The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay (39 page)

“I’m gonna put two warm ones right back in,” he called to her. “I’m fillin’ her right back up like you had it.” That should make her feel better. He reached down with one hand and pulled two bottles from a case of warm sodas. He shoved them hard into the small gaps of space, then popped the cold sodas with the opener and stepped behind the counter to hand Mrs. Jensen her drink. She still hadn’t moved or said anything. She just kept staring at the penny candy.

There was a folding chair, and he sat down. He could hear cars going by. Any second, one could stop, and he’d have to act like Dalton again. The police car and the truck were out front, under a big elm tree on the side of the gravel parking area. He could hear Rickie’s laugh exploding out of that belly like buckshot. They sure seemed to be enjoying themselves.

“You don’t have to worry about me doing anything. I’m just gonna wait till I can get out of here. I know that stuff came to more than ten dollars. You helped me out, and I don’t want you to worry no more. I’ll put back some of that change.”

She sighed and reached for the ginger ale, still not looking at him. “Thank you,” she said, but all the starch was gone out of her. She took a baby sip of the ginger ale.

“You ought to drink up that ginger ale. I think you need liquid.” She was acting so funny all of a sudden.

“We used to tell him, my sister and I, to just leave—go on and leave us and start a better life. We all wanted that, of course. There was no life on that farm. Not way down in Canada like that, with nothing else around. We offered him what little money we had from God knows who or what, not much, but we thought he was the oldest and should get out first. The only son. Dad expected too much from him on one hand—and never really seemed to like him on the other. He took a lot of things out on Dalton. I can’t explain it.” She took a sip from her ginger ale.

“Then one day he was gone. He’d sneaked into our room and taken our little bits of money.” Her face got all red. “It must have just about killed him to do it. He’d been so proud. Somewhere he’d found a pencil and a piece of newspaper, and he printed out ‘I’m sorry’ in big letters and signed his name. He wasn’t one to show any kind of feeling like that. It looked so sort of pitiful. I wish I’d kept it.”

Idella sighed. She removed her glasses and pressed her fingers against the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were closed. He could see how wrinkly her face was. With her eyes closed like that and no glasses on, she looked old. He reached behind him and grabbed a small packet of Kleenex from the carton, one of those little packets like his mother kept in her purse. He tore it open and pulled the first one out so that it was easy to get and placed them on her knees. Outside, he could see the cop and Rickie finishing up their sandwiches.

He waited till she stopped sniffling—she had taken the Kleenex and wiped her eyes—then turned back to her. “So where’d he end up?”

Idella put her glasses back on and looked out the window, not even in the same direction as Rickie and the cop as they slammed their doors shut and called out over the roars of their engines. The cop slid out onto the road first and down the hill. Rickie gave a honk and waved at the store, then roared on up the hill toward Gorham. They were gone. The boy sat waiting for her answer.

“We didn’t know where he was for a long time. Dad was madder than hell. He needed him in the potato fields and in the barn. None of us said a word about the money. Dad said he was a goddamned son of a bitch good-for-nothing. He had a wicked mouth on him when he was mad. He missed Dalton, though. We could all see he felt bad about his leaving, but he’d never say anything. We’d just see him sitting alone at the table after supper staring into the kerosene lamp. If he bit his lip, he was thinking about my mother. If he shook his head, he was thinking about Dalton. We knew to leave him be.”

The boy knew that Mrs. Jensen did not see him, or the road, or the candy displayed in front of her. A car turned around in the gravel driveway, spewing tiny rocks that ground out from behind the tires. It drove away with a fading whoosh.

“All me and my sister knew is, he took the money and got a ride to town with the mailman. We figured he’d gone out west to the wheat fields to try and get a job. We were very isolated. We knew he’d never write.” She paused and turned to him. “It don’t matter now where he went. He had trouble with drinking all his life, and I don’t know if he ever found what he was looking for.”

The side door opened. A middle-aged woman with curlers in her hair and a red scarf over them came in. “Hello, Mrs. Jensen,” she called. She plunked down cartons of milk and six-packs of soda and a couple of loaves of bread onto the counter. “How are you today? You look tired.”

“Oh, I’m just getting a cold or something. Nothing to speak of. You heading up to camp today?” Idella got up and stepped behind the register. The boy sat quietly.

“The boys’ll all be there this weekend, so I’ll go up and air the place out.”

“Will that be all?”

