Authors: Phoebe Matthews
We found it. All it had to offer was a teenager behind the counter and a menu of day old apple pie. At least there was a microwave and the teenager knew how to heat the pie.
That was pretty much her limit.
“Where’s the newspaper office?” Tom asked.
“What newspaper?”
“Ah, okay, how about a library, is there a library?”
“I think so,” she said.
Tom leaned across the counter and grinned at her, big brown eyes wide. “No newspaper, no library, is there a high school in this town?”
She didn’t crack a smile. “Of course there’s a high school. It’s kinda that direction.” She made a vague hand gesture toward the side wall.
We gulped down the pie and coffee and headed back out into the wicked cold. Tom collared the first adult passerby and got directions to the library which by some gift of fate was actually within walking distance and open. Its gray cement block Carnegie exterior took a solid stand against the cold, almost shouting, Go ahead and try to blow me down, Big Bad Wind.
We did a shortcut across a berm, big mistake, and left snow tracks up the cleared sidewalk. In unison we stood outside the door and stamped the snow off our boots before going in.
“This is an adventure,” Tom said, laughing.
The sun turned the ice coated tree limbs into fairyland crystal, like something out of a fantasy movie. And here I’d thought those sets were make-believe.
Inside the library was golden oak paneling and deep set windows and heavy furniture and a super furnace, plus a friendly librarian.
“You’re visiting us this time of year? Oh my,” she said. She was blond and plump, dressed in slacks and sweater. When we explained our search, she said, “Yes, we have all the local newspapers clear back to 1915. It was a weekly back then. Now it comes out twice a week.”
Tom and I avoided looking at each other to keep from laughing. A town this size had enough news for twice a week? Wow.
“I won’t guarantee the condition of the papers. Occasionally a student sifts through them for a school report, but with the internet, not so much any more. Come on, they’re down in the basement and we’re open until six.”
We followed her down a narrow staircase to a basement of small storage rooms where she flipped on a row of light switches.
“They should be on these shelves. What exactly are you looking for?”
“Articles about a local girl who went to Hollywood in the 1920s.”
“What’s the name?”
“Millie Pedersen,” I said. “She died in California, fairly young, but she came from here.”
The librarian pulled out a large box from a lower shelf, then waved at the wall of shelved cardboard boxes. “Okay, here’s January, 1920, and keep working to your right, then down. Go ahead and take the boxes out onto the table, but I would really appreciate it,” she said, looking up at Tom, “if you would put them back on the shelves when you’re done.”
“Will do. Any idea where else we might find information?”
“About a Millie Pedersen who isn’t in our cemetery?” She tapped her pencil eraser against her lip. “Let’s see, obviously, there wouldn’t be anyone who knew her at the high school but they might have yearbooks. I don’t think they did those individual pictures back then, but there might be some group photos. Tell you what, I’ll call the Ladies’ Kaffeeklatch, it’s a club that grows smaller every year because the youngest members are in their eighties. Could be someone remembers the name.”
She left us alone in the basement, a long room full of metal shelves and linoleum floor and high above us, narrow windows. The window wells were filled with snow and the only light source was a ceiling of fluorescent tube fixtures.
Tom lugged boxes to the metal work table and then we both dug in.
Two hours worth of grime later, we’d scanned our way past 1920 and clear into 1923 and eyestrain. The papers were yellowed, faded, slightly wrinkled, not always in order, and there was no shortcut, no way to google.
“I’m getting cross-eyed,” I said.
“Time for a dinner break? I’ll go for that. I think our only choice is the hotel. I didn’t see a hotel bar, did you?”
“No, but we could always go out later. The two bars in town have a kind of nice pub feel. I bet the locals hang out in them.”
He grinned at me. “We can bar hop. Back and forth across the street.”
“Make a vacation of this trip,” I agreed.
We lugged the boxes back to the shelf. Our hands and faces were streaked with printer’s ink. When we trudged upstairs and said good night to the librarian, she said, “I’ve started a chain.”
Tom and I blinked at each other. “A chain?”
She twinkled. “I phoned Abbie Thornton who has lived here since God laid the first cornerstone, and I gave her that name, Millie Pedersen. She says she knew the family. She said for you two to drop by any time.” The librarian slid a piece of paper across the desk, with a neatly printed name and address and phone number. “Two blocks that way, turn right, about in the middle of the next block.”
