Pearl of Great Price (3 page)

I caught another glimpse of yellow, this time at the far end of the building. Now the lady carried one of Hazel Diffenbacher’s hand-crocheted tablecloths, but apparently she’d decided against the plate. Oh well, if she bought one of Hazel’s creations, at least we could almost declare it a profitable day.

By now she’d worked her way down to Katy Harcourt’s Classic Shoes and Bags, where Grandpa plied his broom around a pile of dusty old cowboy boots. Grandpa gave me a pointed glare before smiling at the lady. “Anything we can help you with, you just holler, okay?”

She lifted her nose in the air. “Really, I’m just browsing.” She’d probably take one look at Katy’s knockoff Louis Vuitton handbags, snort in disgust, and hightail it out of here.
No sale.

Sneezy sauntered over and draped himself across my ledger page as if to say,
Get over it, Julie Pearl Stiles.

“You’re right, Sneezy. I’m being ridiculous.” I stroked his broad head and gazed into eyes the same shade of lima-bean green as my own. “I’ve got a wonderful grandpa, good friends, a job I love, and a roof over my head.” Sneezy mewed and raised a whiskered brow. “And you, of course. What more could a girl want?”

With a pleading glance heavenward, I tried once again to shake off my restlessness and stop stewing over things I couldn’t do anything about anyway.

While Sneezy camped out across the ledger, I reached for the dog-eared 1982 copy of
Good Housekeeping
I’d been paging through yesterday between customers. And just when I’d come across a great “new” way to fix ground beef and macaroni, Ms. Moneybags laid the crocheted tablecloth on the counter.

“Exquisite work,” she remarked. “Do you take checks?”

“Sure do.” I pushed Sneezy, the ledger, and
Good Housekeeping
to the far end of the counter—didn’t think she’d appreciate complimentary yellow cat fur with her purchase. I copied the inventory number off Hazel’s tag into the register and totaled the sale.

“Eighty-seven fourteen, including tax,” I quoted, and attempted a mental tally of our commission. Move the decimal over one, add half of that . . . Community college degree notwithstanding, math was not one of my better subjects. I came up with a ballpark figure of fourteen dollars. “Just curious, ma’am, what brought you to the Swap & Shop today?”

Well, I had to ask, didn’t I?

“I was supposed to meet my aunt here, but she got confused about the time.” The lady pulled a turquoise leather wallet from the depths of her tote and wrote out a check.

“I wondered if you might be Mrs. Nelson’s niece.” Although she sure didn’t inherit her aunt’s pleasant nature.

“Aunt Geneva was simply adamant that I drop in, and since I had business in Hot Springs this afternoon anyway . . .” She handed me her check along with her driver’s license for an ID.

Dutifully I compared the name, address, and signature. “Renata Pearl Channing,” I read aloud. “We have the same middle name.”

“Pearl is actually my maiden name.” She lifted her gaze to meet mine and spoke slowly, as if it were a test or something. “What is your name, dear?”

“Julie Pearl Stiles.” A tingle crept up the back of my neck. I felt proud and perplexed and under a microscope all at the same time.

“Julie Pearl Stiles,” she repeated, her voice barely a whisper. I could have sworn she stifled a gasp.

I cocked my head. “Do . . . do I know you?”

“No,” she murmured, scrunching her eyebrows together. “No, I—it’s just too—” She dropped her wallet into her tote, scooped up the tablecloth in the white plastic bag I’d wrapped it in, and pivoted toward the exit.

“Your receipt, ma’am.”

Ignoring me, she marched out the door while thumbing in a number on her cell phone. Her silver Mercedes kicked up gravel as she sped out of the parking lot.

“Left in a hurry, huh?” Grandpa joined me behind the counter.

“Weird.” I showed him the check. “Any idea who she is?”

He adjusted his bifocals and squinted at the tiny print on the upper left corner. His lips mashed together. “Channing? Never heard of her.”

“Wait, aren’t the Channings the folks behind GigantaMart?” The name had been bantered about on the evening news often enough the past several years.

“Oh. Right. I’m sure that’s it.” He reached around me and snatched the feather duster from under the counter. “Just look at all this dust. Cleanliness is next to godliness, you know.”

That clinched it. Something was definitely up with Grandpa. I suddenly didn’t believe him about not recognizing Mrs. Channing’s name.

And now I wasn’t so sure the lady had been completely honest about not knowing me.

