Pamela Morsi (16 page)

But now she was on her on turf. Fortified with self-talk and alcohol, she might not get a better time. D.J. chose her words carefully.

“Your mother seems to be...preoccupied. Or maybe distracted is a better word. When she goes shopping, she’s buying a lot of...a lot of unexpected things.”

She was wondering if she’d have the guts to talk about the inappropriateness of an aging senior purchasing feminine hygiene products.

She heard him sigh heavily. “I am worried about her,” he said. “I’m sure it’s connected somehow to my dad’s death.”

D.J. nodded. “I’m sure it’s been hard for her. And hard for you, too.”

“Thanks,” Scott said. “He and I were really close. And I miss him every day, but Mom... Jeez, I don’t know what’s going on. She and Dad had such a bond between them...a real bond, you know? The kind that the rest of us all wish that we could have. They enjoyed each other. Never seemed to get bored with mundane conversations. They liked being in the same room together. They had all these shared smiles and private jokes.” He shook his head. “I grew up thinking all marriages were like that. I didn’t discover how wrong I was until I had my own.”

Scott gave a light chuckle in self-derision.

There was a flash of a smile in her direction that caused an unwanted clutch in D.J.’s heart.

“My parents shared everything,” he went on. “My sister and I used to say that we only had to confess things once. Everything I ever said to one of them, the other could repeat back to me word for word. They were truly two halves of something very special, very complete.”

He turned to look at her again, looking slightly sheepish, and shrugged as if to discount his own words. “People probably always think this about their parents.”

D.J. could have reassured him that if “people” included her, then he was very wrong about that.

“I don’t know what the weird purchases are about,” Scott went on. “At first I thought she was simply lonely and had no place to go but the grocery store. But she’s actually so busy with community organizations, she has some kind of get-together nearly every day.”

D.J. remembered how full Viv’s calendar tended to be.

“Then I decided that it was some kind of depression reaction. She felt this emptiness that she was mistakenly trying to fill with food.”

“I guess that could happen,” D.J. said.

“But that doesn’t jive with her eating habits.”

D.J. agreed. It also gave no explanation for the tampons.

“So now I’m kind of hoping it’s a shopping addiction,” he said. “For some people, when they feel low, they spend money and that temporarily makes them feel better.”

D.J. had heard about that sort of thing, of course. But the sufferers she’d heard about always seemed to be young fashionistas with shoe fantasies.

“Do you really think so?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not that way. And Mom never has been, either. But grief changes things.” Scott hedged quickly. “I know I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Mom told me that you’ve lost both your parents.”

“Yes.”

“I can’t even imagine how hard that must be,” he said. “It must be a terrible feeling of being lost and adrift. Truly on your own for the first time.”

“I’ve always been on my own,” D.J. blurted out. She immediately wished that she could call the words back.

Scott didn’t seem to take the words amiss.

“That can be a good thing, too,” he said. “It fosters self-reliance and independence. Qualities to have if you’re running a business or a civic institution.”

“Yes, absolutely,” she agreed. She’d made the same argument herself many times. Somehow it was not comforting that he’d come to that conclusion on his own. “And I believe it makes me a better leader not to have the distractions that a busy family structure can bring.”

Beside her, he chuckled. “You know, I tell myself the exact same thing. I hope that it’s been more of a comfort to you than it has been for me.”

D.J.’s first instinct was to assure him that it was. But for some reason, she dealt with the question honestly.

“No, not particularly.”

He seemed to appreciate that.

“So I guess it’s fair to say there is no calf-eyed sweetheart pining away for you back home?”

“No. There’s not even a back home, really. I haven’t lived in Wichita since I was a kid. I went away to school.”

“But you must have gone back for summers and holidays.”

“Actually, no. I went to camps and visited with friends. My parents weren’t really into family things.”

“I can certainly visualize a lot of positives in that scenario,” he teased. “You
have
met my mother.”

D.J. laughed. “I’m actually a fan of your mother,” she said. “And Dew is positively crazy about her. He’s a great judge of character.”

“And a good companion in a lonely life,” he suggested.

“I don’t have a lonely life,” she disputed firmly.

“Sorry. I guess I should have said a solitary life.”

That was a little better, she thought. “I like to think of it as being independent. I’ve moved from place to place, it seems like forever,” she said. “But I’m here now. And I’m really eager to settle down and call a place home. I think—hope—that Verdant will be that for me.”

