Love Overdue Page 4

  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.”

  “Miss Grundler typically leaves a note in our mailbox when she has something to say to us,” Amos verified.

  D.J. wanted to roll her eyes, but managed to maintain professional decorum. “Notes in the mailbox are fine, too,” she waffled slightly. “But staff meetings bring in every voice and build team unity.”

  Suzy turned to Amos and informed him in a whisper. “We’re on a team now.”

  No reaction showed on the man’s face. Instead he answered D.J.’s question. “I have to be in Hadeston by ten o’clock.”

  That meant nothing to her.

  “I’m loaded up, gassed up and ready to go,” he continued. “So if we could get through the meeting in the next half hour, I’d be okay.”

  “I’m in Elmira and Brushy this morning,” Suzy piped in, “but I can get there real easy. I wouldn’t miss the staff meeting for anything.”

  D.J. nodded. She glanced at her watch. Amelia Grundler had yet to show up, but perhaps it would be better to have their first meeting together privately.

  “Okay, let’s get started,” she said. “Shall we sit at the table in the break area?”

  “Did you want James at the meeting?” Amos asked.

  “Of course,” she answered and then turned toward the shelves behind her. “James, I need you to attend the staff meeting.”

  There was no immediate response, but a moment later a book slammed shut loudly.

  “Maybe we’d better have it out here,” Amos said. “That way he can hear what you’re saying. He won’t go to the break room if anyone is in there.”

  The idea of meeting in the middle of the dark, depressing space in front of the circulation desk wasn’t going to enhance the quality of the meeting, but D.J. didn’t argue when Amos began bringing chairs for them.

  “James is an odd duck,” he said to D.J. by way of explanation. “But he’s a good worker.”

  Suzy was nodding with agreement. “You’ll get used to that slamming-the-books-closed thing,” she assured her. “The shelving he does is perfect. Every month or so, I ask him to do my bookmobile. I just tell him I need it and leave it unlocked. I never see him go in or come out, but the next day, the books will be absolutely perfect.” “He never takes a day off. He’s never sick. He’s been working here since he was a kid, really. They hired him on staff maybe thirty years ago.”

  “You’ll never get three words out of him,” Suzy explained. “But he’s very dependable.”

  Having his co-workers defend him so adamantly, D.J. realized she was going to have to give the guy some latitude. Still, she worried.

  “As long as he does his job and doesn’t upset the patrons, I’m sure we’ll get along fine,” D.J. said, a little louder than necessary, expecting her words to carry into the most distant nooks and crannies of the building.

  Suzy giggled again. “The patrons rarely even see him. And it really keeps the children out of the adult section. Going into the stacks is something only brave boys do on a dare.”

  D.J. wasn’t sure that could be seen as a positive, but she decided to change the subject. She found the notes that she’d carefully written up as an agenda.

  “Since we’ve all met,” she began, “I won’t need to introduce myself. I am very happy to be here in Verdant. I commend all of the staff on the work that you’ve been doing. And I am very motivated to work with you to ensure this library continues to be an asset to the community.”

  She glanced down to “Point 1” of her notes, but before she could make it, Suzy spoke up.

  “So where did you grow up, where are you from?”

  “Uh...Wichita,” D.J. answered.

  “I love Wichita,” Suzy assured her. “What part of town?”

  “College Hill.”

  “Oh, that’s nice, I think.” Suzy looked over at Amos for confirmation. “That’s a nice area, right?”

  Amos shrugged.

  “It was lovely,” D.J. replied shortly. “Now I wanted to talk to you...”

  “Does your family still live there? In College Hill?”

  “No, my parents died several years ago.”

  “Oh, my God! That’s awful. What happened?”

  “They were killed in a traffic accident,” D.J. answered. “But this isn’t what I wanted to talk about.”

  “Of course not,” Suzy agreed. “You’re obviously still grieving. When a tragedy occurs it can get stuck on you and it just goes on and on. It’s called PSST or something. What is it, Amos?”

  The other bookmobile driver did not respond. His face remained completely deadpan.

  Suzy smiled at him apologetically. “Apparently some terrible things happened to him when he was deployed overseas,” Suzy said, looking between him and D.J. “PFPC? What is it? We try never to talk about it.”

  Amos rose from his chair brusquely. “I’ve got to get on the road,” he said as he moved away.

  “I had to tell her,” Suzy called after him. “Otherwise she wouldn’t know.”

  But Amos kept going and didn’t even look back. D.J. was stunned at the sudden ruin of her meeting.

  Suzy leaned toward her slightly. “He was deployed with the National Guard and nobody really knows what happened. When he left, he was just another happy-go-lucky guy, but he came back so...strange. He must have—”

  “PTSD,” D.J. interrupted before Suzy could get it wrong again. “And it’s none of my business,” she said sternly. “If Amos wants me to know something, Amos will tell me.”