C
HAPTER 2

What should have been another uneventful Monday had turned into one crazy day. I knew exactly what had birthed my own lousy mood, but pile on a grouchy grandpa and a mysterious rich lady with an attitude? Please! Perched on my barstool behind the counter, I drummed my stubby nails on the laminate surface.
Busy. Keep busy, girl
.

Across the way, my gaze alighted on that mishmash of cowboy boots Grandpa had been sweeping around earlier. Poor Katy’s sciatica was acting up, so helping her tidy up the mess seemed the least I could do. Besides, that pile of ugly old boots had been bugging me for a couple of weeks already. With a groan, I knelt on the cool concrete floor and set to work.

“Boo!”

At the sharp jab to my ribs, my head snapped up so fast I cracked it on the metal edge of Katy’s display table. I stood with a huff and tugged at the hem of my dress. “Clifton Carter Doakes! How many times have I told you not to sneak up on me?”

“Yikes. Sorry, Julie, that looked like it hurt. ”

“Where’d you come from, anyway? I never heard the bells.”

“Came in the back. Wanted to surprise you.”

“Well, you succeeded.” I rubbed my throbbing head and gave perverse note to the fact that Clifton could always finagle a way to catch me unawares in the most embarrassing positions. Like just now, with my backside pointed toward the ceiling. Even worse, he seemed to enjoy it way too much.

Clifton stifled his chortling laughter and thumbed tears off his sunburned cheeks. “So whatcha doin’ down there anyway?”

“Doing a favor for Katy. What’s it look like?”

He brushed a cobweb off my shoulder—another occupational hazard of working in a flea market. “Julie Pearl, you are so cute when you’re mad.”

“It’s been one of those days.” I hid the remnants of my irritation behind a cockeyed grin. “And you’d better watch it, buster, or I’ll tell Sandy you were flirting with me.”

Something between worry and embarrassment flickered in Clifton’s eyes. He and Sandy Monroe and I had been best friends since kindergarten, but along about tenth grade I realized Sandy and Clifton had become slightly
more
than friends. I also knew their relationship had experienced a few ups and downs lately.

I nudged one of the cowboy boots with the toe of my genuine Mexican huarache. “You two need to talk out whatever’s going on between you.”

“We will. Eventually.” Clifton checked his reflection in the polished glass of one of LeRoy Tuttle’s breakfront curio cabinets. He ran an admiring hand across bleached-blond hair all spiky and shiny like he’d just worked a quart of styling gel into it. “Doing anything after work today? When Sandy gets back from her job interview, I was thinkin’ we could all meet at the trailer park for a swim.”

The Caddo Pines RV & Mobile Home Park had the only decent-sized pool in town, and for a dollar fifty a day they let anybody swim there. Only Clifton knew better than anyone that I didn’t swim. “Not today, Clifton. My hair will just frizz even worse.” It was a lame excuse, one I’d used way too often, and I knew he wouldn’t buy it.

“Aw, come on, Julie. I’ve been practicing my high dive. You gotta see it.” He dropped to one knee like he was going to propose. “Pleeeeeeze.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll come by for a bit. Just to watch.” I waved him to his feet. “Now get on out of here so I can finish up.”

By ten of five I was more than ready to call it a day. When a local cabinet builder shuffled out with a new pair of vise grips from Tom’s Tools & More, I followed close on his sawdust-covered heels with the keys to lock up. The commotion woke Sneezy. He leapt off the counter with a yowl, nearly tripping me on my way back to the register.

“Poor kitty, did I disturb your beauty sleep? Hey, come back and I’ll get you one of your fishy treats.”

Honestly, that cat had the vocabulary of a precocious three-year-old. Soon as he heard the word
treats
, Sneezy did a quick U-turn and pranced to the counter. I reached for the foil pouch of cat treats on a lower shelf and shook out four of the tuna-smelling morsels. While he munched to the accompaniment of his own deep-throated purring, I tallied the day’s receipts and wrote out a deposit slip. Grandpa wouldn’t mind my closing up a little early. He’d already gone upstairs for his afternoon nap.

Since Grandpa’s bypass surgery, it didn’t take much to wear him out. Somehow you take it for granted that the people who matter most in your life are always going to be around, always be there when you need them. Grandpa had sure been there for me, and even though I knew someday I’d have to say my final good-byes, the thought of it collided against my insides like an iceberg hitting the
Titanic
.

Shaking off the nagging fears, I zipped up the bank bag, stuffed it into my “Hazel Diffenbacher original” crocheted shoulder purse, and trudged up the inner stairs.

