In the Library
Title: In the Library
Fandom: The Devil Wears Prada
Rating/Genre: G/femslash, fluff, AU
Characters/Pairing: Miranda/Andy, Nigel
Summary: Miranda is the principal and Andy is the school’s librarian. They have nothing at all in common - or have they?
Word count: 3 214
Spoilers/Warnings: No./Miranda might be slightly OOC, but I hope that’s okay for an AU fic…
Notes 1: Based on a prompt by damelola from the Quick and Dirty DWP Comment Fic Free-For-All.
Notes 2: For those of you waiting for the auction fics, I can only say that I’m sorry. I am working on them, I promise… it’s just that real life has kept me busy for months now.
Miranda and Andy were each other’s complete opposites. But Miranda and Andy had something in common that everybody could see: Both of them had some kind of power and influence.
Of course, the comparison ended there. They did not have the same kind of power.
When Miranda Priestly sometimes walked down the halls of her school - no, she didn’t own it, but who could deny that it was hers? - all shouting and cavorting ended and no one played any pranks or threw any pencils around. When Miranda Priestly sometimes walked down the halls of her school, the children behaved like little angels because they feared her. Such was her power; her anger icy and hot at the same time, and the teachers did not say it but they agreed with the children.
Andy Sachs was the librarian. Her smile was bright and the children loved her, and there were no shouting or cavorting, no flying pens and no crying, in her library. True; it hadn’t always been like that. When she was new on the job, it had been the complete opposite. The children tested her boundaries and her patience in every thinkable and unthinkable way.
Miranda, the principal, had watched her and secretly wondered how long the doe-eyed naïve girl was going to last. Children could be little beasts, she knew it well, and it was only a matter of time before Andrea was going to admit that she couldn’t do it.
Except that Andrea, in some mysterious way, managed to turn the failure into a quiet triumph. She didn’t break down and cry - at least not in front of the principal or any child - and she didn’t scream and threat. Miranda didn’t know what she did. Maybe it was the sweetness of her voice and her smile that must hide an iron will. She must have a backbone made of steel, because somehow she managed to uphold the discipline after all.
There was a small garden built in between the school buildings. The principal’s office was facing the garden from one side, and opposite were the big windows of the library. Miranda looked sometimes - at first because she was annoyed because of the terrible chaos, and after a couple of weeks, because she was astonished and tried to figure out where the peace and calm came from.
Then she just looked, without thinking about why. If she thought about it, she immediately looked away - but in an unguarded moment, her gaze drifted off and out of the window again. She looked at Andrea at her desk, working at the computer or filling out some paper forms. She watched Andrea putting books up on the shelves or taking one down to give to a child who wasn’t tall enough to reach the top shelf. She watched Andrea smile and talk to the kids, or read them a story, or do something that looked like helping them with homework. She watched Andrea speak softly - at least she imagined that the voice was soft - to an unhappy child and touch the lucky boy or girl with her gentle hands…
No. Miranda knew nothing of Andrea’s hands. They had shaken hands once, briefly, the first time the girl came to the school, but that was all. Miranda didn’t touch her colleagues; why would she? How could she? No, no. It was far from her ordinary way of thinking to even get such an idea in her head, that somebody had soft hands and the unhappy person who was comforted by them must be a very lucky person indeed…
Andy liked children. She just didn’t have very much experience with them, and being a school librarian turned out to be a bit of an ordeal. But once she passed the initial phase, she liked her work. She loved books. She always had, and she enjoyed telling the children about her own childhood favorites as well as making sure the place was up to date with what was new in the world of children’s books.
Andy was happy, because she felt that she had all she could ever wish for. Something else she loved was beauty, and especially in the shape of a woman, and especially a woman as queen-like and elegant as Miranda Priestly. Sometimes, Andy could see her through the window. Miranda was always so poised, but sometimes - she must be lost in deep thought - she ran her fingers through her hair. Her white hair, so exquisite, and her hands, so beautiful. Her hands, without rings.
Did that mean that Miranda was unmarried? If she was unmarried, did that mean that she was single? If she was single, could she possibly be interested in women?
The librarian didn’t ask, for more than one reason. One reason was that she feared the mocking laugh of the teachers - how could she, a young girl, dare to think that way about a woman twice her age, a woman everybody was more or less afraid of and nobody really liked? The second reason was linked to the first; one did not ask questions about the principal, at least not questions that might look like gossiping or simple curiosity.