  “Oh, right, sure,” Suzy agreed. “So where did you go to high school?”

  “What?”

  “College Hill, that’s like East High, right?”

  “Yes. Uh... no. It is but I didn’t go to high school there. I went to Hockaday in Dallas.”

  “Your family moved to Dallas?”

  “No, it’s a boarding school.”

  Suzy clasped her hands beneath her chin dramatically. “I read a book about a boarding school once!” At that moment the door to the back room swung open so violently that it rocked all the way open to slam against the opposite wall. Suzy made a startled squeal and jumped to her feet. Amelia Grundler stood on the threshold, her expression grim, her brows furrowed in anger.

  “It is 9:02 a.m. and the front door is not open!” she announced stridently.

  A pale, wan figure emerged silently from the shelves, rushed to the front door and clicked open the lock before disappearing as abruptly as he’d appeared.

  Miss Grundler glared at D.J. “
Your first day in charge and you can’t even open for business on time.”

  Suzy scurried out of the room with a quick, worried glance in their direction.

  The woman was looking daggers at D.J., but she was not about to be intimidated on her first day.

  “You’re late, Amelia,” she said. “And I’m afraid that we were forced to have our weekly staff meeting without you.”

  Amelia’s eyes narrowed. Obviously, the woman was going to make things hard for D.J. She would be on eagle-eyed watch for any trouble, any error, any weakness, and she would use that against D.J. while she was on probation. Amelia was going to try to get her old job back any way she could. That was as clear as if she’d said it aloud. She didn’t need to verbalize. D.J. could easily interpret the woman’s body language, and it was saying something like, “I’ll get you, my pretty. And your little dog, too.”

  Five

  102. Miscellany of Philosophy

  Scott took his early-morning run along the banks of the small green brook that meandered along the west edge of his hometown and gave the community its name. The path was well worn by hikers, joggers, walkers and those in search of a good fishing spot. Scott had been up and down it so many times, in so many seasons, in every kind of weather, that he really no longer saw the stands of tall native grass or the hard, leathery fruit on the hedge apple tree. He didn’t hear the throaty call of the meadowlark singing for his ladylove or the trickle of the water as it passed among the stepping-stones.

  He had taken up running in high school to combat sexual frustration. He could never have imagined back then that at age thirty he’d still need it...and for the same reason. He felt like moaning aloud. Instead he picked up the pace.

  Scott rounded the corner and at the fork in the path, took the incline that led around the edge of the nearby cemetery. A sturdy stone wall fronted the area, but on the side where he ran, no one had bothered to build one. There were no grazing cattle to get in and no sleepwalking ghosts to get out. Near the southeast corner, he spared a glance in the direction of his father’s final resting place. Even now, more than a year later, the loss still ached. His dad had been a great man. Not in the sense of money or power. John Sanderson had been fair, trustworthy and hardworking. He was a man to be counted upon to step up and help. And it didn’t matter to him if the need came from a neighbor or a stranger. He was honest, almost to a fault. And you could tell him anything and he’d never judge, never even bat an eye. He’d been the one person his son could speak to in confidence.

  The worst thing about Kansas, his father had said on that long-ago morning when Scott had made his embarrassing confession, is that with the exception of death or the weather, we grow up thinking everything bad that happens to us is somehow our own fault, even when it is not.

  That had turned out to be the truth. But the truth had not set him free.

  At the blacktopped street, officially named Cottonwood Avenue, but known by everyone in town as Cemetery Road, he paused. To his right a path cut through a scraggle of overgrown milkweed to his parent’s home. He needed to check in on his mother. It had been almost a week since he’d seen her, and she wasn’t the type to call and say she needed something. Then he remembered what Maureen had said about the new librarian rooming with her. That could be good. That could be very good.

  Scott smiled as he turned north toward his own home. Verdant was already wide-awake and people would be making their way to the drugstore very soon. He’d have to stop by his mother’s later on.

  A half hour later, promptly opening the pharmacy doors, he was showered, groomed and appropriately dressed in his side-button shirt with the standing band collar. His name was embroidered on the pocket, but the style was strictly his dad’s. While his colleagues wore white coats, scrubs or even their favorite golf shirt, at Sanderson Drug the uniform of the day was still stuck in the 1960s.

  Scott was okay with that. The shirts were comfortable, incredibly inexpensive and looked amazingly formal. Medical compounds that spilled or splashed could be destructive to fabric. But he could throw his shirts in the wash or throw them away. That’s how he defended his mode of dress to other pharmacists. To himself, he admitted that he didn’t mind being a younger version of his dad. And he’d never seen change, merely for the sake of change, to be the equal to progress.

