Pamela Morsi (3 page)

South Padre Island (Eight years earlier)

D.J.
woke with a terrible taste in her mouth and a pounding headache. She must have slept in her contacts. Her eyes were burning so much she refused to open them. She was slightly sick to her stomach and her whole body hurt. The twinges in the muscles of her legs and thighs felt like they did the first day back at the gym. She groaned. She hated being ill and she almost never was, but she must be coming down with something. Some really crappy something.

She was sweaty and hot, with a big, breathing body pressed up beside her. Her roommate’s dog must have sneaked into her bed again. She loved the big, goofy Labrador, but he should at least stay on his side of the mattress. Blindly she reached out to nudge him over.

“Ugh.”

It was not a doglike reply, and at that very same instant she realized that the skin beneath her fingers was not a healthy pelt of fur, but an expanse of human flesh.

She sprang up like a jack-in-a-box, sitting rigidly in the bed, her eyes wide-open.

She was in a strange room, in a strange bed, with a strange man asleep beside her.

A wave of nausea swept over her, which she only just managed to swallow as the flash of memories from the previous night came flooding back. Sun. Surf. An excess of suds.

Spring break.

Take a vacation from who you are, she’d told herself. Find out what it’s like to be another woman. A crazy, sexy, wild woman. A woman who sleeps with strangers.

As she remembered it, remembered it all, her terror turned to horror and embarrassment. Humiliation tinged with desperation. What had she been thinking? Obviously, she’d not been thinking at all.

She had to get out of there. She couldn’t face this man, this person who knew all about her body, but nothing about her.

Deliberately she tried to calm her breathing and engage her brain. She had to get away. And it was best to slip away unnoticed.

He had his head turned from her. That was good. She didn’t need to see him to remember him. The way he’d touched her. The response he’d drawn from her. That was not forgettable. But she was determined that there would be not one more thing to remember.

She eyed him warily as she slowly, carefully peeled the bedcovers from her body. Beneath the tangle of sheets she was totally naked. That is, unless she counted some whisker burn and a love bite on the inside of her thigh.

She eased her right leg off the edge of the bed and rolled slightly trying to create the smallest impact possible on the mattress. She made it to her feet with minimal jostling, only to involuntarily gasp when her first step encountered something cold and wet and squishy. She glanced anxiously toward the man in the bed. When he didn’t move, she breathed easier. Standing on one foot, she peeled the used condom from her heel. She looked around for a place to throw it and was grateful to locate some of her clothes strewn on the floor nearby. Well, not really
her
clothes. There was Terri’s leather skirt. Heather’s sequin-covered bikini top. And the five-inch turquoise Plexiglas heels that had been the gag gift for her birthday. Yesterday she’d turned 21. She was a full-fledged adult now. And apparently her first official adult act had been to behave like a very stupid kid.

She silently gathered her things and backed into the bathroom, keeping a cautious eye on the guy in the bed as she closed the door. On the vanity inside she found her borrowed evening bag and sighed in relief. Her wallet was there, as well as her keys, lipstick and mascara.

She turned to look at herself in the mirror. She would have laughed if it had been funny. She still had on plenty of makeup, at least twice as much as she normally wore. It was merely smeared in all the wrong places. She turned on a small stream of warm water and washed up with the one available cloth she found.

That made her feel a little better, but she needed to get away from here. Away from the stranger in that bed. Away from the craziness that she’d brought on herself. And she needed to do it now.

She slipped on her top and skirt. Where were her panties? They were not among her clutch of retrieved clothing, she realized. She would have to go without them.

She put on the shoes, but they were way too high for her and she felt wobbly. How could she have danced the night away and now not be able to stand? Regardless, they really made the short skirt seem even shorter and without underwear...

Barefoot again, she decided she could not leave without panties. She didn’t know where she was or how far she’d have to walk to get to her own motel, and she didn’t have the guts to make that trek going commando. Her panties were somewhere in that bedroom and she had to go back in there.

She gave herself a determined glance in the mirror before easing open the door and scoping out the room. There was his shirt, his shoes, his trousers, belt still attached. Something glimmered on the carpeting. She tiptoed over to it and picked it up. It was the belly chain he’d bought for her at that little hippy store next to the beach. It was broken, of course. The way they’d been tearing at each other’s clothes, it had no chance of survival. It was cheap and shiny and never meant to last. Still, she stuffed it into her purse.

She stacked the shoes and purse on the table next to the front door, then moved stealthily around the bed that dominated the space. Slowly, methodically, she picked items up off the floor to see if anything was hidden beneath. She found boxer shorts, socks, a bar tab receipt and two more used condoms, but no ladies’ underwear of any kind. She was working up the courage to check under the bed, when the occupant moaned.

