Pamela Morsi (17 page)

“That makes sense,” D.J. said. “Like hiring me. Most people in town were content to leave the library like it was. But she saw the potential to make it better.”

“Right,” Scott agreed.

D.J. forked another bite of breakfast. “She brought me here to be a solution to a problem.”

Scott nodded, though he was pretty sure his mother’s need for a solution had very little to do with the library at all.

390.1 Customs, Etiquette & Folklore

T
he library seemed big and dark and empty. D.J. sighed aloud. It was nearly noon and no one had even walked through the doorway. Not even little Ashley had shown up today. What James found to do in the stacks was a mystery. She knew he was there, but there wasn’t so much as a footfall to give evidence of that.

D.J. sat at the circulation desk with her laptop. She’d pulled up all the planning files. She’d looked through the bookmobile routes. She’d fiddled with the acquisitions budget. She’d revised next fall’s afterschool program. She’d crossed all the
t’s
and dotted all the
i’s
on her new proposal for a seniors’ service initiative. But the truth was, to her mind, if she couldn’t figure out a way to make the main building more welcoming, the usefulness of the library would always be stunted.

She’d spent hours on the internet looking at renovations of Carnegie buildings. Although Carnegie libraries were all unique, many were similar since the designs were created by a handful of architects through the years. She found more than a dozen that shared some elements with Verdant. But none of them had the narrow, oddly spaced floor-to-ceiling windows that she was cursed with. Typically, because electric illumination had still been in its early, less efficient stages, great care had been taken to utilize the value of natural light.

But not here, where the rooms were dark, gloomy, closed off.

“The place is beginning to sound like your parents,” she murmured to herself in a private joke.

Death, any death, always seemed to bring them to mind. She didn’t want to spend her day thinking about that, but wasn’t inclined to distract herself with rumination over her wet towel episode from the night before. She closed her eyes and shook her head as the memory assailed her. So much for maintaining professional distance.

Thankfully, he’d not made any snide or suggestive comments. That’s more what she had expected. Actually, after their conversation, it seemed as if he was nicer than she’d thought. And he made very good pancakes.

But she needed to stay wary. He might not remember her, but she did remember him. He was a player. He knew his way around a woman’s body. He did things to her that she’d never even read in books.

Best not think about that,
she cautioned herself. Stick to the facts. He’d been in South Padre picking up girls when he had somebody he was supposed to be engaged to waiting back home. He’d gone ahead with the wedding and then been caught cheating shortly afterward. Since then he’d been the hot guy in town, having affairs with married women.

“What a turd,” she whispered to herself aloud. “Remember that. He’s a turd.”

Still, he could be sweet. And he made pancakes.

That’s how he lures stupid women in, she reminded herself sharply. He makes them think that he’s smart and funny and kind. And he has amazing sex with them, so that nobody else ever quite measures up. And then...and then...what? And then he’s still a turd and there is no fixing that!

D.J. slammed her laptop closed resoundingly. And then sitting there with nothing else to do, she quietly opened it again. She was web searching for ways to add light to old buildings when the front door opened and a long shaft of it streamed across the vestibule toward the circulation desk.

A woman came inside and, spotting D.J., walked directly toward her. The lithely trim little blonde had a spring in her step and a broad smile across her pretty face.

D.J recognized her as the woman with Vern at the movie theater.

She was wearing a frothy summer dress and carried a basket covered by a cloth. The whole effect put D.J. in mind of Little Bo Peep.

“Hi,” she said, taking the initiative to greet the visitor. “You must be Stevie, Vern’s...” The terms
lover, partner
and
roommate
occurred to D.J. But for some reason she went with, “Vern’s friend.” Maybe the small-town mind-set was rubbing off on her, she worried.

Stevie laughed. It was a very sweet, and almost girlish sound. She seemed small and sweet and precious. That thought surprised D.J. Precious was for children and puppies, but something about Stevie evoked the same feeling.

“I’m Vern’s wife, actually,” she said. “We got married in Iowa three years ago.” Her tone was cheerfully matter-of-fact. “A lot of people in Verdant aren’t onboard with that. But if I don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

D.J. recalled Scott’s reaction to discovering them seated in the row at the movie theater. Stevie probably dealt with those minor slights on a near-constant basis.

