Love Overdue

by Pamela Morsi

  Suzy pulled the SUV off to the side of the road and put it in park. She unhooked her seat belt and turned around so she could look at D.J. directly.

  “About Scott’s divorce? What do you know about Scott’s divorce?”

  “Scott’s divorce? Nothing. Except that it was an embarrassing public mess. He cheated on his wife.”

  Suzy shook her head. “He did not cheat on her. She cheated on him.”

  “She cheated on him?”

  “For years, before and after they were married, maybe even as far back as high school she’d kept up the affair. Lying to his face and making an ass of him behind his back.”

  “Oh, wow.”

  “With Vern.”

  “What?”

  Suzy nodded.

  “This must have happened before Stevie.”

  “With Stevie,” Suzy answered. “Stevie Rossiter is Scott’s ex-wife.”

  Forty-Seven

  908.1 History with Respect to Kinds of Persons

  The worst thing about the whole perpendicular turn of the library shelving was that it simply could not be done piecemeal. Because the new shelving configuration was going to be sitting in the same space as the old one, every book had to be removed and every range of shelves broken down into its pieces. It was not until the floor was completely clear that they could begin repositioning. But of course, as soon as the floor was cleared, the obvious wear of the hardwood aisles was visible.

  Scott had been momentarily discouraged. But his timing was perfect. Just as guys were leaving the fields, hyped up with the success of the harvest, word got out that the floors needed refinishing in the main stacks of the library. He quickly began to feel like Tom Sawyer. Every guy in town showed up with his own tools, his own level of expertise and an eagerness to get the job done.

  They made quick work of sanding down the wood, cleaning everything up and applying a new stain. The most time-consuming aspect turned out to be waiting for it to dry.

  None of that was hard or truly unexpected.

  The one job Scott was least prepared to take on turned out to be mentoring James. With all the shelving piled up in metal pieces, there was no place for James to hide. He seemed to feel as exposed as if he were naked. And with the books all stacked up in the reading room and covered with drop cloths, there wasn’t even anything to slam. Scott could see in the guy’s eyes that he was close to a full-blown panic.

  Scott took him into the break room, away from prying eyes.

  “James, you can’t freak out,” he told him. “We need to get this done. It’s for D.J. And you and I are the ones who are going to make it happen.”

  James was clearly nervous, shaking his hands in a repetitive way and unable to meet Scott’s gaze.

  “Okay, James, hang with me here,” Scott said. “You’re a smart guy. Smarter than a lot in this town. You know how to do a lot of stuff. What I need you to do now is troubleshoot.”

  “Troubleshoot,” he repeated.

  “Figure out what you can do, where you can go, to make yourself feel better.”

  “Shelves.”

  “There are no shelves right now. Try again.”

  He began nodding, but it was more like a tic than a positive response. Suddenly he seemed to catch sight of a book on a nearby table. He picked it up and loudly slammed it shut.

  Almost as if the loud sound had quieted the static in his brain, he looked over at Scott, momentarily clear-eyed.

  “Bookmobile.”

  “Great idea.”

  James retreated to his haven on wheels for the duration of the invasion.

  With the shelving down, it was truly amazing how much light poured in through the east-side windows.

  “It looks wonderful!” Jeannie had positively gushed.

  “And this is just the stacks,” Suzy told her. “Think how good it’s going to look once the reading room and the children’s department are done.”

  Scott couldn’t help but agree. He was glad that D.J. had decided to tackle the stacks first. They were the worst offenders and seeing the improvement would get more people fired up to help with the rest of the building.

  The library’s dark depression had lifted. And it was difficult now to even imagine how their grandfathers and great-grandfathers could have gotten the layout so wrong.

  “It was back before we had feng shui,” Earl Tacorab suggested.

  Scott was genuinely surprised that Earl had even heard the term.

  “But even from the dawn of time, people would have known the difference between blocking light and letting it shine in,” Amos had pointed out.

  Some of the men claimed to have always recognized that the shelves were going the wrong way. It was not as if the newcomer librarian had come upon a solution that wasn’t already widely known. She had simply acted upon it.

  Scott looked really askance at those statements. If it were so obvious to so many, then why generation after generation, had nobody bothered to mention it?

  He didn’t voice this skepticism aloud. Why alienate workers that he needed. And he really needed them. With the harvest completed and life settling back into normal, Scott had a real business to run. Paula was back on the job and his mom was helping out, but he was the only one with the license to fill prescriptions. So he found himself racing back and forth around the corner through much of the past few days.

  Scott wanted to get this done for D.J. He wanted her to return to her library and find it to be all that she’d imagined. Maybe he couldn’t make all her dreams come true, but he did think he could manage this one.

  On Friday morning, he was not so sure. His mother called him at the library to tell him that D.J. was being released from the hospital and she needed a ride home.

  Scott was torn. He wanted to go get her, but he also wanted to get the shelves installed and the books moved back on them before she saw the place. Amos and his bookmobile were expected on the route. Viv was needed at the drugstore.

  “I’ll go get her,” Suzy volunteered.

  “Can you drive really, really slow,” Scott suggested. “That way we might have an outside chance of at least getting the shelves in place.”