She froze as he rolled over on his back. His face looked different in the daylight than in her foggy memory. She remembered how Terri had urged her to go for the beefy guy with the
World of Warcraft
tattoo. But somehow this guy’s smile had won her over. He was not smiling now. His mouth was slightly open, his face unlined as if dreaming the dreams of the innocent. He had not seemed innocent last night. Last night he had been sexy, powerful, aggressive. Asleep he looked actually very ordinary. Last night he had been mature and sophisticated. This morning he looked young. And kind.

Young and kind? That was not at all how she wanted to remember him. In fact, she didn’t want to remember him at all. Except perhaps as a cautionary tale. This was the type of mindless, naive indignity that a woman could bring upon herself when she doubted her own value. When she felt less than other women around her. When she felt incapable of engendering normal relationships. When she talked herself into believing that experience for the sake of experience was something to be desired.

D.J. was ashamed. She was embarrassed. She was remorseful. If she could make it out of this motel and back where she belonged, she promised herself to hold those three emotions tightly to her notion of self-respect and never let anything like this happen again.

It was then that she spotted the red lace panties she’d been searching for. He was wearing them like an armband on his right bicep. At first she thought she would just have to let them go. But smoothing down the back of the short, short leather skirt changed her mind. She steeled herself for a long moment and then stepped forward and attempted to ease them down his arm. She made a few inches of progress, only to find difficulty negotiating around his elbow. Carefully, so carefully, she pulled at the handful of lace, watching it move around the sharp point of bone. And when it did, the elastic unexpectedly snapped back.

The man startled awake, his brown eyes wide-open.

“Uh, hi.”

She yanked the panties possessively and ran for the door.

“Hey, wait!” he called out.

She didn’t. Before the door had even slammed shut, she was down the steps, racing across the parking lot and up the sidewalk of an unfamiliar street in an unfamiliar town, her purse and shoes in one hand, her panties in the other.

080. General Collections

T
he sunrise view from the apartment’s second floor porch was really as nice as Viv had said it would be. And D.J. was up to see it, her cup full of coffee and her mind full of ideas. It was only six-thirty, but she was already showered, dressed and ready for her workday much earlier than she could ever go in.

The little porch was furnished with a small teak table and two chairs, as well as a comfy-looking glider beneath the roof overhang, which offered a fabulous view of sky and wheat fields as far as the eye could see. But D.J. was too excited to sit. Instead she paced. At her feet, and in solidarity she was sure, Dew marched right beside her.

“Hello! Hello up there.”

D.J. heard the voice of her landlady and walked over to the railing to see her just below, near the entrance to the stairs.

“Good morning, Mrs. Sanderson.”

“Viv, honey. You have to call me Viv. I heard you moving around and I made popovers. I hope you haven’t already eaten.”

“I don’t really do breakfast,” D.J. answered.

“Well, your first morning in town certainly calls for a celebration,” Viv told her as she made her way up to the porch. “And I just love a relaxed morning visit.”

D.J. had thought that the two were surely
visited out.

Last night as she’d unloaded her possessions, Viv had seemed eager to help her unpack. Even after D.J. had very sternly refused the help, she’d come back a half hour later with dinner on a tray.

D.J. was too much of an introvert to find that comfortable. She hadn’t shared living space since her best friend, Terri, got married. The idea of Mrs. Sanderson as constant companion was a nonstarter. No reason to even bother unpacking. She wouldn’t be here that long.

And she was determined to be straight about that right up front, she decided as she got the woman a cup of coffee. By the time D.J. returned, Viv was already seated at the little teak table. Dew was perched with his front paws up on the chair wearing his I’m-too-cute-to-resist-me look. Mrs. Sanderson was trying to feed him a popover. He was dutifully sniffing at it, but showing no particular interest.

“He doesn’t eat table food. He doesn’t like it,” D.J. told her, adding, “Get down, Dew.”

The dog immediately complied.

“Do?” Viv chuckled. “Is that the puppy’s name? As in do-do? You did say he’s housebroken...”

“Absolutely,” D.J. assured her. “It’s actually Dew as in Dewey Decimal System. My friends always kid me that I’m ‘married to the public library.’ So I decided to name ‘my only child’ after his father.”

D.J. patted her lap and her very well-behaved bundle of energy jumped up and took a seat.

“Mrs. Sanderson, I’d like you to formally introduce you to Melvil Dewey, Jr.”

Viv laughed. “He is charming,” she said. “My son, Scott, had a cocker spaniel when he was a boy. What do you do with him while you’re a work?”

“Oh, he just hangs around the house. Typically I race home on my lunch break to walk him.”

“No need to do that,” Viv said. “I’m here anyway. I’d be happy to take him for a walk.”

“Mrs. Sanderson,” she began to protest. Then seeing the words forming on the woman’s lips, she corrected herself. “Viv.”