The apartment lay in shadows. Grandpa snoozed in his easy chair, legs sprawled across the frayed brown ottoman. His chest rose and fell with soft, snuffling snores. A tender flame kindled under my heart. I tiptoed closer, wishing I could snuggle up to his whiskery chin and kiss him without waking him. I settled for brushing my fingers across the fringe of gray hair over his ears before bending to pick up the book that lay open in his lap. It was an old photo album, and I found myself staring into my own toothless grin.

My first-grade school photo, missing front teeth and all. Same mop of messy, brownish-blond curls poking out all over my head and making me look like a wild child raised by wolves. With a self-conscious groan, I reached up with one hand to twist my long, unruly mane into a thick rope across my shoulder.

Moving to the kitchen, I pulled a chair from the scarred gray Formica table and sat next to the front window. A late-afternoon sunbeam set dust motes aglow and highlighted a streak I’d missed last time I cleaned the windows. I resisted the urge to grab the Windex and turned my attention to the album. Paging backwards from that atrocious first-grade picture, I lingered over photos of myself at younger and younger ages. No baby pictures, though. My official photographic history began somewhere around age three and a half, the year I came to live with Grandpa.

I hadn’t looked at these pictures in forever. It always made me a little sad to have no idea what I looked like as a baby, no photos of a first smile, first tooth, first steps. Even sadder, there were so few pictures of me with my mother, and not one single picture of my father—a bitter reminder that I was once unwanted, deserted, discarded.

When I was little, I used to pester Grandpa all the time to tell me more about my parents, but he never seemed willing to talk about them. It looked like it pained him, and I hated seeing Grandpa upset. So after a while I quit asking.

In his own sweet way, Grandpa mostly filled up the empty space my daddy left behind. But growing up without a mother . . . I’d come to think it was why I’d reached my mid-twenties no closer to love and marriage than averting my eyes when Clifton and Sandy stole kisses in the choir loft. A girl needs a mother to teach her things, to guide her gently through puberty and hormones and all the confusing boy-girl stuff. Shopping for a prom dress. Getting her first kiss. Planning a wedding, choosing a gown, addressing invitations. And someday being a doting grandmother to a bunch of little Julies and—

Enough!

Before the longings ate me alive, I slammed the album shut, forgetting my dozing Grandpa. He sat up with a snort. “Oh, Julie Pearl. You about scared the dickens out of me! Is it closing time already?”

“I’ve got today’s bank deposit ready, and then I’m meeting Clifton and Sandy at the pool.” I tried for a lighthearted smile as I slid my sagging shoulder bag up my arm and fished out my car keys. “I’ll pick up something for supper on my way home. Don’t you bother about it, okay?”

I gave him a quick kiss before skipping down the outside stairs. Even beneath the shade of the immense oak tree that sheltered this side of the building, the late-afternoon heat slapped me in the face. It had to be 150 degrees inside my rattletrap ’74 Volkswagen Beetle. The vinyl seat sucked against my thighs like hot tar paper. The engine grumbled and bucked a few times, and five minutes later, long before the car’s wimpy little rebuilt air conditioner could kick in, I pulled up to the drive-in window at Caddo Pines Bank and Trust, a squat brown building next to the Dairy Queen.

“Hey, Marge.” I waved to the wiry, salt-and-pepper-haired teller.

Marge Monroe, my friend Sandy’s mother, grinned at me over the rims of rhinestone-studded reading glasses with a wingspan that could rival a 747’s. “How’s it going, Julie?” Her words sounded scratchy and metallic over the intercom.

“Fair to middlin’.” I dropped the deposit bag into the drawer, and she slid it inside. “Is Sandy back from Hot Springs? I’m dying to know about her job interview.”

“I expect her back pretty quick. Her shift at the DQ starts at six-thirty.” She paused to count the cash and total the deposit. “A specially slow Monday, I see. Alrighty-dighty, hang on one sec and I’ll have your receipt.”

“Most of that is one of Hazel’s tablecloths. Wish we could sell one or two of those every day.”
The drawer slid out and I claimed the bank bag and receipt. “If you hear from Sandy, tell her Clifton and I will be at the pool.”

“You bet. And keep your fingers crossed for my girl. She
needs
this job.” Marge made no secret of the fact that she and Fred were getting tired of having their daughter living under their roof again, not to mention coming home every night smelling like burgers and fries.