Chapter Twenty-Six

YOU ARE GOING down, Hypochondria Hotline. A good time was had by all, but the party’s over.

Nan studied the spreadsheet she’d created for the staff to use. It was total guesswork when she came up with the form. Beyond a total of how many calls per week, she hadn’t known what to keep track of. Because she had been curious, she’d made a checklist of symptoms the staff could use to track why people were calling. They had a bet every week as to which symptom would get the most calls, and Nan gave out a small prize to whoever guessed right. She did suspect that Mona rigged the calls sometimes, so she could win by telling her friends and relatives to call and say they had vertigo or halitosis or whatever symptom she was betting would win that week.

Nan noticed a strange regular pattern—one call per week with the symptom of uncontrollable urination. That was very odd. Not one of the usual symptoms they got over and over again. (Diarrhea usually ran neck-and-neck with backache, edged out once in a while by groin pain or itchy rashes.)

“This came in the book drop,” Trixie said, handing her a bulging envelope with Librarian written on it in shaky old-man printing in block letters. When Nan opened it, fifty-dollar bills came fluttering out, landing on her desk.

“I love it when that happens,” Trixie exulted.

“When does that happen, Trixie? Are you in the habit of getting cash in the mail?” Nan rarely tried to make sense out of what Trixie said, but she really wanted to know.

“Well, sure.”

Trixie apparently lived in an alternate universe. Or maybe her ex-boyfriend sent her cash for child support that way. For all Nan knew, he might be as wifty as Trixie.

Nan read the note that came with the cash: “For the children’s books I ruined. I am sorry, but I have a medical condition of uncontrollable urination. It is even in the book of symptoms. I didn’t mean to do it. Please use the money to buy new books for the children. Yours truly.” The note was unsigned.

Nan ran out to the front desk, gathered the staff around her, and read the note out loud. They cheered; she raised her fist in triumph as if she’d won something.

“He confessed. It’s all over. It wasn’t bad kids,” Nan said. “Nobody hates us that much.”

“Bad plumbing,” Dunkan said. “Like a leaking pipe. Bad plumbing can do a lot of damage.”

“You can buy a lot of books on toilet training with all that cash,” Mona joked.

They laughed so loudly that people reading looked up at them. They laughed so hard that Dunkan threw out his arms and knocked over the display books on the counter. They laughed so long that people coming in the door laughed with them because laughter is more contagious than chickenpox.

Nan loved ending the Hypochondria Hotline on that triumphant note, quitting while they were ahead. She concluded her report to the board with a positive twist, saying the library would wrap the service into its already effective consumer health information services. She quoted grateful users of the hotline because she wanted the board to know the library was in the very bedrooms and bathrooms of its users: “I sleep much better now, thanks to what you read me about rickets. My wife is happy about that.” And Nan’s favorite: “Every time I go to the toilet now, I know what I’m looking at because of the information you read me. Thank you.”

The cash fluttering down on her desk felt like the clincher for her decision. That was strange; she didn’t know what to make of that. But this money felt significant somehow, as if those fifty-dollar bills were omens of more money raining down on her.

What a ridiculous thought. She and money were not on close terms, like cranky relatives best kept at arm’s length.