‘Is she here yet?’ ‘Who is going to tell her…’, ‘Is she still in her office?’, ‘Did she say anything this morning?’
That was the kind of questions that were sometimes asked when Miranda was not around. To have a crush on her was so silly and hopeless that Andy didn’t even think of it as a crush. It was just admiration, from a safe distance, and if her heart ached a little if she didn’t see Miranda through the window, she pretended not to feel it and stuck her nose in a new book or turned her attention to a child who needed help with something.
Then came a day when the strangest thing happened.
Miranda walked in to the library at the end of a long workday - Andy had never seen it happen before.
“How can I help you?” Andy said, “We don’t have books for adults here.”
They only had books for children, and the principal, although she knew a lot (or everything?) about children and what was going on in the school, she was not known for taking an active interest in what interested the children.
Andy blushed, because of course Miranda must know what they had and didn’t have. She must have a reason for coming, and she was going to say so…
But Miranda didn’t. She just looked around, as if she had never been in there before - but she had; Andy remembered a meeting that was held there once because the conference room was being painted, and of course she must have been in the library several times…
“It must be quite tedious,” Miranda said, and made a vague gesture to the room, “to be surrounded by nothing but… fairytales all day.”
“Oh, no.” Andy shook her head violently. “Not at all. Firstly, I like children’s books and I’m genuinely interested. Secondly, it’s not really fairytales, I mean, not all of it. It’s much more than that. Literature for young people should be taken seriously as much as, or more, literature for adults. Actually, even books for young children treat serious and important topics, and…”
“Yes,” Miranda cut her off with the word that somehow sounded more like ‘no’, “I see. Well, I’m glad you like it here. That’s all.”
Andy stared after her when she left, not knowing what to think, not knowing that the principal cussed silently between her teeth, calling herself a coward and much worse things.
Miranda had meant to talk to Andrea, to really talk to her, and instead she just stood there, listening to a speech about the importance of literature for children - as if she didn’t know! She was a pedagogue, too, after all! - and she, there was no denying it, had made a fool of herself.
The pretty young girl, she said to herself, was too young and too pretty. Pretty young girls should only be admired from a safe distance. Except that a principal shouldn’t even do that, shouldn’t think such thoughts at all at the workplace.
But a new routine developed. At the end of the day - not every day, not even most days - when all children were gone and most of the teachers, too, Miranda walked past the library before she left the school. If Andrea was still there, she went in.
As soon as Andy realized that this could happen in the evenings - but never during the day - she began to work late most nights. She tried to tell herself that it was nothing. There was always something to do, or at least a new book to read. She didn’t have to stay but she wanted to because she was that passionate about her work. If Miranda didn’t come - oh well, who cares…
“Hey Andy,” said Nigel the janitor one such lonely evening when she opened the glass door to the library and locked it behind her, “you’re not too cheerful tonight. She didn’t stop by tonight, eh?”
Andy stared at him.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing.” The bald, friendly man shrugged his shoulder. “But you know, I work late sometimes, too. It’s not always easy to get things done when all the kids are running around here.”
“Yeah, so?”
Nigel gave her a sharp look through his glasses.
“I’ve been here longer than you,” he said. “Longer than her, even. So I’ve seen a thing or two, and I know a thing or two - about her, for instance.”
Andy didn’t need to ask who he was referring to.
“What do you know?”
“She never talks to people the way she talks to you. She keeps to herself. Maybe she thinks it’s her duty as a professional, maybe she’s just as insanely proud and full of herself as some people say or maybe she’s just scared - gotten burned once, I guess - I don’t know. But what I do know is that she talks to you, she comes to see you in there, and that must mean that she likes you.”
“You think so?”
Andy’s heart was racing, but she was doubtful. It was true that Miranda kept to herself, but if just talking was Miranda’s way of showing that she liked somebody…
“Yes, that’s what I think,” Nigel said with a smile, “goodnight, Andy.”
Andy thought about the janitor’s words. It wasn’t that she was unwilling to believe him, but she was afraid to. What could she hope for?
She remembered one of the first talks she had had with Miranda in the library. Miranda had commented on a small bouquet of flowers on Andy’s desk.
“Those flowers have grown under my window. I guess that means that the little brat who gave them to you has passed the test.”
“What test?”
