Love Overdue

by Pamela Morsi

  The bell on the front door clanged and he turned to meet his first customer of the day, Amos Brigham.

  “You got any more of that stuff,” he asked, pointing to Scott’s mug.

  “I can probably share a swig or two,” Scott said as he put a cup and saucer on the counter before retrieving the carafe from the warmer.

  “So, are you running early this morning or planning to show up late?” Scott asked.

  Amos shrugged as he took a seat at the counter. “We’ve got a staff meeting and it’s sure to be a doozy. Amelia will be loaded for bear and I thought I might need some extra caffeine before the estrogen storm.”

  Scott chuckled.

  “Hey, you don’t know what it’s like to be the lone man in a job full of women.”

  “I think I have a pretty good idea,” Scott said. “I work with Paula every day in a business where I share ownership with my mother and sister.”

  “Yeah, maybe so.”

  “Besides, you’re not the ‘lone man.’ There’s James.”

  Amos managed a wry grin and shook his head. “You’re right. I do have James.”

  “So drink up before we both have a misogyny attack.”

  Amos did as he was bid.

  Scott poured himself another cup. He had things to do, but he couldn’t resist the temptation to linger.

  “I haven’t seen Suzy yet this morning,” Amos said. “So I don’t have the gossip on your big date with our new librarian.”

  “It wasn’t a date,” Scott replied.

  “Yeah, that’s what you keep saying.”

  “Mom asked me to take her downtown and introduce her around. That was it.”

  Scott’s tone was adamant. Amos’s acknowledgment accepting.

  “People seem to like her.”

  Scott agreed. “She was charming.” To everybody but him. “Nice, but not in that fake, sugary way some women do.”

  Amos nodded.

  “And you know around harvest every farmer in town has more words in his mouth than the entire rest of the year.”

  Amos laughed. “You speak the truth, bro. It’s all the extra cash I make all year, and yet I get so tired of listening to the talk I wanna scream, ‘so let’s harvest it already!”’

  “Amen,” Scott agreed. “Max Schultz heard that Brandon Renny’s crop is down to 12.”

  Amos nodded. “It’s a little south, but it’s getting close.”

  “Next thing that you know, we’ll all be wishing that it was over.”

  Amos chuckled. “You know this town too well.”

  Scott nodded. “You should have seen the librarian’s face while Max explained the finer points of measuring moisture content.”

  “Tough sale, huh?”

  “No, she did pretty good. She was acting polite and looking interested. My own eyes were about to roll into the back of my head.”

  “Been there. Done that.”

  “T-shirt?”

  “I played skins.”

  They joked together companionably as Scott poured Amos a second cup.

  “Do you know what the rumor is about your date?” Amos asked.

  “It wasn’t a date,” Scott replied automatically, but he was listening carefully. He really hoped that the confrontation between Eileen and D.J. had not been a public spectacle.

  “They’re saying that Viv brought her here just to fix her up with you,” Amos said.

  Scott released the breath he held, grateful for some secrets kept. “I hope you’re wrong about that,” he said. “I really hate disappointing my mom.”

  “You could do worse,” Amos pointed out. “Her curves may not be much, but her face is pretty.”

  “There is nothing wrong with her figure,” Scott corrected. “Have you gotten a good look at the booty on her?”

  “Nope, can’t say as I’ve noticed. But apparently you did.”

  “Bicycle shorts, tighter than skin. There is plenty of junk in that trunk and none of it needs to be jacked up or rounded off.”

  “Lucky you then,” Amos said. “You should make a play for her.”

  Scott shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Are you going to live like a monk forever then?”

  “Look who’s talking,” Scott replied. “Besides, if I were going to give romance another shot, I’d be much smarter to start with Jeannie Brown.”

  “Jeannie Brown? Is she dating again?”

  “Well, she probably would be if somebody asked her,” Scott answered. “Hey, we live in Verdant. Her choices are you, me or Old Man Paske. If you and I aren’t picking up the slack, I don’t think we can count on the coot in the nursing home.”

