Chapter Three
“S
o, Libby is a nickname?” Benny asked as they walked across the street.
“Yep, and I was glad that I didn’t go by Elizabeth when I started to school. With Libby, I only had to learn four letters to spell my name.”
“Me too,” Benny chuckled. “Walter Bennington Taylor the Fourth is my full name.”
“Will there be a fifth?” Libby asked.
Elvis had been sleeping under the table on the front porch, but he awoke when he heard them. He raised his head, seemed to smile, and made his way over to Libby. She reached down and petted him while Benny unlocked the door.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I want a family someday, but if I had all girls, the answer would be no. I wouldn’t saddle a sweet little baby girl with that name,” he said with a chuckle. “Would you name a child Elizabeth or Victoria?”
Libby rose up and took a step toward the open door. “Nope.”
Benny motioned her inside. “Point proven.”
Libby stepped into a big open room—the sort a person would expect in a convenience store. A countertop where a cash register most likely used to sit. Shelves behind it that had probably held cigarettes in the beginning but now bore hundreds of books. A glass-front cooler on the wall to the left with a couple of cases of beer, at least six gallons of sweet tea, two plastic jugs of milk, and five pounds of dog food. From the marks on the black-and-white-tile floor, there had been a couple of display cases in the room at one time, but they were gone now. A table with several chairs around it took up space to her right.
“I keep extra stuff in the cooler,” Benny said. “The refrigerator in my trailer is really small. Feel free to store whatever you want in there if you decide to stick around.”
A lot of ifs had been floating around Sawmill in the last couple of hours. Was that an omen that she should be giving this idea some extra time and thought before signing on the dotted line?
Benny motioned toward all the books. “You’ll have plenty of reading material.”
“Are you a member of the book club?” she asked.
He shook his head. “They meet on the first and third Mondays of each month. Normally, I leave that morning to go scavenging for more stock. And ...” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I’m not one bit interested in joining the club, so that’s a good excuse. I’m going to leave you to look around by yourself. I’ve got some inventory to get logged into the computer out in the store. Besides, Opal and Minilee will be out there soon to work a few hours. I like to be there in case one of them tries to crawl up on a ladder. The apartment is right through that door.” He nodded to his right.
“What do they do at the store?” Libby asked.
“They dust and wash up whatever glassware needs it. They both tell me that they need to stay active, and I learned a long time ago not to argue with them.”
Libby thought of Dolly and nodded. “There were four apartments on the ground floor of the building where I lived. Elderly folks lived in the other three. Dolly was the one I knew best since she’d lived there longer than I had. She had actually been the first one to move into the complex when it was built. I didn’t argue with her ...” She paused and smiled. “But then, no one ever crossed Dolly. I will miss her popping over to bring leftovers or give advice.”
“I understand completely. Take your time inspecting the place. I’ll look forward to getting the contract back when you’ve had time to look it over.” Benny waved over his shoulder as he left with Elvis hobbling along behind him.
Libby stood in the middle of the floor and turned around several times. She tried to psych herself up about having a completely free apartment before she stepped into the back room. She told herself that no matter what it looked like—if she had to sleep on the floor and use a crate for a table—she could do anything to save money. Finally, she crossed the room, put her hand on the knob, and closed her eyes. She flung the door open in a quick motion, and the smell of vanilla wafted out to meet her. She glanced around the one-room place and found the source: a three-wick candle burning brightly beside the kitchen sink.
“Thank you, Benny, for this welcoming present,” she muttered and turned around slowly to take in the rest of the apartment. An old iron bedstead that had been painted turquoise was over against the wall—not a queen or king, which was good since her only sheets were for a full-size mattress. A blond dresser that looked like it had come out of a 1970s furniture store and matching nightstands completed that area. The living area had a love seat and a wooden rocking chair covered in dust. The coffee table was an old flattop steamer trunk that was still in excellent condition.
The bedroom furniture reminded her of what she’d had during her junior and senior years of high school—after Victoria had sold off her beautiful maple bedroom set and given her the store leftovers that no one had wanted to buy. Was there some kind of universal sign in this?
A wooden thread spool attached to the end of a cord slapped her in the forehead when she took a step forward. She reached up, pulled on the spool, and a bare bulb lit up the whole room. Before moving on, she tied a couple of knots in the cord to shorten it.
