by Pamela Morsi
She closed the closet door and turned the key in the lock before secreting it once more on the doorjamb.
As they left the room, the phone rang.
Viv ignored the one on her husband’s desk. Instead she continued on into the living room to answer the one next to the sofa.
“Hi, Mom,” said a familiar female voice at the end of the line.
“Oh, Leanne, how are you, sweetie?”
The generic question was all her daughter needed to launch off into a play-by-play of her busy urban life. Viv settled in for a cozy chat. Dewey looked up at her expectantly, but waited until she offered wordless permission to jump up into her lap.
She stroked his fur and scratched his ears as she talked and listened.
Leanne always spoke as if her life was endless chaos. But Viv could see that she and her husband Jamie were happy and settled, each pursuing careers that they enjoyed.
“So how did it go with Ryan?” Leanne asked.
Viv tensed. It was a small movement, but enough that Dewey cocked his head to look up at her.
“Fine.”
“I’m still dying of curiosity,” Leanne said. “Ryan said it wasn’t ethical to discuss investigations for his clients, even with family members.”
“I simply had him look into something for me,” Viv answered evasively.
“Is it about the drugstore? If somebody is robbing Scott blind, I need to know that.”
“It’s nothing about the store,” Viv assured her. “It was personal business, I suppose you could say.”
“Personal business? Really, Mother, what kind of ‘personal business’ could a sixty-two-year-old woman have with a private detective?”
Viv didn’t reply.
“I’ve been racking my brain for weeks,” Leanne said. “Could it be something about Dad? I mean that’s what we see on TV when they hire these guys. It’s how you catch a cheating husband in a cheap motel room with a bimbo.”
“Your father was not particularly fond of cheap motels and he never looked twice at any bimbo.”
“That’s my thinking, too. But I thought you might be second-guessing yourself.”
“No, of course not.”
“Okay. Then were you taken in by some senior scam kind of thing?”
“What?”
“Lots of con men target women your age, especially widows,” Leanne said. “You haven’t been exchanging emails with any exiled Nigerian princes, right?”
Viv sighed heavily. “No, dear. No Nigerian princes.”
“What about sweepstakes winning? They may say you need to pay a portion back, but never wire money to anyone without talking to us.”
“Of course I wouldn’t.”
“And if you get a phone call from a family member who says they are in trouble, call them back with the number you have for them.”
“Honey, I am not being scammed, I promise,” Viv told her. “Don’t let your imagination run away with itself.”
“Well, I’m your child, I worry about you.”
“I’m the mother and it’s my job to do the worrying.”
“Not anymore,” Leanne told her. “Once your kids are grown, you’re allowed to stop.”
“A mother only stops when she’s dead,” Viv stated with conviction.
“Whatever,” her daughter said with a sigh. “But I would quit worrying if you would just tell me what’s going on. I won’t question or judge. But if you tell me, it will ease my mind. Unless it’s about me...”
“It’s not about you and it’s none of your business.”
“Have you told Scott?”
“It’s none of his business, either.”
“Okay, well at least you didn’t tell him and leave me out.”
“Of course not.”
“Good. So it’s not a scam. And it’s not me and it’s not Scott.”
Viv kept completely quiet, not even taking a breath. “If you’re not going to tell me, I’ll just have to spend more time guessing.”
“Don’t bother.”
“I’m hoping I can wear you down,” she said. “Anyway, Jamie and I are thinking about coming down there, either this weekend or the one after. Which is better?”
The hand that was petting Dew stopped abruptly in midmotion. The little dog who’d been luxuriating in the attention opened his eyes.
“This is not really a good time, Leanne.”
“What do you mean?”
“Harvest is almost on us and you know how crazy everything gets around that time.”
On the other end of the line, she heard Leanne chuckle. “Mom, I’ve been through my share of harvest times. I know it seems like it gets really busy and the traffic gets hectic. But we live in Kansas City. Jamie and I are immune to traffic and hectic.”
“I...I don’t think there will be any room,” Viv told her. “With that many people in town, there are always people trying to crowd in.”
“We can stay upstairs in the apartment.”
“No, you can’t. I rented it.”
“Really? Well... that’s great, Mom. So we’ll stay in the guest room.”
“No...no, I think someone will be using it, too.”
“Who?”
“Uh...well, honey you know how it is at harvest, every room is at a premium.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Finally Leanne spoke. “So you’re renting rooms in your house to augment your income. What the hell is going on? I’m calling Scott.”
“Margery Leanne! You keep your nose out of it!” Viv told her sharply. “I told you it has nothing to do with money or the drugstore.”
“Don’t call me Margery and don’t talk to me like I’m twelve,” her daughter snapped back. “I’m thirty- two years old.”
“Then it’s high time that you learned to mind your own business.”
Viv would have liked to slam down the phone and be done with the conversation, but ladies did not do that. And she had tried always to be a lady.
Dewey sat expectantly on her lap as if preparing for a joint escape through the back door. She rubbed his neck reassuringly as she modulated the tone in her voice.
