Louisiana Saves the Library (14 page)

“I hope so.”

“I have to go.” As she hung up, Louise heard him say something, but she ignored it. She scrolled to Sylvia's number. She answered on the first ring as usual.

“Do you want to go to the mall tomorrow?” Louise asked.

“I always want to go to the mall. Why?”

“I need a tux for Max and a dress for myself, and I can't take the kids there by myself again.” Louise felt like she might cry just thinking about the misery of dragging Max and Zoe on errands. She'd started making hurried grocery runs before picking up the children from school because shopping with them invariably left her exhausted and embarrassed. Stores turned the kids into tiny destruction machines. She choked back tears, making a little sad squeaking sound into the phone.

“What's wrong?” Sylvia said.

“I just talked to Brendan.”

“That would do it. Don't worry. We'll get the tux together and a dress for you. It'll be fun.”

“Sure,” Louise said. It was possible. If the kids behaved and if she could forget that she was shopping because of Brendan's wedding. She tossed the phone on the bed and went into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine.

C
HAPTER
20

S
ylvia arrived at Louise's house dressed in a pair of stretch pants and a long, flowing shirt that somehow still accentuated her curves. Max hugged her legs in an unusual show of affection. “Jimmy mommy!”

“Hi, darling. Are you ready to go to the mall?” Sylvia crouched down. “We're getting you a suit. Won't that be fun? Jimmy's waiting in the car.”

Max went outside and waved at Jimmy. Louise gathered her arsenal of sippy cups, diapers, and wipes and installed Zoe's car seat in the back of the SUV. The only sign that Sylvia felt the pinch of her reduced income was the car. It had once stayed remarkably clean, but now the floor was littered with Cheerios and stray fruit snacks. Sylvia must have had it professionally cleaned before Jake lost his job.

“How goes it with the househusband?” Louise asked.

Sylvia put Max's car seat next to Jimmy's. “Girl, it's a mess. I come home from work every day, and there are dishes everywhere, toys on the floor, laundry overflowing the baskets. I can't yell at him about it because he's so depressed. He's good with Maddy, but watching a baby all day is killing him. I hated to leave her with him today, but she was sleeping when it was time to go.”

“What does he do all day?”

“Please, girl. You forget what a baby is like. And men can't multitask. He is desperately looking for jobs online. Even calling friends from college. Suddenly my man is a networker.” Sylvia got into the driver's seat and checked her lipstick in the mirror. “It's made him appreciate me, though. He asked me how I kept from going crazy when Jimmy was a baby. I said wine and
Days of Our Lives
.”

“Right. More like coffee and mystery novels.”

“Overpriced lattes from Starbucks. I used to load Jimmy into the car and drive there every morning.” Sylvia backed the SUV out of the driveway. “So, you have to go to Brendan's wedding. God, I can't believe he's moving here.”

“Me neither. It's my worst nightmare come true.”

“Shut up. It won't be that bad. Maybe he'll help with the kids. Give you a break once in a while.”

“Mary's coming over to watch them Monday. I'll have to pay her, but at least she won't criticize my parenting skills.” Louise glanced back at the children. Max and Jimmy were hitting each other and Zoe was staring out the window. She wanted help with them, but at the same time, she didn't want to share her children with Brendan.

“You should milk it for all it's worth. Get him to take them every other weekend or something. Maybe you can have some dates with your strawberry farmer. I hope you called him to take you out on Monday.” Sylvia waggled her eyebrows.

“No, I'm just doing a grocery run by myself. That's exciting enough for now.” Louise wanted to see Sal, but she convinced herself that going to the store was more important. They were running out of everything. She'd used the kids' blue bubble-gum-flavored toothpaste that morning because hers was completely gone. In the back of her mind, a little voice asked whether she wasn't just afraid of a new relationship, but she ignored it.

At the mall, Sylvia miraculously found a parking spot near the door. When they got out of the SUV, they headed for the tuxedo store.

“Does he have shoes?” Sylvia asked.

“Spider-Man and
Cars,
” Louise said.

“Yeah, no. We'll have to rent those too. Unless you want to buy some.”

“God, I don't know.” Louise was glad that Sylvia had decided to take charge. Left to her own devices, she would have let Max go to the wedding in his light-up sneakers. She found it difficult to make even the smallest effort for Brendan. Why should she? She didn't owe him anything. Maybe she'd feel different if he sent the child support on time, just once. Or if he'd made some effort to see his children in the past year other than for his own wedding.

