by Pamela Morsi
“Come inside,” he said, gesturing toward his mother’s back door. “We’ve got a big pot brewed.”
He held the door for her, and she complied. He showed her to a seat at the breakfast bar and then placed a steaming cup of coffee in front of her.
“You have to try my blueberry pancakes.”
“Please don’t go to any trouble.”
“It’s already fixed,” he said. “I’m going to have to cook it anyway. They’re really good, I promise. And I always keep my promises to beautiful women.”
Scott had meant it as a joke, but her chin came up and there was a wariness about her. He wasn’t sure if it was about promises or his use of the term “beautiful.” He decided to avoid both and concentrate on pancakes.
Once the griddle was sufficiently heated, he poured four large circles of batter on it. He rifled through a cluttered drawer for the spatula. Once he had it in hand, the quiet in the room, the only sound being the ticking clock, loomed a bit large. He flayed for a safe subject of conversation.
“You know… uh, pancake is another regional variation word, like soda and pop.”
“Really,” she responded. There was no sense of great interest on her part, but she obviously felt weighed by the silence as much as he did.
“When I was a kid, both my parents called them hot cakes,” he said. “And there are parts of Kansas where they use the term flapjacks or worse, slapjacks.”
He glanced toward her with a little smile. She mirrored it with an equally meager grin.
“Now everybody calls them pancakes.”
The batter on the griddle was now completely covered with big wide bubbles. He slid the spatula under one and expertly flipped it. The other three turned as easily.
“Television got rid of a lot of regionalisms,” he continued. “Especially television advertising. If you had a national chain of restaurants that sold pancakes, you couldn’t change the name for every locale that called them something different.”
“I suppose not,” she agreed.
“Yeah, International House of Flapjacks just doesn’t have the same ring to it.”
“IHOF,” she said. “That’s not an acronym that makes you want to stop by.”
Scott dished up the distinctive breakfast and set the plates on the breakfast bar. He put the jug of maple syrup between them and poured them both another cup of coffee before taking a seat.
“These are really good,” D.J. said. She was mumbling through a mouthful of food, which not only implied truthfulness, but somehow endeared her to Scott. She seemed more like a real woman than the starchy librarian who generally disliked him.
“It’s my favorite breakfast,” he said. “I used to beg Mom to fix it for me all the time. Her way out was to teach me how to make them for myself.”
D.J. gave him a bit of a smile. “That seems like a smart fix.”
Scott nodded. “That’s one of the interesting things about my mother,” he said. “She’s never really had what most people would consider a job. She worked on her father’s farm and then in her husband’s store. She never got paid a wage in either place. But she would have made one heck of a CEO. When she sees something that needs initiating or fixing or changing, she never sighs about it. She takes action.”
“That makes sense,” D.J. said. “Like hiring me. Most people in town were content to leave the library like it was. But she saw the potential to make it better.”
“Right,” Scott agreed.
D.J. forked another bite of breakfast. “She brought me here to be a solution to a problem.”
Scott nodded, though he was pretty sure his mother’s need for a solution had very little to do with the library at all.
Twenty-Seven
390.1 Customs, Etiquette & Folklore
The library seemed big and dark and empty. D.J. sighed aloud. It was nearly noon, and no one had even walked through the doorway. Not even little Ashley had shown up today. What James found to do in the stacks was a mystery. She knew he was there, but there wasn’t so much as a footfall to give evidence of that.
D.J. sat at the circulation desk with her laptop. She’d pulled up all the planning files. She’d looked through the bookmobile routes. She’d fiddled with the acquisitions budget. She’d revised next fall’s afterschool program. She’d crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s on her new proposal for a seniors’ service initiative. But the truth was, to her mind, if she couldn’t figure out a way to make the main building more welcoming, the usefulness of the library would always be stunted.
She’d spent hours on the internet looking at renovations of Carnegie buildings. Although Carnegie libraries were all unique, many were similar since the designs were created by a handful of architects through the years. She found more than a dozen that shared some elements with Verdant. But none of them had the narrow, oddly spaced floor-to-ceiling windows that she was cursed with. Typically, because electric illumination had still been in its early, less efficient stages, great care had been taken to utilize the value of natural light.
But not here, where the rooms were dark, gloomy, closed off.
“The place is beginning to sound like your parents,” she murmured to herself in a private joke.
Death, any death, always seemed to bring them to mind. She didn’t want to spend her day thinking about that, but wasn’t inclined to distract herself with rumination over her wet towel episode from the night before. She closed her eyes and shook her head as the memory assailed her. So much for maintaining professional distance.
Thankfully, he’d not made any snide or suggestive comments. That’s more what she had expected. Actually, after their conversation, it seemed as if he was nicer than she’d thought. And he made very good pancakes.
But she needed to stay wary. He might not remember her, but she did remember him. He was a player. He knew his way around a woman’s body. He did things to her that she’d never even read in books.
Best not think about that, she cautioned herself. Stick to the facts. He’d been in South Padre picking up girls when he had somebody he was supposed to be engaged to waiting back home. He’d gone ahead with the wedding and then been caught cheating shortly afterward. Since then he’d been the hot guy in town, having affairs with married women.