“That’ll keep us alive till they catch the fish they keep saying we’ll have for supper. I’ll believe it when I see ’em.” She reached up and grabbed two large bags of chips. “Might as well throw these in, too.”

Idella laughed. The boy watched her wait on the woman—bagging her groceries, making change from the rolls he’d returned, talking about the weather. She seemed to fit behind that register. It was hard to picture her with a sister and a brother, with someone she called “Dad.”

Another lady came in. Sounds echoed around him. He was tired and beyond hungry. That beer he chugged was weighing him down. Watching the woman at the end of the counter, swaying in her orange-andwhite-flowered dress, was like watching a kaleidoscope. Everything seemed so far away. He could barely keep his eyes open. It was hot in here. You could really feel it when you stopped. His whole body felt like lead. The fans of the beer coolers hummed and hummed. The
ping
of the register opening and closing was the only sound that penetrated, like a bell buoy in deep fog. His mouth opened a little. The soft intake of air felt cool on his tongue. His eyes closed.

 

The light was different when he woke. He was still in the folding chair beside the candy counter. Something was wadded up between his neck and the back of the chair. He pulled out a white sweater with little flowers. The back of his neck was clammy and sweaty. The beer coolers hummed and hummed. How could he still be here?

“I thought you might be waking up soon. Come sit in the back and eat a sandwich.” Mrs. Jensen emerged from behind the cookie rack. She had an apron on and a mop in her hand. “Go around that way,” she said, pointing, “because the floor’s all wet over here.”

Her manner had changed. “Go on. I’ve got to open the store up again, and I want to talk to you before I do. I closed for ‘inventory’ so you could sleep in peace.”

He stood behind the counter blinking at her. He felt like he’d been scraped up by a plow. He was hungry.

“I put back those cigarettes and beer that you thought you were taking. They’re right back on the shelves where they belong. I won’t do it. I won’t let you walk out with those things. You’re way underage.” She was swishing the old string mop in a bucket and going along behind him with it as he walked to the back of the store. “And you won’t be finding that gun anytime soon, I can tell you that. It’ll be a cold day in hell before you lay your hands again on that.” He only wanted to eat, eat, eat.

“Just sit on that stool there and eat and listen to what I have to say. I’ve done a lot of thinking. It’s been nice and quiet with the lights out.”

He could not get the sandwich to his mouth fast enough.

“You sit there. I’m going to tell you something. Officer Abbott drove up while you were sleeping. He almost woke you up when he knocked, but you were pretty deep under. It’s no wonder. It must be a real strain on the system to rob a store.” The boy stopped chewing and looked at her.

“Go on with your food. I didn’t say anything to him.” She sat down on a stack of piled-up beer cases. “It seems Officer Abbott got a funny feeling driving around after he left Rickie out front. Seems Rickie described you a little in the telling, and what he said sort of matched up with a young man who tried to rob LaRosa’s out on 302 this morning. It seems the young man got scared and ran away when a car pulled up.” Mrs. Jensen stopped for a moment and gave the boy a dead-on stare. Then she resumed. “Well, I had to point you out, sleeping like a baby with your mouth open to keep him happy.” She stopped and watched him eat.

The boy nodded.

“Now, I’m not saying you tried to rob LaRosa’s, and I don’t want to know. But you’re not going to rob me. I’m not going to have that on my shoulders. I’m going to take back the rest of that money and put it in the register where it belongs.” He stopped eating and listened. “I’m sending you out of here with something else.” She ceremoniously removed a small velvet bag from her pocket. “This was my grandfather’s. He brought it over from England when he was a young man. It still works.” She removed a pocketwatch from the bag. She slowly unfurled it and held it by its chain. “This watch is eighteen-karat gold. I had George, who knows about these things—he’s very knowledgeable—take a look at it. That’s how I happen to have it here in the store. Then I never did bring it home again. It must be very valuable. I’m going to give it to you.”

The boy stared at the gold circle dangling before his eyes. He’d never seen such a beautiful watch. He wiped the oil from his fingers.

