Thursday before noon

Agnes Lindgren picked up her hold every Thursday before noon, and had done so since the branch reopened after the roof repair in 2004. She wore a blue wool coat in winter and a blue cotton coat in summer and she always said the same thing to whoever was at the desk: “Well, let’s see what I was thinking on Monday.”

This Thursday the book sat on the hold shelf with her name on the paper slip, a large print biography of Greta Garbo, and noon came and went. At two, the clerk mentioned it to Dot. At four, Dot put on her boots.