by Pamela Morsi
“If the cutting is close to the road or the ground is really good, we can just go straight into the truck. But you can see that having a bunch of semitrailers out here in the field would not be the best thing.”
D.J. could certainly believe that. With no specific path or trail, the tractor went through highs and lows that would have challenged a bigger, heavier vehicle.
Jeannie drove the tractor with confidence, as if she were on a paved road headed to the supermarket in her family car.
“So I guess you’ve been doing this all your life,” D.J. said.
“Not really,” Jeannie answered, giving her a smile. “My parents were, well they are, big believers in gender-based division of labor. There’s men’s work and women’s work. And everybody should stick to their own.”
“But you didn’t agree.”
Jeannie shrugged. “I did. I did for years. For me, harvest meant cooking and cleaning up. It was like serving a huge holiday meal three times a day. And all of the pots and pans and dishes associated with that.”
“Ugh.”
Jeannie nodded. “I always wanted to be out here where everything was happening. But instead of a nice air-conditioned tractor, I was sweating next to a hot stove.”
She joked as she said the words, but D.J. could hear the truthfulness behind them.
“What changed?”
“Lots of things,” she admitted. “These days we rely more on hired labor. Those contracts don’t include furnished meals. There is a much larger availability of fast food, restaurants and cafes. Workers are not going to go hungry. And then, I changed a lot of things for myself.”
For a moment D.J. thought Jeannie was not going to elaborate and she was not about to pry. But surprisingly, she continued.
“When I got divorced, I was pretty raw,” she admitted. “I didn’t know what to believe in anymore. I started looking at everything in my life and asking, is there a reason why I’m doing this, beyond other people expecting it?”
Jeannie shrugged. “Sometimes really good things come from very bad ones,” she said. “I realized that what mattered to me was my kids and my self-respect. If it didn’t threaten either of those, I could pretty much do what I wanted.”
It seemed like a relatively simple philosophy, but D.J. could tell that it had been hard-won.
As they approached the combines, the noise inside the cab got too much for casual conversation. The huge cutting machines loomed above them as Jeannie brought her tractor right alongside. The two vehicles went along side-by-side for a couple of moments.
“I have to get my speed a perfect match for the combine,” she hollered out to D.J. “A couple of mph can mess things up completely. And you don’t want to even know what happens if I were to clip the cutting wheel.”
D.J. had no idea what she meant, but she did note that the combine continued to cut through the field as if nothing else was going on. But its big orange pipe began moving upward to hang over the cart they pulled. Jeannie glanced repeatedly in the rearview mirror, but mostly she was concentrating on her pace and the ground in front of her. D.J. watched as the grain began to pour into the cart. The sound was near deafening as the steady stream of wheat piled up.
“How’s it look?” Jeannie called out.
“Amazing,” D.J. answered.
Out the back window, she could watch the big green wagon slowly fill as the two vehicles stayed perfectly in sync. Like two dancers, perfectly matched, they continued side-by-side along the ups and downs of the field.
Abruptly, the flow ceased as if someone had turned off the tap. The combine’s auger pipe slowly moved back into place and once it was clear, Jeannie gave a little honk and wave. The tractor’s pace slowed immediately. As the combine moved on and away, Jeannie made a wide-angle turn and headed back toward the area where they had come.
As the noisy cutting receded in the distance, D.J. spoke. “I can’t believe the combines don’t even stop to load the carts.”
“Sometimes they have to,” Jeannie said. “If the cart driver is inexperienced or the ground is too rough. But it does save time if they can off-load while the cutting continues.”
“Well, you were great,” D.J. assured her.
“Thanks,” she said. “The combine holds about 350 gallons of diesel. If they only have to stop to fill up, the work goes a whole lot faster.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Of course, nothing ever goes that smooth,” Jeannie said. “It’s life, after all, so there is always some breakdown or screw-up or an equipment failure. But while things are working, you try to keep them working. And when problems come up, well, I try really hard not to be the one who’s caused the mess.”
D.J. laughed.
“Listen, I wanted to ask you something...”
There was clearly hesitation in Jeannie’s voice.
“Sure,” D.J. answered.
“When we were introduced you said you’d heard a lot about me.” Jeannie’s brow was furrowed. “Was that from Scott or... or Amos?”
D.J. pondered the question for a few seconds. Her words had been more a nicety than a statement of fact. From Jeannie’s expression, however, the inquiry was serious.
“Honestly, I think the person who’s said the most to me about you would be Suzy.”
She seemed momentarily stunned, before bursting into laughter. “Of course it would be Suzy,” she said. “I should have realized that. Duh. You guys work together and she can’t shut up if her life depended on it.”
“She’s never said anything bad about you,” D.J. assured her.
“No, of course not. I guess I was wondering... well, I was wondering about the guys.”
“The guys?”
“Yeah, I mean, well, the last couple of days I’ve been thinking that maybe Amos is interested in me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, at first, I thought, it’s crazy, right? I guess we’ve all grown so used to the idea that Amos... that Amos can’t feel like that anymore. That he doesn’t get interested, but maybe he does.”
“What about you?” D.J. asked. “Are you interested in him?”