Once inside the store, Sylvia told the salesman what they needed while Louise tried to keep the kids from touching anything with their sticky hands. After Sylvia finished briefing him, the man went into the back room and returned with a miniature tux and a pair of shiny black shoes.

“Crap, I don't remember what color bow tie Brendan wanted him to wear and if he's supposed to have a vest or a cummerbund,” Louise said.

“It doesn't matter. Everyone will think he is so cute that they won't notice if he doesn't match the groomsmen.” Sylvia held the suit up to Max. He backed away.

“You don't know Brendan. He'll have a fit.”

“You could call him.”

Louise got out her cell phone. “Sylvia, can you please stop Zoe from touching all the bow ties?” She got Brendan's voice mail. “He's not there.”

Sylvia strapped Zoe back into her stroller. “Black vest, black bow tie. You can't go wrong with that.”

The salesman nodded. He took a measuring tape from his pocket and held it up to Max's arms, legs, and waist. The boy watched him with wide eyes.

“Now, Max, you need to try on these shoes,” Louise said.

“No.” Max joined Jimmy again. They ran around one of the clothes racks, pretending to shoot each other.

“Max, if you don't come and put on these shoes right now, you're not getting any ice cream later.”

“Ice cream!” Jimmy stopped running.

Max came over and looked at the shoes. “I don't like them.”

“Try them on.” Sylvia pulled off his Spider-Man sneakers and stuffed his feet into the patent leather ones.

“Too tight!” Max wrenched the shoes off.

“Do you have a size bigger?”

The salesman shrugged. “I'm sure those are right.”

“I don't care if they're elephant-sized, as long as he'll wear them,” Louise said.

He shrugged again and left.

“Men.” Sylvia rolled her eyes. “Jimmy!”

Jimmy was trying to pull down a dress coat. He gave the jacket another yank. The rack tilted toward him, and instead of letting go, he pulled harder. Sylvia and Louise both ran to grab it. Too late. Jimmy jumped out of the way, and the rack crashed to the floor.

The jackets looked like dead bodies squashed flat and heaped into a pile. Louise and Sylvia pushed the rack upright and began to rehang the coats. The salesman came back with a pair of two-toned shoes. He stared at the coats on the floor but didn't say anything.

Sylvia took the shoes, leaving Louise to finish the cleanup. “Is this all you have?”

“In the bigger size.” The salesman's shoulders did their thing again.

“Max, try these on,” Sylvia said.

Max was wearing one of the suit jackets. The sleeves dragged on the floor. Louise took it off and hung it on the rack. “Quit with the Charlie Chaplin impression.”

Sylvia helped him put on the shoes. “Do you like them?”

“Yes,” Max said.

“We'll take them.”

“Fifty dollars,” the salesman said.

“I thought they were rentals,” Louise said.

“Not these.”

 

“Okay,” Sylvia said. “We are going to the play area. We'll meet you at the food court in forty-five minutes. Think that's enough time for you to find a dress?”

“Are you sure you can handle all three of them?”

“If there's a crisis, I'll call you.”

“If you insist.” Louise hurried toward the nearest department store, trying to ignore Zoe crying for her to come back. The sound echoed in her ears, even after she was out of hearing range.

As she walked through the women's section, Louise fought to suppress her anger toward Brendan. She shouldn't care that he was marrying Julia. She hadn't expected otherwise and she certainly didn't want him back. So why was she upset? Because she was alone? On impulse, she got out her cell phone and called Sal.

“Hey,” he said. “Look, I'm sorry I haven't called. My stupid expensive strawberry plants are dying. I'm trying everything, but nothing works. And the crop of strawberries I actually sell is in, so I've been working like crazy.”

“I'm sorry.” Louise let out the breath she'd been holding. It had only been a week since their date, but she'd still been worried that he hadn't called or stopped by the library. “I want you to take me out. Please.”

“Okay. I mean I hate to ask, but why?”

“I have to go to Brendan's wedding and I don't want to buy a dress for it. If I knew I could wear it on a date with you, I might be able to actually choose something.” Louise flipped through a rack of dresses that reminded her of the polyester nightmares her mother favored. She moved on.

“I'm going to see the first profits from the strawberries next week, so yeah, let's do something. I'm sorry about the wedding.”

“Oh my God. I just had a thought.”

“What?”

“You should come with me. I mean, you can always bring a date to a wedding, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I'm not an etiquette expert.”

