Premonitions

When she asks "Is my book in," I know before asking my standard first question that she will answer in the negative.

"Did somebody call you?" I ask anyway.

"No." Of course. "But it should be in. I ordered it over two weeks ago."

"Okay," I say. "Let's see if something has gone wrong with the reservation. What was the title?"

"Um," she exhales, a three-second-long syllable breathed forward as her eyes roll up toward the ceiling. "I think it was Love's Neverending Love."

I pause. "Love's Neverending Love."

"Yeah," she assures me.

"Was the author Janette Oke?" I ask. Snobbery, I realize, to assume that a generically sappy incorrect title from someone I assumed to be a tad dumb the moment I saw her was a Janette Oke book, but in this case I'm correct. "Okay then, let's look search for that title." Naturally we don't have it. I'm certain there is no book by the title Love's Neverending Love. But I have to show her it doesn't exist before we move onto the next step, which is me reading to her every Oke title we own that either ends in love or contains some variant of neverending or enduring. She shoots down every one. Same with Amazon's list.

During this search, she actually tells me "You do have it, you just can't find it." Really. "It's from a series," she eventually tells me. So we open the series list, she comes to the slow, slow, god-it's-so-slow realization that it's the Love comes softly series, and that Love's Neverending Love is actually Love Finds a Home.

I tell her that book is in, there must have been a mix-up with her reservation, and I'll take her to it. She says it's not on the shelf, she already looked. I say I'll help her look. She wanders off halfway there, so I call her back, and she says I'm in the wrong area, it's Large Print. Didn't mention that before either. Back to the computer, it is checked out, she is on the reserve list, and it's not due back for another week, so the 'over two weeks ago' time frame she quoted me was actually less than one week.