Love Overdue

by Pamela Morsi

  The machines were expensive, though. Especially so when a farmer imagined parking and maintaining it while it sat idle for fifty weeks a year. So from the beginning there were farmers who bought the machinery and those who hired the use of it, the latter being by far the larger. Custom cutters moved across the wheat belt like a wave. Farm by farm, neighbor by neighbor, ever on the northward track as the fields matured.

  And now that the wheat was ready, every sickle was sharpened, every vehicle gassed. Every eye was on the sky.

  “Combines are on the way.”

  Scott nodded for the dozenth time he’d been informed.

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “You staying open?”

  “I’ll be in and out with my cell number on the door,” he assured everyone. “Paula will be helping out at the elevator. And I’ll have a quick coffee if you’re passing through.”

  During harvest the functions of the town narrowed down to only two tasks: receive the grain and supply provisions.

  The first resulted in a line of trucks forming on Main Street as they waited for a turn to unload.

  The second meant ensuring everyone had food, gas, implements and a place to sleep. Typically a drugstore would not be a big provider of any of those necessities. But Sanderson Drug traditionally fed a grab-and-go breakfast to those who didn’t have the time or the patience to stand in line at one of the local eating establishments.

  There would be prescription emergencies, of course. But in the waiting game for the wheat to ready, most would have already updated their first-aid kits and gotten their tetanus booster.

  That didn’t stop anyone, however, from dropping in and sharing the nervous excitement that was more contagious than the summer sniffles.

  Surprisingly, there was one person who showed up that morning who seemed to have no interest in the activity going on around her. That was Scott’s mother.

  She breezed in as if she owned the place, which of course, she partly did. The little dog, now safely on a leash, trotted at her heels. She let herself into the dispensary to wash her hands in the sink.

  “The dog shouldn’t be back here, Mother.”

  She laughed as if it were a joke. “No worries. Mr. Dewey hasn’t perfected the childproof caps yet.”

  Scott didn’t laugh.

  Viv turned off the water and pulled a paper towel. “Don’t give me that look,” she told her son. “I invented that look and until you have children of your own, you’re not authorized to use it.”

  Scott decided to change the subject. “So what are you and the dog up to today?” he asked.

  “We already went by the cemetery to check for weeds. I decided to respace the annuals. That’s how I got my hands dirty.”

  Scott didn’t know how to respond to that. He almost blurted out, so what did Dad have to say this morning. Gossips had kindly let him in on Viv’s habit of talking aloud at the gravesite as if it were typical to have a conversation with the deceased.

  “I... uh, haven’t been out there to visit since the day they set the headstone.”

  His mother smiled at him. “No reason that you should, Scotty,” she said. “There is no one out there but the dead. And life is for the living.”

  That was a philosophy that was familiar to Scott. One that, in the past, he would have said was held by both his parents. With his mom lately, he hadn’t been so sure.

  “So,” Viv said, eagerly. “Let’s talk about something a lot more interesting.”

  “Like wheat harvest,” Scott suggested. “That’s all that passes for conversation in here today.”

  His mother frowned and shook her head. “I’ve seen harvests come and go for sixty years. What I want to know about is my son’s big night out. How was your first date with our new librarian?”

  “It was not a date, Mom,” he said. “You asked me to take her to the movies and introduce her around. I did that. End of story.”

  His mother made a tsking sound. “That can’t be the end of story,” she said. “When you were seventeen or eighteen, I accepted this secretiveness about your relationship. But your father was alive then to advise you. I feel like it’s my responsibility to step into those shoes.”

  Scott resisted the impulse to roll his eyes. Instead he lowered his voice so that no one would overhear. “Earth to Viv Sanderson. Your son is a divorced man who is thirty years old. He doesn’t need any motherly advice on his love life.”

  “Don’t get cheeky with me,” she warned.

  “I apologize. But you deserved it,” he replied. “Mom, I’m sure D.J. is a very nice lady, but we did not hit it off. We have nothing in common and she’s not my type.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “She is exactly your type and you have almost everything in common.”

  “Well, that’s news to me. Truth is, we didn’t get far enough to find out. Something about me completely annoys her. And I haven’t got the patience to put up with her crabbiness. So, sorry, Mom. If your plan was truly to fix us up, it failed.”

  “Well, you can’t simply give up without giving it a fair trial,” Viv said.

  “I can give it up. In fact, I have given it up. And you should, too.”

  “You should ask her out again,” Viv said. “One evening together doesn’t tell anyone anything about the potential for a relationship.”

  “Not true. One evening can be plenty of time. Either the spark is there, or it’s not. She and I together, the entire book of matches is soaking wet.”

  His mother set her jaw unhappily. But at least she retreated to the fountain counter where she chatted with other folks, listened to all the grain news and introduced the dog as if he were her own instead of a loaner.

  She seemed at least in a better mood by the time she was leaving. Scott loved her and hated to disappoint her, but sometimes it couldn’t be helped.

  “You heading home?” he asked.

  “No, stopping by the store,” she told him. “There’s something I need.”