  Coffee was still dripping through the machine when Amos Brigham showed up at the door. He had the haunted look he sometimes wore. He asked for coffee, but Scott was pretty sure a whiskey might have served him better. Amos didn’t drink. That was probably a good thing.

  As soon as he sat down at the counter, Scott poured each of them a cup and took a seat on a nearby stool.

  Amos and Scott had been pals from childhood, best buddies in high school and college roommates. They had shared the best and worst of each other’s lives. Physically, they couldn’t have been more different. Amos was a big, beefy guy. His hair, clipped military style, was prematurely gray making him seem older than his years. And the aviator glasses couldn’t completely hide the vacant-eyed expression that had been with him since he’d returned from Afghanistan.

  “You don’t look so good,” Scott said.

  Amos shrugged. “Some days I feel almost normal and then something stupid happens to drag me back in.”

  Scott nodded sympathetically. “You know, that prescription that Dr. Kim wrote is still active.”

  Amos sipped his coffee and then replied with a slight shake of his head. “The pills make me too sleepy to drive. Besides, depression medication is for people who are depressed for no reason.”

  There was some truth to that. Mood elevators could only prop up those suffering while natural healing took place. With Amos, however, the sad sense of disconnection lingered. And all his friends and neighbors could do was stand by and watch.

  “I’m okay,” Amos assured him. “I’m having almost as many good days as bad. And I keep putting one foot in front of the other. It’s just new situations or new people, sometimes that can throw a wrench in it.”

  Scott listened. Scott nodded. He had no words of wisdom to offer the man, but he didn’t need any. He was fairly certain that Amos had been given as much well-meant advice as a man could stomach.

  Injured animals hide to nurse their wounds, Scott’s dad had told him once. Men sometimes have to do the same thing. But they tend to disappear inside themselves. Scott’s father had done a year of draftee duty stationed on a hospital ship off the coast of Vietnam. The experience had given him a keen eye for human behavior.

  For some reason that the rest of them would probably never know, Amos Brigham had disappeared inside himself.

  Scott thought it might be easier if the guy could see a light at the end of the tunnel, but he didn’t say that. It was none of his business. He changed the subject. That was what a friend was supposed to do.

  “So, did you meet the new librarian?”

  Amos nodded and took a sip of coffee before answering. “I did. She’s young. Late twenties, I’d guess, but she dresses older. Kind of going for that old maid look.”

  “I don’t think we’re supposed to say ‘old maid’ anymore,” Scott pointed out. “The PC term is single working woman.”

  “She’s definitely that. Stuffy business suit, gray on gray with her hair pulled back into a little bun like somebody’s grandmother.”

  “Not my grandma,” Scott said. “She always dressed in canary yellow.”

  “And your mother dresses in purple. I think it runs in the family.”

  Scott nodded acceptance. “That’s why my dad and I have always worn white. So we won’t clash with our womenfolk.”

  “Well, nobody is in danger of clashing with the new librarian. She dresses like a little sparrow. I guess she thinks she has to.”

  “Well, she’s probably smart to, anyway,” Scott said. “Remember Old Man Paske is on the library committee. That ancient reprobate would grope a bass fiddle.”

  Amos nodded. “Makes you wonder how ofte
n he’s tried to pinch Amelia Grundler’s fanny.”

  “Good God, Amos, are you trying to ruin my day, putting an image like that in my head?”

  He agreed. “It surely is more horror movie than porn flick.”

  Scott chuckled. “As long as I don’t have to see it, that old coot is welcome to all the old maids he can manhandle. I just hope that this one is not as sour as what we already have.”

  Amos was thoughtful for a moment. “No, she doesn’t seem sour. She’s cheerful, enthusiastic. And she’s actually kind of cute.”

  “Really?”

  Scott thought it was probably a very good sign that Amos could even notice the level of a woman’s attractiveness.

  “I’m not saying she’s some stunner,” he clarified. “Nice features, nice figure. She’s nice-looking. Pretty enough to fit in with the other women. But not so pretty that they’d begin to worry about their husbands.”

  Scott grinned. “The perfect balance, then?”

  “Maybe so. She may be just right for us. She seemed very matter-of-fact. And she was able to roll with the strangeness of James.”

  “Did you try to explain him to her?”

  “There is no explanation for James,” Amos answered. “If Amelia Grundler doesn’t run her off,” Amos concluded, “she just might make a go of it.”

  “Good,” Scott said. “We can always use another pretty woman in town. Even one determined to look like an old maid.”

  Amos made a huff of disbelief and shook his head. “We have at least our share in this little burg,” he said. “A single guy like you ought to notice that.”

  Scott shook his head. “I’m married to the store,” he answered.

  “That’s total bull,” Amos answered. “The right woman could make this town a heaven on earth.”

  “Does that mean the wrong woman could make it hell?”

  Amos shrugged. “Didn’t you already marry the wrong woman? You tell me.”