Jeannie shot her a funny face with tongue out and eyes crossed. “Who knows?” she answered. “I’m so horny these days that anything in pants looks good to me. But I have to think about my kids first.”
“Amos seems to like kids,” D.J. pointed out.
“He does,” Jeannie said. “Anyway, I need to take it slow. Although I’d love to jump his bones.”
D.J. feigned a sigh. “It’s too bad you can’t do both.”
“I would if I didn’t have kids,” Jeannie told her. “I was such a goody-two-shoes in high school. The only girl in class having less sex than me was Stevie Rossiter and even that’s questionable now, ’cause nobody really knows when she and Vern became a couple.”
“Well, don’t look to me for advice,” D.J. said. “I was the last virgin among all my friends.”
Jeannie smiled at her. “I bet you waited for somebody special.”
D.J. felt herself blushing. “No, I waited to make a fool of myself.”
Jeannie laughed. “Love does make fools of us all.”
D.J. would have corrected her assumption. It had not been love. She would have disabused her of that notion completely. But they’d arrived at the area where the semi was waiting. Jeannie had work to do. And that necessitated that D.J. keep her recollections and rationalizations to herself.
Thirty-Six
636.6 Animal Husbandry
Viv made her way home from the Porters’ when she couldn’t bear to stay a moment longer. Cora had held up well all through the funeral. But afterward, she had come apart. She was so very lonely. And so very angry.
Viv understood that. If anyone could sympathize with the hollow unfairness of having to continue on without the most important person in your life beside you, she could. But it annoyed her more than she was willing to admit that Cora completely refused to see Dutch’s side of it. Certainly
it was a bad choice on his part to end it so dramatically. Gunshot wounds were so messy. And there was almost no room for doubt that it was a deliberate act. Viv did fault him for that. But his motives were altruistic.
That thought stopped her. She recognized it as a lie. There was an altruistic component to it, of course. He hadn’t wanted to burden his wife, physically and emotionally. He hadn’t wanted his children to watch him slowly fade away. He hadn’t wanted the costs of caring for him to soak up all the nest egg that he’d put by.
Those things were undoubtedly true. But Viv was honest enough with herself to recognize that wasn’t all of it. A once vital, healthy man did not want to spend the last years of his life in and out of the hospital like a revolving door. He was exhausted with taking medication and sick of spending his days watching television. He saw absolutely nothing good on his horizon. For all the years he’d lived, he’d made his own way, followed his own path. Been responsible for himself. His life had gone out of his control. And this final act had given him that control back.
She unlocked the back door and went inside her home. It was dark and empty. She had not expected otherwise. With any luck at all, Scott would be out making a move on his lovely librarian.
If only those two would get on with it!
But even as she could see her plan coming to fruition, she felt alone. Only she could see the whole picture. Only she understood how well it was all working out.
That's why people write suicide notes, she thought to herself. It wasn’t merely an explanation to those left behind. There was a need to share the process, vent the successes and setbacks. This was one of the biggest decisions she’d ever faced and the only one that did not allow for talking it out with friends or family.
Suddenly, she did not want to be in this empty house by herself. She picked up her purse, but there was no place to go. The whole town was in on the harvest. She couldn’t so much as scare up a bingo game.
She set her purse back down and dragged her keys out. Poor Mr. Dewey was probably bored to death in his prison cage. She went outside, climbed the stairs to the apartment and let herself inside. The dog was enthusiastic about getting let out of the crate and eagerly followed Viv back down to her own home.
“The truth is, Mr. Dewey,” she told him. “You’re about the only friend I have on this deal. And the only reason I can talk to you about it is that I know you won’t be spreading the story around.”
She went to the storage beneath the old stairs and dug out a couple of puppy treats for her friend.
“It’s not like I came up with this all on my own,” she told the dog. “I guess I was starting to think that my life was over. And I really find the whole ‘new life’ thing just exhausting. But I couldn’t leave Scott. Leanne has her career and her husband, but Scott... well, he only has his disappointments.”
Mr. Dewey quickly gobbled down the pieces of fake steak that she’d given him and trotted after her as she headed for the living room.
Viv seated herself on the couch. Mr. Dewey jumped up to take a seat beside her. Typically, he would have relaxed into a nice cozy ball that encouraged her to pet him. Tonight, however, he sat up, looking at her expectantly as if he knew that her need to talk was greater than his need for a rubdown.
“So I would have never considered it,” she explained. “Before I had the dream.”
Viv eased back into the cushions of the couch, reveling in her memory.
“You know, I’ve never been one of those people who believe in visits from the afterlife,” she said. “I’m a pragmatic Presbyterian. If you’re alive you’re here. If you’re dead, you’re not. And that’s the end of it. No ghosts, no seances, no messages from the other side.”
Mr. Dewey’s silence was tacit agreement.
“But then about five months ago, I had this dream. I was walking through the grocery store and who did I run into? John.” Viv laughed delightedly at her own remembrance. “I almost didn’t recognize him. It wasn’t John, sick John, dying John. It was my John when we were young. He still had all his hair and it was as ginger as it had been in high school. He was standing so tall and he looked so healthy.” Viv sighed heavily. “I was so glad to see him, and I talked to him and he talked to me. But, damn it, I can’t remember anything that we said.” She shook her head in disgust. “Except that he told me that Scott needed the new librarian and that I would know her when I saw her.”
