Catherine Coulter - The Edge

When I reached Salem, I pulled off the road into a small park and dialed 411. There was no Laura Scott listed in the Salem phone directory. There was one unlisted number for an L. P. Scott. I asked for the main number of the Salem Public Library. Ten minutes later I found the big concrete building between Liberty Street and Commercial. It was only a short drive from Willamette University, just south of downtown. On the north side there was a big open courtyard that connected the library to City Hall. Too close to the bureaucrats for my taste. Once inside, you forgot how ugly the outside was. It was airy, lots of lights, the floor covered with a turquoise carpeting. The shelves were orange. Not what I would have picked, but it would keep students awake. I walked to the circulation desk and asked if a Ms. Scott worked there.

"Ms. Scott is our senior reference librarian," a man of Middle Eastern extraction told me in a thick accent, pointing to the right corner of the main floor. I thanked him and headed in the direction of his finger.

I paused a moment beside the Renaissance art section and looked at the woman who was speaking quietly to a high school student with bad skin. He looked ridiculous to a man of my advanced years with his pants pulled down to nearly the bottom of his butt, bagging to his knees and beyond.

The student moved away, ambling toward the magazine section. I got my first good look at Laura Scott.

Paul had said she was painfully shy and withdrawn, that she disappeared, like a shadow. My first thought was: Is the idiot blind? Truth was, I took one look at her and felt a bolt of lust so strong I had to lean against the nineteenth-century English history section. How could he say that she was nondescript? She was slender, tall, and even though her suit was too long and a dull shade of olive green, it simply didn't matter. She'd look great in a potato sack. Her hair was made up of many shades of brown, from dark brown to a lighter brown to an ash blond. It was all coiled up and smashed close to her head with lots of clips, but I could tell that it was long and thick. Lovely hair. I wanted to throw all those clips in the wastebasket under her desk. I understood how Paul had taken one look at her and lost his head. But why had he said she was plain? Had he said it so she'd hold no interest for me? So I'd dismiss her?

Actually, Laura Scott looked restrained, very professional, particularly with her hair scraped back like that, and she shimmered. I leaned against the English history section again. Shimmered? Jesus, I was losing it. Was her unremarkable presentation to the world calculated? To keep men in line around her?

Well, it evidently hadn't worked with Paul.

It wasn't working with me. I said to myself three times: She and Paul betrayed Jilly. I said it a fourth time to make sure it got through.

I waited until the high school student in his low-slung jeans disappeared behind an orange shelf, a magazine in his hand.

I approached her slowly and said, "High school students today-sometimes I just want to grab their jeans and give them a good yank. It wouldn't take much. That boy you were speaking to, I think if he coughed his jeans would be around his knees."

Her face was smooth and young and she didn't change expression for about three seconds. She just stared at me blankly, bland as rice pudding, as if she hadn't heard me. Then she looked to where the boy was leaning down to pick another magazine off the shelf, the crotch of his pants literally between his knees. She looked back up at me and after another three seconds, to my surprise, she threw back her head and laughed, a big full laugh. That laugh broke through the silence like a drum roll.

The Middle Eastern guy at the circulation desk looked over, his mouth opening, his surprise evident even from across the room.

What was coming out of her mouth wasn't at all a nondescript laugh. It was full and deep and delightful. I smiled at her and stuck out my hand. "Hello, my name's Ford MacDougal. I'm new in town, just started teaching at Willamette University. Political science, primarily Europe, nineteenth century. I just wanted to see what sorts of public resources the students had off-campus. I like the orange shelves and the turquoise carpeting."

"Hello. Is it Mr. or Dr.?"

"Oh, it's Dr. MacDougal, but I've always thought that sounded phony, at least off campus. To me, a doctor means doing proctology exams. I can't handle that thought. I'd much rather talk about the Latvian drug wars."

Again, she didn't move, didn't change expression for a good three seconds. Then she opened her mouth and a short ribald laugh came out. This time, she clapped her hands over her mouth and just stared up at me. She got herself together. "I'm sorry," she said, nearly gasping with the effort not to laugh. "I'm not like this, normally. I'm really very serious. I never laugh." She cleared her throat, straightened her suit lapels, and said, "Very well, I'll just call you Mr. MacDougal. My name's Laura Scott. I'm the head reference librarian here."

"You've got a great laugh," I said as we shook hands. She was strong, her hands narrow, her fingers long, nails well manicured.

"How long have you worked here?"

"Nearly six months. I'm originally from New York, came out here to go to Willamette. I graduated with a' degree in library science. This is my first job here on the West Coast. The only bad thing about working here is the less-than-princely salary they pay me. It barely keeps me in cat food for Grubster-he's my sweetheart alley cat.

There's Nolan too. He's got quite an appetite. Oh, he's my bird."

I'd heard every word she'd said. Grubster and Nolan. I liked pets. It was just that I couldn't keep from looking at her mouth. She had a full mouth, a bit of red lipstick left, beautiful. I cleared my throat. I was acting like a teenager. "You're right," I said, "money's always a bitch. Lucky for me, since I eat a lot, I don't have to share my Cheerios with a Grubster or Nolan. I just have to worry about feeding myself.

The university is hard up too. My office has a view since I came in as a full professor, but the heating system is so antiquated you can hear the steam whistle when it comes out of those ancient pipes."

She blinked this time, rapidly, at least half a dozen times. She didn't burst into laughter, but she did giggle.

I'd made her laugh. It felt good. Evidently, she found me amusing.

I'd come here ready to play a role, to get the truth out of this woman, to charm her, whatever. Instead, I wanted to scoop her up and take her to Tahiti. I hated this.

"Do you have plans for dinner?" At her pause, I added, "As I said, I'm new here in town and don't know a soul. I realize you could be worried that I'm another Jack the Ripper from London, so maybe we could just stay around here. That way I couldn't kidnap you or mug you or do anything else to you that you might not think appropriate. You know, fun stuff that isn't supposed to happen when you've only known someone an hour. How about the Amadeus Cafe I saw on the lower level?"

She looked over at the large institutional clock on the wall just above all the medieval reference books.

She smiled up at me and nodded. "I know a great place just down the street. Not the Amadeus-I eat there everyday."

An hour later, after a solitary tour of the Salem Public Library, we walked down Liberty Street to the Mai Thai, which turned out to be an excellent restaurant even though it was so dark and dusty I was afraid to order any meat dish off the menu.

She'd taken her hair down before we'd left the library. I wanted my face and my hands in her hair. She was leaning toward me, her long hair falling over her left shoulder. Laura Scott hadn't shown me a single shy, withdrawn bone. She was open, responding to me with laughter and jokes, making me feel like I had to be the most fascinating guy in the known universe. She'd just turned twenty-eight in March, she said.