“This town certainly needs you,” he said. “And I don’t mean simply as a librarian. We’re getting so tired of talking to the same people all the time.”

“I’m hoping to be around here long enough that everyone has a chance to be thoroughly sick of me,” D.J. joked.

“You’ll need to take up a unique hobby for that,” he teased. “Competitive hog calling or collecting misshaped lima beans.”

D.J. tutted dramatically and shook her head. “When you choose librarianship for a career, you don’t need a weird hobby.”

387.45 Space Transportation

S
cott moaned as he rolled over in the bed. He hit his head on the corner of the nightstand and awakened fully with a curse on his lips. He sat up, put his feet on the floor and rubbed his injury. He was in his mother’s guest room. The pink-and-mauve floral patterns were the height of his mom’s fashion sense in the 1980s. They lingered on in the guest room because the fabrics were “perfectly good.” The double bed, however, was to Scott’s mind a little bit small.

But sleep was beginning to seriously elude him these days. And waking up with a hard-on every morning was like going through adolescence all over.

He’d dreamed about the girl with the sparkle once more. That woman was going to kill him. Groaning, he rose to his feet and stumbled into the bathroom. He turned on the shower and when steam was beginning to pour out around the narrow Plexiglas door, he stepped inside. The shower in his own house was big, roomy and produced a wide waterfall overhead. This one in the guest room was a cramped prefab model. Even the shower that Scott had put in the upstairs apartment was better. There was no other choice. The one in his parents’ master had been replaced by a walk-in tub that was needed to care for his father.

Still the water was wonderfully hot and flowing down the drain as it should, which was more than he could say for his own place. He had no reason to complain. Besides he still had his sparkle girl in the back of his brain.

He needed this and he didn’t even try to talk himself out of it. He let the spray cascade down his chest as he took himself in hand and, with narrowed eyes, gazed not at his surroundings but into the past.

He was in South Padre and she was on top of him. The moonlight streamed in from the windows, illuminated her naked breasts, which bounced enticingly near his face. Those wonderful, animal, guttural sounds were escaping from her mouth again. And her warm, wet muscles clenched, clenched, clenched around him as if she were going to devour his body with her own. From some primitive instinct, without thought, only need, he grasped her under the knee and spun her in place. She shrieked in appreciation. And now he had that big, sexy booty right in front of him. He bit down hard on his lip to keep from exploding as he toyed with her a moment or two before slipping his fingers inside her. She was riding even faster. Clenching even tighter. She’d screamed the doors down last time. This time he’d make her peel off the wallpaper. He loved her gorgeous ass. It was a perfect, perfect ass. And he loved the shiny bit of bling he’d bought her. The belly chain hung low on her hips and the tiny pink glass heart dangled daringly between the muscles of her cheeks. It seemed to be begging for his attention, so with his last semicoherent thought he grasped the chain and used it to propel himself deeply inside her.

The chain snapped as they reached climax together.

Wallpaper. History.

Scott collapsed against the shower tiles. Loose-limbed and totally relaxed. He’d been masturbating on the same memories for eight years. Married, divorced, dating or sneaking around, it was always his Sparkle that he imagined. It was that one perfect night of sexual bliss, the memory of which overtook the most inviting reality. And the fantasies that evolved from that night surely didn’t live up to the experience that it was.

He smiled languidly as he imagined her again. He imagined her coming to him now. To this narrow shower stall in his mother’s guest bath. Confident and sexy. As eager and desperate for release as he was himself. He pictured her in his mind’s eye. Not naked, but provocatively covered. Smelling of sea and surf, her hair slightly damp and dark, her glistening naked body barely wrapped in a towel of green. Her bosom invitingly one tug from being exposed. And the hot, familiar region between her thighs almost quivering for his touch.

“Mmm,” he said aloud, as he lowered his lids to more easily peruse his vision.

Only a second later, his eyes popped open in shock. He was imagining the librarian.

“What in the hell!” he cursed aloud. He immediately reached for the temperature control and turned it all the way to cold. A high-pitched yelp thankfully took all the pizzazz out of his daydream. He left the shower and began drying off.

