by Pamela Morsi
He could only imagine that the genes of generations of dirt farmers were finally showing themselves. Scott had surprised himself. His parents had merely shrugged.
“What else would you do with all this good ground,” his father had said.
What else, indeed?
That first year he’d thought to put in half a dozen tomato plants. Everyone knew that homegrown tomatoes were far superior to any bought in the store. But why go to the trouble of tomatoes without some cucumbers and radishes? Squash and gourds practically raised themselves. Broccoli, onions, sweet corn and salsify—every season his garden expanded its borders and its variety. This year he had even planned space for turnips and okra, two vegetables that he would never eat voluntarily.
There would always be people grateful to do that for him.
It was the growing that was important. The satisfaction of planning what needed to be done, doing what you were supposed to do and, with a lot of sunshine and the right amount of rain, seeing your efforts return a harvest of pride.
Scott walked carefully between the rows. Everything looked very good. Here and there he saw evidence of wildlife. He didn’t mind sharing with the occasional rabbit, raccoon or possum. But he knew how easily a great garden could be overrun with pests. He walked over to the shed where he kept a spray bottle filled with diluted pepper sauce. He sprayed down all the cabbage. The water was always welcome. As for the hot pepper, it didn’t deter the critters completely. But it did make them think twice about a casual salad at his expense.
Looking around his garden, Scott was reminded that no man is an island. Humans need fellow humans, but they also need plants. Whether it was God’s great plan or nature’s joke, the most evolved species on the earth was at the mercy of the food chain and its foundation of fruits and grains to sustain life.
Scott actually liked being a part of that. Gardening was a hobby. And he was pretty sure that a guy with no wife, no kids, no girlfriend and no social life needed hobbies.
The ruminations of his job always followed him home. And if he made no move to stop them, he’d spend his entire evening second-guessing his actions of the day and anticipating what might need to be done tomorrow or next week. His father had warned him to “leave the store at the store.” His dad’s philosophy was that the job and the home should be two different places and that it could be dangerous to allow them to mesh together.
You can run a business, or a business can run you, Scott remembered him saying. Work hard and smart every minute you’re here. When you step outside, leave it all behind.
That hadn’t always been easy, and not just in the aftermath of his father’s death.
Certainly it had been difficult to shoulder the extra stress of running the family business without his father’s help or advice. But even before that. When he was still feeling the sting of his divorce. When he’d felt so unsure about what he’d wanted and so disappointed about facts he couldn’t change. The temptation to hide in his job, to allow all his thoughts and emotions to become absorbed in the details of his career was hard to resist. It felt like virtue and it was quite possible to be completely self-righteous about it. But it was, he knew, only cowardice in disguise. If you weren’t willing to face your life—all your life, including the rough parts— then you weren’t truly living. You were just making a living.
He was startled from his thoughts by the excited yapping of a little dog. The sound came only seconds before the creature was barging into his onions.
“Hey! Get out of here,” he said.
Knowing obedience was unlikely, Scott grabbed the small ball of black fur that was intent on trampling his stalks. He recognized the librarian’s dog immediately.
“You’re a long way from home for a guy with short legs,” he told the pup.
Scott looked toward the house. He couldn’t see all of his drive, but he certainly hadn’t heard a car. He glanced in the other direction, toward the creek, to see his mother walking up the path. She was dressed in a kind of knitted pantsuit with heels more suited to one of her bridge parties than a nature trek.
“Good grief,” he muttered to himself.
With the dog clutched under one arm, he walked down to meet her.
“You walked over here?” he asked her incredulously.
Viv was flushed and breathless. “It wasn’t my intention,” she said. “Mr. Dewey got a bit ahead of me and... and here we are.”
Scott offered his free arm and she took it gratefully. “You should have had him on a leash,” he told her.
“Oh, I suppose so,” she admitted. “But he’s so happy when I let him wander free.”
The thought, who are you and what have you done with my real mother, floated through Scott’s head, but he didn’t voice it. Instead he commented on the obvious.
“This is a really long walk for you, Mom. It’s got to be close to three miles.”
Viv’s smile faked nonchalance. “I used to walk that far to and from school every day.”
“Yeah, sure,” Scott responded with skeptical sarcasm. “With little blood prints of your bare feet in the snow. They had school buses in the 1960s, Mom. It’s an historical fact.”
“Well, whatever,” she replied. “I could use a drink of water.”
As they neared the back door, Scott set the dog down. “If you run off, you’ll be finding your own way home,” he warned.
The happy critter, ears perked up and tongue hanging out, appeared oblivious to the threatening tone. And when Scott opened the back door for his mother, the dog charged in ahead of her.
Viv sat down with a grateful sigh in the first kitchen chair she reached in the windowed alcove that was Scott’s breakfast nook. He poured her a glass of cold water from the refrigerator. As an afterthought, he filled a small bowl from the tap and set it on the floor.
His mother was enjoying the view. From this vantage she could see his small expanse of lawn, the neatness of his garden and the tree line in the distance along the edge of the creek.
