Violet had just set her binoculars carefully into their protective case when she heard someone coming up the wooden steps to the front door. A knock sounded, then Emmajean popped her head through the doorway. “Anyone home? I come bearing champagne. It was left over from a wedding shower at the library today.”

“Someone had a wedding shower at the library?” Violet set her backpack down and met Emmajean at the door.

“One of our patrons met her fiancé in the fiction section, and they wanted to have the shower where they fell in love. Lucky for us, they overestimated how much champagne to buy.”

Violet led her friend to the kitchen. “Surely your doctor didn’t say anything about champagne being good for the heart. I know mine didn’t.”

Emmajean made a pshhh motion with her hand and plunked the bottle down on the table. “A glass of bubbly now and then won’t hurt.” After making quick work of opening the bottle, Emmajean poured three glasses—Violet placed one next to Trudy’s elbow—and the two friends made their way out to the porch overlooking the river.

Violet relaxed into her rocker, and Emmajean took a seat at the small wooden table. They raised their glasses—“To the beauty of another day,” Emmajean said—and sipped. Violet closed her eyes and savored the crisp citrus zing on her tongue. The bubbles made her feel like she was floating, and she suppressed the urge to giggle. She opened her eyes in surprise.

“It makes you feel young again, doesn’t it?”

Violet nodded. “Champagne wasn’t exactly a part of my younger years though. Our upbringing was a bit more humble.”

“I hear you.” Emmajean leaned back against her seat and propped her feet up on the chair across from her. Ten years older than Violet, Emmajean was a beautiful woman. Her hair was a deep, cozy gray and still had the waves from her younger years, though it was much shorter now than when Violet first met her at Sugar Bend Academy more than forty years ago. Emmajean had been the school secretary, Violet the science teacher, and the two women became fast friends in those heady days of music, sun, and water.

Like Violet, Emmajean had taken an early retirement after the school merger, but unable to relax quietly into her golden years, she grew antsy and took a part-time job at the public library.

“How are things going at work?” Violet asked. “Other than drinking champagne at parties.”

Emmajean laughed. “Oh yes, it’s very exciting. Books coming and going, kids stopping up the sink in the children’s department, teenagers kissing in the back of the computer lab. Again.”

“What is it about libraries that makes people feel so affectionate?”

“Who knows—the cool air, maybe? The quiet? All I know is they should have made me a security guard instead of an assistant, for as often as I have to bust up the lovebirds.”

A pontoon boat idled by on the river, music pumping from an on-board speaker. It was standing room only, with a gaggle of young women dancing to the beat and waving their slim, tanned arms up in the air. Violet watched as the boat passed, its wake winking like stars in the moonlight. “Does it mean I’m getting old if I see those girls and all I can think is how dangerous it is to be dancing on a moving boat like that?”