Bettie Page Presents: The Librarian (7 page)

Her face burned. “Fine. I was lying to you. But even if I wasn't, I still wouldn't show you my underwear. Honestly, you have got to be kidding.”

“I couldn't be more serious,” he said. And the way he looked at her made her heart skip a beat.

He walked closer to her, until barely an inch separated his body from hers. At first, she was nervous that he would touch her. Then, when he didn't, she was disappointed. A minute passed, and she looked at the floor. She felt his eyes on her, and she felt self-conscious.

“Next time, do as I ask,” he whispered.

And then he walked past her and down the stairs.

CHAPTER 14

As much as Regina had tried to resist the temptation to read while managing the Delivery Desk—she felt it was disrespectful to the people who needed her help—she was able to justify reading if it was for the Young Lions Fiction Award. That morning, the requisition slips had barely started piling up on her desk before she cracked open one of the novels on her list. It was a debut by a young British woman whose father had been a prizewinning novelist. Regina was absorbed in trying to discern the father's stylistic influence when she heard Alex say, “Hello, again!” in an inappropriately booming voice.

Startled, she realized he was talking not to her but to the tattooed messenger, who had returned.

“Hey,” the young woman said, looking at Regina, not at him. “Sign here.” She handed over a pink-and-black shopping bag, which Regina quickly stuffed behind the desk. She scribbled her signature and practically held her breath waiting for the young woman to retreat.

Regina glanced down at the shopping bag by her feet. An envelope was clipped to the black plastic handles. She pulled it off and opened it.

Good morning, Regina.

I was happy to see you at the gallery last night. I hope you enjoyed the show—and our conversation.

This brings me to the shopping bag. Inside, you'll find a pair of Louboutins, and some undergarments. Please change into both immediately.

—S.

Her hands trembled as she stuffed the note into her Old Navy bag.

“So seriously, Finch—what gives?” Alex appeared behind her.

“Nothing,” she said.

The desk phone rang, and he mercifully retreated to answer it, leaving her alone with the bag. She peeked inside and found a flat black box wrapped with a gold ribbon. The box was embossed with gold lettering that read
AGENT PROVOCATEUR: SOIRÉE
.

There was no way she could inconspicuously open it at her desk.

“It's for you,” Alex said, handing her the phone. She looked at him quizzically, and he shrugged.

“Hello?” she said.

“Regina, it's your mother.”

She felt her stomach tighten. “Mom, I'm at work. Why are you calling me here?”

“I wouldn't have to call you if you thought to maybe check in with me occasionally. Do you think this adjustment is easy for me?”

“Okay, I'm sorry. Is everything all right?”

“It's fine. I'm getting used to being alone. I guess people can get used to anything.”

Regina had hoped that her move to New York would push her mother finally to start living her own life—to stop using her widowhood and single motherhood as an excuse to avoid everything. But clearly, it had been naive to think so.

“I really can't talk now, Ma.”

“What are we doing for your birthday?”

“What?” Regina's birthday was in two weeks. She had not given it much thought, and she certainly hadn't anticipated her mother being part of the equation.

“Fine, if you insist, I'll come in. We'll have dinner. Make a reservation for a place near the library. I want to see your office.”

“Regina?”

Regina looked up to see Sloan hovering above her.

“What on earth are you doing?”

“Um . . . nothing,” Regina said. Then quietly, into the phone, “I've got to go.”

“Was that a personal phone call?”

“No,” she lied. She saw Sloan's eyes move to the shopping bag. Regina kicked it under her desk.

“Tell Alex to cover for you. There's a Young Lions meeting in ten minutes.”

•

The Trustees Room was less full than at the last meeting. It appeared only the members of the fiction board were present, making it impossible for Regina to shrink into the background.

“You sit here, Regina,” said Sloan, pulling out a chair next to her. Sloan chose to sit right next to Sebastian.

Regina could feel his smoldering stare, but she kept her eyes on the yellow legal pad directly in front of her. She thought about his note with instructions, which she had ignored. Irrationally, she felt a moment of panic. Then she realized how absurd that was. What did she care if he didn't like her shoes? Who did he think he was, telling her how to dress? Maybe she liked comfortable shoes and practical underwear. She was a regular person, not a photo of Astrid Lindall on the art gallery wall, or Bettie Page in the glossy art book.

Sebastian opened the meeting with a run-through of the award candidates and the schedule by which everyone should submit their choices from their individual reading lists. A debate ensued about the omission of a particular short-story collection, but Regina could barely follow a word anyone was saying. The one time she dared to look up, she caught sight of Sebastian gesturing with his hands, and she imagined those hands touching her, maybe helping her dress, as Jess had done. But unlike Jess, he would reach around and cup her bare breasts. . . .