  Amos gave a slight grunt of humor.

  “So I’ll take Jeannie, you take the librarian and Paske is on his own.”

  “I can’t take the librarian,” Amos said.

  “Why not?”

  “Uh... because I like my job and she’s my boss.”

  “Oh, right, I forgot that.”

  “I do kind of like her though,” Amos said. “She’s... I don’t know, she’s open, I guess.”

  “Open?”

  “Yeah, she doesn’t seem to have the kind of expectations everybody else does. She doesn’t act like James is a weirdo. She doesn’t talk to me like I’m... fragile.”

  Scott chuckled. “It’s hard to imagine you as fragile,” he pointed out to the burly man.

  Amos slapped his rock-solid abs. “Delicate as glass,” he declared with a grin. But then spoke more seriously. “That’s how people treat me a lot. They’re careful about what they say. Like I might go nuts and start taking hostages.”

  “They don’t think that,” Scott assured him. “I know they don’t mean that.”

  “But they do think I’ve changed,” Amos pointed out. “I have changed. And change is not so good in Verdant.” Scott could hardly argue the point. Living up to expectations had not been in the cards for him, either.

  “D.J. is okay with people being whatever. That’s what I mean by open,” he said. “It’s like she’s not scared of the wounds, no matter how badly they’re healed.”

  “That sounds like pretty high praise, Amos,” Scott said. “Maybe a new job might be what the doctor ordered.”

  He shook his head. “Nope. It’ll have to be you.”

  “It can’t be me,” Scott said. “She doesn’t like me.”

  Amos’s brow furrowed. “Why not?”

  Scott shrugged. “Beats me. She detested me on sight. And it seems like the more she gets to know me, the worse it gets.”

  “Weird. Everybody likes you.”

  “I figure I remind her of some creep who jilted her or something.”

  “Yeah, maybe so,” Amos agreed. “Didn’t you think she reminded you of somebody?”

  “Yeah. I finally figured out who.”

  “And?”

  “She looks a little like this girl I went out with once, when I was back in grad school.”

  Scott gazed thoughtfully into his coffee cup.

  “I see that smile.”

  “Huh.”

  “You thought about this old girlfriend and you couldn’t help smiling,” Amos said.

  Scott shrugged and shook his head. “Sorry. Nice memories.”

  “I guess so. What happened to her?”

  “Don’t know. One minute she was there and then she was gone.”

  Amos’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean by that? Didn’t you look for her? Ask her friends?”

  “I didn’t know where to look for her,” Scott admitted. “I didn’t even know her name.”

  “You didn’t know her name?” Amos repeated. “What kind of ‘girlfriend’ was this?”

  “I met her on spring break.”

  Amos raised an eyebrow. “I never thought you were the ‘spring break’ kind of guy.”

  “I wasn’t. You know I always came home and worked here in the store,” he said. “But that one year I decided to go and see what it was all about.”
>
  “And?”

  “And I met her.” Scott hesitated a half minute before he continued. “You know the phrase, ‘she rocked my world.’”

  “Geez!”

  “This woman literally rocked my world,” Scott said. “It was like a sexual awakening that I had no clue about. Totally off the charts.”

  “Man, you’re going to piss me off,” Amos teased. “It was always my teenage fantasy to be seduced by a sexy older woman.”

  “She wasn’t older,” Scott said. “She was a college girl, younger than me, I think. But damn, she knew exactly what her body was for and how to use it. All these years later, and I still get worked up just remembering her.”

  Amos laughed. “Very inconvenient in your current bachelor state.”

  “Hey, it’s not all that funny,” Scott said. “Sometimes I think it’s almost sad. If it hadn’t happened...if I hadn’t known that it could be like that, I’d probably still be married to Stephanie.”

  “No,” Amos said. “You two were never going to be happy together.”