Andy didn’t follow - was Miranda talking about biology lessons, and how was that connected to the fact that Andy was given flowers, childishly picked with too short stems?
“Oh, the test some of the older children subject newcomers to. Some kind of initiation rite, I guess. They all know that the small garden between my office and this building is off limits. They don’t know when I can see them or not. So, to pick forbidden flowers right under my nose is an act of great bravery. Of course, if I catch them…”
“Oh, yes,” Andy murmured. She wouldn’t want to be in that kid’s shoes.
“So,” Miranda concluded, “these flowers are a precious prey and a sign of appreciation of you, I guess, because you have them.”
And a sign of defiance against Miranda? She didn’t say so, but wasn’t there a hint of sadness in her voice? Maybe the sadness was just in Andy’s imagination, because to her, it was a tragedy that Miranda was more feared than liked.
Miranda didn’t stay much longer that evening. She never stayed long. She never talked about herself and she never asked Andy any questions. What did they talk about? Children, reading, books, their favorite stories. Miranda remembered books and stories from her childhood, and that was the time when Andy could be sure that the woman was a little sad - saddened because Andy assured her that hardly even one out of a hundred little girls read those old books anymore, which was a shame, she agreed…
Miranda had stopped her habit of ending every conversation with ‘that’s all’, and instead she said ‘goodnight’ like a normal person, and maybe, Andy thought in the darkness of the night - which was a Friday night so she didn’t have to get up early in the morning; lots of time for thoughts - maybe the janitor was right and maybe that meant something. Miranda was so aloof, unapproachable, and yet - there was something in her voice, in the bottom of her eyes, when they talked about books, that proved that there was a real, warm person under the icy surface.
What’s her life like, Andy wondered, is she an admired and feared queen everywhere she goes? Does anybody love her? Or is she lonely? Has she been lonely for so long that she doesn’t even know it anymore and is that why she distances herself from everyone?
Miranda knew exactly how much time that had passed since that first late afternoon when she talked to Andrea in the library. She remembered every single word they had said to each other, even Andrea’s nervous babbling and her own short, dismissive replies.
She knew that she often made people nervous. She didn’t regret it. But Andrea - Andrea was different from everyone else; sweet and intelligent and warm, and Miranda didn’t want her to think that she looked down on her. It was difficult, because she was used to finding faults, to criticize. Teasing people was so easy, they didn’t even know that they were being teased, people in general were stupid and boring and never did things quickly enough or fast enough. She was known to have made grown men cry.
Miranda blushed when she remembered that she had called Andrea ‘incompetent’ once. She hadn’t meant it - and that was unsettling. Why hadn’t she meant it, and why didn’t she have more control of herself? With time, Andrea became less nervous around her, but Miranda was not any less nervous around Andrea.
Why did the girl even put up with her? Could it be that she liked her? Miranda didn’t dare believe it; she saw no reason why. Perhaps what they had could be called friendship - it was warm, nice, scary and new - or perhaps not… What did she know? Miranda’s success in life did not reach beyond her professional life into the personal. And she had stopped asking herself why a long time ago.
This could have gone on forever. Or at least for a very, very long time. Andy could have left the school and moved on to something better or more interesting. Miranda wouldn’t have done anything to stop her and then only Nigel, the janitor, would be as bold as to give her a friendly smile.
Now they were two. Nigel - who didn’t seem to care what people thought - and Andrea, who seemed to enjoy her company, if her gorgeous smile meant what it looked like.
The library was warm. Not too warm, but warm enough to feel inviting and comfortable, and the carpet was soft enough to abate the sound of Miranda’s high heels. Everything was smaller in there than in an ordinary library, except the shelves and Andrea’s desk and chair. Everything was child-appropriate in size and it made Miranda, who was not the tallest of women, to feel like a giant sometimes.
But she liked it in there. Something came to life within her, old memories of the kind of person she used to be. A person who didn’t find fairytales tedious, and who wasn’t ashamed to admit it. When she was in there with Andrea, she felt as if she was in another world where the ordinary rules did not apply. She even began to smile.
“Miranda,” Andy said one evening when, according to the clock on the wall, the older woman was going to get up and leave any minute, “would you mind continuing this conversation somewhere else? I’m hungry.”
Miranda got up from the small chair - too small, it grazed the floor - and she didn’t know where to look.