“Evidently, Walter was shorter than Benny,” she said as she wandered over to the kitchen area, which was across from the bed.
A small two-burner stove, a microwave, and a mini fridge lined a six-foot space that had a tiny sink in the other corner. She pulled back the floral curtains covering the cabinets to find mismatched dishes, glasses that had once had jelly in them, and coffee mugs. Beyond the kitchen area, the walls were lined with bookcases and cubicles, much like the storefront.
“I can easily use these for storage,” she said.
She saw an open door at the end of the room and followed the footprints on the dusty floor to a fairly good-size bathroom with a wall-hung sink, a toilet, and a claw-foot tub. She closed her eyes and imagined sinking down to her neck in warm water later in the evening.
“Everything I need and more.” She wandered back to the other room, sat down on the sofa, pulled the contract out of her purse, and read through it three times. The salary was good, especially when she considered overtime—and a free apartment with no utility bills would allow her to save a lot of money. A nest egg to move on after six months would be a good thing.
She glanced at all the dust in the apartment and remembered her grandmother fussing at her about being a neat freak. She hadn’t really had much choice in the matter. Victoria had hated cleaning the house as much as or more than she loved gambling. It was a wonder that her grandmother had kept her office as neat as she had.
By the time Libby was six years old, she had learned to pick up after her grandmother and use the microwave to make herself something to eat.
She wanted to sign the contract, go out to her vehicle, and bring in her things—especially the box of cleaning supplies, so she could get the dust off everything and really scrub the bathroom. But until Benny put his name on the dotted line under hers, that might not be the smartest thing to do.
Benny leaned back in the office chair, laced his fingers behind his neck, and propped his feet up on the desk. A loud squeaking noise from the front door told him that Opal and Minilee had arrived, but he didn’t budge. However, the sound of two pairs of boots coming across the wooden floor made him take his feet off the desk and sit up straighter. The verdict was on the way, and he wasn’t sure he was prepared for it. Would he argue, negotiate, or refuse to accept it altogether?
Opal came in first, folded her arms across her chest, and sat down in one of the chairs on the other side of the desk. Minilee followed her lead, but she held her hands in her lap.
Opal took a deep breath and blurted out, “You are a grown man, so you can make your own decisions.”
“Do I hear a but?” Benny asked.
“Yes, you do,” Minilee replied. “More than one out of Opal, but only one from me.”
“I’ll go first,” Opal said without hesitation. “She’s too sweet. That tells me that she’s trying too hard to be what we want instead of being herself. There’s a kind of blank look in her eyes when she talks about herself. She might do for an employee, but there’s no way you can think about having a relationship with her.”
“My turn,” Minilee chimed in. “Her bookkeeping experience will help you a lot, but I agree with Opal that she’s not relationship material. We’ll need those six months to ferret out what’s keeping her from having a light in her blue eyes. None of us know anything about her—”
Benny shook his head. “I called all the references on her résumé. Her workplace said that she had never been late a single day and had only used a week of sick days back five years ago. One lady said that Libby was a private person but seemed to get along with everyone. She had three personal references—all of them told me the same story: she was a bit of a loner, always serious about her job, and had an excellent work ethic.”
Minilee shook her finger at Opal. “I told you that she’s not a serial killer. She’s going to work for him, not seduce him into marriage just to get his money. But there has to be a reason anyone would want to live in Sawmill, or even in that small apartment, right?”
Opal gave Minilee a dose of stink eye. “She might have heard that you have a lot of money from the inheritance that Walter left for you, and she’s just playing you—acting all secretive and sweet natured.” Then she jerked her head around and glared at Benny. “If she knows about the money, then others do, too, and pretty soon, so many gold diggers will be coming down the road that the dust won’t ever settle.”
“It surprises me that more women haven’t come around flirting with our boy,” Minilee said.
“I’m not stupid. I can spot a gold digger a mile away,” Benny protested. “Someday I want children, but only with a woman that I love.”
Opal butted in. “You better find that woman soon. You’ll be thirty-five in two years, three months, and two days.”
“How many minutes and seconds?” Benny chuckled.