Idella took the watch into the palm of her hand and slowly ran her finger around its edge while she spoke. “I’ve had it for many years. Nearly forty years. I never should have had it at all. It should have been Dalton’s. Dad gave it to me after Dalton left the farm. He did it to spite him. It was his way of disowning him.” Her finger went slowly round and round the rim. “I’ve always felt bad having it. And of course we all left. None of us stayed. But Dalton was first to go. I never told my sister. It’s been hidden away all these years. Dalton loved it when he was a little boy. Dad kept it hidden, we don’t know where, and Dalton would ask if he could hold it and hear it tick.” She shook her head. “It should have been his. I’ve offered it to him more than once, but he won’t take it.” She looked at the boy. “I’m giving it to you. You take it home with you and keep it somewhere special. Dalton ended up in Chicago, working in factories. He kicked and stumbled around, trying to get away from us. He never had something to hold on to—something from his family that said he’d come from someplace, that we loved him. Nothing passed down to him—but the drinking.”

She laid the watch on the counter.

“It’s yours if you take it on home and think about where you want to go. I’m putting it down here, and I’m going to leave you be. I’ve got to open up. You can put the money down here when you take the watch. Don’t hurry your food, though. Get a bag of chips it you want them.” She stepped out into the store. Lights flickered on, a key turned.

The boy sat on the stool in the dusky half-light and looked at the gold watch across the counter from him. The door opened and closed. He heard footsteps, the sound of cases sliding open and shut, chatter. It was like lying in bed, isolated for sleep, and hearing smoky drifts of adult conversation. Mrs. Jensen’s voice floated back to him, riding airily above the other sounds. “Is that so?” “Oh, yes?” “Will that be all?” “Do you want a bag for that?”

The boy rolled the oily paper from his sandwich into a tight ball and threw it into the wastebasket. He went to the sink, wet a rag, and wiped all the oil from the counter. He washed his hands with the bar of soap beside the sink, then walked to the table and removed all the money from his pockets, including the sixteen dollars that he’d had of his own money. He was glad to be rid of it. He stood staring down at the gold watch. He picked it up and held it in the palm of his hand. It felt smooth and cool at first, soft and warm as it sank into his palm. He held it to his ear and heard the soft, steady tick. She had wound and set it. It was early evening. The men were coming in for their beer and cigarettes on the way home from work, just like she’d said they would. He lowered the watch into the velvet bag. He put it into his shirt pocket and pressed it with his palm, then walked out into the neon glare of the front of the store. Mrs. Jensen was standing alone behind the register, where he’d first seen her. She looked over at him.

“Maybe . . . maybe I could come work for you some Saturday. Fill up your coolers. You know, help out a little, to make up for today, to pay you back.”

“Maybe,” she said, watching him. “That’d be good.”

“The money’s where you said.”

She nodded.

“I’ll leave now. I’ll leave you alone.” He walked to the front door and stopped and looked back at her.

“It feels so good,” she said, smiling shyly at him. “It feels so good in the palm of your hand. Don’t it?”

His hand went back to his breast pocket. He could just hear the soft tick through the velvet bag. He nodded at her, then opened the door and walked down the creaky wooden steps.

He walked slowly, heading for home, thinking of all the different places he could hide it.

 

Idella stood and watched long after the young man had left. She was tired. It hadn’t hit her yet, what she’d been through. She walked to the front door and turned the bolt. She turned off the lights again. It was so quiet in here with just the coolers humming. She’d close the place for a little longer—till before Edward got home from selling cars all day and began ranting and roaring and wanting to know why the hell she’d closed the store on a Saturday evening. She wasn’t going to tell him. Something had happened, she wasn’t even sure herself what. She’d brought something to a close, and it felt good. Maybe she’d opened something. She had to think about it a little while.

She went to the beer cooler and pulled out a cold bottle of Miller. She wasn’t even going to put a warm one back. She walked to the counter and looked at the pile of Italian sandwiches that she’d made earlier. Her eyes fell on the one a little away from the stack, marked “NO.” She took it into the back of the store, carrying her cold beer with her. She sighed and sat down on the stool, where the boy had eaten two sandwiches. The poor sot. She noted that he’d cleaned up after himself. “I bet he don’t do that at home,” she said, pleased. She unrolled the sandwich from its binding of white paper. The note lay wedged into the slit of bread between the pickles and slices of salami. The paper was translucent with oil and covered with black flecks of pepper. She removed it from the sandwich and held it out to read. The wax marking crayon had not smeared much. “HELP! HOLDUP IN PROGRESS! CALL POLICE!” She shook her head and slowly began tearing it into greasy little pieces, which fluttered heavily onto the opened wax paper, then reached into her jar of brine-soaked olives and grabbed enough to lay out the length of her sandwich. She took a swig of the beer. “Don’t that taste good. Nice ’n’ cold, Mrs. Jensen. Just like I like ’em.”