  Scott visualized the shelves and shelves of canned goods practically bulging out of her house. She wouldn’t need anything from the store for the rest of the decade. He did not say that, instead he smiled.

  “Okay, well, bye.”

  “Yes, see you soon,” she answered.

  Twenty-One

  350.0 Public Administration

  D.J . walked through the children’s area. The open space there was a bit better than across the hallway, simply because the shorter shelves let more light into the room. It was late enough that most of the afternoon crowd had already headed home. But she spotted Ashley Turpin seated at one of the tables, her head bent intently on the book in her hands. D.J. felt the rush of empathy with the girl. A lot of people might have been surprised by that. Ashley was not the type of child that typically evoked fond feelings. She was a pudgy girl, though perhaps solid was a better description. She was tall for her age and with a very round, flat face, and hair that was a dull in-between color and grew as it grew without style or even much grooming. Both she and her clothes were clean, but the latter were ill-fitting and age inappropriate. All of these negatives could have been overcome, of course, with a winning smile and a warm personality. Ashley had neither.

  D.J. walked over and squatted down to eye level with the girl.

  “What are you reading?”

  It was an ordinary librarian question, but Ashley’s response was wary, as if her expectation was to be reprimanded. The girl’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t speak, guiltily she turned the book so D.J. could see the cover.

  The YA title was way over an eight-year-old’s suggested reading level. But D.J. believed those were more about ability than content. She had never limited herself to what others thought she should read. She would grant her patrons the same latitude.

  “I loved that book,” she told the girl.

  The youngster’s expression showed surprise and relief.

  “I’ve read all the books that are my age,” Ashley said,
as if she’d been perfectly prepared to defend her choices.

  D.J. nodded. “I know what you mean,” she said. “I was already checking out the fifth-grade selections when my classmates were still bragging about trying chapter books.”

  The camaraderie clearly surprised the girl. Miss Grundler probably wasn’t the only person who’d created an expectation of disapproval in this girl. But she hadn’t helped, either. And Ashley needed this library more than most.

  D.J. made a point of not making her reading choice more than it was.

  “I hate interrupting a good story,” she told her. “But I wanted to let you know that I’m going to keep the library open during the harvest. So tell your mom that I will be here and that you’ll be very welcome to hang out with all your favorite books.”

  “Okay,” Ashley said.

  D.J. wanted to reach out to the girl. To give her a big hug and tell her, I know how you feel. I know why you’re here. But of course, she did not. Instead she offered a calm smile and walked away.

  That was a small difference that she could make in one life. As she made her way across the building and into the adult reading room, she tried to visualize what she could do for many others.

  It wasn’t going to be easy.

  The area, crowded with old, heavy furniture, was cozy in a very bookish kind of way. Three sides featured eight-foot-high shelving lined with books. The fourth wall was half taken up by entrances to the public restrooms and half open to the marble-floored foyer. The purpose of the space was to be a welcoming encouragement to reading. But to D.J.’s eyes, it had more of the nineteenth-century stuffiness than modern usability. One almost expected the smell of expensive cigars and the clinking of sherry glasses.

  For perhaps the thousandth time, D.J. examined the overhead lighting to see if there was any way to get it brighter in here. The weighty brass overhead fixtures had the incandescent bulbs replaced with CFLs. Maybe she could find some that delivered a higher intensity. Maybe there might even be halogens. She dismissed that idea as soon as she had it. They burned too hot and were probably a danger in a public building. A giant skylight would be fabulous. But the cost to make structural changes to an historic building wouldn’t be cheap.

  “Whatcha doing?”

  The question came from Suzy. D.J. turned to see her standing just inside the entryway. From her clothing, a long skirt and Dr. Seuss tee, D.J. deduced that she’d been doing story time today on the bookmobile. But she’d come in from her route a half hour ago and should have been headed home already.

  D.J. smiled a bit more broadly than was necessary. “I’m just looking, thinking,” she said.

  D.J. knew that both Suzy and Amos were feeling a little uncomfortable about her reaction to their upcoming harvest break. It was an unexpected interruption in her plans. And made the work of the library seem unimportant. Something they would do only if nothing better was going on.

  “You don’t understand,” Suzy had pleaded her case. “When the harvest is on, well Verdant might as well just roll up the streets. Everything is about wheat. And you’re either a part of it or you have to get out of the way.”

  D.J. got it. But she didn’t have to like it. Still, there was nothing she could do. So she decided the best course was to let it roll off her back. However, she was also determined that the time not be wasted. She would figure out some way to use the interruption for the betterment of the library.

  “How was today’s run?” D.J. asked.

  “Oh, great. We had good numbers at all the stops. And I love my patrons. When the roads are dry, you won’t hear any complaints from me.”

  “Did you inform everyone that you wouldn’t be keeping up the route during the harvest?”

  Suzy nodded. “Everybody already knew,” she said. “But I made it official just like you said I should. The older folks and little kids were all stocking up. The rest of us will be too tired at the end of the day to read.”

  D.J. nodded as if she expected nothing else.