“We don’t need to figure that out,” Minilee told him. “Time goes fast, so you need to get serious. Walter will be singin’ on the golden steps of heaven when you have a couple of kids.”
“I am very serious about my life,” Benny assured them. “I want a relationship, and I want a family—a whole yard full of kids. But it will either be for love or not at all.”
“Said like a true romantic,” Opal said after a long sigh. “Just remember it takes nine months to cook a baby, so you really don’t even have the full three years if you want to start a family by the time you are thirty-five.”
“Where did that number come from, anyway?” Benny asked. “What about it makes it so magical?”
“Because after you have that first baby, it will take eighteen years to get him or her through high school, and another four to eight to put the kid through college. Added up, that is about twenty-six years, and you’ll be an old man,” Opal declared.
“And if I had a whole houseful, then I’d be in my seventies when they were all grown, and you might not even be around to rock the babies.” He chuckled again.
“Don’t tease us,” Minilee fussed. “If we didn’t love you like a grandson, we wouldn’t be concerned about you.”
“The feeling is mutual, but y’all need to realize that I only met Lizzy—I mean, Libby—this morning. Heck, I can’t even get her name right, so I won’t be dropping down on one knee and proposing before supper. Besides, I don’t believe in that love at first sight stuff, and I’m looking for an employee, not a wife.”
“Well, thank God for that!” Opal exclaimed. “I still think my great-niece, Tatum, would be a good match for you.”
“And she’s just getting out of the military, which will give you plenty of time to get to know her and start a family before you are thirty-five,” Minilee added.
“Okay, then.” Benny didn’t need their approval to hire Libby, and he really didn’t like them meddling in his love life—not that he’d had one since moving out of the city the summer before.
His grandfather chose that moment to impart a little advice. It’s complicated, as all you kids say these days.
You got that right, Benny agreed with a slight nod, then glanced across the desk to see broad smiles on Opal’s and Minilee’s faces. He shook his head. “Not ‘okay,’ as in I’m agreeing to go out with Tatum, but that I have decided to hire Libby if she agrees to take the job. She has more skills than I ever thought I’d find, and she’s willing to live out here in the boondocks. I’m not interested in anything other than a working relationship, so put your fears in the trash.”
“That’s good,” Opal said, and her smile faded but only slightly.
It didn’t take the brain power of a neurosurgeon to know that neither she nor Minilee were going to give up on Tatum—not yet, anyway. But Benny took his small victories where he could get them when it came to those two.
“We can live with that—and on a positive note, Libby will make a good neighbor since she’s not a picky eater,” Opal declared.
Minilee frowned. “What does her liking fried okra have to do with anything?”
“Just everything,” Opal argued.
Benny took a deep breath and let it out slowly. At least the old gals were bickering about food instead of his future, and that was a good thing.
Libby wasn’t sure if she was supposed to take the contract to the store, but if she had the job, she had a lot to do to get the place cleaned up by bedtime.
Just a few hours ago, you weren’t even sure you wanted this job, and now you are so eager that you are wanting to unpack and make this crazy apartment a home. What changed? Victoria was back in her head.
“Valid question,” Libby whispered.
The answer was simple. She felt totally at peace in this little backwoods community, and she could save a lot of money by not having to pay rent. She would have six months to think about where she wanted to go next—maybe back to school to get her accounting degree. She had checked out an online course that she could finish in two years and still hold down a job.
She scanned the apartment once more and shoved the contract down into the side pocket of her purse. The door to the outer room opened, and voices, in tones that sounded like Opal and Minilee arguing, penetrated the walls of her apartment.
It’s not yours until two signatures are on that paper, Victoria’s voice growled in her head. Libby wished her grandmother would find a blackjack table and leave her alone so she could make out the words being said on the other side of the wall.
She slung her purse over her shoulder, opened the door, and stepped out into what had been the front part of the service station. “Hello, again.”
Opal threw up a hand to wave. “We came over to get the books we’re supposed to read for Monday’s club meeting. I knew we had two copies, and here they are.” She pulled a couple of paperbacks from the shelf. “Ilene and Sally will be the only other club members here this week. That’s pretty normal for these days. We’re all getting older, and it’s tougher to get out and about.”