“So I guess I should call you Mrs. Milbank.”

She giggled. “Well, not if you want me to answer. I’ve been so eager to meet you. And I think we can start off on a first-name basis.”

“Okay, then I’m D.J.”

“Vern thinks I’m going to like you a lot. And she’s almost never wrong.”

“Good,” D.J. said.

Stevie glanced around the drab, deserted building. “Are you all alone in here?” she asked.

D.J. cocked her head toward the stacks. “Except for James.”

The woman turned in that direction. “Hello James!” she called out.

There was no answer. D.J. was surprised at that. “Maybe he stepped out,” she said.

Stevie shook her head and leaned closer. “James doesn’t like me,” she said.

D.J. was surprised. She had never heard anyone say anything about James having an opinion about anyone.

“It’s okay,” she quickly reassured her. “I earned it. When I was in high school, I kind of went out of my way to make fun of him.”

D.J. couldn’t quite imagine it. Stevie seemed so kind and genuine.

“James was odd,” she said, by way of explanation. “And the one thing I hated most in the world back then was oddness.” She smiled a perfectly, gleaming bright smile. The kind that film actresses and beauty pageant contestants would kill for. “Curious, considering how
oddly
I turned out.”

Her laughter was full of self-deprecation.

“I’ve always been a bit odd myself,” D.J. said, and then quickly clarified. “I don’t mean... I’m not...well...”

Stevie offered another dazzling smile. “You’re straight.”

“Yes. Odd, but in a straight way.”

Stevie held up the basket she carried. “I brought cookies,” she said. “I always take food to the people in the truck line. I had some left, so I thought I’d bring some to you.”

“That is so nice.”

She gave a cheery laugh and shrugged. “Odd people need to eat, too.”

D.J. joined her in the humor. She took a bite of one of the almost perfectly round cookies that Stevie sat in front of her and discovered that not only was Stevie one of the most physically beautiful women D.J. had ever seen, she was also an exceptional baker.

“This is great. I think this is the most fabulous cookie I’ve ever eaten.”

“My mother was convinced that clear skin and housewifely accomplishments would help me catch an excellent husband.” She offered a little girly giggle. “Well, I suppose it did.”

“So, you call Vern your husband?”

“Oh, no. Vern’s my wife. I’m her wife. It’s a gender thing.”

D.J. nodded, but decided to change the subject rather than belabor the point.

“So what’s a truck line?” she asked.

“Oh, the combines load the wheat into trucks that carry it to the grain elevator,” she said. “So we’ve got a lot of trucks coming in and they’re all headed to the same place. Sometimes they have to line up to wait their turn.”

“Oh.”

“The drivers are stuck there. So we have a few porta-potties available and those of us in town take turns showing up with goodies.”

D.J. remembered the conversation she’d had with Scott.

“So is this what the drugstore does with its bags of peaches and beef jerky?”

“I don’t really know what they do at the drugstore these days,” she said. “But in the past mostly people would stop by there to get the grab-and-go bags. They know that they’re there. It’s sort of a tradition. Taking sandwiches or sweets directly to the line is more impromptu. It’s a way that those of us who are stuck here in town can get in on the action.”

D.J. nodded.

“And I thought today would be good, because so many people are going to be in town talking about the whole Dutch Porter incident.”

D.J. nodded solemnly. “Yes, when a tragedy like this happens, gossips everywhere go into overdrive.”

Stevie’s blue eyes widened a bit as if the negative nature of pointed conversation had never really occurred to her.

“Oh, I guess you’re right. Everybody will be eager for all the details. But it’s more than just tattling. Dutch and Cora have six grown kids and a least a dozen grandchildren. They also have brothers and sisters and in-laws and cousins. There’s probably a hundred people in town who consider themselves relatives.”

D.J. hadn’t thought of that. She’d pictured the house as empty and the widow as alone.

“Is Mrs. Sanderson a relative? She hurried over there first thing this morning.”

Stevie shook her head. “No, Viv is just the kind of woman that always gets called in a crisis. She knows what to say and what to do. The community counts on her for that.”

“Yeah, she does seem like a solidly good person,” D.J. said.

Stevie nodded. “I think so, too. She has always been nice to me, even after I came out with Vern.”

“I’m sure that she understood that you had to be true to yourself,” she said.