The landlady smiled, pleased.

“You don’t need to do that. I know there will be lots to do at the library, but I can take care of my own dog.”

“Of course you can,” Viv said. “But I’m out walking every day anyway. I might as well take Mr. Dewey along with me. If only for my own protection.” She added the last with a grin.

Dew rose up on his paws in D.J.’s lap and began wagging his tail as if he knew that he was the subject of attention.

“See,” Viv pointed out. “He loves the idea!”

D.J. acquiesced with reluctance.

“I’ll leave his leash by the back door,” she said. “I guess you have a key to my apartment?”

Viv nodded and then directed her response to Dew. “We’re going to be such friends, you and I.”

D.J. carefully gathered up her thoughts. This woman was her landlady and, in a large sense, her boss. She was not a roommate or a best friend.

“Viv, I think I must be blunt about this,” she said. “I am a very private person. I’ve been accustomed to living on my own. I don’t mean to be unfriendly, but...”

“Oh, honey, I understand perfectly,” Viv answered. “A woman definitely needs her own space. I was young myself once. And I have a daughter of my own.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. She’s my eldest. Married to a nice man and living in Kansas City. She teaches drama, of all things. I told her it was a vocation she’s been cultivating since birth. No child was ever more dramatic about everything than my lovely Leanne. My husband John used to say it was like living with Norma Desmond. She came down the stairs every day ‘looking for her close-up, Mr. DeMille.’”

D.J. felt herself being charmed by Viv’s obvious delight in her children. Her own parents had never seemed to have any opinion on who she was or what she did. Viv spoke of her daughter with such warmth, it was almost as if their relationship had been by choice rather than a mere accident of fate.

“I’m sure it was...pleasant having someone so...artistic living in your home.”

Viv nodded. “The way John and I saw it, our children balanced each other out. Leanne was edgy and imaginative and never saw a risk she wasn’t willing to take, while Scott has been steady and responsible since the day he was born. I can always count on Scott. Come to think of it, there’s not anyone who knows him who can’t count on him. He’s that kind of guy.”

“Isn’t that nice,” D.J. said politely, resisting the urge to look at her watch.

“John and I worried that he might want to leave Verdant. Well, I guess the truth is we worried he might leave and we worried that he might not. The last thing we wanted was for him to feel trapped here with the business.”

“The business?”

“We own the drugstore downtown. It’s been in my husband’s family since they were selling cigars to the Kiowas.”

Viv laughed at her little joke. D.J. smiled.

“In the end, we were so glad that Scott stayed. Not everybody who grows up in a small town wants to live there forever.”

“No, I suppose not,” D.J. agreed.

“And after his divorce... I did mention that he’s divorced?”

“Uh...”

“Well, he is. You might as well know that. It’s a fact. It can’t be helped. And it was a mess.” Viv waved her hand in front of her face as if she could whisk it all away. “I suppose that sort of thing always is. I wouldn’t know. We’ve never had a divorce in our family before. But infidelity...” Viv gave an exaggerated shrug of her shoulders. “What’s a mother to do?”

D.J. gave no answer, but Mrs. Sanderson didn’t appear to require one.

“I am just very grateful that he decided to stay. They say the only way to get past gossip in a small town is to avoid it completely or grow so old you’ve outlived it.”

Viv sighed. “Oh, but now you’ll be thinking you’ve moved into this hive of rumormongers,” she said. “It is kind of that way. But mostly we’re very chummy, you know. Everyone knows everyone. It’s like a gigantic extended family. That can be very appealing. Although I’m sure it may be very different from your upbringing as an only child in a city neighborhood.”

D.J. paused midsip of her coffee.

“How did you know I was an only child?”

Viv looked momentarily like a deer in headlights. “Didn’t you mention it?”

“No, no, I don’t think so.”

“It must have been on your resume.”

That was ridiculous. There was absolutely no personal information listed.

D.J. shook her head.

Viv shrugged. “Well, something must have made me think so.” She gave a bright smile and then glanced at her watch. “Look at the time.” Viv downed her coffee and rose to her feet. “I’d better get busy. Mr. Dewey, I will see you later. So much to do today.”

That was supposed to be D.J.’s line.

By 7:30, she couldn’t wait another minute. D.J. drove her car, empty trailer still attached, back the circuitous route she’d come toward the beautiful library on Government Street.

The small parking lot behind the building was completely empty. D.J. parked longwise, taking up three spaces but promised herself that she would find the place to turn in the trailer by midday.

