibility of having to live somewhere dingy could be worth it.
‘Lois, I love the enthusiasm you have for reaching out to the community. I guess it’s slightly different here than with municipal libraries.’ She gave that sympathetic smile again as if Lois had no idea how anything worked. ‘We are a paid membership service and we don’t do community outreach in the same way as you’ve been used to.’
‘I think it would be great for your members if they could get some added benefits to their membership in the form of genre-specific book clubs, maybe specialist talks from academics on current interest topics.’ Lois was determined to make Georgie see that she would be perfect for the job even though she was starting to think it wasn’t the right move for her after all.
’Some of the things you are talking about could be paid-for extras,’ said Georgie. Lois could see the pound signs in her eyes. ‘Do you have any business experience, Lois?’
‘Coming up with any initiative is about business, whether or not someone’s paying for it. It’s good business for me to get more footfall into Croftwood Library so anything we do that makes that happen is good business sense.’ Lois was hitting her stride now. She felt quite strongly that Georgie and the library, beautiful as it was, were not for her and now she knew that, her confidence came streaming back to the surface. ‘The date-with-a-book club that we started has made a huge difference to two of the coffee shops in our town and that wasn’t even the intention.’
‘Hmm,’ said Georgie with a dismissive edge to her voice. ‘Well, I’m not sure that kind of initiative would be what our members are looking for anyway. They’re very discerning.’
Georgie’s superior attitude was grating on Lois and was almost certainly what led to Lois saying, ‘Thank you for your time, but I’d like to withdraw my application. I’ve heard about another position which I’ve decided to accept.’ Lois stood up and held out her hand towards a flustered Georgie.
‘Oh, right,’ she blustered. ‘Um, well thank you. And if you change your mind, do get in touch.’ Her demeanour changed suddenly. ‘The library director was keen to get you on board.’
And now Lois had Georgie on the back foot because she was supposed to have been attracting her to the job that she was over-qualified and over-experienced for and instead had succeeded in alienating her because… Lois didn’t have the first idea why.
‘Well, I’m sorry that you didn’t feel that I would be a good fit. No hard feelings.’
Georgie just stood there with her mouth open, but Lois wasn’t in the mood to try and alleviate the awkwardness because, having finally realised what she wanted, she was leaving.
She still loved the thought of working in the London Library, but it wasn’t what she wanted because what she wanted was in Croftwood. She wanted Oliver and wherever he was, that was where she wanted to be. She hoped it wasn’t too late to beg David for the job at Croftwood Library. She knew that Linda was filling in as a favour to her until they could find someone else, so she hoped they hadn’t found anyone yet.
Rather than rushing back to Paddington, she strolled along the streets, enjoying the bright, cold day and the feeling of not having anything pressing to do. Now that she had decided what she wanted, she felt happier than she had since the night of the awards and she knew, she hoped, that there was a lot more of that feeling to come.
51
Lois hadn’t seen or spoken to Oliver since before she went to London. Part of her had wanted to throw herself into his arms once she’d made up her mind to stay in Croftwood but another tiny part of her was scared that he had changed his mind again over something else, and he would deem her less important again. She needed to see the whites of his eyes before she declared herself, so she kept to the tentative plan they’d made to see each other at the next date-with-a-book club.
Linda and Rosemary had insisted that this book club was to be a celebration of the reprieve for Croftwood Library as well as the celebration of the award win they’d always planned. Patsy had insisted that they hold the event at Croftwood Cinema since it could easily hold more than Oliver’s and the Courtyard Café put together. She had programmed a rare night where they wouldn’t be showing a film so that they’d have the run of the place.
When Lois arrived in Croftwood, she locked her bike up outside the church and walked through the park to the cinema. The woman who was manning the door smiled at her and directed her through the auditorium doors towards a door at the side of the screen. The stalls were empty, the lighting soft, and Lois could hear chatter and laughter coming from the backstage area.
‘Lois!’ Linda exclaimed when she walked in, as if she hadn’t been expecting her.
‘This is amazing!’ There were so many fairy lights strung across the ceiling, that’s all that was lighting the space and it was beautiful. The mirrored shelves behind the bar reflected the twinkling lights and made everything look more magical.
Patsy and Oliver were behind the bar serving drinks and Patsy gave her a wave and then nudged Oliver. He looked up and seeing it was Lois, came out from behind the bar.
‘You made it,’ he said, looking at Lois in a way that made her melt. It was okay, he still felt the same.
‘She did, and with good reason,’ said Rosemary, appearing next to him. ‘You can’t miss out on our big celebration of the win, Lois. If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t have a book club and Croftwood Library would be gone in a few weeks.’
‘It was all of us,’ said Lois. ‘
‘Hey, Lois!’ called Steph from a table she was sharing with Tom at the back of the coffee house, ‘Get over here!’
Lois headed over to them, accepting congratulations from some of the regulars as she made her way between the tables.
‘So, you’re really doing it?’ asked Steph.
Lois nodded. ‘I’m so nervous. Do you think he’s going to be okay with it all?’
‘I have a feeling he’d be okay with anything you wanted,’ said Tom.
Lois was surprised that Tom weighed in but was glad that he and Steph had the kind of relationship where they took an interest in each other’s lives and friends. None of her other boyfriends would have been like that.