The Bo Peep blonde was momentarily thoughtful. “I think you’re right. I think she and John both understood that. But they were also shocked and angered.”

D.J. privately mused that being “shocked and angered” at somebody’s sexual orientation was exactly the kind of thing that gave rural Kansans their unfairly rigid reputation.

“I need to get back to the store,” Stevie said. “This is our busiest time of year. Any implement on any machine could need replacing. And if we don’t have it in stock, we have to locate it and Vern must go and get it.”

“Well, it was lovely to finally meet you,” D.J. said.

“You, too,” she agreed.

She unloaded the contents of her basket and then called out in the direction of the stacks. “They’re homemade cookies. Oatmeal and peanut butter. And I’m leaving them right here at the edge of the desk for you, James.”

Again there was no response.

Stevie gave D.J. a rolling-eyes expression before whispering. “Isn’t that just like a man. Even long after you know you’re forgiven, he’ll still hold a grudge.”

392.5 Human Life Cycle & Domestic Life

T
he drugstore during harvest always had a few customers in early morning. But the morning of Dutch’s death was downright busy. The man had lived in Verdant his entire life. Everyone knew him. He wasn’t universally loved, but he was respected. And in death, petty grievances always showed themselves to be petty.

The question of why, which so often haunted the survivors left behind, was not on this occasion difficult to deduce. The whole town knew that Dutch was quite ill. He’d been a gregarious and social guy, who’d spent his retirement days “shooting the bull” with those he called his “fellow local yokels.” Once a large, imposing man with athletic prowess in his youth and working strength well into old age, the past year of health crisis had been tough.

“I think it’s harder for a sturdy man to deal with infirmity than those of us who’re more accustomed to it,” Earl Tacomb said.

Earl had dealt with asthma and diabetes for twenty years or more. And although they were the same age, most would not have taken bets that Earl would be around for Dutch’s funeral.

With a dozen people crowded around the counter, Scott tried to make sure that everyone was served, but without any sense of rush to the solemn occasion.

The facts were gleaned from a half-dozen sources.

“Dutch always kept a pistol in the bedside table.”

“His wife thought he was a little better the past day or two.”

“The Rossiters next door didn’t hear the shot, but they heard Cora screaming.”

“They had to break into the house, she was too hysterical to unlock the door.”

“Langley said it was definitely no accident.”

“Cora was still in her bathrobe.”

“The whole right side of his face was gone.”

“There was blood and brains splashed all over the bedroom.”

Scott didn’t want any more of the details. But he understood that they had to be spoken. Whether it was a car wreck or a child drowning in the creek, people needed to try to make sense out of those things that were senseless.

So soon after his father’s death, Scott was inured to the reality that even death from disease or old age felt senseless. He preferred not to be reminded. The whole senseless thing evoked reaction. He wanted to lash out at someone, something. But he’d figured out quickly that it was as good as air boxing. And blows that couldn’t be landed gave no relief.

How must D.J. feel? She had lost two parents. Was the arithmetic applicable? Did she feel twice as bad? Perhaps there was a top level of bad and one couldn’t go further. Or maybe it was infinitely worse than losing one parent. Scott could hardly allow his mind to touch on the idea of losing his mother, as well. He sincerely hoped that he would be a lot older, a lot wiser and a lot stronger before anything like that happened.

But life had a way of coming up with some dreadful surprises. Dutch Porter was certainly evidence of that.

The news had spread like wildfire. And with the dew still on the grain, groups of those not immediately connected to the family congregated to shake their heads and philosophize.

“This would have been the first harvest he’d missed since we were kids,” Earl said. “You know that must have gnawed at him fiercely.”

“If he even knew it was going on,” Scott said. “He was on a lot of medication. He wouldn’t have been thinking too clearly.”

“Dutch would have felt it in his bones,” Earl insisted.

Bob Gleason agreed. “They’ve scheduled the funeral at eight o’clock in the morning, so they can have him in the ground before noon.”

“That sure seems like a rush,” Maureen Schultz said. “Though I suppose there is no help for it.”

“And no reason not to,” Nina Philpot said. “When something like this happens, well...the less he’s eulogized the better.”

Jeannie Brown sat at the counter, stirring milk into her coffee. “I know he must have been in tremendous pain,” she said. “But his timing was so bad.”

