this.' Lula’s eyes made a quick swerve around the bookshelves, then came back to him. 'But if you need somebody to show y’ around, I’d be happy to.' Beneath the table her toe stroked Will’s calf. 'I got me a little bungalow just four houses off the town square on Pecan Street-'
'Excuse me, ma’am,' Will interrupted, rising. 'Got some eggs out in the sun that need selling. I’d better see to ’em.'
Lula smirked, watching him move to the bookshelves. He’d got the message. Oh, he’d got it all right-loud and clear. She’d seen him jump when her foot touched his leg. She watched him slip one book into place, then squat down to replace the other. Before he could escape, she sidled into the aisle behind him, trapping him between the two tiers of shelves. When he rose to his feet and turned, she was gratified by his quick blush. 'If you’re interested in my offer, I work most days at Vickery’s. I’m off at eight, though.' She slipped one finger between his shirt buttons and ran it up and down, across hair and hard skin. Putting on her best kewpie doll face, Lula whispered, 'See y’ round, Parker.'
As she swung away, exaggeratedly waggling her hips, Will glanced across the sunlit room to find the librarian’s censoring eyes taking in the whole scene. Her attention immediately snapped elsewhere, but even from this distance Will saw how tightly her lips pursed. He felt shaky inside, almost violated. Women like Lula were a clear path to trouble. There was a time when he’d have taken her up on the offer and enjoyed every minute of it. But not anymore. Now all he wanted was to be left to live his life in peace, and that peace meant Eleanor Dinsmore’s place. He suddenly felt a deep need to get back there.
Lula was gone, cleats clicking, by the time Will reached the main desk.
'Much obliged for the use of the paper and pencil, ma’am.'
Gladys Beasley’s head snapped up. The distaste was ripe on her face. 'You’re welcome.'
Will was cut to the quick by her silent rebuff. A man didn’t have to make a move on a hot-blooded woman like that, all he had to do was be in the same pigeonhole with her. Especially-Will supposed-if he’d done time for killing a whore in a Texas whorehouse and people around town knew it.
He rolled his notes into a cylinder and stood his ground. 'I was wonderin’, ma’am-'
'Yes?' she snapped, lifting her head sharply, her mouth no larger than a keyhole.
'I got a job. I’m workin’ as a hired hand for Mrs. Glendon Dinsmore. If she’d come in here and tell you I work for her, would that be enough to get me a library card?'
'She won’t come in.'
'She won’t?'
'I don’t believe so. Since she married she’s chosen to live as a recluse. I’m sorry, I can’t bend the rules.' She picked up her pen, made a check on a list, then relented. 'However, depending upon how long you’ve been working for her, and how long you intend to stay, if she would verify your employment in writing, I should think that would be enough proof of residency.'
Will Parker flashed a relieved smile, hooked one thumb in his hind pocket and backed off boyishly, melting the ice from Gladys Beasley’s heart. 'I’ll make sure she writes it. Much obliged, ma’am.' He headed for the door, then stopped and swung back. 'Oh. How late you open?'
'Until eight o’clock weekdays, five Saturdays, and of course, we’re closed Sundays.'
He tipped his hat again and promised, 'I’ll be back.'
As he turned the doorknob she called, 'Oh, Mr. Parker?'
'Ma’am?'
'How is Eleanor?'
Will sensed that this inquiry was wholly different from Lula’s. He stood at the door, adjusting his impression of Gladys Beasley. 'She’s fine, ma’am. Five months pregnant for the third time, but healthy and happy, I think.'
'For the third time. My. I remember her as a child, coming in with Miss Buttry’s fifth grade class-or was it Miss Natwick’s sixth? She always seemed a bright child. Bright and inquisitive. Greet her for me, if you will.'
It was the first truly friendly gesture Will had experienced since coming to Whitney. It erased all the sour taste left by Lula and made him feel suddenly warm inside.
'I’ll do that. Thanks, Mrs. Beasley.'
'Miss Beasley.'
'Miss Beasley. Oh, by the way. I got a few dozen eggs I’d like to sell. Where should I try?'
Exactly what it was, Gladys didn’t know-perhaps the way he’d assumed she had a husband, or the way he’d rejected the advances of that bleached whore, Lula, or perhaps nothing more than the way his smile had transformed his face at the news that he could have a library card after all. For whatever reason, Gladys found herself answering, 'I could use a dozen myself, Mr. Parker.'
'You could? Well… well, fine!' Again he flashed a smile.
'The rest you might take to Purdy’s General, right across the square.'
'Purdy’s. Good. Well, let me go out and-Oh-' His thumb came out of the pocket, his hand hung loosely at his hip. 'I just remembered. They’re all in one crate.'
'Put them in this.' She handed him a small cardboard filing box.
He accepted it, nodded silently and went out. When he returned, she asked, 'How much will that be?' She rummaged through a black coin purse and didn’t look up until realizing he hadn’t answered. 'How much, Mr. Parker?'
'Well, I don’t rightly know.'
'You don’t?'
'No, ma’am. They’re Mrs. Dinsmore’s eggs and these’re the first I’ve sold for her.'
'I believe the current price is twenty-four cents a dozen. I’ll give you twenty-five, since I’m sure they’re fresher than those at Calvin Purdy’s store, and since they’re hand delivered.' She handed him a quarter, which he was reluctant to accept, knowing it was higher than the market value. 'Well, here, take it! And next week, if you have more, I’ll take another dozen.'
He took the coin and nodded. 'Thank you, ma’am. ’Preciate it and I know Mrs. Dinsmore will, too. I’ll be sure to tell her you said hello.'
When he was gone Gladys Beasley snapped her black coin purse shut, but held it a moment, studying the door. Now
And, too, he was willing to go back out to Rock Creek Road and work for Eleanor Dinsmore even after the pernicious twaddle spewed by Lula Peak. Gladys had heard enough to know what that harlot was trying to do-how could anyone have missed it in this echoing vault of a building? And more power to Will Parker for turning his back on that hussy. Gladys had never been able to understand what people got out of spreading destructive gossip. Poor Eleanor had never been given a fair shake by the people of this town, to say nothing of her own family. Her grandmother, Lottie McCallaster, had always been eccentric, a religious fanatic who attended every tent revival within fifty miles of Whitney. She was said to have fallen to her knees and rolled in the throes of her religious conviction, and it was well known she got baptized every time a traveling salvation man called for sinners to become washed in the Blood. She’d finally nabbed herself a self-proclaimed man of God, a fire-and-brimstone preacher named Albert See who’d married her, gotten her in a family way, installed her in a house at the edge of town and gone on circuit, leaving her to raise her daughter, Chloe, chiefly alone.
Chloe had been a silent wraith of a girl, with eyes as large as horse chestnuts, dominated by Lottie, subjected to her fanaticism. How a girl like that, who was scarcely ever out of her mother’s scrutiny, had managed to get pregnant remained a mystery. Yet she had. And afterward, Lottie had never shown her face again, nor allowed Chloe to, or the child, Eleanor, until the truant officer had forced them to let her out to attend school, threatening to have the child legally removed to a foster home unless they complied.
What the town librarian remembered best about Eleanor as a child was her awe of the spacious library, and of her freedom to move through it without reprimand, and how she would stand in the generous fanlight windows with the sun pouring in, absorbing it as if she could never get enough. And who could blame her-poor thing?
Gladys Beasley wasn’t an overly imaginative woman, but even so, she shuddered at the thought of what life must have been like for the poor bastard child, Eleanor, living in that house behind the green shades, like one buried alive.