“You have a suit, right?”

“A bunch. From my fancy, high-powered lawyer days.”

“Please?”

“Okay. Hey, we'll make it fun. Dance a little.”

Louise spotted a royal blue calf-length dress.

“Perfect.”

C
HAPTER
21

M
onday morning at work, Louise spent the first few hours in an exhausted haze. Zoe had woken up at two a.m. and refused to go back to sleep until five. Louise resorted to watching late-night TV, catching up on all the reruns of shows that she never had time to watch. Then, she fell asleep in Sylvia's SUV on the way to work despite the dance music blaring from the radio. She felt like her brain was stuck in first gear, grinding along slowly despite the five cups of coffee she'd forced herself to drink.

During her turn on the circulation desk, she sat in Lily's chair and nodded off for a moment. When she awoke, a sour-faced woman with platinum-blond hair was standing in front of her. “If you are finished with your nap, I'd like to talk to you.”

“Sure.” Louise straightened up. “Sorry, my daughter kept me up last night.”

“Uh-huh.” The woman was clearly not impressed with Louise's excuse. “I am outraged that you are encouraging children to read this garbage.” She held up a book with a red-lipped young woman wearing a halter top on the cover. “This is despicable. My daughter brought it home from school. She said that one of y'all let her check it out. I don't like the idea that my child can get a book from the library without my permission. You are violating my right as a parent to control what my daughter reads.”

Louise still hadn't woken up completely from her unintended nap. She stared at the teenager on the book cover as though the sultry-looking girl might speak up and give her an answer. “Um, well, I believe our librarian Sylvia discussed that book at some of the high schools . . .”

A rough hand squeezed her shoulder. She glanced up to see Hope, her mouth set in a hard line. “Ms. Ursula.”

“Ms. Hope. Do you know about this?”

“About Ms. Sylvia going into schools and trying to get our young people reading again? I surely do.”

“So, you approve.” Ursula made a face that suggested she smelled something rotten.

“Well, this is how I see it. If you're gonna get kids to read, you gotta give 'em something they're interested in. You can't just hand over
Moby-Dick
and 'spect a teen to get all hot in the pants about it. This here book is not as bad as it looks. See, they put this kind of cover on these things to draw the kids in, you know. 'Sides, Ms. Ursula, I were you, I'd be more concerned about what your little angel's getting up to behind the bleachers with that Krasky boy.”

“Hmpf. Mrs. Gunderson will hear about this.” Ursula dropped the book on the desk in front of Louise and stalked out the door.

“I thought you didn't like these young adult novels,” Louise said.

Hope folded her arms across her chest and watched Ursula leave. “I don't like her neither. I hope you and Sylvia are working on your presentation to the police jury. That there's what you're up against.”

“What
we're
up against,” Louise said.

Hope glanced at her, and for a moment, Louise was afraid she was going to argue. “You're right. All of us are in this thing together,” she said.

 

Louise made a fresh pot of coffee for lunch. She bounced on her heels as she watched it drip, another desperate attempt to wake herself up. Listening to loud music with headphones in her cubicle helped a little, but now her ears were ringing. She got her cheese sandwich and apple from the refrigerator and sat at the table. After a couple of minutes, Sylvia and Hope took out their own lunches and joined her.

Mr. Foley poked his head out of his office. Louise had the distinct feeling that he was trying to find something to reprimand them for, but the best he could do was, “Y'all keep it down out here.”

“Yessir.” Sylvia gave a mock salute, and the bald head disappeared. The miniblinds banged as Mr. Foley slammed the door.

“Don't know what y'all done to him,” Hope said. “He used to be a pain in my behind, but now he's a hemorrhoid.”

“Did you tip him off about the Zumba last Friday?” Louise asked, biting into her apple.

“No, I done told you I wasn't gonna tell. He probably saw the flyers or something. Why? He show up and shut it down?”

“Tried to, but Marty Pratt was there and she stopped him.”

Hope stirred her leftover red beans and rice. “Hoo! You know she's on the police jury. She's basically his boss. One of them, anyhow. No wonder he's in such a state.”

“Did you make those red beans?” Sylvia asked. “They smell good.”

Her overly sweet tone of voice gave her away: she was up to something. Louise shot her a questioning look, but Sylvia just smiled.