“Or his timing was great,” Amos said as he wedged himself into the seat beside her. “If you’re planning on doing something that is going to hurt other people, you’d want those people to be as busy and distracted as possible.”

“You could have a point there,” Maureen said.

Nina shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “When people kill themselves, the wants and needs and feelings of other people don’t even enter into it.”

“You sound really sure about that,” Jeannie said.

“And it’s pretty harsh,” Amos pointed out.

Nina shrugged. “That’s how I see it,” she said. “Suicide is a selfish act.”

“But you know he did try to spare his wife,” Maureen said. “He did wait until she was in the shower. So she didn’t see it. And he muffled it with a pillow, so she didn’t hear it.”

“To spare her?” Nina asked. “Or to prevent her from stopping him? Who was going to find him? Who is going to have that horrible image in her head for the rest of her life?”

That somber truth had everyone nodding.

“I guess you’ve got the right about that,” Bob said. “He wasn’t thinking it through.”

“Or maybe not all the way through,” Amos admitted. “But I do think that...people can...can contemplate suicide unselfishly. That sometimes they can see their continued existence as so...so flawed that it would be better for everyone if they were no longer around.”

Jeannie spoke thoughtfully. “It might be even more than that,” she said. “We’ve all had times that were...well, so low. Maybe even that low. But we’re still here. Why is that?”

“Because
we’re
not selfish,” Nina stated, as if to prove her point.

“Maybe not you,” Jeannie said. “But I am seriously out for me.”

Everyone chuckled lightly. Most would have testified that Jeannie didn’t have a greedy bone in her body.

“Proof of my selfishness is evidenced in the fact that I’m still here,” she said. “Choosing to live in the face of...whatever...is a selfish choice.”

“So then suicide is unselfish?” Amos asked her.

Jeannie shook her head. “No, I think it’s not that, either. It’s about your head getting so messed up that you can’t see straight. You don’t know up from down, day from night, wrong from right.”

“Are you saying Dutch was off his rocker?” Earl asked. “’Cause I spoke to him just three days ago and he was sound as a bell.”

“You don’t have to be running-naked-in-the-street crazy to have a moment of insanity,” Jeannie said. “I guess you could even call it a temporary insanity or maybe a compartmentalized one. In that moment, maybe just a brief moment, you act on instincts that lead you in the wrong direction.”

Nina and Earl were both shaking their heads. Maureen was nodding. Bob was sipping his coffee thoughtfully. And Scott was silently contemplating her point.

Amos spoke up. “You’re exactly right, Jeannie,” he said. “I’ve known guys in the service who committed suicide and it seemed to me that they weren’t a lot different than the rest of us. Their troubles weren’t bigger. Their connections to their families weren’t more tenuous. It was just like a kind of blurred reality overrode their better judgment. And no one recognized it, so no one could stop it.”

“That’s a bit easier to swallow than him being a lunatic,” Earl said.

“I still think you’re being too kind,” Nina told him. “I blame Dutch for his own actions. It’s a horrible thing to do.”

“Well, it is horrible for his family,” Jeannie said. “I certainly agree with that. For the rest of us, well, we are going to miss him. And we’ll miss him as much now as a year from now.”

“That’s truth,” Bob agreed.

Maureen was even more conciliatory. “The important thing is to remember his life, not how it ended.”

There were solemn nods all around.

“Still,” Jeannie said. “It’s going to create some rough days out in the field, shorthanded. Half of our crew are members of the Porter family.” Her words were punctuated with a tired sigh. “See, didn’t I tell you I’m a selfish person?”

Beside her Amos offered a broad grin. The most genuine smile Scott had seen on the man’s face in a very long time.

“Don’t worry, Jeannie,” Amos said. “You still got me.”

She laughed lightly. “There’s not that much that you and I can do,” she said.

He tutted teasingly. “Now you’re not only selfish, but your memory is failing. Have you forgotten the Homecoming Dance committee?”

Jeannie moaned aloud dramatically. “I’ve tried to put that nightmare behind me for fifteen years.”

“Eight people on the committee,” Amos explained. “And the day of the dance, six of them weasel out of doing the decorations.”

“I twisted crepe paper into mums until my hands were raw.”

The two laughed companionably. “We were both late for our dates.”