“I… don’t, um, I…”, she stuttered, and she hated herself for the sudden wave of panic that prevented her from immediately saying ‘yes, let’s go and grab something to eat!’, but that was something she just couldn’t say.
“What, you don’t eat?”
Andrea smiled. And she blushed and fidgeted. Oh, she was nervous as well as Miranda… Miranda, who felt that as the older one she should be more confident and take charge of the situation, but something about the library and the librarian made her feel like a child.
“The thing is”, Andy said, “that I really like it when we talk in here at the end of the day, but I feel that we’re also sort of stuck here. This is my workplace after all, and this can’t - shouldn’t - get too personal in here, so if I wanted to get to know you properly…”
Miranda nodded.
“Oh yes,” she said vaguely, “I see…”
She still couldn’t look at Andrea, instead she looked at the girl’s shoes and hoped that she wasn’t blushing as much as she suspected she was.
“But maybe I’m wrong,” Andrea said, and her voice trembled slightly, “I’m sorry if I… I mean, if you don’t want to…”
“Oh, but I do!”
Miranda blurted out the words and her head jerked up. Andrea’s eyes that met hers were dark and big, and earnest. Andrea wanted to talk to her about other things than books and children. Andrea wanted to leave the safety of her warm and cosy library and get out in the real, cold world, but maybe, if Andrea really was as warm as she seemed like, then maybe the cold real world wasn’t going to be such a bad place after all?
Andrea smiled.
“Oh, I’m glad. It’s just a dinner, Miranda. We can do that, right? I don’t know why everyone is so afraid of you.”
Miranda sniffed.
“Well, neither do I, but I guess there are reasons. And look at you; you’re all flustered and fidgeting…”
“But that’s not because I’m afraid of you,” Andy said, “I never was. It’s just because I like you…”
“I see,” Miranda said and looked toward the big glass doors that soon were going to open up to something new somewhere else. “Well, I happen to like you too, so I guess we have something in common.”
“I’m sure this is something people have written about in books,” Andrea said and began walking to the doors, “but I think it’s better for us to talk about it than to read about it.”
Andrea held the door open, “Are you coming?”
And the principal turned off the light and walked out of the library, a place she was always going to think about as a place were people were liked for who they truly were.
Fandom: The Devil Wears Prada
Rating/Genre: G/femslash, fluff, AU
Characters/Pairing: Miranda/Andy, Nigel
Summary: Miranda is the principal and Andy is the school’s librarian. They have nothing at all in common - or have they?
Word count: 3 214
Spoilers/Warnings: No./Miranda might be slightly OOC, but I hope that’s okay for an AU fic…
Notes 1: Based on a prompt by damelola from the Quick and Dirty DWP Comment Fic Free-For-All.
Notes 2: For those of you waiting for the auction fics, I can only say that I’m sorry. I am working on them, I promise… it’s just that real life has kept me busy for months now.
Miranda and Andy were each other’s complete opposites. But Miranda and Andy had something in common that everybody could see: Both of them had some kind of power and influence.
Of course, the comparison ended there. They did not have the same kind of power.
When Miranda Priestly sometimes walked down the halls of her school - no, she didn’t own it, but who could deny that it was hers? - all shouting and cavorting ended and no one played any pranks or threw any pencils around. When Miranda Priestly sometimes walked down the halls of her school, the children behaved like little angels because they feared her. Such was her power; her anger icy and hot at the same time, and the teachers did not say it but they agreed with the children.
Andy Sachs was the librarian. Her smile was bright and the children loved her, and there were no shouting or cavorting, no flying pens and no crying, in her library. True; it hadn’t always been like that. When she was new on the job, it had been the complete opposite. The children tested her boundaries and her patience in every thinkable and unthinkable way.
Miranda, the principal, had watched her and secretly wondered how long the doe-eyed naïve girl was going to last. Children could be little beasts, she knew it well, and it was only a matter of time before Andrea was going to admit that she couldn’t do it.
Except that Andrea, in some mysterious way, managed to turn the failure into a quiet triumph. She didn’t break down and cry - at least not in front of the principal or any child - and she didn’t scream and threat. Miranda didn’t know what she did. Maybe it was the sweetness of her voice and her smile that must hide an iron will. She must have a backbone made of steel, because somehow she managed to uphold the discipline after all.
