Chapter 30: At School - b. The Librarian

From her safe haven behind the tall return desk, Carson High librarian Zoe Flemester watched the parade go by her door. Again.

Her chin resting on her hand, the frumpy, wild-haired, bespectacled spinster watched Michael Wright rush past, talking on a cell phone (against school rules, of course), followed by a handful of scantily clad girls (in dress code violation!), a couple actually hand-in-hand (begging for a detention!). Why weren't they in class? Why weren't they suspended.

Zoe sighed, knowing she had best tend to her own business, so she wearily shoved herself away from the Returns counter to put away the school's every-dwindling amount of books to shelve. With a silent sigh of acknowledgment of her aching back, she rose off her stool and shuffled over to her book cart.

To call Zoe plain would be an understatement; no one would come close to guessing that she was only 26 years old. Her (badly) frosted hair was tied up in a sloppy bun; her usual attire – smock-like dresses, shapeless sweaters, flats or sandals on her well-manicured feet – were, as usual, accompanied by her floor-length book-bib. Utilitarian gray, the denim accessory did its job of making her body shapeless. Her poor posture completed the illusion.

Zoe's well-practiced shuffle of a walk would convince anyone that she was crippled, or at least hobbled. In an unnecessary piece of theater, she made a point of standing stooped over as she shelved the books – always correctly the first time, every time.

"Miss Flemester, can I do that for you?" whispered Marcie Stowe, her aide for the period. "There's no one to check out. I'd be happy to help."

"Thank you, Marcie," she said, reaching out to touch the slightly heavy, but very curvy girl. "I have just a few today."

"Same as just about any other day," Marcie said with a shrug and a small smile. "Be nice if the school cared as much about the library as it does the football team."

"Marcie, Marcie," Zoe chided her. "That would make Carson High different from every other high school in America."

"I know," she sighed as she returned to the checkout desk. "Hope your back feels better."

Frustrated, she plopped down in her chair with a frown. Beside her, the period's other assistant, Steffi McDade, was intently scanning a stack of returns.

"Her back hurting her again?" asked Steffi, who was wearing a skimpy flower-covered top that encouraged her nipples to come alive in the cool air. "I wish she'd get it fixed or lose weight or something. It hurts to watch her sometimes."

Steffi was far too familiar with pain, or at least living with it, as the library was a refuge from an abusive stepfather. It was never anything major, or anything that showed up as bruises – but it was none the less painful. In fact, a tweak she'd been suffering from all day – a bruised nipple – caused her discomfort just to move.

"How about you? You okay?" Marcie turned to her classmate. "You feel like partying back room during lunch today?"

The thought shocked Shelley for a moment, because all Carson females had gone through the no-sex programming. Away from school, getting down and dirty with her buxom classmate consumed her thinking.

"You got it, babe," she whispered, leaning over to place a hand strategically on Marcie's bare leg. "But why am I suddenly so turned on?"

"I am not believing what I am seeing," Marcie answered. "Check out the hallway."

Peering into the windows were a freshman named Meredith Simmons and a very nude pixie of a classmate Katie Woods in front of a crowd of cute girls, many of whom were no in the process of fondling or otherwise affectionately being open with the group;

"Man, Katie is cute naked," Marcie said, interrupting her thoughts.

"Hmmn? Uh, yes. Yes! She is!" Steffi stood up and unzipped her jeans. She slid her left hand down into her panties, then returned to scanning the books with her one (right) hand. "Think they're here to see Ms. Flemester?"

Steffi turned to hear the expected answer from her classmate, but Marcie was now door the ground and frigging herself through her pants and out of the conversation mode. She looked up again and saw Meredith enter the room, alone.

"Hurry up and finish. You're missing the show," Marcie hissed to her fallen classmate.

"I'm ... almost ... there ... oh god ... coming!" she gasped her approval of her own actions. Thus sated, she knelt up on her knees with her pants and panties now down below them and watched the unfolding drama bare-assed.

Having returned to her private thoughts, Zoe considered the deserted library and how she loved it this way. The library, in truth, was Zoe's hideout. She did not like going out in public because she despised any kind of unwanted attention. Her true joy came when she was able to read while following her routine on an incline treadmill that cost more than her car. Those two hours each night, in addition to each excruciating set of 100 situps, were part of a routine she followed religiously, because it allowed her to avoid the surgery that her back desperately needed. The mere passing thought of going under the knife made her reach back and touch her back reflexively.

Outside the library, Zoe generally avoided all but the most necessary conversations. But she was just as ready to help the truly bright students find study aids, or the right book, or the right Internet link. Those too-rare encounters would be about the only times that her countenance brightened and she looked any of these student – or teachers, for that matter – eye-to-eye.

Zoe was in the middle of one of her daily inner debates when a voice from behind surprised her.

"Hi, Miss Flemester!" came a cheery female voice close enough behind her to touch her. Naturally, it startled (no, scared) her and a drew a yelp of surprise that sounded twice as loud in the booming silence of the stacks.

"Lord! You scared me to death!" she exclaimed dramatically, touching her upper chest in a gesture she remembered her mother making. "What can I do for you today, Miss Meredith?"

Smiling broadly, Meredith stood there as pretty as a picture – no, prettier, somehow, Zoe realized. She was wearing a sheer, frilly white blouse over a wrapped skirt that was so brief as to nearly offer a glimpse of her nether regions. Her dark brown hair was pinned up much like Zoe's but much more stylish.

She was grinning with a gleam in her eye that threw Zoe off for a moment. She had known Meredith since she was a 4th grader who needed a book for an extra credit project, and never had she seemed so, what? Radiant?

That was it. Meredith actually had a glow about her. Is she pregnant? Zoe wondered. She was startled a moment later when Meredith laughed out loud, as if she could hear her unspoken speculation.

Instead, Meredith reached out and took Zoe's hands.

"Mrs. Flemester," she said in a stage whisper. "I know your secret."

"How can you ... what do mean? I don't have any secrets," Zoe said, too loudly.

"Why you look the way you do," Meredith replied softly, reaching up to brush aside a lock of Zoe's disheveled hair. "I get it!"

"Whatever are you talking about, dear?" Zoe said gamely, wondering why this girl's touch affected her so. Several seconds of awkward silence followed as her deceit crumbled away. Zoe noticed that there were several of Meredith's classmates hovering nearby, all eyes on her.

Zoe never felt so naked.

Meredith actually rolled her brown eyes and sighed, "Okay. Ms. F, you know I've always loved you to death."

"Same here, dear," Zoe nodded, wondering why she was breathing heavily as if she'd just climbed two flights of stairs. She hoped her eyes did not give away her dread at what was sure to come next.

"But I always wondered, and kind of worried, about you," Meredith added, clutching her hands tightly. "I always assumed you had a bad back or scoliosis or something."

"Or something," Zoe admitted. "My back hurts all the time, dear."