“We’ve been so busy with the garden and our part-time jobs at the store that we’re just now getting around to reading the books and answering the study questions,” Minilee said. “We apologize for just barging in. We’re not used to anyone living here, but if you take the job, we’ll share phone numbers so we can call before we arrive.”
If you take the job. Victoria had left her blackjack table—again. Sounds to me like they have more doubts than you did when you drove up here.
“I’ve signed the contract,” Libby told her and headed across the room, but turned around when she reached the door. “Would it be all right if I borrow books from the shelves, too? I love to read when I have time.”
“Sure thing,” Opal answered. “Sally and Ilene bring books to us when they are finished with them. We’re glad to share.”
“Sally is Opal’s sister,” Minilee explained, “and Ilene is my youngest sister.”
“And I thought the entire Sawmill world was just y’all and Benny,” Libby said.
“Only from Monday until Friday morning,” Opal told her. “Then it becomes a whole nother world.”
“Do lots of people really drive all the way back here for antiques?” Libby asked. “I thought the younger generation was taking over the world and giving away everything their grandparents owned.”
“This week might only get us half a parking lot full of cars, trucks, and trailers since it’s the end of the month. But rest assured, the next one—the first weekend of the month—will make up for it. You’ll be dog tired when Sunday evening rolls around,” Minilee warned. “The first Friday of every month is always hectic. Folks get paychecks then, and they’re eager to spend some of that money.”
“We usually get everything put to rights on Monday morning, but after a big weekend, it takes a little longer to get everything put back in order. People ain’t got no sense these days. They pick up a vase in the living room area and carry it back to the bathroom or kitchen part of the store,” Opal added. “I expect you’ll be busy most days just catching up on the bookwork here at first. Since me and Minilee retired, that office looks like a dump ground.”
Time and a half is always good! Victoria butted into Libby’s thoughts again.
Libby imagined her grandmother thinking about taking the extra money to the casino and started to smart off out loud but clamped her mouth shut for a few seconds. “Looks like I won’t have time to do much reading after all.”
“You’ll always have the evenings,” Minilee called out.
“I guess I will, at that.” Libby smiled and headed for the door. “See y’all later.”
Libby stepped out into the bright sunlight. She had been so focused on her new job that she hadn’t realized how hot it was outside until a blast of hot wind hit her in the face. Sweat beaded under her nose, and a tiny dust devil whirled out in the middle of the street.
“I haven’t seen one of those since I left Jefferson,” she muttered and started toward the store. Elvis came out from under the table on the porch and walked along beside her. “What do you think, old boy? Are you escorting me to a new job, or are you walking with me to a rejection?”
Elvis wagged his tail but didn’t offer any answers.
“Some help you are,” Libby fussed as she entered the store.
“Hey!” Benny yelled from twenty feet away. “I was on my way to see what you thought of the living quarters and if you had time to go over the contract.”
Libby bit back a sigh of relief when she met him halfway and pulled the papers from her purse. “Signed and ready for you to put your name on the dotted line. I like the apartment fine, and I’d like to get busy cleaning it and unpacking.”
He took it from her and began to make his way to the back of the store. “Let’s go to the office. I’ll sign and make a copy for you to put in your files.”
“I’m guessing that Minilee and Opal gave their approval?” she asked and followed his lead.
“They did, but only as an employee,” he answered with a chuckle.
“What does that mean?” She frowned and followed him into the messiest office she had ever seen.
He crossed the floor to a desk piled high with paperwork, picked up a pen and scribbled his name at the bottom of the top sheet of paper, and then made a copy of the entire contract. “They have been trying to fix me up with either one of their relatives or a friend of a friend for years. I warned you about their meddling.”
“Good Lord!” Libby gasped. “Are you serious? I’m not interested in a relationship with anyone—no offense—so they sure don’t have to worry about that. Besides, I’ve only known you for a few hours.”
“They want me married and starting a family before too long.” He stapled the copies together and handed them to her.
“Why?” Libby almost choked on the one word.
“They think people are too old to start a family after they’re thirty-five. I keep telling them that kids keep a couple young. Right now, this minute, I’m just glad that you have agreed to work for me,” he said with a grin. “Be here at seven in the morning, ready to hit the floor running.”