“Regina?” he said. She looked up, her body flooding with heat. Within seconds, her forehead was slick with perspiration. What was this? Was she having a stroke?

“Yes?” she asked. Did her voice sound normal? She couldn't tell. He was so damn beautiful. How was everyone else in the room seemingly oblivious to this? Everyone but Sloan, that was; Regina couldn't help but notice the way Sloan leaned in toward him, smiling and acting almost giddy in the meeting. It was hard to reconcile her demeanor with the irritation Regina was usually confronted with when dealing with her boss.

“Do you have any comments about the novels you've read so far?” He smiled patiently. She felt the expectant gaze of everyone else at the table.

“Um, yes,” she said. “I just finished a crime novel that reminds me of Tana French but is set in the Deep South during the 1970s. Definitely a contender.”

“I am
so
thankful I found someone who has time to read,” said Sloan, as if she had unearthed Regina from under a rock.

“Too bad Margaret couldn't help out this year,” said one of the other fiction readers wistfully. “She has such impeccable taste.”

“Why can't she help this year?” asked Regina. This whole thing was a bad idea. Maybe Margaret could take her place on the fiction board. That way, she wouldn't have to show up for work never knowing when she would be thrown into a meeting with Sebastian. It was just too disruptive to her day. Hell, it was too disruptive to her
breathing
.

“Oh please, Regina. The poor woman can barely see, let alone make it through a pile of books in a month,” said Sloan.

“We have all the readers we need,” said Sebastian. “As for writers—that's another story. Where are we on the replacement for Jonathan Safran Foer? Anyone make any calls?”

Someone bandied around the idea of Jay McInerney, to which everyone groaned, “Again?”

Regina knew whom she wanted to see at the library; she had just finished reading
State of Wonder
for the second time. And she loved that Ann Patchett had opened her own bookstore in Nashville when nearly every other one there had closed.

“How about Ann Patchett?”

A murmur broke out at the table.

“We prefer New Yorkers for the series,” Sloan said. “We need them for multiple events, and people from out of town always ask for travel-expense reimbursement.”

“It's not a bad idea,” Sebastian contradicted. “I just saw her on a repeat of the
Colbert Report
. She was very charming.”

“She is a tremendous advocate for the reading community,” someone else offered.

“Let's explore it,” Sebastian said. “Put her on the short list. And Doris, maybe you can put in a call to HarperCollins and check her calendar.”

Then Regina realized that everyone was standing up and collecting their papers and pens. The meeting was adjourned.

She scrambled to her feet, pulling her Old Navy bag over her shoulder.

“Regina, you stay. I want to run through a few more things that I need done. Sloan, can you manage downstairs without her for a short while longer?”

Sloan was visibly annoyed. “You can't make a habit of this,” she said, but then let it go.

When the last person filed out, he closed the door. And locked it.

“So much for my theory about your male-authors-only sensibility,” he said. “That was a good suggestion. I'm glad you spoke up.”

She found this comment patronizing. “I have no problem speaking up,” she said.

“But you do have a problem following instructions. I see you're not wearing the shoes I sent over.”

“I don't want to wear those shoes at work,” she said nervously. She knew it was absurd to feel timid, as if she were a schoolgirl breaking a rule. But that's exactly how she felt.

“Where are they?”

“Um, at my desk.”

“Go get the bag of lingerie and shoes. And hurry back.”

He issued this command as if there was no question Regina would comply with it. This alone was enough to make Regina want to tell him to forget it—they could play these games in hotels and restaurants, but not at work, thank you very much. But something held her back. She realized that while she knew that was what she
should
say, it wasn't what she wanted to say. What she wanted was to see where this was going. If she didn't—if she ran away from it—then how was she any different than her mother?

Without looking at him, Regina walked quickly from the room and ran up the stairs to the third floor. She rushed through the Public Catalogue Room, hoping she wouldn't see Sloan. It would be tough to explain why she was going back and forth.

There were a few people standing in front of the Delivery Desk, and Alex was manning it by himself.

“Ready to take over?” he asked.

“Not yet—just a few more minutes,” she mumbled. She could barely get the words out. Her mind raced. This must be what it felt like to be on drugs.

She reached around him and retrieved the bag.

CHAPTER 15

Regina closed the door to the Trustees Room. Sebastian walked over and, once again, locked it. He did not touch her, but his shoulder brushed against hers as he reached for the lock.

She handed him the bag.