There was a small garden built in between the school buildings. The principal’s office was facing the garden from one side, and opposite were the big windows of the library. Miranda looked sometimes - at first because she was annoyed because of the terrible chaos, and after a couple of weeks, because she was astonished and tried to figure out where the peace and calm came from.
Then she just looked, without thinking about why. If she thought about it, she immediately looked away - but in an unguarded moment, her gaze drifted off and out of the window again. She looked at Andrea at her desk, working at the computer or filling out some paper forms. She watched Andrea putting books up on the shelves or taking one down to give to a child who wasn’t tall enough to reach the top shelf. She watched Andrea smile and talk to the kids, or read them a story, or do something that looked like helping them with homework. She watched Andrea speak softly - at least she imagined that the voice was soft - to an unhappy child and touch the lucky boy or girl with her gentle hands…
No. Miranda knew nothing of Andrea’s hands. They had shaken hands once, briefly, the first time the girl came to the school, but that was all. Miranda didn’t touch her colleagues; why would she? How could she? No, no. It was far from her ordinary way of thinking to even get such an idea in her head, that somebody had soft hands and the unhappy person who was comforted by them must be a very lucky person indeed…
Andy liked children. She just didn’t have very much experience with them, and being a school librarian turned out to be a bit of an ordeal. But once she passed the initial phase, she liked her work. She loved books. She always had, and she enjoyed telling the children about her own childhood favorites as well as making sure the place was up to date with what was new in the world of children’s books.
Andy was happy, because she felt that she had all she could ever wish for. Something else she loved was beauty, and especially in the shape of a woman, and especially a woman as queen-like and elegant as Miranda Priestly. Sometimes, Andy could see her through the window. Miranda was always so poised, but sometimes - she must be lost in deep thought - she ran her fingers through her hair. Her white hair, so exquisite, and her hands, so beautiful. Her hands, without rings.
Did that mean that Miranda was unmarried? If she was unmarried, did that mean that she was single? If she was single, could she possibly be interested in women?
The librarian didn’t ask, for more than one reason. One reason was that she feared the mocking laugh of the teachers - how could she, a young girl, dare to think that way about a woman twice her age, a woman everybody was more or less afraid of and nobody really liked? The second reason was linked to the first; one did not ask questions about the principal, at least not questions that might look like gossiping or simple curiosity.
‘Is she here yet?’ ‘Who is going to tell her…’, ‘Is she still in her office?’, ‘Did she say anything this morning?’
That was the kind of questions that were sometimes asked when Miranda was not around. To have a crush on her was so silly and hopeless that Andy didn’t even think of it as a crush. It was just admiration, from a safe distance, and if her heart ached a little if she didn’t see Miranda through the window, she pretended not to feel it and stuck her nose in a new book or turned her attention to a child who needed help with something.
Then came a day when the strangest thing happened.
Miranda walked in to the library at the end of a long workday - Andy had never seen it happen before.
“How can I help you?” Andy said, “We don’t have books for adults here.”
They only had books for children, and the principal, although she knew a lot (or everything?) about children and what was going on in the school, she was not known for taking an active interest in what interested the children.
Andy blushed, because of course Miranda must know what they had and didn’t have. She must have a reason for coming, and she was going to say so…
But Miranda didn’t. She just looked around, as if she had never been in there before - but she had; Andy remembered a meeting that was held there once because the conference room was being painted, and of course she must have been in the library several times…
“It must be quite tedious,” Miranda said, and made a vague gesture to the room, “to be surrounded by nothing but… fairytales all day.”
“Oh, no.” Andy shook her head violently. “Not at all. Firstly, I like children’s books and I’m genuinely interested. Secondly, it’s not really fairytales, I mean, not all of it. It’s much more than that. Literature for young people should be taken seriously as much as, or more, literature for adults. Actually, even books for young children treat serious and important topics, and…”
“Yes,” Miranda cut her off with the word that somehow sounded more like ‘no’, “I see. Well, I’m glad you like it here. That’s all.”
Andy stared after her when she left, not knowing what to think, not knowing that the principal cussed silently between her teeth, calling herself a coward and much worse things.
Miranda had meant to talk to Andrea, to really talk to her, and instead she just stood there, listening to a speech about the importance of literature for children - as if she didn’t know! She was a pedagogue, too, after all! - and she, there was no denying it, had made a fool of herself.