“Leanne, honey, please don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. Things are busy around here. I’m busy with my clubs and the library. I would love to see you and Jamie, but it would simply work out better for me if you came to visit around the end of the month.”
Her daughter didn’t sound completely mollified, but ultimately, she did agree to wait until the wheat was in and day-to-day life back to normal. And when they finally said their goodbyes it was congenial if not completely back to normal.
As Viv hung up, she uttered a sigh of great relief. “Whew! That was close,” she told Mr. Dewey.
Sixteen
324.4 The Political Process
D.J. had spent much of Sunday afternoon preparing for the weekly staff meeting on Monday morning. After the Friday fiasco, she felt very strongly that reestablishing herself as a calm, reasonable person with forward-looking plans and teamwork camaraderie was paramount. Miss Grundler had been looking for a weakness and in D.J.’s vehement defense of young Ashley Turpin, she’d certainly found it. D.J. needed to skew that bad experience into positive change for the library, and she was eager to do it.
She arrived at work an hour early, but she was not the first on the job. The rusted old bike that belonged to James was already thoroughly over-chained to the railing. She wondered, not for the first time, if the guy actually lived in the building. She’d seen no evidence of that. No personal items anywhere. He hadn’t left so much as a cracker in the break room. And he appeared never to leave the stack area. There wasn’t even a chair in that section. So unless he was sleeping on bookshelves, he was upright and moving all the time.
D.J. smiled to herself at the image of sleeping in the library. She used to dream that she could do that. It had been her childhood fantasy. Going to the library and simply staying forever.
Perhaps she and James had more in common than sh
e’d originally thought.
He was out of sight, of course, as she entered the darkened entry in front of the circulation desk. D.J. turned on the lights.
“How can you work the stacks in total darkness?” she asked the silence of the big room.
A long hesitation was followed by a tentative reply. “Miss Grundler doesn’t want me running up the electric bill.”
“But you can’t see what you’re doing,” D.J. pointed out.
“I’ve... I’ve got a flashlight,” he said, tentatively.
D.J. shook her head. “Flashlight shelf reading,” she mumbled to herself, before adding more loudly, “James, you have my permission to turn on any or all of the lights that you need to do your work.”
“Okay.”
She turned to go and then changed her mind. “I’m going to the break room to make coffee,” she said. “If you want us to have the staff meeting out here, I’d like to have a table and some chairs, please.”
Without waiting for a reply, D.J. went back through the workroom to the little kitchen. It took her only a couple of minutes to put fresh coffee into the paper filter and pour the water through the machine. She’d already had a cup at home, but she decided to wait for the pot to give James time to do whatever he might do.
As she leaned against the counter, her mind began running down the meeting checklist. She wanted to make sure to praise what she saw and throw out new ideas for making it better. The copious notes she’d made left little necessity for her to actually remember. Still she attempted to focus very directly on her plans for the day. Allowing her thoughts to wander off in other directions was never a good idea. And the past couple of days provided two directions that she was specifically trying to avoid. There was the little girl who had caused her to so shockingly lose her temper on Friday. And there was her Saturday night with Scott.
D.J. considered herself some kind of an expert in compartmentalizing. It was undoubtedly a genetic trait. She’d shown early talent in boxing up every aspect of her life, careful never to taint any experience with another. Everything about life, the precious, the bitter, the uncertain, could be perfectly managed and excellently controlled if it was kept securely on its own. Home was home. School was school. Work was work. Although choosing librarianship as a career had certainly served to muddle the place she loved to be with the place she earned her living. Sometimes things spilled out of boxes.
It was the upheaval of change, new place, new people. That could cause old demons to crop up. Literally as well as figuratively.
Of course, it was probably unfair to categorize Scott as a demon. But he was not a nice person, she was convinced of that now. And worrying that he might remember her was certainly putting her through hell. Still, he was probably not the devil, though that would explain the quality of his bedroom skills.
“Box spilling over,” she warned herself aloud.
Getting her cup, she “cheated” by pouring from the carafe before the pot was finished, but she managed not to spill a drop. By the time she returned to the circulation area, James had set up a table and four chairs.
“Thank you,” she called out to the mass of shelving that separated her from the light of the windows.
D.J. made a quick trip up the spiral stairs to get a couple of things from her office and then lined up all her notes, files and her laptop at the head of the table. She decided to be already seated when her staff arrived. That way they could move straight to business almost instantaneously.
At least that seemed reasonable in theory. In actuality, it didn’t go quite that way.
Suzy arrived first and with her own agenda items, none of which D.J. wanted to discuss.
“I am all totally squeeee!” she declared. “You went out Saturday night with Scott Sanderson!”
D.J. wasn’t sure if her zeal stemmed from disbelief or disapproval.
“We saw a movie together,” she clarified.
“I can’t believe you had plans for a first date and didn’t tell me,” Suzy said as she seated herself in the chair on the right, leaning forward, chin on clasped hands as if in expectation of being told a fairy story.
D.J. barely managed not to sigh aloud. “It wasn’t a date,” she assured her. “And it wasn’t planned.”
“Spontaneous? Oh, spontaneous is the best kind of first date.”
