I turned back to my e-mail, wincing my way through Peter’s weekly letter to the troops, as we library employees not-so-fondly called it. Last year at Halloween several of us dressed up in uniform for a staff meeting. Peter didn’t get the joke. He never did. I felt sorry for him sometimes.

The subject of this week’s homily was recycling. Peter exhorted everyone to stop bringing bottled water to work and to use instead the filtered tap water in the staff lounge. I glanced at my satchel. It usually contained at least two bottles of water. I resolved to use those bottles for refills from the tap once they were empty. Perhaps that would satisfy the boss.

The last e-mail I read reminded me of the gala reception tonight in honor of our celebrity at the president’s house. I’d been telling myself I wouldn’t go, but I knew curiosity would get the better of me. As much as I detested Godfrey Priest, I wanted to get a look at him after all this time.

Back in high school, I’d let Godfrey intimidate me. He was taller and better looking and was always flaunting his success with girls. I resented him in high school and in college—we were both alumni of Athena College—but that was long ago. Surely I’d left all that behind me?

Perhaps I hadn’t, but if living well truly was the best revenge, I wanted to show the jerkwad I was doing fine.

Shaking my head over my foolishness, I turned away from the computer to examine some papers on my desk. Where had I put that letter? I lifted one or two of the piles until I had located what I wanted.

Besides cataloging, I also handled certain kinds of reference questions, those that related to some historical aspect of the college or the library’s archives and rare books. Yesterday I had received a request from an elderly woman in Vicksburg who was trying to track down a stray twig on her family tree. Said twig was supposed to have attended Athena College back in the 1840s, not long after the school was founded.

Glancing through the letter, I found the name I needed. Laying the letter aside, I left my desk and approached a shelf of reference materials to the left of the door. What I sought was an old book of attendance records that should answer the question. One of these days I hoped to get a grant to have the records computerized, but until that happened, the old-fashioned way would have to do.

I pulled the book off the shelf and gently turned the pages until I found the years I wanted. Sounds from other parts of the library drifted up. The acoustics often behaved oddly, the grand stairway and the high-ceilinged foyer serving to bounce voices around.