“Also,” I said, “here is a pad and a pen. There are going to be lots of phone calls today. Please write down each one: the time, the caller, and the message. Here’s my phone number at work. Every two hours, call me and let me hear the list. Some of these I’ll have to act on pretty quickly. Now, there’s a remote possibility people will bring food by here if they hear the Wynns are staying with me. You accept the dish, write down any instructions about heating or refrigerating it, and who brought it.”
Phillip nodded. He seemed a little dazed.
“Here’s the remote control for the TV. Here’s the remote for the DVD player.” I went over to the television cabinet and opened a door. “Here are my DVDs.” I went into the kitchen, opened a drawer, extracted a key from a plastic tray. “Here’s another key to the house. If you leave, please write a note saying where you’ve gone and when you’ll be back. Do you have a watch?”
Phillip shook his head.
“Okay.” I handed him a watch that had been Martin’s. I’d come across it that morning when I was putting on my makeup. It wasn’t an expensive watch; it was the one he’d been wearing when we got married, and I’d given him a fancier one our first Christmas together. Martin had chucked this watch in a drawer and I’d automatically packed it when I moved. It was just a mass-produced watch; there were probably millions identical to it. It was absurd to feel a pang over a bit of assembly-line metal that ran on a battery.
Phillip gave me a sharp look as he slid the watch on his arm. “I won’t break it,” he said defensively. My face must have been showing more than I’d thought.
“I don’t think you will,” I said, and hugged him, much to his surprise. “And the world won’t end if you do.” I hoped I wasn’t being too demanding. Not only would someone performing all those little tasks be genuinely helpful; I would know where Phillip was. I’d given him a key because I wanted to show I trusted him. I wasn’t sure I really did. I could not stop Phillip if he decided to leave while I was at work, and it would be ludicrous to try to find a baby-sitter for him. No, this was sink-or-swim time for my brother and me.
I just hoped we’d both survive.
Janie Spellman was working the check-in desk when I came out of the employees’ lounge, my lipstick fresh and my mind preoccupied. Janie gave me a brilliant smile as she loaded books on the cart. I regarded our newest staff member with both grudging admiration and envy. When Janie had gone to school, she’d learned computer systems as a matter of course, and she could help younger patrons far more knowledgeably than I. But Janie should have gotten a job somewhere else for a couple of years before she came back to Lawrenceton. She was always getting shocked. People who had been her revered elders when she’d been in high school and college were always startling her by checking out reading material that didn’t jibe with her idea of what they should be reading. People she’d gone to high school with were not always particularly happy to see her. And children said and did things that could horrify the most jaded librarian, much less a young woman who’d so recently been a child herself.
Janie was also quite anxious about her single status. Though there was no discernable reason for her to be desperate, she was, and spread her nets unwisely. For one thing, Janie had cast her eyes at Perry Allison. Perry was at least fifteen years older, and I knew he was gay, but this was something Janie had not yet figured out-to be honest, it was fairly recent news to Perry himself.
Perry wasn’t the only male Janie had set her sights on. Robin Crusoe was another. I was getting a little miffed about that. In fact, I was miffed at this very moment. Robin, who was supposed to be completing his postconvention book tour, was standing with his elbows on the desk behind which Janie stood, and he was smiling at her entirely too broadly. And she was simpering back at him.
I felt a rush of irritation, chased by a big dash of insecurity. I turned on my heel and went back into the employees’ lounge. My hands were balled into fists and I was breathing deeply. I was being childish and unreasonable. Jealousy was beneath my dignity, and it was unattractive, too. What was wrong with me? I was one big emotional storm. This truly didn’t seem like me, yet I was undeniably enraged. Janie’s and Robin’s shared smile had given me an utterly baseless sense of betrayal. I was so angry that I wished, not for the first time, that I were a lesbian. But a female couple probably had their share of lovers’ spats, too. After all, it wasn’t men I was unhappy with; it was vulnerability. I’d just had enough pain for a while.
I knew that I had a better life than maybe 90 percent of the women in the world, and I wasn’t trying to be Pitiful Pearl. But after the little hurts of life that almost everyone sustains, I’d more or less just gotten through the staggering shock of losing my husband. More pain was something I hadn’t signed up for when I’d succumbed to-okay, welcomed-the revival of my relationship with Robin.
“Eff him,” I said. My spine straightened. That felt good. I swung a fist up and shook it. “Eff him.” That felt better. I was pleasurably shocked at myself.
“Eff who?” asked my boss.
“Robin,” I said after I’d jumped maybe a mile. “He’s out there flirting with Janie. I just don’t need that today. Actually, I don’t need that any day. I need security. I need devotion.” I couldn’t believe I was saying this to my boss. I had known Sam forever, and I won’t say we hadn’t experienced some mind-to-mind talks, because we had. But he had never been anywhere close to the top of my list of confidants.
Sam patted me awkwardly on the shoulder. “Sorry about your sister-in-law,” he said. I came out of my selfish absorption to register Sam’s appearance. He looked awful. He was drawn and pale, and he’d visibly lost weight.
“What’s up with you, Sam?” I asked with well-merited concern. I realized for the first time that Sam’s problems amounted to more than missing his secretary. Sam looked really sick. In a way, I wasn’t surprised.
Sam, who was in the neighborhood of fifty, had to juggle more balls than I could ever keep in the air. The city, the county, the state, the employees, the patrons-all of them had a stake in the library, and all wanted to have their say. The building maintenance, the book budget, hiring and firing.,. and on the home front, two girls who must be in their early twenties by now, and a wife named Marva, who could do simply anything, which I found almost unforgivable.
“I didn’t sleep well,” Sam said. Maybe if he hadn’t slept well for a month, I might have accepted his appearance, but not after one night. “Marva is stenciling a design around the top of our bedroom walls, which she just finished painting.”
See what I mean?
“So I had to sleep in the guest bedroom, and the bed there leaves a lot to be desired. Plus, even with the bedroom door closed, I could still smell the paint, and it just makes me sick.”
Marva had been married to Sam for thirty years, so I was willing to bet she knew that. And yet she’d painted the bedroom in November, when the windows couldn’t be opened. Big message there.
“I don’t expect we can give each other any advice,” I said, for lack of anything else to say.
“I guess not,” he said. “Good luck to you, and again, I’m sorry about Poppy. She taught with Marva for a while and came over to the house from time to time. I liked her, no matter what anyone said.”
That was typical Sam. Mr. Tactful.
I trailed back out into the library, determined to earn my money. I was supposed to be checking people in and out as they used our computers, and giving them extra direction if this was needed. I’d also be filling out the paperwork for our next book order while I sat at the desk. That part was fun, the little gush of excitement at all those wonderful books coming into our library, just waiting to be picked up and read. (See, I really am a librarian at heart.) But someone had to deal with questions like how much would be charged for printing out information our patrons had found on the Internet, or how to find out the greatest ocean depth recorded, or the best way to look up whether dromedaries have two humps and camels one (or vice versa).