  “Sure, better than that, I’ll get you some more help over here. Have cell phone. Will travel.”

  Scott wasn’t sure who else she might get to come and was genuinely surprised at the number of people who showed up at the door. Almost every businessman and woman in town.

  “I put a sign on the front of the store,” Otis Morton told him. “Closed to Help Out in the Library.”

  He was not the only one. Shops and offices all over town were shutting down for the day or sending what staff they could spare.

  Wendal Rossiter showed up. So did Bryce Holland. Scott would have considered neither man as any kind of friend.

  The Verdant High School shop class and their teacher, Sam Niles, arrived, boys and girls carrying wrenches and screwdrivers. And a bus full of residents of the Pine Tree Nursing Home shuffled in. The ones who could help, did help. And those that could not, sat on chairs lined up in the vestibule, cheering the workers on.

  Each range of heavy-duty shelving had to be secured to the floor with a weight bearing capacity of 300 pounds per square foot. The T-shaped foundation of the units were screwed and then firmed up with a metal crossbar. Once that was in place, the individual units on the range were reconstructed piece by piece.

  The first one was extremely slow going, but once everyone saw how it worked and what needed to be done, they were picking up the pace and naturally forming into specialized labor teams.

  Scott was really getting stoked. It seemed like it was going to happen. He was proud of his community and he could hardly wait to see D.J.’s face, though he was still hoping that Suzy was driving slowly.

  It was all going so smoothly, that it was almost destined to hit a snag. And they did.

  The snag arrived in the person of Amelia Grundler, home from her vacation, looking rested and refreshed and ready for batt
le. At her side was a sheepish, reluctant Karl Langley. And in her hand was a cease and desist order.

  “The vandalism of this public building will cease!” she declared.

  “Vandalism?” Scott shook his head. “We’re renovating.”

  The woman eyed him as dismissively as if he were a kindergartener caught using crayons on the walls.

  “No one in this room is authorized to make any physical changes to this building,” she said. “None of you are employed by the library and I have serious doubts about who in this mob might be bonded and approved for doing refurbishment on a government structure.”

  “We didn’t come in here and start taking things apart,” Scott told her. “D.J. drew up the plans and we followed them.”

  “D.J. drew up the plans,” Miss Grundler repeated in a snotty singsong tone. “Let me be clear, I do not blame her. Obviously, the inexperience and ignorance of such a recent hire led her to believe that she could make substantive changes to the interior without the hearings and permits required by the county.”

  Everybody in the room began talking all at once. Scott looked over at Karl. He shrugged and shook his head.

  “Let me look at the order,” Scott demanded.

  Miss Grundler handed it over.

  He glanced at the very official-looking judge’s signature and then scanned anxiously through the legalese.

  “It says, unequivocally, that due to the librarian’s flouting of the county’s policy and procedures, and her procurement of labor from uncertified workmen, the decision-making for all library activity will be temporarily handed to the employee with the longest seniority, to whom all power will be vested until the next regular meeting of the library board. That, as you may know, is in October.”

  Scott felt sick. He had tried to do something wonderful for D.J. and instead he’d brought down the wrath of Miss Grundler on her head. If Amelia maintained control until October, D.J. would probably be put on suspension. Only the board could fire her, but Miss Grundler could make it difficult enough to make her leave voluntarily.

  “Now,” the woman announced to the entire room. “You must all vacate the premises. I have a bonded restoration crew on the way here from Salina. The library will close for the rest of the week while the shelving is returned to its traditional location. Then we will open up, as usual next Monday.”

  Scott couldn’t give up without a fight. “Look around,” he implored her. “Look at how much better the place looks. Look at all the people who are engaged in this. It’s going to be good for the library. It’s going to be good for the community. The judge up at the county seat probably never saw it as it was. And he’s not here to see how it can be. But you can. This is where you’ve devoted much of your life. It has been the place where you’ve made your own career. Improving it is going to be as much a plus for you as it is for the rest of us.”

  “No.” The woman’s answer was short, cold and unyielding. “I am not allowing an outside interloper to change my library. All of you now, go home. Before I have to ask the deputy to escort you out.”

  The townspeople stood around stunned. There was a good deal of murmuring and grousing. Self-made men like Bryce Holland and successful women like Vern Milbank didn’t typically take orders from low-level civil servants. And the senior citizens from Pine Tree were old enough and cranky enough to be extremely stubborn. But the community as a whole had grown accustomed to doing what Miss Grundler told them. She had been the dictator of the library for so many years, that no one dared to question her. No one dared to stand up against her. Slowly, angrily, unhappily they began to gather their things and head for the door.

  A book slammed shut loudly in the shadows of the metal staircase behind the circulation desk and a voice that few had ever heard at that volume spoke up.

  “Wait!”

  Like a tableau everyone stood frozen in place for an instant. Then, as one, there was a shocked inhale of their collective breath as James emerged from his hiding place.

