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up my coat—I’d eagerly retired my winter one for the season, but the mornings were still nippy enough to require some sort of jacket. Had Marty prodded James once again? I really didn’t need her interfering with my love life, such as it was, and I was pretty sure James could manage on his own as well. I sighed, then picked up the phone and dialed.
    “Nell.” James, sounding rather grave, answered on the second ring.
    “James,” I replied. So much for the niceties. James could be brusque. “You called?”
    “I did. Can we meet for lunch?”
    From his tone I inferred that either this was business or someone could overhear him. “Sure. When?”
    “Noon, at that Italian place around the corner?”
    “See you then.” We hung up simultaneously. Not exactly romantic, but I’d be glad to see him anyway.
    When Eric came back bearing my coffee, I said, “I’ll be out for lunch. With Agent Morrison.”
    “I’ll put it on your calendar,” Eric said, with no further comment. Definitely discreet.
    Half an hour later Rich Girard knocked on my door. He was one of our part-timers, a lanky young man who was trying to figure out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life while learning some useful skills for collections management, in case he wanted to go to library school or get an advanced degree in history. Marty had quickly put him towork on the Terwilliger Collection. I gestured him into my office. “Let me guess—Marty talked to you?”
    He threw himself in a chair and nodded. “She told me what she wanted to do. I just wanted to make sure that you knew about it and approved. I mean, I work for you, right?”
    “That you do—well, more directly for Latoya—but I thought Marty’s idea made sense, so you go right ahead. Unless it’s too much work?”
    “It may take a couple of days to switch things around, but it’s probably a good idea to clear stuff out of the vault anyway. Actually I like the idea of having the whole collection in the workroom rather than having to bring up one box at a time. It’ll make my job easier.”
    “Will there be enough room in the workroom on this floor, do you think?”
    “Probably. And maybe we could take a look at what else should go in the old vault, while we have it opened up?”
    “My thought exactly,” I replied, and we launched into a discussion of which collections would complement the Terwilliger Collection, in terms of both period and frequency of use. Marty’s focus was her family papers, but I had to look at the bigger picture. Luckily we could serve both with this project. “Just don’t forget to maintain good records of what you’ve moved where, and keep Latoya updated. I know that’s usually the registrar’s job, but we’ve got to keep things current until we find one.”
    “I’m on it.”
    “Thanks, Rich. Of course, I’m sure Marty wants this to happen like yesterday. Use the freight elevator to haul the stuff upstairs, please—we don’t want to tie up the elevator out front.” We had only the one for patrons to use, and quite a few of them were elderly and needed it.
    “Gotcha. I’ll get started getting space ready up here.”
    After Rich left, I busied myself with minor administrative details. I was pleased that we had actually launched a new project, even if it was something as simple as reorganizing. For the last few months the Society had been in turmoil. When I’d been asked to take over, the board had given me a grace period to settle in—and I was aware that they were watching and waiting, since the position wasn’t permanent yet. But it was time to start moving forward. We’d hired Shelby and Eric to fill two of our staff vacancies, and we were actively looking for a registrar now. I had every confidence that we would find one in the next month or two. And as far as I could tell, based on attendance and membership renewals, the problems behind the scenes had gone largely unnoticed by our patrons—and that was good news.
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