Okay, D.J. looked a little like his dream girl. But she wasn’t that girl. That girl... That girl was his. And D.J. didn’t even like him. They didn’t look that much alike, he assured himself. He began to picture the young woman from the beach in his memory once more. To his horror, her face had been replaced by D.J.’s.

No. No. He didn’t want that. He couldn’t lose the memory of that one sweet night. He wouldn’t let it happen. But the more he tried to picture her, the more the face of the librarian intruded.

He nicked himself twice while shaving. That did not add any lightness to his mood. He hurriedly dressed for work, even knowing that it was way too early.

He grabbed his phone and his laptop off their chargers and headed out the door.

His mother was puttering around the kitchen, the smell of coffee redolent in the air.

“Good morning, Scotty,” she said cheerfully. “What would you like me to fix you for breakfast? Pancakes?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. I’m not hungry.”

“Nonsense. You’re always hungry and you love pancakes.”

“Not today, Mom. I need to get to the store.”

She laughed. “That’s ridiculous. Nobody’s even awake yet.”

She was right, of course. The combines would not cut the wheat while it was still damp with dew. The harvesting wouldn’t begin until mid to late morning. And then they’d keep at it late into the night. With the workers getting to bed in the wee hours, nobody would want anything before nine.

But he still wasn’t hungry.

“Maybe some coffee,” he said.

“Help yourself,” she answered brightly. “I am in the mood for some blueberry pancakes and not just because they’re your favorite. I’m fixing them anyway, if you want some.”

He sighed. He knew his mother was lonely, and having him here undoubtedly spurred a kind of holiday mood. All he wanted to do was get away. But being a good son meant not always doing what he wanted to do.

“You know, Mom, I’d love a couple.”

“Great. Why don’t you help me.”

Scott found himself quickly swept into egg beating, flour sifting and baking powder measuring.

She was heating up the griddle, when the telephone rang. It was a big, wall-mount version from a bygone era that hung at the end of the counter.

“Hel-lo!” he heard her say cheerily into the receiver.

A moment later the tone was completely different.

“Shit.”

Scott’s head came up. Although the word was a common one, his mother never used it. Or at least she never used it in front of him.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes, Karl,” she promised the caller. As soon as she hung up, she turned to Scott.

“Dutch Porter shot himself in the head this morning.”

Scott repeated his mother’s initial reaction.

“What happened?”

“While Cora was taking a shower, he muffled the sound with a pillow so she wouldn’t hear it.”

“As if she wasn’t going to be the one to find him,” he said, with a heavy sigh. “Poor Mrs. Porter.”

His mother agreed. “It’s the height of selfishness,” she said. “If you’re going to take yourself out, you at least owe it to your family to make it look like it was natural causes.”

Scott would have said that you owe it to your family
not
to take yourself out, but they didn’t have time to delve into a discussion.

“Let me get dressed,” she said, hurrying toward the bedroom. “Go upstairs and ask D.J. for Mr. Dewey. I’m going to take him with me.”

“You’re taking a dog to a suicide?”

“Pets can be a great comfort in times of trouble,” she said before disappearing down the hallway.

Scott stood staring after her for a long moment before shaking his head. He turned the fire off under the griddle and took another fortifying swig of coffee before heading out the back door.

The morning was still. Not even the slightest breeze rustled the trees. Perfect harvest weather. He wondered how anyone could kill themselves on such a beautiful day. But then, with life so very short and very precious, he couldn’t imagine how anyone could kill themselves at all.

He climbed the stairs to the upper deck. A flash of memory of D.J. in only a towel added caution to the moment. Last night he’d not expected her to be unclothed. This early in the morning, he certainly did. He knocked on her door and then turned his back to face the distant fields.

The door opened and the little dog hurried out to jump excitedly around his heels.

“You want something?”

A loaded question, but not enough to add any levity to the moment. He turned. She was not, as he expected, tousled from sleep and in a skimpy robe. She was fully dressed in a modest skirt and blouse, eyeglasses in place, her hair and makeup perfect.

“Hi,” he said. “My mom is leaving and she’d like to take your dog with her.”

“Okay, sure. What’s going on?”

“Actually...there’s been kind of a local tragedy,” he answered somberly. “One of our old guys, Dutch Porter, has been pretty sick for a while now. It looks like he killed himself this morning.”

“Suicide? Are you sure?”

“Bullet to the head.”