“I was so tired that evening, that I didn’t bother to put on makeup.”

“I drove my date down by the creek to park and fell asleep in the car.”

“She probably thought you were the perfect gentleman.”

“No, I think she’d already figured out that I was an idiot.”

It was a warm exchange of remembrance of time gone by.

“It was a tough day, but we did get it done,” Jeannie said.

Amos nodded. “The two of us, there’s not much we can’t accomplish.”

“You’d better hope so,” Earl said. “There’s a lot of wheat out there to get.”

By ten-thirty, the drugstore had cleared out. The grab-and-go breakfasts were all gone and Scott was alone with his thoughts. The hours dragged by without anyone stopping by, without the phone even ringing.

He decided to close up a half hour early. But he was locking up the door even fifteen minutes before that. He headed to his mother’s house with the intent of changing clothes. His garden probably needed water and he could check on his house, see if the septic system had healed itself as suddenly and mysteriously as it had gone on the blink.

Scott arrived at his childhood home to find his mother’s car still gone, but D.J.’s vehicle was in the driveway. He imagined that the library must be even deader than the drugstore.

Good for her,
he thought. Taking the initiative to close up and go home. Everybody in town had heard how hard-nosed she’d been about keeping the place open. It was to her credit that she could moderate her stance. There were too many people who had to dig in their heels to prove themselves right.

He let himself in the back door. The house was very quiet and empty. Scott was reminded of his thoughts earlier in the day about D.J. losing both her parents. Considering it made him kind of queasy. Everyone would eventually pass away, of course. And it was natural, he supposed, to expect that his mother would likely die before he would. But he didn’t want her to go now. Not now before he’d found someone, before she could see him start a family.

That thought caught him up.

What had got him thinking that he would find someone? He had deliberately given up on that possibility. Better to be alone than be with the wrong person. That was right. Scott was sure that was totally right. Maybe being back in the old home place was giving him flashbacks of the guy he once had been.

He was shaking his head as he went down the hall toward the guest room. A knock on the back entrance halted his progress and turned him around. In the kitchen, he could see D.J. through the window glass.

“Hi,” he said as he opened the door.

She turned around. In her arms she held a cut-glass bowl filled with small red orbs in a sauce that smelled fabulous.

“The pancakes were no big deal. I hope you’re not reciprocating.”

“What? Oh, no,” she said. “This is for...the Porter family.”

“Oh, right, of course.”

“That’s what people do, isn’t it?” she asked. “They bring food to the house. Even if they don’t know you that well, they bring stuff.”

“Yeah, I guess they do.”

She glanced down at her offering. “It’s watermelon salad,” she said. “Isn’t that what people bring? A meat dish, a dessert or a salad. I have to choose salad because it’s about the only thing that I know how to fix. I’m a cooking school dropout.”

“I’m sure it will be very appreciated,” Scott told her. “There’s probably fifty people just in the immediate family. Some of them coming from out of town. Everyone will need to eat.”

She nodded. “So I wanted to take this, but I don’t actually know where they live.”

“Oh, of course you don’t. They live on the other side of town, near... Wait. I’ll take you.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t have to. I want to. And that way you won’t spill your dish.”

He retrieved his phone and keys, made sure his shirt was tucked in and put on a jacket to show some respect before hurrying out to let D.J. into the van.

He held the salad while she got into the seat and buckled up. Then she carried it in her lap as he drove.

Scott felt it incumbent upon himself to keep up a shallow, unthreatening conversation. They had reached some sort of peace and he did not want D.J. to retreat into the avid dislike she’d met him with. Lighthearted chatter, however, did not come easily considering the errand they were on.

“You would have liked Dutch,” he told her. “And he would have probably become a regular library visitor.”

“Oh, he liked to read?”

Scott shook his head. “I doubt he ever read more than the
Farm Journal,
” he said. “But Dutch could never resist the company of pretty girls.”

D.J. gave an incredulous chuckle. “I don’t really think I qualify as a pretty girl.”

“That’s the way Dutch would have said it,” Scott told her. “Anyone under fifty he probably viewed as a girl.”

And, of course, D.J. was beautiful rather than pretty, Scott thought to himself. She had that ethereal quality that made her seem to glow from the inside.

Wait. That was Sparkle. This was D.J. He was getting confused again.