Alex & Clayton Read Free

the time, so why shouldn’t you? Flirting is the way of nature, and among most other species, it’s the male who does all the showing off.”
    “Mother, Miss Clark will be my boss, not a love interest! I hope I wasn’t hired because I’m nice to look at, but because I’m the best person for the job!”
    Margaret turned her head for the first time and looked at her son. “Yes, dear, of course,” she said as she rested her palm against his cheek and gazed at his handsome face.
    Clayton leaned in, gave his mother a kiss, and stood up to go back into the house. As he walked, he thought over what his mother had said to him. Could he really have been hired because he was considered good-looking? If that was the case, Clayton was determined to prove his worth to the library.
     
     
    M ONDAY morning came, and Clayton walked into the library at precisely eight o’clock.
    “Hello, I’m Clayton Anderson. I’m starting today,” he said to the receptionist on duty at the front desk.
    “Good morning, Mr. Anderson. Your office is through that door over there and down the hallway. There’ll be a sign on the wall next to your door that reads ‘Assistant Librarian’. Welcome to the library, sir.”
    “Thank you… Cindy,” he said, after looking closely at her nametag. He followed Cindy’s directions and found his office with no problem. It was a very small office, with a desk, telephone, and two chairs—one for him and one for a visitor. There was a file cabinet that held only one thing, a manual titled “Operation Procedures for Merrimack Public Library.”
    He pulled that out and began to read. He felt it necessary to get familiar with operations as quickly as possible. When his phone rang, he just looked at it for a moment. Who would even know that I’m here? he wondered.
    “This is Clayton.”
    “Clayton, Miss Clark. Can you come see me, please?”
    “Of course, Miss Clark, I’m on my way,” he said as he stood up from his desk. There was a small mirror on the back of his door, and he checked his face and hair and the tightness of the knot on his tie before leaving.
    Calming the butterflies in his stomach, he went up the stairs and entered the head librarian’s office after knocking. Miss Clark was a woman of about forty-five, who wore her hair in a tight bun at the back of her head. She wore flower print dresses and black shoes, and she looked like she might be just ten pounds overweight for her height. Clayton snapped himself out of this appraisal of his boss and greeted her.
    “Good morning, Miss Clark,” he said with a smile.
    “Good morning, Clayton, please sit,” she said, indicating the chair in front of her desk with a wave of her hand.
    “First of all, welcome to the library officially, now that you’ve started your first day. We touched briefly on your duties during the interview, but now I’d like to give you the broad picture. I expect you to learn everything there is to know about this library. How it’s run, as far as personnel goes, how we order and receive new books, and the cataloging process. When I go on vacation, I want to be able to leave this library without worrying the entire time if something has gone wrong. You certainly have the education. Now the practical training begins.
    “In your filing cabinet, you’ll find a manual. Consider that your bible. Learn it cover to cover, and ask if you have any questions along the way. One day, you might even take over as the librarian here, and I want you to be ready. Now today, we have a shipment of various books coming in, and I’d like you to spend your time with Cindy and watch how and what she does with the books. Remember, every book that comes into this library that is ours gets stamped as our property.
    “We have a theft problem, although it’s small. I hate spending our limited resources on books that we’ve previously paid for only to have them stolen again, and I think I’ll turn that problem over to you. See if you can