  He was hunched over as if being beaten, his shoulder was raised on the right in an attempt to shield himself from the full attention of the room as he cautiously made his way across the floor. Although he was universally recognized, most had hardly caught a glimpse of him over the last few years. And no one had ever seen him step out in front of a crowd. He was more of a legend than a participant in the community. Still, eyes on the ground, he marched to the very center of conversation. Though he did stop on the far side of Karl, as if keeping the deputy between himself and Miss Grundler were the better part of valor.

  “May I see the paper, please,” he asked Scott.

  He handed it over. James turned away from the eyes that were all upon him as he silently read what was written. Those around waited. The novelty of his appearance kept them in rapt attention for several moments. But as he apparently went over the words again and again and again, whispering began and complaint began to stir in the crowd.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sakes!” Nina Philpot blurted out. “Either say something or go back into hiding.”

  James turned. His pale face appeared even more wan than usual and he was trembling like a leaf, but his jaw was firm.

  “So this injunction doesn’t stop the work, it removes D.J. from the decision and leaves the library board out of it until their autumn meeting.”

  The statement was directed at Scott. He was certainly no expert on legalese, but he had been the one to read the document.

  “Yes, I suppose that’s the actual reading of it,” he said. “It takes away D.J.’s choices about the running of the library, including the layout and whether it needs to be changed.”

  “And none of us can do anything about it,” Karl added.

  “At least until the fall.”

  The last threat came from Vern, who looked mad enough to spit nails as she shot Amelia a threatening look.

  But Scott feared any chest pumping would be toothless. After such a public scolding and a probable suspension, D.J. would not be feeling particularly welcome. And even if she was willing to stay, Scott wasn’t sure that even his mother would be able to convince the library board to go against Amelia again to keep D.J. beyond her probationary period.

  Miss Grundler responded to Vern’s bluster with a narrow-eyed dismissal.

  “The judge’s order is completely valid,” Karl told James. His voice was both certain and sympathetic. “As deputy sheriff you can be sure that I called the county to verify it.”

  James nodded. “It says that the management of the library will be temporarily vested in the employee with the most seniority.”

  “Tell us something we don’t know,” Harvey Holland suggested snidely.

  James flinched from the words, almost as if they had struck him. Then he answered quietly. “That... that person would be me.”

  Forty-Eight

  912.7 Graphic Representations of Earth

  The trip from Hays seemed to last forever. D.J. could hardly take it in. Just when she almost got her brain around the whole gift of the library move, she’d gotten distracted by the idea of Scott having been married to Stevie. And being the injured party instead of the cheat. And Stevie preferring Vern to Scott. Wow. That was big.

  Throwing all her anti-gossiping principles to the wind, D.J. pressed Suzy for details.

  “I don’t know much more than what everybody knows,” she admitted. “Those two started dating early, way early. Maybe like seventh or eighth grade. They never dated anyone else. Everybody assumed they’d get married right after high school. It didn’t happen. So people began to assume it would be right after college. Then Stephanie—we all called her Stephanie back then, came home and Scott went to pharmacy school. He came home some weekends. She went there some weekends. They didn’t seem to be in any hurry. I figured they were at it like rabbits on every occasion. Hubby and I certainly were. But apparently the rabbit bits were saved for Vern.”

  Suzy giggled at her own little joke.

  “So then Scott fi
nally moves home and goes to work for his dad. Then she’s got to decorate a house. And then she wants to buy cars. And then she wants a huge extravaganza with a dozen bridesmaids. In hindsight, of course you can see that they were all stalling tactics. But nobody got it then, especially not Scott. They had five hundred people attending the fanciest wedding Verdant has ever seen. And the marriage was totally over, and she was living with Vern before the thank-you notes went out.”

  “Oh, that’s awful.” D.J. felt very sympathetic, but she attempted to hedge those emotions. “But wasn’t he a player, too? Didn’t he have kind of a reputation for seeing other women?”

  “Scott?” Suzy shook her head. “Not that I ever heard about. He’s always been a very straight arrow.” She chuckled. “In the oldest sense of that term.”

  “Well I... I, uh, heard that he used to go off... like to spring break and... you know... play the field.”

  “Really?” Suzy sounded genuinely astounded. “Who said something like that?”

  “Uh... I don’t remember exactly.”

  “Well, if that happened, I never heard anything about it,” Suzy said. “And I do try to keep my ear to the ground. What I recall about school breaks and such, he always came home to help out in the store. Now Leanne, his sister, she was a wild child. She used to go off, I think. Got into some trouble now and then. She ended up married to a cop, so maybe all’s well that ends well. But Scott, I don’t think so. I can ask Amos. He won’t tell me, but I’ll be able to see the truth in his expression.”

  “No, no. That’s okay.”

  When they finally arrived at the library, she parked out in front.

  “Wait right here,” Suzy told her. “I’ll get somebody to help you.”

  D.J. had no patience for that. She managed to get her booted leg out the SUV door and hobbled up the sidewalk. At the beginning of the steps, she hesitated. D.J. was considering a walk around the building to the handicapped ramp in the back when the front doors burst open and Scott came galloping toward her taking the stairs two at a time. The look on his face was so young and so excited and so in love, that she thought he might grab her and kiss her. At the last minute, however, he seemed to think better of it and stopped.