“You’ve made this a really pretty place, Scotty,” she told him as he seated himself across from her. “I should come out here more often.”
“You are always welcome, Mom. But you know, if you’re not going to drive, at least put on sensible shoes.”
She chuckled. “Sometimes you remind me so much of your father. He never allowed himself to scold me. He’d just get exasperated.”
“I don’t remember a lot of exasperation on his part,” Scott replied.
“Well, of course you don’t. We always made a point of keeping what was between us, between us. There was no need to drag the kids into the normal ups and downs of married life.”
“Who knew that you two could be secretive? I would have said you were perpetually blissful.”
Viv laughed. “There is no such thing as perpetual bliss. If two people manage chronic bliss, that’s probably the definition of a happy marriage.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Scott had meant the words to be light. He immediately saw the worry line that emerged in his mother’s forehead.
“Kidding,” he assured her.
She reached across the table to pat his hand. “One of these days, you’ll find the right one, Scotty.”
He smiled at her, but he didn’t voice agreement. It might be cruel to get her hopes up.
“What did you think of our new librarian?” she asked. “Isn’t our D.J. a lovely young woman?”
Scott managed not to roll his eyes. “I’m sure she’s very nice,” he said.
“Perhaps you should show her around this weekend,” his mother said. “I’m sure it’s difficult, being all alone in a new town.”
He wasn’t about to get trapped into that.
“Mom, she very likely has plans of her own already,” he pointed out. “They say she’s originally from Wichita. So she’ll probably drive there to see friends and family on the weekend.”
“She doesn’t know anyone in Wichita,” Viv stated. “She’s an o
nly child, her parents died several years ago. They were quite elderly and from what I gather, she grew up in boarding schools and summer camps. Her only ties are the ones she makes right here in Verdant.”
“Well, it sounds like you two are becoming well acquainted,” he said. “Honestly, she wasn’t all that chatty when I talked to her.”
His mother blushed. “Well, naturally, no one tells her life story the minute she meets someone. But a part of vetting a new employee is finding out about her life.” Scott raised an eyebrow at that. His mom’s information didn’t seem like the type to be acquired in a job interview.
“I need to get home,” his mother said, abruptly changing the subject. “D.J. will be worried.”
“Worried about you?”
“About Mr. Dewey, of course.”
Twelve
239.2 Apologetics & Polemics
D.J . Arrived home a few moments after six. She had the first week down as Verdant’s new librarian. It wasn’t a total success, but she’d gotten a lot done and she felt well on her way to having a handle on the situation. She also had some ideas on how things could be improved. Still, she’d ended the week on a sour note. She’d lost her temper.
That was not good.
Being cool under pressure was the hallmark of a good administrator. And the more troublesome the employee, Amelia Grundler being the poster child, the more calm the demeanor one should maintain.
“Fail,” D.J. said to herself aloud.
She parked her car and gathered up her computer and the notes and files she’d planned to work on after-hours. Her heart was barely in it, though. D.J. really wanted to go upstairs, heat up something in the microwave and spend the evening vegging in front of the TV. Things would surely look better in the morning.
Yet she just couldn’t seem to shake the events of the day. It was bad enough that she’d blasted Amelia. It was worse that she’d done it in front of Amos and Suzy.
A smart boss would have stayed at the circulation desk and made her point clearly and firmly without raising her voice.
D.J. had virtually dragged the offending biddy into the back and then proceeded to go off on the woman like a crazy person. Worse, she really felt like a crazy person. She’d been so angry, so overwrought, she hadn’t even realized she’d had an audience—but the truth was that it might not have even stopped her.
Amelia had touched a nerve. In the short term, D.J. had embarrassed herself and behaved inappropriately. But the long term was even worse. Now Amelia knew which button to push. And D.J. had no doubt that she’d make full use of that knowledge.
With weary steps, she climbed the stairs to her apartment. She was disappointed in herself. Not simply for her unseemly reaction, but for revisiting the seeds of it. She’d come a long way since those days of emptiness, those old insecurities. They shouldn’t still have an impact on her actions.
Somehow, she thought, the hot guy shared some blame for this. If she’d been sleeping better, eating better, been less edgy, she would have maintained her rational composure. But worrying about him had her walking through the world on eggshells. And that had made her more vulnerable to her own demons.
She groaned as she opened her door. Maybe she should quit while she was ahead. Maybe Verdant was not the place where she could finally find a home. How could she build a life around Scott’s faulty memory? She couldn’t see herself reminding him of exactly what they’d done together, but she’d never been good at lying, either. And it was probably late to be developing the skill.
Inside her apartment, D.J. dumped her load of work and her purse on the kitchen table. She hung her suit jacket on the back of a chair and kicked off her shoes.
She unpinned her hair. Releasing the weight of the severe bun at the back of her head was such a relief. It was almost literally taking a weight off her shoulders.
She wandered through the apartment aimlessly. Her apartment. This place had nothing in common with the sterile, nondescript, cookie-cutter condo that she’d owned in the city. Even with its mess of unpacked boxes, she already liked this place better. It was beginning to feel like home.
