Samhain is my holiday. It marks the beginning of a new year—celebrating harvest and happiness. The night is bittersweet with both a reflection of my accomplishments throughout the past three hundred and sixty-five days and a remembrance of long-gone ancestors.
Seeing Nathan Ryder has been a painful reminder of a night which brought both celebration and devastation to my life. Since running into him at the Piggly Wiggly, I’ve been thinking of him too often over the last few days. It’s been a struggle to face my history when all I’ve done for eighteen years is repress the memories. Yet seeing Nathan stirs up old yearnings; yearnings that I haven’t allowed myself to explore with anyone else.
I’m a follower of the social media sexpert Vilma Louise who has helped me work through my desires, turning urges inward to please myself, not seek pleasure from others. You do not need another person to complete you. As a social media sensation advocating women’s individual sexual awareness, Vilma’s motto is your self is the center of your personal universe. Diane Donner-Sylvester, a former library patron, introduced me to Vilma’s videos, encouraging me to develop my inner sexuality and the wonders of my own womanhood. Diane had similar issues after years without sex with her husband. She thought I was too uptight and might need a little sex education to loosen me up. She wasn’t wrong, but I hadn’t found a man to experiment with. I didn’t want to be with just anybody.
You are your own circle of sensuality. The mantra repeats in my head as I round the check-out counter at the library for the children’s section. I pass Sabrina Logan as I near the reading rug and my thoughts of Nathan and sex dissipate.
Sabrina replaced Bethany Winston six years ago when she—eternally rest in peace, my sister booklover—passed. Sabrina could never replace Bethany in my heart, though, which is still full from the goodness Bethany offered me. I was twenty-one when I came to the library. As the mother of seven children, Bethany took me under her proverbial wing, a fairy godmother of sorts, and the rest is my history. When Sabrina started, she had been the same age as me when I became a librarian. I want to be her friend like Bethany was for me.
At first, I misunderstood Sabrina’s awkward silence, considering her standoffish, almost aloof, but eventually, I realized she was just painfully shy. The characteristic was foreign to me. Shy was not a word many would have used to describe me at twenty-one. At thirty-nine, my persona is a different story.
With the addition of Sabrina came her now nine-year-old nephew Harry who beams up at me from his spot on a comfy purple beanbag big enough for two people. We have three others in various sizes scattered through the section. Blue. Orange. Green. They look like planets, he said to me when we first met. He wouldn’t look at me then and I thought his timidness equal to his aunt. Eventually, I realized his lack of eye contact was something he couldn’t control without some practice. Harry has autism.
Spending time with children is one of my favorite things about the library. Harry and I have a routine. He tells me about the planets, or we skim through a Harry Potter picture book together, which is what we are doing when Sabrina enters the children’s area.
“I …” Her lips clamp shut. “He …”
My brows pinch. Not one to stutter, it’s evident she doesn’t know how to explain what she needs.
“There’s a man.” The words stumble out, awkward and incomplete. I tilt my head trying to see through the stacks in the general direction where she points.
“Excuse me, Harry,” I say to him, struggling to remove myself from the beanbag. One can never gracefully stand from a lumpy sack of beans. When I stand, I crane my neck and Sabrina and I both gawk over the shorter shelves in the children’s department at the sliver of a large man.
“What does he want?”
Sabrina’s face heats a deep shade of red as her eyes lower to her feet. Oh my. What could that mean? I nod as if I understand, smooth my hands down my skirt—today I’m wearing a full denim skirt with a long sleeve, black T-shirt—and walk toward the waiting patron.
Turning down the aisle, I have a better visual of him. Brownish jacket, sturdy and stiff, and typical of men who work outdoors. Construction boots both scuffed and covered in dirt. Jeans which hug the curve of his … two firm planets. I blink and force my eyes away, but the attraction is too strong and my focus returns. This man knows how to wear denim. With that unsettling thought in mind, he turns, and I’m met with sterling laser beams.
“Naomi?” He says in a voice rough and smoky, as if he just woke from a nap. I’d sleep with him. Oh wait, I already did.
The thought catches me off guard and I audibly gasp. Nathan’s head tips to the side at my reaction and I try to calm my racing heart by smoothing over the denim at my hips one more time. It’s a nervous habit. My hand lifts for my chest instead, cupping the black tourmaline crystal hanging from my neck. The anxiety-ridding stone in my palm soothes me.
“Nathan.” My voice squeaks like a mouse under the scrutiny of a lion. His size reminds me of one, the color of his coat matching the skin of the jungle king. My eyes flit to his hair like they did the night at the Piggly Wiggly. Almost all silver, his chin holds a patch still mixed with light brown. He has black dots on each ear, like flat earrings. His sudden movement draws my attention to his arms, which stretch behind his back holding something hidden behind the broad mass.
My eyes squint as if I can see through him.
“May I help you?”
His eyes roam down my body and up again. I blush although there’s nothing exposed on me. My standard lace-up black boots cover my ankles to the edge of my skirt and my T-shirt comes to my neck. I slide the crystal on the leather strap—another anxious motion—as he scrutinizes my appearance.
“A book, perhaps.” I interrupt whatever he’s thinking, and he ducks his head to peer through the shelves. He won’t find the other librarian, Julianne MacIntyre, here today. She has the day off. He’s already frightened poor Sabrina. I’m his only hope.
His eyes flit to the shelf at his right and then back to me. I step forward for a closer examination.
Health. Female health. Young female health.
My eyes leap to his for an explanation.
“I need a book about …” He pauses, leaning toward me. His breath holds a hint of cinnamon. “You know, your cycle.”
I stare at him a moment, unclear of his meaning but also dazed by the intensity of his silver eyes. In the dull light of the library, they gleam with an outer rim of granite.
“My cycle?” Bicycle? A tricycle. The cyclical rotation of the seasons.
He clears his throat before he speaks. “Menstruation.”
My fingers come to my lips as if he’s muttered a dirty word. For some reason, a part of me thrums. He closes his eyes a second and exhales. His thick knuckles rub under his chin and the scruff makes a scratchy sound, causing tingles to erupt over my skin.
“My daughter is eleven and I think she’s going through the change.”
“The change …” I mumble.
“I thought a book to explain everything might help. I don’t want her getting random sh … stuff … off the internet.”
I gape at him as if he’s speaking a foreign language, although I fully understand his meaning. I’m female. Of course, I know what he’s talking about.