“Oh, how horrible!”

Scott nodded. “The deputy sheriff is over there now, Mom is going to sit with the guy’s widow. She thinks the dog might help.”

“Of course, of course. Anything that we can do.”

At that moment, he heard Viv coming out the back door.

The little dog did not wait for permission. He went bolting down the stairs ahead of Scott and D.J.

His mother looked as put together on short notice as she did when she spent hours in the effort. She hooked the leash on Mr. Dewey’s collar.

“Call me if I can do anything,” Scott said when he’d reached his mom.

“Thank you, Scotty,” she said. “In situations like this, there is really not anything that any of us can do.” His mother then looked past him toward the stairs. “It’s just across town. I’m not going to bother to crate him this morning.”

She didn’t sound as if she’d been asking permission, but behind him, D.J. nodded assent.

They watched as Viv and Melvil Dewey got into the Mini. His mother turned the vehicle around and headed out to the street. Scott turned to look at D.J.

“Thanks for letting Mom do that,” he said. “I think she’s forgotten that the dog belongs to you.”

“Some days I think he’s forgotten it, too,” she answered.

They smiled at each other for a moment.

“I...uh...I guess I’d better get on to work,” she said.

“It’s way too early to go in,” Scott told her. “Would you like some pancakes?”

“No, but thanks.”

“Seriously, the batter is already made and if we don’t eat them, I’ll have to throw it out.”

“I don’t usually eat much in the morning.”

“Breakfast in wheat country is a big deal,” he told her. “You wouldn’t want some rumor to get around that you start your morning with some jam on a cardboard rice cake.”

He almost detected a smile. “I could probably drink more coffee,” she said.

“Come inside,” he said, gesturing toward his mother’s back door. “We’ve got a big pot brewed.”

He held the door for her and she complied. He showed her to a seat at the breakfast bar and then placed a steaming cup of coffee in front of her.

“You have to try my blueberry pancakes.”

“Please don’t go to any trouble.”

“It’s already fixed,” he said. “I’m going to have to cook it anyway. They’re really good, I promise. And I always keep my promises to beautiful women.”

Scott had meant it as a joke, but her chin came up and there was a wariness about her. He wasn’t sure if it was about promises or his use of the term “beautiful.” He decided to avoid both and concentrate on pancakes.

Once the griddle was sufficiently heated, he poured four large circles of batter on it. He rifled through a cluttered drawer for the spatula. Once he had it in hand, the quiet in the room, the only sound being the ticking clock, loomed a bit large. He flayed for a safe subject of conversation.

“You know...uh, pancake is another regional variation word, like soda and pop.”

“Really,” she responded. There was no sense of great interest on her part, but she obviously felt weighed by the silence as much as he did.

“When I was a kid, both my parents called them hot cakes,” he said. “And there are parts of Kansas where they use the term flapjacks or worse, slapjacks.”

He glanced toward her with a little smile. She mirrored it with an equally meager grin.

“Now everybody calls them pancakes.”

The batter on the griddle was now completely covered with big wide bubbles. He slid the spatula under one and expertly flipped it. The other three turned as easily.

“Television got rid of a lot of regionalisms,” he continued. “Especially television advertising. If you had a national chain of restaurants that sold pancakes, you couldn’t change the name for every locale that called them something different.”

“I suppose not,” she agreed.

“Yeah, International House of Flapjacks just doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

“IHOF,” she said. “That’s not an acronym that makes you want to stop by.”

Scott dished up the distinctive breakfast and set the plates on the breakfast bar. He put the jug of maple syrup between them and poured them both another cup of coffee before taking a seat.

“These are really good,” D.J. said. She was mumbling through a mouthful of food, which not only implied truthfulness, but somehow endeared her to Scott. She seemed more like a real woman than the starchy librarian who generally disliked him.

“It’s my favorite breakfast,” he said. “I used to beg Mom to fix it for me all the time. Her way out was to teach me how to make them for myself.”

D.J. gave him a bit of a smile. “That seems like a smart fix.”

Scott nodded. “That’s one of the interesting things about my mother,” he said. “She’s never really had what most people would consider a job. She worked on her father’s farm and then in her husband’s store. She never got paid a wage in either place. But she would have made one heck of a CEO. When she sees something that needs initiating or fixing or changing, she never sighs about it. She takes action.”