“What a turd,” she whispered to herself aloud. “Remember that. He’s a turd.”
Still, he could be sweet. And he made pancakes.
That’s how he lures stupid women in, she reminded herself sharply. He makes them think that he’s smart and funny and kind. And he has amazing sex with them, so that nobody else ever quite measures up. And then... and then... what? And then he’s still a turd and there is no fixing that!
D.J. slammed her laptop closed resoundingly. And then sitting there with nothing else to do, she quietly opened it again. She was web searching for ways to add light to old buildings when the front door opened and a long shaft of it streamed across the vestibule toward the circulation desk.
A woman came inside and, spotting D.J., walked directly toward her. The lithely trim little blonde had a spring in her step and a broad smile across her pretty face.
D.J recognized her as the woman with Vern at the movie theater.
She was wearing a frothy summer dress and carried a basket covered by a cloth. The whole effect put D.J. in mind of Little Bo Peep.
“Hi,” she said, taking the initiative to greet the visitor. “You must be Stevie, Vern’s...” The terms lover, partner and roommate occurred to D.J. But for some reason she went with, “Vern’s friend.” Maybe the small-town mind-set was rubbing off on her, she worried.
Stevie laughed. It was a very sweet, and almost girlish sound. She seemed small and sweet and precious. That thought surprised D.J. Precious was for children and puppies, but something about Stevie evoked the same feeling.
“I’m Vern’s wife, actually,” she said. “We got married in Iowa three years ago.” Her tone was cheerfully matter-of-fact. “A lot of people in Verdant aren’t
onboard with that. But if I don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
D.J. recalled Scott’s reaction to discovering them seated in the row at the movie theater. Stevie probably dealt with those minor slights on a near-constant basis.
“So I guess I should call you Mrs. Milbank.”
She giggled. “Well, not if you want me to answer. I’ve been so eager to meet you. And I think we can start off on a first-name basis.”
“Okay, then I’m D.J.”
“Vern thinks I’m going to like you a lot. And she’s almost never wrong.”
“Good,” D.J. said.
Stevie glanced around the drab, deserted building. “Are you all alone in here?” she asked.
D.J. cocked her head toward the stacks. “Except for James.”
The woman turned in that direction. “Hello James!” she called out.
There was no answer. D.J. was surprised at that. “Maybe he stepped out,” she said.
Stevie shook her head and leaned closer. “James doesn’t like me,” she said.
D.J. was surprised. She had never heard anyone say anything about James having an opinion about anyone.
“It’s okay,” she quickly reassured her. “I earned it. When I was in high school, I kind of went out of my way to make fun of him.”
D.J. couldn’t quite imagine it. Stevie seemed so kind and genuine.
“James was odd,” she said, by way of explanation. “And the one thing I hated most in the world back then was oddness.” She smiled a perfectly, gleaming bright smile. The kind that film actresses and beauty pageant contestants would kill for. “Curious, considering how oddly I turned out.”
Her laughter was full of self-deprecation.
“I’ve always been a bit odd myself,” D.J. said, and then quickly clarified. “I don’t mean... I’m not... well...”
Stevie offered another dazzling smile. “You’re straight.”
“Yes. Odd, but in a straight way.”
Stevie held up the basket she carried. “I brought cookies,” she said. “I always take food to the people in the truck line. I had some left, so I thought I’d bring some to you.”
“That is so nice.”
She gave a cheery laugh and shrugged. “Odd people need to eat, too.”
D.J. joined her in the humor. She took a bite of one of the almost perfectly round cookies that Stevie sat in front of her and discovered that not only was Stevie one of the most physically beautiful women D.J. had ever, seen, she was also an exceptional baker.
“This is great. I think this is the most fabulous cookie I’ve ever eaten.”
“My mother was convinced that clear skin and housewifely accomplishments would help me catch an excellent husband.” She offered a little girly giggle. “Well, I suppose it did.”
“So, you call Vern your husband?”
“Oh, no. Vern’s my wife. I’m her wife. It’s a gender thing.”
D.J. nodded, but decided to change the subject rather than belabor the point.
“So what’s a truck line?” she asked.
“Oh, the combines load the wheat into trucks that carry it to the grain elevator,” she said. “So we’ve got a lot of trucks coming in and they’re all headed to the same place. Sometimes they have to line up to wait their turn.”
“Oh.”
“The drivers are stuck there. So we have a few porta-potties available and those of us in town take turns showing up with goodies.”
D.J. remembered the conversation she’d had with Scott.
“So is this what the drugstore does with its bags of peaches and beef jerky?”
“I don’t really know what they do at the drugstore these days,” she said. “But in the past mostly people would stop by there to get the grab-and-go bags. They know that they’re there. It’s sort of a tradition. Taking sandwiches or sweets directly to the line is more impromptu. It’s a way that those of us who are stuck here in town can get in on the action.”
D.J. nodded.