Viv reached out to Mr. Dewey, scratching him behind the ears. “That’s where you come in,” she said. “I looked through a hundred resumes on the Library Association website but the minute I saw D.J., I just knew.”
The dog shook his head in reaction to the scratching but then immediately came back for more.
“Not that I relied on intuition completely,” Viv continued. “After that disaster with Scott’s marriage, I hardly trust my own judgment. So I hired a private detective.”
She took Mr. Dewey’s face in both her hands and bent forward to go nose to nose with him to speak in baby-talk fashion.
“Yes, I set a gumshoe on your mama’s trail. Yes, I did. I really did.”
Viv set back and spoke more conversationally. “I felt like I had to. She might have been involved with someone else or whatever. Anyway, she got a clean bill of health. Even better, she has the kind of lonely past that a man like Scott could do a lot to heal. I’m truly happy for both of them.”
Mr. Dewey had settled into her lap, but continued to look at her with eyes that were almost sad.
“I’m happy for them,” she repeated. “And I wish they would get on with it, so I could be happy for myself. I want to be young and strong and in the arms of John again.”
Thirty-Seven
642,2 Meals and Table Service
Once Jeannie had off-loaded her bank-out wagon, she and D.J. climbed out of the tractor and she offered her vehicle to another driver.
“I’m going to eat a quick bite, if you can catch a load for me.”
Together the two women walked over to the van. There were several people standing around eating, but the two that captured D.J.’s attention were leaning against the front fender. One was rough and stocky. The other was long and lean and heart-stopping handsome, but they were both smiling.
D.J. felt a pang of regret so strong it was corporeal. If only she had met him first in this place. If only she had met him now. If only his past was a mystery to be forgotten. If only her own were free of the cynicism and disappointment that she couldn’t shake.
Amos held up a sack he’d stowed on the bumper. “I saved one for you, Jeannie,” he said. “This crew descends on anything edible like a swarm of locusts. And you’re looking so slim these days, I worry that you might pass out from hunger.”
D.J. was pretty sure that the curvy blonde would not, on her best day, think of herself as “slim,” but she accepted his statement as if it were a kind of awkward compliment.
“Uh, thanks,” she said.
She took the bag from him, blushing. The bright color in her cheeks was a match to that on Amos’s neck. It was obvious that the two were nervously, tentatively trying out the idea of a twosome.
D.J. was hopeful for them. Deliberately, she moved to stand on the far side of Scott, giving the couple as much space as the area allowed.
Scott telegraphed his agreement on the couple before giving D.J. a feigned little frown.
“Sorry,” he said. “I know you went for a ride around the field, but the actual food is for the working people.”
“Okay,” she answered. “I’m good.”
“Oh, well if you’ve been very good...”
From behind his back he pulled out a greasy bundle wrapped in white paper. “I did manage to get hold of one burger,” he said. “But we’ll have to share.”
Jeannie was already diving into hers. “Mmm, this... good,” she related with her mouth full. “Don’t pass it up.”
Scott unwrapped the sandwich and held it up to her. “Do you trust me to divide it up, or
do you want the honors?”
Some evil sprite must have taken over her brain, either that or the crazy persona last seen on a beach in Texas.
D.J. leaned forward and took a giant greasy bite. Hot meat, sour pickles, the crunch of lettuce and tomato, the tang of mustard. She took it all in and licked her lips.
Scott’s eyes were wide.
“Mmm, Jeannie’s right. It is good.”
D.J. expected him to take a bite out of his side. To her surprise he turned the burger and put his mouth exactly on the spot where hers had been. She almost choked. His eyes never left hers as he sank his teeth into it.
Her stomach was now completely full of butterflies. No room at all for even the slightest nibble. But when he held the burger toward her again, she knew it was a challenge. If she demurred, that was the end of it.
Reasonably, she should want that to be the end of it. Her tummy continued to flutter. Her heart was pounding. And the memory of what this man could do with his lips caused her skin to tingle.
Be Dorothy the librarian, her sensible mind warned her. Plain, boring Dorothy will be completely safe from him.
But plain Dorothy faded into obscurity as the wanton creature from the beach began a series of tiny, toothy nibbles upon the place where his mouth had been. She closed her eyes as her only attempt to hide. When she opened them, he was looking straight at her and there was no mistaking what was in his own. The burger disappeared from between them, but his gaze never wavered. He was looking at her as if he’d kissed her already. She trembled. She knew she should look away. But she could not.
“So, D.J., how was your tractor ride?”
The question came from Amos and was startling, as she’d completely forgotten that they were not alone. She physically and emotionally took a step back.
“Oh, it was great. Jeannie was great. And it was so exciting to be out there next to that giant combine. Wow.”
Amos nodded. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” he agreed. “From the time we’re little boys, guys are always crazy for giant vehicles. But it’s surprising how many women love the whole big machine thing.”