The solid character of the old house extended into its refurnished rental. The living room had two nice windows on the south side. The bedroom was a good size and brightly lit, as well. The kitchen was small and galley style, but it did feature a cozy nook with a little table for two. Her favorite room, however, was the bath. The huge, old-fashioned room was tiled in basic black and white, complete with both an antique claw-foot tub and a very modern dual shower in a glass enclosure.
She looked longingly at the tub. A nice long soak might soothe the worst of the day’s mistake.
Maybe after she and Dew had dinner.
Dew?
D.J. suddenly realized that her best friend, buddy, roommate and pet had inexplicably not met her at the door when she arrived. That simply never happened.
She called out the dog’s name as she walked through the place. With no answering yip or telltale patter of paws on the hardwoods, she knew Dew was not at home.
Annoyed, she headed out the door, across the porch and down the steps. It was nice, she reminded herself, that Viv was taking Dew for his walk during the day. But she should return him to his own house, not take him into hers. D.J. knocked on Viv’s door sharply.
Nothing.
She waited a minute and knocked again.
Beyond the landlady’s back door was complete silence. D.J. peeked in through the glass panes. No one in the kitchen. Perhaps the woman was taking a nap. But Dew was no sound sleeper. If he were in there, he’d hear the knocks and be barking the house down.
Viv’s lavender Mini was still parked in the driveway, though. It was late for the two of them to be gone. Then she spied Dew’s leash draped over the porch railing. He was running loose?
“Just perfect,” she complained.
Dew was a great dog, mostly obedient, and he would come when D.J. called him. But he hardly knew Viv. There was no telling what he might try. And how would the older lady keep up with him if he took it in his head to run off?
D.J. would have to go find them. But she couldn’t do that barefoot. She hurried back up the stairs to get shoes, then decided it made more sense to put on some clothes more suited to a dog search than her business suit. She began pulling boxes open looking for jeans. The first thing she spotted were biking shorts she hadn’t worn since her bicycle was stolen. In the upheaval of moving, those things buried at the bottom had worked their way to the top. D.J. didn’t have the time or patience to search any further. Quickly she pulled on the knee- length, skintight spandex and the bright blue zip-neck jersey that went with them. She hopped the length of the apartment as she pulled on first one running shoe and then the other heading out the door.
She jerked her hair up into a ponytail as she made her way across her second-floor deck and down the steps. She knocked again at Viv’s, just in case, before taking off with a loping stride down the driveway. The idea of Dew getting lost was scary. Verdant was a brand-new place. Nothing would seem familiar. The town was not that large, but he was a small dog. And the surrounding wheat fields all looked alike. She had no idea what kind of wildlife might live out there, but she was sure that most of it would be unwelcoming to a terrier.
In the street, D.J. hesitated. Left, or right? One way led to the center of the community. The other toward the path along the creek. Viv might have gone either way. As she stood there, indecisive, a familiar vehicle came into view.
A white minivan with Sanderson Drug Store painted on the side was hardly mistakable. It was the hot guy. Beside him, in the passenger seat, was Viv. Dew was on her lap, his head sticking out the window, mouth open, tongue hanging out, his fur and ears blowing in the wind.
In a cloud of Kansas dust, the van pulled to a stop beside her. D.J. immediately reached out to her happy, smiling dog.
“You found him,” she said. ‘
“Oh, Mr. Dewey was never lost,” Viv assured her. “
He and I went for a good long walk along the river path to see Scott. The exercise was good for both of us.” Dew seemed perfectly content to let D.J. stroke his fur and scratch his neck. He happily licked her hands, but he was in no hurry to relinquish his place in the car window. In fact, he squirmed for release when she pulled him into her arms.
“Thank you for walking him, Viv. But you really shouldn’t try that without the leash. He might wander off and I don’t know if he’d come when you call.”
Viv seemed unconcerned. “Well, he didn’t disappear and he’s home now. No worries.”
D.J. raised her eyebrow at that, but kept her opinion to herself.
She allowed her gaze to go beyond her dog and her landlady to the van’s driver, not quite able to meet his eyes.
“Go ahead,” she said, stepping back and allowed Scott to turn into the driveway and park near the back door.
She walked back toward the house, holding Dew in her arms until his wiggling moved to full-on writhe. As soon as she let the dog down, he went running happily toward Viv getting out of the car.
D.J. followed more slowly. As she neared the older woman spoke.
“He is the smartest little dog I’ve ever seen.”
D.J. nodded. “Terrier mixes can be very intelligent.”
“And he loves riding with his head out the window.”
D.J. pursed her lips together thoughtfully. It was very nice of Viv to hang out with Dew, but she needed to understand the ground rules.
“I don’t let him do that,” she said, firmly. “It’s not safe. If you’re going to transport him, you’ll need to get his crate.”
Viv laughed lightly. “I’m not actually transporting him, dear. We’re just taking a little jaunt through town.”