“And I thought today would be good, because so many people are going to be in town talking about the whole Dutch Porter incident.”
D.J. nodded solemnly. “Yes, when a tragedy like this happens, gossips everywhere go into overdrive.”
Stevie’s blue eyes widened a bit as if the negative nature of pointed conversation had never really occurred to her.
“Oh, I guess you’re right. Everybody will be eager for all the details. But it’s more than just tattling. Dutch and Cora have six grown kids and a least a dozen grandchildren. They also have brothers and sisters and in-laws and cousins. There’s probably a hundred people in town who consider themselves relatives.”
D.J. hadn’t thought of that. She’d pictured the house as empty and the widow as alone.
“Is Mrs. Sanderson a relative? She hurried over there first thing this morning.”
Stevie shook her head. “No, Viv is just the kind of woman that always gets called in a crisis. She knows what to say and what to do. The community counts on her for that.”
“Yeah, she does seem like a solidly good person,” D.J. said.
Stevie nodded. “I think so, too. She has always been nice to me, even after I came out with Vern.”
“I’m sure that she understood that you had to be true to yourself” she said.
The Bo Peep blonde was momentarily thoughtful. “I think you’re right. I think she and John both understood that. But they were also shocked and angered.”
D.J. privately mused that being “shocked and angered” at somebody’s sexual orientation was exactly the kind of thing that gave rural Kansans their unfairly rigid reputation.
“I need to get back to the store,” Stevie said. “This is our busiest time of year. Any implement on any machine could need replacing. And if we don’t have it in stock, we have to locate it and Vern must go and get it.”
“Well, it was lovely to finally meet you,” D.J. said.
“You, too,” she agreed.
She unloaded the contents of her basket and then called out in the direction of the stacks. “They’re homemade cookies. Oatmeal and peanut butter. And I’m leaving them right here at the edge of the desk for you, James.”
Again there was no response.
Stevie gave D.J. a rolling-eyes expression before whispering. “Isn’t that just like a man. Even long after you know you’re forgiven, he’ll still hold a grudge.”
Twenty-Eight
392.5 Human Life Cycle & Domestic Life
The drugstore during harvest always had a few customers in early morning. But the morning of Dutch’s death was downright busy. The man had lived in Verdant his entire life. Everyone knew him. He wasn’t universally loved, but he was respected. And in death, petty grievances always showed themselves to be petty.
The question of why, which so often haunted the survivors left behind, was not on this occasion difficult to deduce. The whole town knew that Dutch was quite ill. He’d been a gregarious and social guy, who’d spent his retirement days “shooting the bull” with those he called his “fellow local yokels.” Once a large, imposing man with athletic prowess in his youth and working strength well into old age, the past year of health crisis had been tough.
“I think it’s harder for a sturdy man to deal with infirmity than those of us who’re more accustomed to it,” Earl Tacomb said.
Earl had dealt with asthma and diabetes for twenty years or more. And although they were the same age, most would not have taken bets that Earl would be around for Dutch’s funeral.
With a dozen people crowded around the counter,
Scott tried to make sure that everyone was served, but without any sense of rush to the solemn occasion.
The facts were gleaned from a half-dozen sources. “Dutch always kept a pistol in the bedside table.”
“His wife thought he was a little better the past day or two.”
“The Rossiters next door didn’t hear the shot, but they heard Cora screaming.”
“They had to break in
to the house, she was too hysterical to unlock the door.”
“Langley said it was definitely no accident.”
“Cora was still in her bathrobe.”
“The whole right side of his face was gone.”
“There was blood and brains splashed all over the bedroom.”
Scott didn’t want any more of the details. But he understood that they had to be spoken. Whether it was a car wreck or a child drowning in the creek, people needed to try to make sense out of those things that were senseless.
So soon after his father’s death, Scott was inured to the reality that even death from disease or old age felt senseless. He preferred not to be reminded. The whole senseless thing evoked reaction. He wanted to lash out at someone, something. But he’d figured out quickly that it was as good as air boxing. And blows that couldn’t be landed gave no relief.
How must D.J. feel? She had lost two parents. Was the arithmetic applicable? Did she feel twice as bad? Perhaps there was a top level of bad and one couldn’t go further. Or maybe it was infinitely worse than losing one parent. Scott could hardly allow his mind to touch on the idea of losing his mother, as well. He sincerely hoped that he would be a lot older, a lot wiser and a lot stronger before anything like that happened.
But life had a way of coming up with some dreadful surprises. Dutch Porter was certainly evidence of that.
The news had spread like wildfire. And with the dew still on the grain, groups of those not immediately connected to the family congregated to shake their heads and philosophize.
“This would have been the first harvest he’d missed since we were kids,” Earl said. “You know that must have gnawed at him fiercely.”
“If he even knew it was going on,” Scott said. “He was on a lot of medication. He wouldn’t have been thinking too clearly.”
“Dutch would have felt it in his bones,” Earl insisted.
Bob Gleason agreed. “They’ve scheduled the funeral at eight o’clock in the morning, so they can have him in the ground before noon.”
