Once a design was determined, I moved on to the next step: planning how to move more than 30,000 objects out of the building, then put them all back into their correct places. I found warehouse space. I found moving equipment. I organized and scheduled volunteers. And every plan, every penny, had to be tallied and earmarked and justified to the library board.
The hours at work and in class were wearing me down, physically and mentally, and the school fees were straining my budget. So I could hardly believe it when the city council started an employee education fund. If city employees went back to school to enhance their job performance, the town would pay for it. Donna Fisher, the city clerk, received a well-deserved degree. When I mentioned my master’s program at a city council meeting, the reception wasn’t as accommodating.
Cleber Meyer, our new mayor, was sitting opposite me at the end of the table. Cleber was the epitome of a Sister’s Café power broker, a blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth type. He had only an eighth-grade education, but he had a loud voice, broad shoulders, and his finger on the pulse of Spencer. Cleber owned and operated a gas station, Meyer Service Station, but you could tell from his huge rough hands that he grew up on the farms. In fact, he grew up outside Moneta; he and Dad had known each other all their lives. And yes, Cleber was his real name. His brother’s name, if you can believe it, was Cletus.
For all his bluster, Cleber Meyer was the finest man you will ever meet. He would lend you the shirt off his back (gas stains included), and I don’t believe he had it in him to hurt anyone. He meant well, and he always had the best interest of Spencer at heart. But he was a good ole boy, he was opinionated, and let’s just say he could be gruff. When I mentioned my master’s program, Cleber slammed his fist on the table and thundered, “Who do you think you are? A city employee?”
David Scott, a local attorney and council member, cornered me a few days later and said he’d go to bat for my expenses. After all, I was a city employee.
“Don’t bother,” I told him. “It will only hurt the library.” I had no intention of undoing all the goodwill Dewey had begun to foster.
Instead, I worked harder. More hours on schoolwork: writing, researching, studying. More work on the remodeling project: planning, researching, budgeting. More work running the day-to-day operations of the library. All of which meant, unfortunately, less time with my daughter. One Sunday Val’s phone call caught me just as I was leaving Sioux City.
“Hi, Vicki. I hate to tell you this, but last night . . .”
“What happened? Where’s Jodi?”
“Jodi’s fine. But your house . . .”
“Yes?”
“Look, Vicki, Jodi had a party for a few friends and, well, it got a little out of control.” She paused. “Just imagine the worst for the next two hours, and you’ll be happy with what you find.”
The house was a wreck. Jodi and her friends had spent the morning cleaning, but there were still stains on the carpet . . . and ceiling. The vanity door in the bathroom was ripped off its hinges. The kids threw all my records against the wall and broke them. Someone put beer cans down the heating vents. My pills were gone. A depressed kid had locked himself in the bathroom and tried to overdose—on estrogen. I found out later the police were called twice, but since the football team was at the party and since it was a winning season, they looked the other way. The mess didn’t bother me, not really, but it reminded me once again that Jodi was growing up without me. The only thing I couldn’t whip with more work, I realized, was my relationship with my daughter.
Ironically it was Cleber Meyer who put it all in perspective. He was pumping gas for me at his station one day—yes, he was the mayor, but it was a part-time position—when the subject of Jodi came up. “Don’t worry,” he told me. “When they turn fifteen, you become the dumbest person in the world. But when they turn twenty-two, you get smart again.”
Work, school, home life, petty local politics, I did what I always did in times of stress: I took a deep breath, dug inside, and forced myself to stand up taller than ever before. I had been picking myself up by my bootstraps all my life. There wasn’t anything about this situation, I told myself, that I couldn’t handle. It was only late at night in the library, alone with my thoughts and staring at that blank computer screen, that I began to feel the pressure. It was only then, in my first quiet moment of the day, that I felt my foundation begin to shake.
A library after closing is a lonely place. It is heart-poundingly silent, and the rows of shelves create an almost unfathomable number of dark and creepy corners. Most of the librarians I know won’t stay alone in a library after closing, especially after dark, but I was never nervous or scared. I was strong. I was stubborn. And most of all, I was never alone. I had Dewey. Every night, he sat on top of the computer screen as I worked, lazily swiping his tail back and forth. When I hit a wall, either from writer’s block, fatigue, or stress, he jumped down into my lap or onto the keyboard. No more, he told me. Let’s play. Dewey had an amazing sense of timing.
“All right, Dewey,” I told him. “You go first.”
Dewey’s game was hide-and-seek, so as soon as I gave the word he would take off around the corner into the main part of the library. Half the time I immediately spotted the back half of a long-haired orange cat. For Dewey, hiding meant sticking your head in a bookshelf; he seemed to forget he had a tail.
“I wonder where Dewey is,” I said out loud as I snuck up on him. “Boo!” I yelled when I got within a few feet, sending Dewey running.
Other times he was better hidden. I would sneak around a few shelves with no luck, then turn the corner to see him prancing toward me with that big Dewey smile.
You couldn’t find me! You couldn’t find me!
“That’s not fair, Dewey. You only gave me twenty seconds.”
Occasionally he curled up in a tight spot and stayed put. I’d look for five minutes, then start calling his name. “Dewey! Dewey!” A dark library can feel empty when you’re bending over between the stacks and looking through rows of books, but I always imagined Dewey somewhere, just a few feet away, laughing at me.
“All right, Dewey, that’s enough. You win!” Nothing. Where could that cat be? I’d turn around and there he was, standing in the middle of the aisle, staring at me.
“Oh, Dewey, you clever boy. Now it’s my turn.”
I’d run and hide behind a bookshelf, and invariably one of two things happened. I’d get to my hiding place, turn around, and Dewey would be standing right there. He had followed me.
Found you. That was easy.
His other favorite thing to do was run around the other side of the shelf and beat me to my hiding spot.
Oh, is this where you’re thinking about hiding? Because, well, I’ve already figured it out.
I’d laugh and pet him behind the ears. “Fine, Dewey. Let’s just run for a while.”
We’d run between the shelves, meeting at the end of the aisles, nobody quite hiding and no one really seeking. After fifteen minutes I would completely forget my research paper, or the most recent budget meeting for the remodeling project, or that unfortunate conversation with Jodi. Whatever had been bothering me, it was gone. The weight, as they say, was lifted.