Page 60 of It'll Always Be Her

Though Adam wasn’t a picky eater in the least, his roast beef on a soggy roll was no longer all that appealing.

“Do you always make such fancy dinners?” he asked.

“Fancy?” Bee looked at her meal in mild surprise. “This is more like a picnic lunch.”

“But it’s very…organized.”

“You have to like order to be a librarian.” She took a spoon from the basket and dipped it into the soup. “In the places where I grew up, there sometimes wasn’t a lot of food. So I learned I could make it last longer if I divided it into portions and arranged them nicely.”

Adam’s chest constricted at the thought of her as a girl with not enough food to eat. “You mean the foster homes?”

She nodded. A faint shadow darkened her eyes. “Sometimes it was because the family just didn’t have a lot, but most of the time, they gave me a certain ration and no more. Then once, when I was maybe seven or eight, a girl at school invited me to a birthday party, and her mother took us to a hotel restaurant for a proper Victorian high tea.”

She gave a small laugh, her expression softening. “I might have been at Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, I was so astonished. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen—china plates, silver teapots, tiered trays filled with mini quiches, scones, chocolates, and little sandwiches. So after that, I started figuring out ways to arrange my food and make it as pretty and appealing as possible. It became a habit, I guess. Even after I was on my own and able to afford my own groceries, I liked having a lot of food in small, pretty portions. Still do, obviously. You’re dripping.”

Adam startled, realizing he’d been so captivated by her story that he’d forgotten about his sandwich. The sauce was dripping down his arm. He fumbled in the bag for a crushed paper napkin before Bee handed him a cloth one from her basket.

“Thanks.” He wiped up the sauce. “That had to have been a tough way to grow up.”

“It was, though honestly, I didn’t know any other way.” She began unwrapping one of the cheese wedges. “But it always seemed like everyone else had what I wanted—which was a home and a happy family. I knew they weren’t all idyllic, but it felt that way. So I developed a lot of little strategies for dealing with it, most of which involved making up stories about my parents. They both died in a car accident when I was five, but I pretended they were explorers or pirates or astronauts. And I escaped into books, of course. I spent a lot of time at libraries, which is likely no surprise.”

Adam shook his head. He’d figured she’d been a bookworm as a girl, but he hadn’t realized the depths of her layers. All the things that made BeeBee.

He liked the way she talked about her past in a matter-of-fact way and without any self-pity. She’d been dealt a hand, and she’d played it as best she could. He couldn’t say he’d done the same thing.

“So how did you end up in Bliss Cove?” He bit into his sandwich.

“After I aged out of foster care, I got a job and went to community college.” Bee spooned up another bite of soup. “The best thing about my social worker was that she constantly stressed the importance of education, and I knew that school would be my main road to independence. After a few years of community college, I transferred to San Jose State and majored in library sciences. Right before graduation, I saw the job posting for an assistant at the Bliss Cove Library. I gave it a shot and was hired. I assumed I’d move on at some point, but the head librarian retired shortly after I arrived, and she recommended me for the position. So here I am, four years later.”

“Do you still think you’ll move on?” Adam asked.

“I don’t know.” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “If the Media and Tech Center takes over, then I won’t have a choice. Marilyn has already said they’re looking for tech-savvy information specialists to run the center, and I’m not at all qualified. So if…”

Her voice trailed off.

Adam felt his jaw tightening. He grabbed his soda and took a long gulp. He knew what she was about to say.If the library closes, I might have to leave.

But she didn’t say it because she didn’t want him to think she was looking for pity. Especially not from him.

“So what about you?” She nibbled on a sesame cracker. “Did you always know you wanted to be a scientist?”

“I guess so.” He’d never really given his trajectory much thought. “My parents both come from families entrenched in the science or medical fields. So it was a given that my sister and I would follow the same track.”

She looked faintly surprised. “But did you want to?”

He had no idea. Had he even had a choice? “Well, I liked science. I was pretty good at it in school, so it was more about figuring out what I’d specialize in.”

“Is your sister a scientist?”

“She’s a cardiothoracic surgeon.”

Bee’s eyebrows rose. “And I read that your mother is a neurosurgeon and your father is the head materials scientist at the Department of Defense. Coming from that kind of stock, it’s no wonder your fate was sealed.”

“And you can see why being accused of plagiarism was like setting off a bomb.”

A cloud passed over her face. “But you didn’t light the fuse.”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter. The damage was done.”

---