  “Listen... I’ve got to ask you something…”

  D.J. thought she recognized that hesitation. “Suzy, I’m not angry about you taking off to work on the harvest. I understand about that and you don’t need to apologize about it again.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t. I mean I would, if I thought that you wanted me to, but that’s not what I was going to ask you about.”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, it’s about Viv. Mrs. Sanderson.”

  “Uh...okay?” The last thing D.J. wanted to do was get involved in gossip about a member of her library board.

  “Does she seem all right to you lately? She’s not acting weird or anything?”

  D.J. could have pointed out that “weird” is definitely in the eye of the beholder and she didn’t know the woman well enough to make any kind of judgment. But instead she was adamant. “No, of course not.”

  Suzy nodded, as if in agreement. “Did you... did you ask her to buy something at the store for you?”

  What a curious question. D.J. shook her head. She would never have presumed on her landlady.

  “I mean, I know she’s bought stuff for your dog,” Suzy continued.

  “She has?” D.J. was surprised. “I’m sure I haven’t asked her to get me anything.”

  “Well...” Suzy hesitated. “You’re sure you didn’t ask her to buy any personal products for you?”

  D.J. was certain. “No. Why?”

  She moved closer and she lowered her voice. “You know Kimmi Morton? Her husband’s parents own the IGA.”

  “Of course.” D.J. had made a couple of trips to the grocery store and had made a point to meet everyone.

  “Well, Kimmi’s been worried about Viv for a while now. She buys too many canned goods.”

  D.J. remembered the stacks and stacks of stuff in the Sanderson house, but she didn’t comment. In her estimation, if the community was now into pantry peeping, she wanted no part of it.

  “The Mortons thought at first that she was maybe storing up for winter, in case it’s too snowy to get out. But she’s buying way too much. And Kimmi saw her looking through the cans for the expiration dates. That made sense, if she were trying to buy the newest. But she was actually buying the oldest.”

  D.J. frowned. “That’s odd.”

  “Very,” Suzy agreed. “I mean if you’re buying the oldest, it’s because you want to use it right away. But if you already have twenty cans of corn, you’re not going to use it in a hurry.”

  D.J. agreed. She also knew that twenty cans of corn was an understatement.

  “So Kimmi told Scott about all the canned goods,” Suzy went on. “But he already knew. He didn’t know what was going on, but thought it had to do with the grief process.”

  “The grief process?”

  “Yeah, her husband passed away like a year ago.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know.”

  “It’s kind of strange that she wouldn’t mention it,” Suzy pointed out. “Anyway, today she bought something even weirder and Kimmi doesn’t want to tell Scott unless she has to.”

  “What did she buy?”

  Suzy leaned forward, not two feet away from D.J. “She walked up to the checkout with the large economy box of super tampons.”

  That raised D.J.’s eyebrows.

  “I know,” Suzy agreed to D.J.’s unspoken disbelief. “Kimmi was sure that she’s got to be sixty at least and definitely past it. When she verified it with her mother-in-law, Mrs. Morton said Viv had a hysterectomy about a decade ago.”

  Again, that was more information than your average grocer knew about their patrons, but D.J. was getting used to the town’s habit of oversharing. “So she must be buying them... for someone else... or something else...”

  “Or she’s going off her rocker,” Suzy suggested.

  “She seems sane to me,” D.J. said.

  “Somebody is going to have to tell Scott,” Suzy said.

  That seemed reasonable to D.J. She nodded agreement.

&n
bsp; “Kimmi doesn’t want to.”

  “Why not?”

  “She says it looks funny for her to be monitoring what people are buying,” Suzy said.

  D.J. thought about that and offered a shrug. “Yes, I suppose she has a point.” One of the big taboos of the public library was revealing what people were borrowing or searching on the internet. Such information wasn’t even to be given to Homeland Security or the FBI, let alone a local gossip mill. The grocery store might not have the same legal expectation of privacy, but the ethics were exactly the same.

  “She asked me to talk to him,” Suzy said. “But how would I know what was going on, unless somebody told me. I’d hate for Viv to think people are talking about her. So I thought it might be better coming from you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, I mean it makes perfect sense. You live in the same house with Viv. And you and Scott are dating.”

  “We are not dating.”

  “Okay, but you had a date. You can obviously talk to him. And you’re an outsider. Nobody would expect you to know what you can and can’t say.”

  D.J. did not see the logic of that. “I hardly know either of them and, as for Scott, I know that I don’t want to know him any more than I already do.”

  “My point exactly,” Suzy said. “For you, it’s no big deal. You don’t care if he gets insulted, blames the messenger or holds a grudge for twenty years. You’d be fine with that.”

  “And you expect that’s what he’s likely to do.”

  “No, not really. I think if it were my momma, I’d want to know what other people are worrying about,” Suzy said. “But the deal about how small towns work is that relationships exist on a razor’s edge. We’re supposed to love and care about each other. But the minute you get your nose a little too deep in somebody else’s business, you get it chopped off. And that’s a scar that you carry with you.”

  D.J. crossed her arms. “So you and Kimmi are opting out of any busybody danger and letting me stick my neck out.”