  “But we probably would have been content to settle for what we had.”

  “And nobody’s life would have been better for that.”

  Eighteen

  333.3 Land Economics

  The staff meeting was not going particularly well. The three women had sat uncomfortably together for what seemed like a lifetime before Amos showed up, not one minute early. Amelia Grundler was edgy, brittle and well prepared for battle. She had not taken well to her Friday afternoon reprimand, and she was looking for any opportunity for revenge. D.J. had expected that, but it didn’t make her any happier about it.

  D.J. had taken great care to provide positive feedback to the operation of the library in general and to each employee in particular. Fortunately, she didn’t need to overly embellish, which might have made it all seem false. For what they were doing, D.J. felt that the institution was operating very well. But the vision was so small and the size of the community that received little or no benefit was so large, that taking on new challenges was going to be unavoidable.

  Baby steps. She’d picked up on a couple of baby steps to implement. So after pumping everyone up and listening to their reports, she carefully broached what she’d anticipated to be the least controversial of the two.

  But even that proved to be a good deal more contentious than she’d imagined.

  “I realize that the furnishings in the reading room are antique. I agree that everything is quite beautiful and well made. But the room is gloomy, and all that dark wood doesn’t help.”

  “Maybe we could reupholster the cushions,” Suzy suggested. “A nice fabric in a light color would brighten up the place a lot. And we wouldn’t need to replace the furniture.”

  That was the kind of compromise D.J. had been hoping for.

  Miss Grundler would have none of it. “One does not reupholster vintage leather with cheap cloth.”

  “If the leather is sick-poop green, I think you’re allowed,” Suzy replied.

  Amelia’s eyes bulged with fury that Suzy would dare to answer back. D.J. was pleased to see the younger woman undaunted by Amelia’s typical display of dominance. Miss Grundler looked as if her head might explode.

  “Those pieces were donated to this institution by Estes Milbank himself,” she declared. “The family, indeed the whole community, would be scandalized to hear how cheaply you regard their largesse.”

  Suzy sputtered, her moment of self-confidence shaken. D.J. had no choice but to intervene.

  “Thank you both,” she said. “These are exactly the kind of ideas and concerns that I wish to take to the library board. This will, naturally be their decision, not ours.”

  Smiling all around, D.J. calmly but firmly moved on to another subject.

  “I’ve been working up a plan for a new senior service model,” she told them. “Based on our experience last week with the residents of Pine Tree.”

  Her proposal allowed for the busload of nursing home residents to remain in the hopefully better-lighted reading room area while the books were brought to them. “That’s much too hands-on,” Amelia stated flatly. “If people can’t get around well enough to get their own books, then we can’t be responsible.”

  “But we are, in part, responsible,” D.J. pointed out. “Our stack area is very dark. Even I have trouble in that dim light. And James is carrying a flashlight. Right, James?”

  There was an uncomfortable moment of silence before a disembodied voice answered. “Yes.”

  Amelia snorted. “If we do this for Pine Tree, everybody is going to expect it.”

  “Which is exactly what I want,” D.J. said. “I’m actually hoping to lure some of the nursing homes that we’re currently visiting with the bookmobiles into using their own transportation to come to the main library.”

  Amos shook his head. “Nobody’s going to want to do that.”

  “Because it’s too dark,” D.J. said. “And the place is unwelcoming. But if we lighten it up and make it fun for them, perhaps we can change that.”

  “Why would we want to?” Suzy asked. “They like the bookmobile and I like going.”

  D.J. nodded. “But a lot of places are not being served at all. If we got more of the nearby facilities to come to us, then you’d have time to add some new stops that have growth potential. I’m sure both you and Amos could come up with some ideas about that.”

  Suzy nodded thoughtfully. Amos had an idea immediately come to mind.

  “The kids from the high school that get dropped off at Batesville, a lot of them hang out there at the gas station for an hour or two every afternoon.”