The pretty young girl, she said to herself, was too young and too pretty. Pretty young girls should only be admired from a safe distance. Except that a principal shouldn’t even do that, shouldn’t think such thoughts at all at the workplace.
But a new routine developed. At the end of the day - not every day, not even most days - when all children were gone and most of the teachers, too, Miranda walked past the library before she left the school. If Andrea was still there, she went in.
As soon as Andy realized that this could happen in the evenings - but never during the day - she began to work late most nights. She tried to tell herself that it was nothing. There was always something to do, or at least a new book to read. She didn’t have to stay but she wanted to because she was that passionate about her work. If Miranda didn’t come - oh well, who cares…
“Hey Andy,” said Nigel the janitor one such lonely evening when she opened the glass door to the library and locked it behind her, “you’re not too cheerful tonight. She didn’t stop by tonight, eh?”
Andy stared at him.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing.” The bald, friendly man shrugged his shoulder. “But you know, I work late sometimes, too. It’s not always easy to get things done when all the kids are running around here.”
“Yeah, so?”
Nigel gave her a sharp look through his glasses.
“I’ve been here longer than you,” he said. “Longer than her, even. So I’ve seen a thing or two, and I know a thing or two - about her, for instance.”
Andy didn’t need to ask who he was referring to.
“What do you know?”
“She never talks to people the way she talks to you. She keeps to herself. Maybe she thinks it’s her duty as a professional, maybe she’s just as insanely proud and full of herself as some people say or maybe she’s just scared - gotten burned once, I guess - I don’t know. But what I do know is that she talks to you, she comes to see you in there, and that must mean that she likes you.”
“You think so?”
Andy’s heart was racing, but she was doubtful. It was true that Miranda kept to herself, but if just talking was Miranda’s way of showing that she liked somebody…
“Yes, that’s what I think,” Nigel said with a smile, “goodnight, Andy.”
Andy thought about the janitor’s words. It wasn’t that she was unwilling to believe him, but she was afraid to. What could she hope for?
She remembered one of the first talks she had had with Miranda in the library. Miranda had commented on a small bouquet of flowers on Andy’s desk.
“Those flowers have grown under my window. I guess that means that the little brat who gave them to you has passed the test.”
“What test?”
Andy didn’t follow - was Miranda talking about biology lessons, and how was that connected to the fact that Andy was given flowers, childishly picked with too short stems?
“Oh, the test some of the older children subject newcomers to. Some kind of initiation rite, I guess. They all know that the small garden between my office and this building is off limits. They don’t know when I can see them or not. So, to pick forbidden flowers right under my nose is an act of great bravery. Of course, if I catch them…”
“Oh, yes,” Andy murmured. She wouldn’t want to be in that kid’s shoes.
“So,” Miranda concluded, “these flowers are a precious prey and a sign of appreciation of you, I guess, because you have them.”
And a sign of defiance against Miranda? She didn’t say so, but wasn’t there a hint of sadness in her voice? Maybe the sadness was just in Andy’s imagination, because to her, it was a tragedy that Miranda was more feared than liked.
Miranda didn’t stay much longer that evening. She never stayed long. She never talked about herself and she never asked Andy any questions. What did they talk about? Children, reading, books, their favorite stories. Miranda remembered books and stories from her childhood, and that was the time when Andy could be sure that the woman was a little sad - saddened because Andy assured her that hardly even one out of a hundred little girls read those old books anymore, which was a shame, she agreed…
Miranda had stopped her habit of ending every conversation with ‘that’s all’, and instead she said ‘goodnight’ like a normal person, and maybe, Andy thought in the darkness of the night - which was a Friday night so she didn’t have to get up early in the morning; lots of time for thoughts - maybe the janitor was right and maybe that meant something. Miranda was so aloof, unapproachable, and yet - there was something in her voice, in the bottom of her eyes, when they talked about books, that proved that there was a real, warm person under the icy surface.
What’s her life like, Andy wondered, is she an admired and feared queen everywhere she goes? Does anybody love her? Or is she lonely? Has she been lonely for so long that she doesn’t even know it anymore and is that why she distances herself from everyone?
Miranda knew exactly how much time that had passed since that first late afternoon when she talked to Andrea in the library. She remembered every single word they had said to each other, even Andrea’s nervous babbling and her own short, dismissive replies.
