Page 65 of Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Book
Melody had been dating Randy for two years when her mother mercifully passed away. He’d recently graduated from Texas A&M and was eager to return home to Georgia, where a job in the family business was waiting. He promised to pay her mother’s funeral expenses if Melody agreed to drop out of school and marry him. If she’d taken any part of her mother’s warning to heart, that gesture—along with a three-carat princess-cut diamond set in platinum—set her mind at ease. Once they were married and back in Troy, Melody breathed a sigh of relief. She missed school, but she didn’t miss the stress of hiding the fact that she’d always been good at it. Randy couldn’t stand it when her grades were better than his.
For the next sixteen years, Melody never questioned whether she’d made the right choice. She and Randy had two sons, a beautiful home with a pool in the backyard, and brand-new cars in the drive. His family was prominent throughout the state, and once Randy became mayor, they were Troy royalty. There wasn’t a book club, fundraiser, or women’s committee that Melody wasn’t asked to join. If there was a list, no one dared leave her off it.
Then, in the course of a single day, the beautiful world Melody had built was blown to smithereens.
Of course, none of it had anything to do with Melody.Nothing!She hadn’t even been living in the state of Georgia when Randy and his friends allegedly assaulted that girl.Hecertainly never mentioned it. And even though it was now pretty clear that everyone in town knew all about the night in question, no one had ever bothered to tell her. Melody felt like the butt of a very bad joke. The victim of a dark conspiracy. An innocent bystander caught up in a terrible crime. And for the very first time, she understood what her mother had been trying to tell her. Giving a marriage everything you’ve got means one day you could be left with nothing.
Since Randy resigned and took off to the mountains, her friends’ lives had all gotten impossibly busy. No one had time for morning power walks or afternoon coffee anymore. She saw people duck around aisles in the Piggly Wiggly when they spotted her coming. That horrible hypocrite Lula Dean had briefly gone so far as to suggest she was no longer welcome at Concerned Parents Committee meetings. And just to add insult to injury, a frumpy woman at church whose name she’d never bothered to remember informed her their prayer group was holding Melody in the light.
Every evening, Melody got down on her knees to pray for justice. She called out to the Lord and begged him to punish her husband and restore her rightful position in town. But it seemed even Jesus was ignoring her.
So she decided to take matters into her own hands. It was Lula who’d inspired her plan to poison Randy. Everyone in Troy knew Lula had gotten millions in life insurance when her husband kicked the bucket at a suspiciously young age. One little mushroom could have solved all of Melody’s problems in one fell swoop. Then nosy Mara Ocumma had seen her reading that field guide and threatened to rat her out. It wouldn’t have been difficult to get rid of Mara, too. She was always eating weird stuff that she’d found in the woods. No one would have suspected a thing if a death cap had found its way into her sandwich. But no matter how angry she was, Melody had to admit that killing off a librarian was a step too far.
She had no choice but to suck it up. She paid Lula a visit, begged for her permission to stay on the CPC, and offered to bake the cupcakes for the Confederate hero rally. She even presented Lula with a sample cupcake complete with hand-piped Dixie flags. Of course Lula had acted as if she was doing Melody a giant favor. Melody had plunged to the bottom of the social ladder, and Lula made it clear she’d be staying there.
Melody went home that afternoon knowing for sure that the good Lord had closed a door on the life she’d once led. Then he decided to open a window.
It took less than three days for Lula’s star to fall. Her rally was an utter disaster. People were suddenly asking questions about her cozy relationship to Logan Walsh and Nathan Dugan. And then a teacher at the high school had accused Lula of filling her little library with the very books she’d banned. People started swarming the little library at eight o’clock in the morning. Standing by her bedroom window across the street, Melody had eavesdropped on the outrage and giggled at the consternation. Lula couldn’t have switched the books. Anyone with a functioning brain would have known it was some kid pulling a prank. But that didn’t stop the Facebook posts calling for Lula to step down from the mayor’s race.
Melody would have had to be blind to miss the opportunity in front of her. She’d been offered a chance to settle every score. To put Lula back in her place. To give that busybody librarian her comeuppance. To get rid of Randy without resorting to murder. To have a career that wouldn’t require a college diploma—or any education whatsoever. Melody Sykes was going to run for mayor. It was a job for which she was uniquely suited. She’d already been doing it for years.
Now that Beverly Underwood had gone woke and Lula Dean had been exposed as a Nazi-loving hypocrite, there would be plenty of votes for a compassionate conservative. Someone who wouldn’t tear down the town’s historical monuments but might add a new plaque to appease the ever-growing Wainwright family. Someone who would protect children from pornography and the gay agenda—without stepping on adults’ freedom to read about butt plugs. Someone who would divorce their husband to show solidarity with victims of violence and could lean on her impeccable credentials as a churchgoing mother of two.
It was time to get to work. Holding her adorable ten-year-old son by the hand, Melody walked across the street to Lula’s and took a place beside thelittle purple library. The crowd that had been gathering all morning in front of the little library fell silent. Melody bit the inside of her lip until she felt tears well in her eyes. She’d discovered the trick back in elementary school. It always worked like a charm.
“I don’t know about you, but I feel betrayed,” she told her fellow townsfolk. “Even though I didn’t agree with all of her choices, I trusted that Lula had this town’s best interests in mind.”
She squeezed little Beau’s hand. “Y’all know that my boys and I have had some trouble. While I was busy trying to save our family, my youngest asked if he could borrow a book from Lula’s little library. I didn’t see any reason to say no! I trusted her heart and thought I knew her soul. But after her deceptions came to light, I took a closer look at the book Beau had borrowed. This was wrapped in a different cover.” She held upAre You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.“It was on the banned book list, and Lula Dean had it in her library, just waiting for an impressionable child to find it. That child turned out to be my little boy.”
“Umm, excuse me, Melody,” Crystal Moore interjected. “I think your son has a question.”
Melody glanced down and saw Beau standing patiently with his right hand raised. “Yes?” she asked him, feeling a little flustered. This wasn’t something they’d planned. In fact, she’d made a point of telling him to stay quiet while she gave her speech.
“Why was the book banned?”
Melody forced herself to smile sweetly. “It deals with subjects that aren’t suitable for children your age.”
“Have you read it?” Beau wasn’t talking back. There was no challenge in the question. He simply wanted to know.
Melody had devoured the book over the course of two summer afternoons when she was eleven years old. She could still remember the blast of cool air that had greeted her when she entered the library. The little Styrofoam beads that popped out of the tiny rip in her beanbag’s seams.The warm, woody smell of the paper as she turned the page. The thrill of reading a book that spoke of serious things and treated her like a person with a brain.
“Who here has readAre You There God? It’s Me, Margaret?” A voice called out from the crowd. Mara Ocumma stepped forward with her hand held high. A few hands rose behind her, followed by even more, until almost every woman around had her hand in the air.
Beau looked up at Melody. “Does that mean they all read it?” he asked again.
He’d gotten her into a tight spot. Melody could hardly say no. “Yes,” she admitted.
“We all read that book when we were your age,” Mara told him. “I loved every page of it.”
Melody stared daggers at Mara. This was her revenge for their talk at the library.
“Did you read it, too?” Beau asked Melody.
“I did,” she admitted.
“What about it isn’t good for kids?”
Melody scrambled for an answer. “You’re a boy, sweetheart. You don’t need to be reading about girls’ bodies.”