  “They still have an elementary school in town,” Suzy explained to D.J. “But their older students have been coming to high school here for the last decade.”

  Amos nodded. “If we were parked there in the lot outside the gas station, just a couple of times a month, I think our YA stats would perk up considerably.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” D.J. said, “extending service to new populations.”

  “Plus the guy at the gas station might appreciate that the kids can occupy themselves in other ways besides shoplifting stale donuts.”

  Suzy giggled. “Donuts should only be eaten by people who have teenage appetites and metabolism.”

  “This does not deal with the problem!” Amelia stated harshly. “You can stop in Batesville or not, but you can’t fill this library with needy nursing home residents.”

  “They are our patrons, Miss Grundler.”

  “We don’t have the staff for that kind of one-on-one interaction,” the pruney complainer continued. “Who is going to wait on them hand and foot? I’m not. So then, it must be you, Librarian. And I feel certain that the taxpayers of this district are not paying you to be a nursemaid. Opening Saturdays, babysitting abandoned children and now wasting valuable time on doddering old fools who wish to be spoon-fed light reading material.”

  D.J. managed not to take the bait, but she did swallow hard.

  “Let’s try it, shall we,” she suggested. “I’ll work with Pine Tree this week. And Suzy, perhaps you and Amos can discuss it with the managers of your current nursing home stops.”

  They both nodded, avoiding glances at Miss Grundler’s face. D.J. could see in her peripheral vision that the woman was florid with anger.

  “But we should probably hold off doing anything until after harvest,” Amos said.

  “Oh, sure,” Suzy agreed readily.

  Amos looked over at her, his expression sincere and without patronizing. “We’re going to start cutting wheat in the next week for certain.”

  D.J. was aware that people in her adopted hometown did tend to drone on and on about gathering the local crop. But surely most would be able to manage a discussion on another subject.

  “I want us to get started on this right away,” she said.

  “As soon as harvest is in,” Amos agreed. “First thing when we get back.”


  “Get back? Get back from where?”

  Miss Grundler gave a breathy sigh of exasperation. “The library will be closing for harvest!”

  “What?”

  “We close. Every year, we close.”

  “I didn’t see anything on the calendar,” D.J. pointed out.

  “Because we never know exactly when it starts or when it ends. Whenever it does, we close.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” D.J. said.

  Amelia Grundler gave a huge huff of disgust.

  “Actually, Miss Jarrow, it makes perfect sense,” Amos said. “Nobody has time to read. Almost nobody is even in town.”

  “I get it that’s it’s a very busy time for people,” D.J. said. “Why would we not open the main library and run our regular bookmobile routes?”

  “Well...” Amos began, as if he was hesitant to give her the bad news. “There will be so many heavy trucks and machinery on the roads, that it’s a pretty dangerous idea to put the bookmobiles out there. Add to that the fact that you’ll have to be the one driving them, ’cause Suzy and I are both commercial truck drivers. We’re committed to haul grain. We always do.”

  Amelia seemed to take a certain dark pleasure in the turn of the conversation.

  “And since you will be out risking damage to our bookmobile on narrow blacktop roads, the main library will have to be closed,” she said. “I take my annual trip to my sister’s home in Colorado Springs. She will be expecting me, and I have no intention of cancelling.”

  D.J. sat there, completely stunned into silence. She had never heard of anything like this in her life. A library that closed its doors without notice to reopen at a time unspecified.

  “I’ll be here,” a voice from the stacks said quietly.

  D.J. almost laughed humorlessly, but managed to keep her decorum. “Thank you, James. I appreciate your help.”

  Nineteen

  South Padre Island (Eight years earlier)

  Scott had noticed her when she entered the booth next to his. At first, he’d discounted her as too young. One of the girls with her seemed a little more his type. He’d always sort of secretly preferred brunettes and that sort of bleach-striped blonde look reminded him of cheerleaders. And cheerleaders, of course, reminded him of Stephanie.