Read Online Someone Like Her by Janice Kay Johnson - Free Book Online

sneered, Lucy was prepared to turn around andhead right back to the café. She wouldn’t waste another second on him.
    But when they walked in he actually looked mildly impressed. “Wouldn’t have thought you had the population to support a library this size.”
    Before she could answer, Wendy spotted them from the information desk. She rose to her feet as they approached. “Lucy! I never see you on Saturdays!”
    “I brought the hat lady’s son to meet you. I was hoping you’d have a few minutes to talk about her. Wendy Monsey, this is Adrian Rutledge.”
    They shook hands, Wendy looking him over with interest, and she suggested they go to her office. The fact that she had an office was one of the things she appreciated most about the new library.
    Wendy was about Lucy’s age, beanpole tall and skinny, with curly dark hair that tended to frizz during the incessantly rainy winter. They’d become friends right away when Glenn brought her home to Middleton. Wendy had a master’s degree from the University of Washington and had been working in the Yakima public library system before coming here. She was energetic, and enthusiastic, and full of ideas.
    Her office wasn’t very big, and she had to lift bags of books—“Donations,” she explained—from one of the chairs before they could sit.
    Lucy wished the limited space didn’t force her to sit quite so close to Adrian. Their shoulders brushed as they faced Wendy across her desk.
    “I understand you let my mother check out books even though she didn’t have an address,” Adrian said.
    “She was probably my favorite patron,” Wendy explained. “I set aside books for her, and when she brought them back we’d talk about them. Not that many people have the time or interest in doing that. I mean, half the patrons only come in here when they need a book on writing résumés, or an automobile repair manual. Or they read nothing but mysteries, or check out only gardening books, or…”
    Lucy’s cheeks warmed just a little. She had a couple of gardening books checked out most of the time. She especially enjoyed the ones with lots of gorgeous photographs.
    “What did she read?” Adrian asked, leaning forward slightly. “I’ve tried to imagine how a woman who thought she was an impoverished young lady of good breeding and small fortune in Regency England coped with modern life all around her.”
    Lucy looked at him sharply. Had he actually read Jane Austen? She wouldn’t have expected that.
    “She had all these supposed identities, but she was still herself, too. I don’t know how to explain.”
    Lucy agreed, “It’s as if the identity of the day was only on the surface. She’d choose different hats, and her accent would change, and even her mannerisms, but…she was always the hat lady. I could talk about gardens with her no matter whether she was Queen Elizabeth or Elizabeth Taylor. Queen Elizabeth never missed a garage sale any more than Eliza Doolittle would. Something essential stayed the same.”
    Wendy nodded. “And she actually lived in the here and now. But only sort of. She didn’t read, oh, about politics or terrorism or anything really current. I’m not even sure how much she understood local politics or the school bond issues. She liked to read fiction and poetryand biographies. Anything Arthurian, although she always said The Once and Future King was the best. She did love mysteries, mostly the old ones. Josephine Tey, and Dorothy Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey series, especially after he met Harriet Vane. Gaudy Night and Busman’s Honeymoon. ”
    They could both see his bewilderment.
    “I hooked her on some modern authors, too, though. Elizabeth George—”
    “That figures,” he muttered.
    Wendy laughed. “She probably was more willing to try the books because of the author’s name. But she liked Martha Grimes and P. D. James, too. Oh, and Ellis Peters’s Brother Cadfael mysteries, although I guess we can’t exactly call Ellis