“That’s very kind,” I said slowly, looking at the name and address. “Does she really want strangers dropping by?”
The librarian smiled. “Dear, the hotel has your husband’s credit card and car license and home address and valid driver’s license.”
I was so startled by the word “husband” that I went dumb. Tom laughed at what she obviously meant as a joke, not the husband part, but all the rest, and thanked her. “We’ll be back in the morning.”
“We open at eleven. Earlier in the summer, but this time of year, we don’t get much traffic before noon.”
As we left, I told Tom, “Forget noon. If I lived in this climate I wouldn’t crawl out from under the covers until June.”
We headed down the library steps into a contrast of black sky above, white lawns below, and bright circles of light from street lamps. Tom caught my arm, leaned down and said, “Do you get the feeling not a whole lot goes on around here?”
“From the papers I kind of gathered its a summer tourist destination, lake and golf course nearby.”
“That explains the hotel.”
“Yes, but how does the librarian know what information the hotel has about you? Lucky guess?”
“You’re joking, right? What do you bet the hotel clerk is a friend of the librarian, and while we were in the basement, she chatted up her pal as well as half the town?”
“Tommy, look out!” I screamed as he dove past me, a hurtling mass with flailing arms and legs.
CHAPTER 20
I grabbed wildly, reflex action, no plan. His arm bumped my outstretched hands. Convulsively my fingers clamped around his sleeve. I flew after him, airborne, boots sliding up and head shooting downward. We both sailed sideways and crashed.
My gloved hands hit first. I rolled on my side in a snow bank. Soft landing. Pushing myself up to hands and knees and then rolling over to sit in the snow, I brushed snow from my face and started to laugh.
And then I saw his face. Tom’s expression was twisted into something meant to hold back a scream because real guys don’t scream, right?
Instead he bit his lip and tried to mumble something about being okay.
On a long stretch of carefully shoveled sidewalk, he’d picked the one patch of ice. Unlike me, he hadn’t landed in the snow. He was stretched in a crumpled heap on the sidewalk, his face turned toward me.
“Ummph, ummph, ummph.”
I pushed myself to my feet and hurried over to him, bent down, touched his shoulder. “Hey, big guy, you okay?”
“Ummph, ummph, ummph.” Tears glittered like ice on his thick lashes, while his mouth twisted into a forced grin.
“Oh crap, you didn’t break anything, did you?” I reached down to catch his arms.
He shook his head. Slowly, after pushing away my hands, he maneuvered himself into a sitting position.
“Aren’t you cold, sitting on the sidewalk?”
A nod.
“Then come on, let me help you up.”
Tom rolled onto one hip, very slowly and carefully, managed to get his gloved hands in front of him on the walk, and curled one leg under until he was able to push himself upright. Then he stood bent at the waist, hands on thighs, making those uuugh noises. When I asked again if he was all right, he said, “No, so shut up for a minute.”
I did that, let him catch his breath, let him decide if he wanted me to call an ambulance which I offered to do. He straightened up inch by inch, put one hand on my shoulder, and said, “Think I broke my knee.”
“Can you walk on it?”
He took a small step, didn’t actually scream. “If I keep it stiff,” he finally said.
“Okay, lover, lean on me, that’s it.” I ducked my shoulder under his arm to help support his weight. He was almost six feet of skinny. “You have extremely heavy bones.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled and started to move away.
Wrapping my arm around his waist, I said, “Come on, we can make it.”
And we did. He kept his one knee stiff and managed to hobble back to the hotel. I offered rest stops, got refused.
“Freezing to death in the middle of town would be so damned embarrassing,” he explained.
We bumped through the entry doors. Tom stopped by each doorway and leaned against the wall until I could actually get in position to hold the door open. He shuffle-hopped, reaching over my head to try to put his weight on door frames and walls, then limped across the lobby. The space behind the desk was empty.
“Where’s that lady when we need her?”
“I’m okay,” he said through clenched teeth.
I wound both arms around his waist because he was not okay and if he fell again, I wasn’t sure I could get him up. We were inside and so I could always let him lie on the warm floor while I screamed for someone to phone the fire department, but I kinda didn’t think Tom would consider that a good choice.
Fortunately the hotel did have an elevator, although we hadn’t used it. Now we did. We step, step, clumped down the hall and back into our room where he dropped across the bed closest to the door and lay there moaning.
I almost said something about big baby, but stopped my mouth just in time.