Another story about Cara, the lesbian librarian who had pretty much run a major library for many years, and done so in a very dictatorial style. Recently though, things had started to go bad for the middle aged tyrant, and many who had suffered under her were enjoying the sudden turn in her fortune.
This story finds Cara taking a 'sabbatical' from her job as she called it, although those in the know knew it as a suspension that might end up in a dismissal as the investigation into her continued. Unable to bear not going to work, Cara decided to pack an overnight bag and just drive. Stay in some out of the way place where people wouldn't look at her while shaking her head and roll their eyes, and just not think about what was happening to her.
So Cara packed some casual clothes, leaving the business attire behind, and she laughed as she tossed the breast suppression band back into the dresser because she wasn't planning on being anywhere that men would be there leering salaciously at her mature buxom figure.
As Cara headed north seemingly with no destination in mind, her thoughts on the prospect of being an unemployed woman in her mid 50's, she found herself on roads that seemed vaguely familiar. She had driven well over 150 miles without stopping, and she shook her head at the one time she had almost pulled the car over to the shoulder before speeding up when she realized that the waifish hitchhiker was a boy instead of a girl.
"A predator to the end," she muttered to no one, and further down the road with dusk not far away she started looking for a place to stay.
There weren't many options, so when she drove up to a very modest motel with a strip of about ten rooms setback from the road, Cara pulled in. As she drove through the gravel to the office where the VACANCY sign confirmed what the nearly empty parking lot hinted at, she was hit with a sense of deja vu. She had been here before. What were the chances of that, she thought?
The feelings of deja vu intensified when Cara entered the office, and when the slender blonde woman came out to see who entered Cara felt like she was in a Twilight Zone episode. I know her - intimately - the librarian thought to herself before walking up to the desk.
The girl behind the desk hadn't changed a bit in close to 20 years, and that couldn't be but there she was. Cara in more caustic days would have described the woman as chinless with a hangdog expression and an anorexic build, but these days she was just a smiling young lady who was asking her if she needed a room.
"Uh - yes," Cara mumbled as she presented a credit card and her driver's license, and as she sorted through her mental rolodex she took a chance and added, "Elizabeth?"
"I get that a lot. Liz was my Mom. She's passed,," the clerk explained. "I'm Hannah."
"I'm so sorry," Cara replied and then said. "You're the spitting image of her."
"For better or worse as Mom would say," Hannah quipped, and as she looked at the license she lit up. "Cara? You're the librarian, aren't you?"
"Yes, but," Cara started to ask.
"Mom kept a diary, and there was a part about you," Hannah explained. "I was with my old man the weekend you stayed here."
"Your mother had me in her diary?"
"Yes, and nothing bad if that's what you're worried about," Hannah said with a laugh. "And as far as Mom, we had no secrets. One night?"
"I guess," Cara mused. "Your Mom. She was so young."
"Breast Cancer. As Mom said many times, of all the women to get breast cancer, how could I?"
Cara smiled at the faint memory of the self-depreciating motel owner who was pretty much flat chested, and when Hannah asked her what room she wanted and added, #6 has a new mattress, Cara took it.
"I'll try not to be too rowdy," Cara said as she went to the door.
"Look, Cara," Hannah said haltingly. "The only places around here to eat are Hannigan's down the road a bit, and a titty bar farther down that sells hot dogs and nachos. If you would want to, we could have dinner here. Nothing fancy so if..."
"Sounds perfect," Cara said, and after she went to get her bag and opened the door to the room, it hit her that this might have been the same room too.
***
"You're a good cook, especially with no notice," Cara said as she leaned back from the table.
"I think the wine you brought up here helped," Hannah noted. "Not used to drinking."
"No - oh wait. How old are you?"
"Almost 20, and don't apologize. Want to go into the other room of my palace? There's a TV in there."
"Talking is fine too," Cara said as she followed Hannah into the living room of the tiny apartment and sat on the love seat which was the only seating option. "I'd like to... well, not actually read your Mom's diary, but I'm curious about what she said about me."
"Really?"
"Yes, I mean I remember having a lot of fun with her," Cara said. :Just curious."