Part 3 (2/2)
”On my bad day my dad left my mom and me and went to live in Memphis,” Irene said.
I closed my eyes.
It was only ten o'clock in the morning.
”Well, Irene, that was was a bad day,” I said, nodding soberly to show I was giving due weight to her problem. ”Has anyone else ever had a bad day?” I looked around the circle, hoping no one could top Irene's. a bad day,” I said, nodding soberly to show I was giving due weight to her problem. ”Has anyone else ever had a bad day?” I looked around the circle, hoping no one could top Irene's.
”I knocked over my cereal bowl one day,” offered a little boy the color of ground coffee. I tried not to look relieved. His mother was not so guarded.
”That was a bad day, too,” I acknowledged. ”Now, let me tell you about Alexander's bad day ... and if you sit still, you can see the pictures in the book as I tell the story.”
Over to one side, Lizanne was shaking her head gently from side to side, her lips pursed to hold in a giggle. Not daring to glance again in her direction, I began the book, one of my favorites.
The rest of the story time went by without a hitch, and most of the children seemed to enjoy it, which was not always the case. Only one had to go to the bathroom, and only two whispered to each other, which was quite good. Irene was one of the day-care children, so her mother wasn't there to upbraid me for traumatizing Irene with my probing interrogation.
”It would be better for Irene if he didn't come back,” one of the day-care workers murmured in my ear as they gathered up their flock to return to the church. ”He drank like a fish.” I thought briefly of Jack Burns driving his car into a tree, then forced myself back to the present.
I realized the woman was trying to make me feel better, and I smiled and thanked her. ”Come back soon, kids!” I chirped, being perky all over the place.
The little ones all smiled and waved, even the ones who hadn't listened to a word I said.
Lizanne was ready to help me change the bulletin board, and in fact she'd made most of the items to go on it. With construction paper and some contact sheets, we'd created b.u.t.terflies, hummingbirds, fish, books, baseb.a.l.l.s, and other signs of warm weather. Maybe we were being unduly optimistic about the books, but the summer reading program had always been one of the library's best features, and Sam was counting on me to start plugging it early.
After we'd commented on the way story time had gone, Lizanne and I began to work together companionably, referring to our sketch of the finished product from time to time, handing each other push pins or border and so on. From time to time Lizanne would stop and press a hand to her protuberant stomach; the baby was moving a lot, since she was in her sixth month. Every time, Lizanne would smile her beautiful slow smile.
”Has Bubba made plans for what to do if the baby comes while the legislature's in session?” I asked.
”At least ten plans,” Lizanne said. ”But maybe it'll come before he reconvenes.”
Bubba Sewell, Lizanne's husband, was a state representative and a local lawyer. Bubba was ambitious and intelligent, and, I think, basically an honest person. Lizanne was beautiful and slow-moving and somehow almost always managed things so that they pleased her. I could hardly wait to see what the baby's character would be.
Lizanne left to eat lunch with her mother-in-law, to whose opinions on the baby's upbringing she was blandly indifferent, and I helped some preschool children pick out books. One mother of a nine-year-old boy with a stomach bug came in to get some books and videos to keep him amused, and I collected a few natural history books with plenty of gross pictures of frogs and snakes.
My stomach was growling inelegantly at one o'clock when the library aide came to the children's room to take my place. The aide was a heavy woman with pecan-colored skin named Beverly Rillington, who couldn't be more than twenty-one. Whether it was because of race, age, or income level, Beverly and I were having a hard time geeing and hawing together. She and the previous children's librarian had also had personality conflicts, Sam Clerrick had warned me. But Beverly, hired under a job-training program, was efficient and reliable, and Sam had no intention of letting her go.
”How's it going today?” Beverly asked. She looked down at me as though she didn't really want to know.
In an attempt to break the ice, I told Beverly about the morning story hour and the disconcerting answer I'd gotten from Irene.
Beverly looked at me as though I should have known in advance I'd hear more than I bargained for. If Beverly made me anxious, terrified I might step on her many sensitive toes, I clearly waved a red flag in her face just by being who and what I was. Beverly never volunteered anything about her home life and did not respond to references to mine. Making contact with her was one of my projects for the year.
(”I'm d.a.m.ned if I know why,” Martin had said simply, when I'd told him.) As I told Beverly good-bye and prepared to go home to see my husband off and be interviewed by Mr. Dry-den, I found myself wondering why, too.
But the answer came to me easily enough, in a string of reasons. Beverly was naturally good with kids, any kids, a knack G.o.d had left out of my genetic makeup. Beverly was never late and always completed her work, i's dotted and t's crossed. And, oh happy day, Lillian Schmidt was so terrified of Beverly that she avoided the children's area like the plague when Beverly was at work. I owed my aide thanks on many levels, and I was determined to put up with a certain gruffness of manner for those reasons, if no others.
Chapter Three
I'd forgotten Martin had decided to drive to the airport directly from work. He'd leave his Mercedes at the plant and pick it up when he came in three days from now. The higher-ups of Pan-Am Agra had scheduled one of those events that made Martin's blood curdle: a seminar on s.e.xual hara.s.sment, recognition and avoidance thereof. All the plant managers were flying in to Chicago to attend, and since Martin had no particular friends among them and hated meetings he wasn't chairing, his most positive att.i.tude was grim acceptance.
When he called me to say he was leaving for the airport, he reminded me over and over about setting the house security system every night. ”How's Angel?” he asked, just when he was about to hang up. ”Shelby said she hadn't been feeling well.”
”Um. We'll talk about it when you get back. She's going to be fine.”
”Roe, tell me. Is she well enough to help you if you have an emergency?”
I was the only librarian in Lawrenceton, quite possibly in all of Georgia-perhaps even America-to have her own bodyguard. I thought of Angel, stunned and scared, in the doctor's office that morning, and I thought of calling her for help. ”Sure, she's okay,” I said rea.s.suringly. ”Oh, by the way, I saw one of the-well, I don't know exactly who Dryden and O'Riley work for . . . they never said-well, I ran into him this morning, and he says he has to come out here to talk to me this afternoon.”
I'd almost said I'd met him at the doctor's, when I'd taken Angel; and then Martin would have asked what the doctor had said, and I didn't want to lie about it.
”Why does he have to talk to you?” Martin asked.
”To tell you the truth, I'm not sure.”
”Roe, have Angel in the house with you when he's there.”
”Martin, she's not well.”
”Promise.”
Now Martin almost never pulled that string, and it was one we both honored.
”Okay. If she's not actually throwing up, I'll have her here.”
”Good,” he said. ”Now, what can I bring you from Chicago?”
I thought of the big stores, the endless possibilities. I didn't like that many choices myself.
”Surprise me,” I said with a smile he could hear in my voice.
We said some personal good-byes, and then he went back to his work world, which I could hardly imagine.
I piffled around the house for a while, cleaning the downstairs bathroom and sweeping the front porch, the patio, and the steps that led up from the covered walkway running between the garage and the side kitchen door. Finally, I called Angel.
She said dutifully that she'd be over before four o'clock, and I apologized for disturbing her on such a day. ”Martin made me promise,” I explained.
”It's my job,” Angel said. ”Besides, I don't want to just sit here and wait for Shelby to come home.”
The doorbell rang.
”There's a florist's van in the driveway,” Angel said. She must have been on her portable phone, looking out the front window of the garage apartment. ”I'm coming down.”
She hung up unceremoniously, and I went to the front door and turned off the security system. I heard Angel unlocking the side door leading into the kitchen as the doorbell rang a second time. By the time I shot back the dead bolt, she was standing behind me.
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