There was an employees’ entrance in the back. Hopeful, she gathered up her box of moving-in files and carried them to the doorway. As she neared the entrance, her eyes were drawn to the bicycle attached to the metal railing. Her first thought was simply that perhaps one of her employees biked to work. As she got a better look, she began to hope not. The very ordinary-looking, slightly rusted bicycle was attached to the railing with U-locks on both the front and back tires. A chain connected the two locks together and to another chain that wove in and out of the metal with padlocks attached every few inches. Two U-locks and half a dozen padlocks?

D.J. stopped to survey her surroundings. She couldn’t imagine this place as a high crime zone. She could almost see the police station from the sidewalk. Still, she made a mental note to ask questions about security. The safety and property of both the employees and patrons were her responsibility, as well.

In contrast to the precautions for the rusty bicycle, the back door was open and D.J. was able to walk right in. The place appeared dark and deserted. She found the light switches to the right of the door and quickly illuminated the building’s nonpublic workroom. There were boxes, book carts and tables spread with supplies. Here was where books were shipped and received, cataloged or repaired and made ready for lending. Although the nature of such work was chaos, the place appeared relatively neat. In the far corner there was a tiny break room space with a circular table, four chairs, a microwave and coffeemaker. D.J. immediately walked over and began going through the cabinets, locating what was needed to make coffee. She smiled to herself. Making sure the director had a hot cup of morning coffee when she arrived had been one of her tasks at D.J.’s last job. Now that
she
was the director, somebody should be bringing coffee to her.

She thought about the only employee that she knew and couldn’t imagine Amelia Grundler performing such a duty.

As the hot brown liquid began dripping through the machine, D.J. ventured out into the public area. If it had been a dim and gloomy cave yesterday afternoon, it was even more so this morning. D.J. went behind the circulation desk and began switching on the lights. From the corner of her eye, a shadow moved through the stacks, startling her.

“Who’s there?”

There was an almost eerie silence and then a book slammed shut loudly, startling her.

“Who is there?” Her voice was sterner as she repeated her question.

Silence again. Then from somewhere among the shelves of books a timid baritone voice answered.

“James.”

D.J. remembered the name from the day before. Viv had called out a goodbye as they left.

She still didn’t see him anywhere.

“I’m Ms. Jarrow, the new librarian,” she announced in his general direction.

No answer.

“Why are you hiding in the stacks?”

She thought he was going to ignore that question as well, but after a moment there was a tentative reply.

“Working.”

D.J. couldn’t imagine what kind of work he could be doing alone and in the dark.

“Come out here so I can meet you,” she said.

Another hesitation.

“No,” he answered.

“No?”

D.J. walked in the direction of where she thought his voice was coming from. She turned down that row of books. He was not there. She went to the next aisle, and the next. She couldn’t find him, though once she did sense a shadow moving just beyond her vision. Finally she stopped, annoyed.

“I’m not going to chase you down!”

“Okay.”

“HEL-LO!” A voice called out from the back door. D.J. stepped out from between the shelves to see a young woman hurrying toward her.

“I thought you might be here,” she said. “I came early just to meet you. I’m so excited!”

As if to illustrate that, she grabbed both of D.J.’s hands in her own and almost bounced with enthusiasm.

“Uh...hi,” D.J. said.

“I’m Suzy, Suzy Newton— No, I mean Suzy Granfeldt. See, I’m so thrilled I can’t even remember my own name!” She giggled delightedly. “I’m the girl from Bookmobile 2.”

D.J. thought the term “girl” was being misused. Despite her clothes from the “juniors” department and bouncing ponytail, Suzy was at least as old as D.J. herself.

She continued to giggle. “Last night my phone just rang and rang. I’m suddenly Miss Most Popular. Everybody wants to talk to me because everyone wants to know about you. Getting a new person in town who’s not like...married to one of us, is so unordinary. And it’s almost like a TV drama having you come in and throw Miss Grundler out on her tuffet.”

Another giggle escaped the small woman. D.J. was pretty sure that sound would get very old in a hurry.

“I’m not
throwing
anybody out. We’re a small staff and we’re going to need to work as a team.”

Suzy’s expression immediately changed to wide-eyed worship as she grasped D.J.’s hands once more. “I
love
being on a team,” she stated with great drama. “I was on cheerleading squad for four years in high school. In my whole life so far, it’s the thing I’m most proud of.”

D.J. was sure the woman must be joking, but there was nothing in her expression beyond solemn sincerity. At a loss at how to respond, she was rescued by the arrival of the other bookmobile operator, a stoic man who also appeared about her own age. He was as big and quiet as Suzy was tiny and animated. He shook D.J.’s hand very formally and introduced himself as Amos Brigham.

“I haven’t had a chance to look at the bookmobile schedules,” D.J. admitted to them. “But I am hoping that you two have time for a short staff meeting this morning before you head out.”

“A staff meeting.” Suzy repeated the phrase wistfully, as if it were some strange exotic vacation locale. “We’ve never had a staff meeting.”