“What are you giving it to me for? Change into them,” he said.

She set the bag on the table and pulled out the shoe box. She kicked off her shoes and quickly slipped the Prada heels onto her feet.

“Okay,” she said, turning to face him.

“Much better,” he said. “Now the underwear.”

He wanted her to get undressed right then and there? “I'm not . . . I can't do that.”

Sebastian walked over to her and looked her in the eyes, pulling her chin up with his middle and index fingers. She hoped he would kiss her, and realized she wanted that more than she had ever wanted anything.

“Regina, I think you're incredibly beautiful. And I love the fact that you don't realize it. I have this intense desire to show you how beautiful you are, and I want to experience your beauty for myself. I've tried to be direct with you. I wanted to show you—in the best way that I could—what I'm about. What I like. But I see now that maybe I'm pushing too hard in a direction you don't want to go.” He smiled at her, and it was a smile of such magnetism, she felt like something might snap inside of her.

“It's not that I don't want to . . . go in that direction,” she said slowly, not even sure what they were talking about. “It's just that I'm at work.”

He seemed to consider this. “That's what's holding you back?”

She nodded. There were probably many other things holding her back, things she didn't want to analyze right then and there. But if the workplace excuse would get her off the hook, she was happy to run with it.

Sebastian took her hand and pulled gently so she took two steps closer to him. He looked at her with such intensity she had to glance away, heart pounding. He kissed the back of her hand, and she looked at him in surprise.

And then he walked out of the room.

•

Regina stretched out on her bed, the novel she was reading propped up on her chest. She had been staring at the same page, the same sentence, for five minutes.

Outside, rain pelted the window, a hard summer shower that would leave the warm air smelling like wet concrete. She pulled back her curtain, watching the water create rivulets on the glass.

She wondered if she'd made a mistake earlier that day in the Trustees Room. Had she been too much of a coward? Maybe she deserved the smallness of her life. A few months ago, she had worn her seriousness and her self-containment as a badge of honor. And in Philadelphia, she'd never felt as if playing it safe had a cost. She had studied hard, worked odd jobs, and saved money; she'd dated but never let herself get too distracted or involved. She had everything under control.

But she realized that, ever since she'd moved to New York, she'd been so busy controlling her life, she was failing to live it. And now she'd blown her chance with the most unbelievable man she'd ever met—or ever would meet, probably.

Her mother wasn't even around to make her feel guilty for going out. She had no one to blame but herself.

“Want to watch a movie On Demand?” Carly called to Regina from the living room. Carly, still reeling from the betrayal by her “boyfriend” Rob, was uncharacteristically home alone.

“Sure,” Regina said. She wasn't getting any reading done, anyway.

She hopped out of bed, put the book on her nightstand, and made her way to the living room. Carly was curled up on the couch in her uniform of black yoga pants and a tank top. She was intently pointing the remote control at the television, scrolling through the list of available films.

“Can I ask you something?” Regina said.

“Sure,” Carly said absently.

“You kind of hinted the other night that maybe things went badly with Rob because of a decision you made—or something you did?”

Carly shrugged. “I wasn't in my right mind that night. Really, it's his problem that he can't commit. We, as women, always blame ourselves. But they're the ones with the problem.”

“Okay, forget that.” Regina thought, but did not say, that maybe Carly's behavior at times didn't seem very committed to him. “Let's say, in some way, it was kind of your fault. Would you try to fix it, or would you just let it go and chalk it up as ‘not meant to be.' ”

“First of all, there's no ‘meant to be.' There's ‘make it happen.' Does that help?”

Regina nodded. Maybe she was losing it, but Carly was starting to make a lot of sense. She even sounded—dare she think it—wise. She was like a bitchy blond Yoda.

The front door buzzed.

“Is Derek coming over?” Regina asked.

Carly looked at her like she had suggested it was Santa Claus paying a visit. “I told you, Derek was just a placeholder until I got Rob. No Rob, no need for Derek.”

This did not make sense to Regina. So much for Yoda.

Carly dragged herself off of the couch and pressed the intercom buzzer.

“Who is it?”

“Sebastian Barnes.” Regina heard his voice crackle through the static of the intercom. “Please send Regina down.”

Carly looked at her, wide-eyed and stifling a laugh. She mouthed, O-M-G.

“Tell him I need a few minutes,” Regina said, her heart beating wildly. She was already rushing to her room, and she closed her door after she heard Carly relay her message.

If life was, as Carly said, all about “making it happen,” then this was her chance—her second chance. And maybe her last.

Now, where the hell was that lingerie?