Hope didn't appear to notice. “Grow my own kidney beans. That's the start of it. Then, I don't use anything but Richard's brand andouille. Don't care what anyone says, that's the best sausage around. Fry it up, then cook up your trinity—that's onion, celery, and green pepper to y'all Northerners—and a bit of garlic in with the grease, and put the whole mess plus your beans in the Crock-Pot. 'Cept you leave out the sausage until you make your rice. Put meat in the pot too early and it gets mushy.”

“That's interesting.” Sylvia sipped her Diet Coke and appeared to think for a moment. “See, I want to have sort of a wellness campaign at the library.”

Hope bit into her cornbread. Her expression was pure skepticism.

Sylvia pushed on. “We have the Zumba. But I think the problem with people today is that no one cooks anymore. That's why they're so fat.”

“You right about that,” Hope said. “Don't no one know how to cook these days. Act like they don't got time, but they got plenty to watch TV all night. Takes just a few minutes to make up my beans in the morning and I got dinner when I get home. That restaurant food is just garbage.”

“The only problem is, I can't cook.” Sylvia held up her turkey sandwich. “I can make this, but not much else.”

“Girl, your momma didn't teach you?”

“She never cooked much either.”

“Too bad.”

“So, we could offer cooking classes. But we need someone to teach them. And Louise is already doing the book club.”

“No one 'round here wants to learn to make Yankee food anyway. You need someone who can make Southern food,” Hope said. “But where you gonna get a stove? You can't do it here.”

“Why not? Mr. Henry's got a camp stove he can bring. I'm sure we can round up a few more or maybe some hot plates.”

“I got a camp stove too. Good for when the power goes out.”

“I wonder if Lily can cook,” Sylvia said.

Louise had to stop herself from smiling. Sylvia was really laying it on thick.

“That woman can't make nothing but whump biscuits,” Hope said, glancing out toward circulation to make sure that Lily was in the patron area shelving books. “And she'd mess those up too 'cept they got directions on the can.”

“What about the women at the other branches? Maybe Glenda could do it.”

Hope snorted. “You shoulda seen that mess of a cake she brung to the last bake sale. I was embarrassed, and I didn't even make the blessed thing.”

“Well, I don't know, then. Maybe we'll have to do something else. Like blood pressure screenings. I think the Red Cross will send someone out.”

“That won't get no one excited about the library. Since y'all got me working late Wednesday, I could do it then. But you gotta round up some stoves.”

“Hey, that's a great idea! We'll get you whatever you need.” Sylvia swept up her trash and threw it away. “I'm going to make some calls right now. While I do that, can you look over the draft of the presentation to the police jury I started?”

“You want me to read it?” Hope said.

Sylvia went into her cubicle and returned with a stapled packet. “Sure. You know all these people. You can tell us how to impress them.”

“I don't know about that, but I guess I can try.” Hope got a red pen and sat back down at the worktable. She placed the pen behind her ear and began to read.

 

Mary arrived at exactly four thirty toting her huge backpack. Her pants had a rip in the knee. She put two books in the pile to be checked in and then leaned against the wall.

Louise scanned the books and turned off the circulation computers.

“Don't just stand there, help us close up,” Sylvia said. “Shut down these patron computers, please, while I go get my purse.”

“Okay, sure.” Mary circled the computer tables, setting each of the machines to shutdown mode.

“Your mom is okay with you staying the night at my house?” Louise said.

“Yeah. She just said to be good.”

“Come on, gals, let's motor.” Sylvia breezed through circulation, and they all went out through the front door together.

Louise was glad it was Sylvia's turn to drive. She was still exhausted, and besides, the van was a minefield of sippy cups and snack containers. She leaned her head back against the seat and half listened as Sylvia and Mary discussed the newest teen novels.

By the time they got home with the kids, Louise just wanted to crawl into bed with a glass of wine and a good book. Instead, she showed Mary around the house and told her where the kids' pajamas and toothbrushes were.

When they got to Max's bedroom, Mary held up a hand. “If you spend any more time explaining stuff to me, the evening will be over. Don't worry, I can figure it out.”

“You're right. Okay, there are chicken nuggets in the freezer. Do you know how to operate the stove?”

“If I couldn't do stuff like that, I would have starved a long time ago. Just go. Have fun. Go shopping or whatever.”

“Sure, okay.” Louise got her reusable bags for the grocery store and the novel she planned to read at the coffee shop. “Bye, kids!”

“See you later, alligator,” Max said.

She went out to the van, got in, and started it. Something felt wrong. She looked around at the empty car seats, discarded cups, and forgotten toys. She missed her kids already.