“Not a date,” D.J. repeated. “Mrs. Sanderson asked him to show me around, introduce me to people. That’s all.”
“That’s perfect,” Suzy said, nodding. “Low-key, no pressure, men have no defense against that. Viv really does like you. And you know what they say, ‘win the mother-in-law first.’ It makes the long-term relationship so much easier.”
D.J. could not believe that the term “mother-in-law” had actually been used in this conversation.
“There will be no long-term relationship,” D.J. said.
“Now don’t count yourself out,” Suzy cautioned. “You are an attractive woman. And Scott goes for the quiet scholarly type.”
“I doubt that. But it doesn’t matter. I moved here to work, not meet men,” D.J. explained.
“Of course that’s not your reason,” Suzy agreed. “But a lot of people are saying that Viv’s whole new librarian plan had more to do with fixing up Scott than fixing up the library.”
Suzy giggled delightedly at that.
D.J. felt slightly nauseated. She’d already been warned. But it didn’t matter how many people thought it or who might want it, there would be nothing between them. In fact, she hoped never to catch sight of the man again.
“It was one movie,” she explained calmly to her employee. “We have no interest in each other, nothing in common and we didn’t hit it off. End of story.”
“Oh.” Suzy sounded genuinely deflated. She sat back in the chair, her expression confused. “So did you have a fight or something?”
“No, of course not. He’s simply not my type.”
The woman’s expression went from puzzled to incredulous. “Scott is, like, one of the best-looking guys in town. And there are practically no single guys at all in Verdant.”
“Then he shouldn’t have any trouble finding someone else to date,” D.J. said.
“He doesn’t though,” Suzy said. “He doesn’t go out with anybody.”
“I think you must be mistaken about that.”
“Not likely,” Suzy stated with sarcasm. “Dating in Verdant is like a spectator sport. The only thing that draws a bigger or more loyal audience is the high school basketball team. So if Scott had dated anyone, I would know it.”
D.J. shook her head. “I ran into his ex in the ladies’ room at the theater.”
“His ex-wife? We were on cheerleading squad together. She’s a sweetheart. Everybody loves her. But there are some things in marriage that can’t be fixed. We all worry that it just broke Scott’s heart.”
“Broke Scott’s heart? That’s not the way I heard it. And I didn’t meet his ex-wife, I met his ex-girlfriend.”
“His ex-girlfriend?”
Apparently, Suzy wasn’t as in the know as she thought.
“Eileen,” D.J. clarified.
Suzy’s eyes got as big as saucers, but her voice shrunk down to a furtive whisper. “You met Eileen Holland? What made you think she was his ex-girlfriend?”
“She told me she was.”
“O. M. G.!” Suzy declared, dragging each letter out dramatically. “There were lots of rumors, lots of speculation, but nobody knew for sure.”
“So there,” D.J. said. “Dating in Verdant may not be as public as you think.”
“Oh, you don’t understand,” Suzy corrected her. “They weren’t dating. Married people don’t date. Eileen’s husband is Bryce Holland. He and his dad own the grain elevator.”
D.J. practically had to pick her jaw off the table and suddenly understood what all the whispering was all about.
“Bryce is like... like one of the richest guys in miles and miles. He knows everybody and has tons of influ
ence on the library board,” Suzy warned. “So whatever Eileen might have said to you, I’d forget that I ever heard it.”
At that moment, Miss Grundler stepped in from the workroom. Suzy shot the woman a glance before telegraphing a further, unnecessary warning to D.J.
“Message received,” D.J. replied grimly.
Seventeen
326.9 Enslavement & Emancipation
Scott awakened with an erection as big as Colorado, his bedcovers reminiscent of that topography. He groaned aloud as he recalled only glimpses of the dream that had stirred him. The sand, the surf and a flash of something shiny at a trim, tanned waist.
“Oh, Sparkle, you’re killing me,” he said aloud.
He rolled out of bed and headed, eyes still half-closed, to his morning shower.
It was at the store an hour later, his hair still wet and his first cup of coffee only halfway finished, that the lightbulb at the back of his brain went off. “That’s who she looks like,” he said to himself with total disbelief. The snippy, stuck-up librarian had a passing resemblance to Scott’s favorite dream girl.
“Un-effing-believable!”
He shook his head with incredulity. No two women could be any more different. His South Padre Sparkle was all spontaneity and sexiness. D.J., by contrast, seemed to be all planning and prudery.
Their date, which had not been a date, had only gone from bad to worse. What in the world had gotten into Eileen that after maintaining her silence for years, she would suddenly open up about their affair? And to a stranger, no less. Honestly, D.J. should have been flattered. Eileen had claws, for sure, but she rarely saw fit to do more than manicure them.
That incident was embarrassing, and he could understand how D.J. might be put off and resentful about being dragged into his stupid, now defunct relationship with a married woman. But she seemed even more angry by the end of the film than she had been at the time it had happened. That made no sense whatsoever. But then, very little of the librarian’s attitude made sense to him.
He kept hearing people say how “nice” she was, how “sweet.” Either the rest of town was completely off, or she’d decided simply to hate him.