She knew that she often made people nervous. She didn’t regret it. But Andrea - Andrea was different from everyone else; sweet and intelligent and warm, and Miranda didn’t want her to think that she looked down on her. It was difficult, because she was used to finding faults, to criticize. Teasing people was so easy, they didn’t even know that they were being teased, people in general were stupid and boring and never did things quickly enough or fast enough. She was known to have made grown men cry.
Miranda blushed when she remembered that she had called Andrea ‘incompetent’ once. She hadn’t meant it - and that was unsettling. Why hadn’t she meant it, and why didn’t she have more control of herself? With time, Andrea became less nervous around her, but Miranda was not any less nervous around Andrea.
Why did the girl even put up with her? Could it be that she liked her? Miranda didn’t dare believe it; she saw no reason why. Perhaps what they had could be called friendship - it was warm, nice, scary and new - or perhaps not… What did she know? Miranda’s success in life did not reach beyond her professional life into the personal. And she had stopped asking herself why a long time ago.
This could have gone on forever. Or at least for a very, very long time. Andy could have left the school and moved on to something better or more interesting. Miranda wouldn’t have done anything to stop her and then only Nigel, the janitor, would be as bold as to give her a friendly smile.
Now they were two. Nigel - who didn’t seem to care what people thought - and Andrea, who seemed to enjoy her company, if her gorgeous smile meant what it looked like.
The library was warm. Not too warm, but warm enough to feel inviting and comfortable, and the carpet was soft enough to abate the sound of Miranda’s high heels. Everything was smaller in there than in an ordinary library, except the shelves and Andrea’s desk and chair. Everything was child-appropriate in size and it made Miranda, who was not the tallest of women, to feel like a giant sometimes.
But she liked it in there. Something came to life within her, old memories of the kind of person she used to be. A person who didn’t find fairytales tedious, and who wasn’t ashamed to admit it. When she was in there with Andrea, she felt as if she was in another world where the ordinary rules did not apply. She even began to smile.
“Miranda,” Andy said one evening when, according to the clock on the wall, the older woman was going to get up and leave any minute, “would you mind continuing this conversation somewhere else? I’m hungry.”
Miranda got up from the small chair - too small, it grazed the floor - and she didn’t know where to look.
“I… don’t, um, I…”, she stuttered, and she hated herself for the sudden wave of panic that prevented her from immediately saying ‘yes, let’s go and grab something to eat!’, but that was something she just couldn’t say.
“What, you don’t eat?”
Andrea smiled. And she blushed and fidgeted. Oh, she was nervous as well as Miranda… Miranda, who felt that as the older one she should be more confident and take charge of the situation, but something about the library and the librarian made her feel like a child.
“The thing is”, Andy said, “that I really like it when we talk in here at the end of the day, but I feel that we’re also sort of stuck here. This is my workplace after all, and this can’t - shouldn’t - get too personal in here, so if I wanted to get to know you properly…”
Miranda nodded.
“Oh yes,” she said vaguely, “I see…”
She still couldn’t look at Andrea, instead she looked at the girl’s shoes and hoped that she wasn’t blushing as much as she suspected she was.
“But maybe I’m wrong,” Andrea said, and her voice trembled slightly, “I’m sorry if I… I mean, if you don’t want to…”
“Oh, but I do!”
Miranda blurted out the words and her head jerked up. Andrea’s eyes that met hers were dark and big, and earnest. Andrea wanted to talk to her about other things than books and children. Andrea wanted to leave the safety of her warm and cosy library and get out in the real, cold world, but maybe, if Andrea really was as warm as she seemed like, then maybe the cold real world wasn’t going to be such a bad place after all?
Andrea smiled.
“Oh, I’m glad. It’s just a dinner, Miranda. We can do that, right? I don’t know why everyone is so afraid of you.”
Miranda sniffed.
“Well, neither do I, but I guess there are reasons. And look at you; you’re all flustered and fidgeting…”
“But that’s not because I’m afraid of you,” Andy said, “I never was. It’s just because I like you…”
“I see,” Miranda said and looked toward the big glass doors that soon were going to open up to something new somewhere else. “Well, I happen to like you too, so I guess we have something in common.”
“I’m sure this is something people have written about in books,” Andrea said and began walking to the doors, “but I think it’s better for us to talk about it than to read about it.”
Andrea held the door open, “Are you coming?”
And the principal turned off the light and walked out of the library, a place she was always going to think about as a place were people were liked for who they truly were.