What a treat! Emma Berry was her best friend, although somehow the two of them had not seen much of each other the past winter. Emma was deeply into her art—she designed greeting cards and stationery that sold in the drugstore—and into her family, which had increased with a new daughter-in-law the past fall.
And things had just sort of changed, as things often did…but in that instant of seeing her friend, Belinda thought: I will tell her.
Emma brought the box of L’Oréal light ash blond to the cash register and dug money out of her purse with pretty manicured hands.
Belinda handed back change, saying, “Latte or coffee? On the house.”
“Oooh, latte.” Emma scooted her small frame up onto a stool at the counter. “I only like yours.”
Belinda stuck a large cup beneath the aromatic, steaming machine, while Emma chattered on about needing caffeine because she had been up that morning since half past six, when, over the radio alarm in the new coffeemaker, she heard Winston shouting and then found out that John Cole was already heading off to work.
“Don’t put any whipped cream on it. Did you hear Winston this mornin’?”
Belinda, who had paused with the whipped cream can pointed, said, “Oh, yes, I heard.” She brought the steaming cup to Emma at the counter. Her thoughts were in something of a tangle, wondering why anyone would want a coffeemaker with a radio in it at the same time that she tried to figure out how to bring up the subject of her worries.
“I’m afraid he’s gonna have a heart attack,” Emma said. “Can I have a spoon?”
Belinda handed her one. “Winston? Well, we all are. He is ninety-two.”
“No. John Cole. Really? I didn’t know he was that old. He’s workin’ twelve- and fourteen-hour days…again,” Emma added with pointed annoyance.
Belinda thought, John Cole…Winston…John Cole again. Conversation with Emma was apt to be a little convoluted.
“I’ve learned by now, though, that I cannot control him,” Emma said, aiming for resignation, although she did not quite reach her mark.
Belinda agreed, and the two women tossed around comments about how everyone had their own lives to lead, the sort of practical statements that everyone knows but forgets when trying to help other people live their lives.
Then Belinda leaned forward on the counter. “I’ve been goin’ to call you.”
“You have?”
Belinda nodded, then found herself averting her gaze. “Uhhuh. I…” It was just silly. She should not speak of it.
Just then the bell over the door rang out. Both women looked over. If Belinda had not already stopped talking, she would have then, because the person who came in was Gracie Berry, Emma’s daughter-in-law.
Emma waved and called out, “Hi, honey!”
Belinda felt her spirit dipping as she watched the women hug.
“We’re drivin’ down to Dallas,” Emma told Belinda. “Gracie has a meetin’, and afterward we’re goin’ shoppin’.”
“Ah-huh,” said Belinda, her gaze moving back and forth between the two women.
It was somewhat astonishing how much the women, not at all blood kin, favored each other. Emma was fair and Gracie dark, but they were of the same petite size, and possessed of the same sort of innocence and liveliness.
Belinda offered to put Emma’s latte in a foam cup to go and asked if Gracie would like something to drink.
“Thank you. I think I would like a latte, too.” Gracie had a very polite and precise way of speaking. She was from “up north,” as everyone said, a beautiful, very stylish young woman.
Belinda turned to the rear counter and focused on carefully filling the foam cups and putting on the lids.
She waved away Emma’s offer of payment. “You two have a great day.”
“We will…thanks!”
Standing there with her hands flat on the counter, Belinda watched through the glass as the two women disappeared down the sidewalk. Then she gave a great sigh. She felt like a tiny speck on the great big planet.
Fayrene Gardner came blowing in the door, then paused to shake her plastic rain cape.
“Hi, Fay. Wet out there?”
As expected, the woman shot Belinda a frown. She hated the short version of her name.
“Hello, Belinda.” Spine straight, she looked forward and flounced—there was no other way to describe Fayrene’s walk—her skinny frame directly to the pharmacy counter, calling in a faint and wavering voice, “Oran?”
The lanky pharmacist came shooting out from the back. “Good mornin’, Miss Fayrene. What can I do for you today?” he asked with such a tender and delighted expression that Belinda had to turn away, rolling her eyes.
Shy Oran loved bold Fayrene, who was way too dense to see it. Or if she did, she discounted the man’s feelings. She never was interested in a quality man. Thank goodness, was Belinda’s opinion. Occupying herself straightening the nearby perfume counter, she listened without any shame nor reaction to Fayrene’s annoyed glances.
“I think I need…” Fayrene looked at Belinda and dropped her tone lower, causing Oran to lean over close. Belinda heard about every other word. “…to…off…sleepin’ pills…some natural…I could…”
“Well, yes,” Oran said soothingly and with some eagerness. Since he had come to work at the drugstore, he had been trying to help Fayrene, who kept getting dependent on one prescription drug after another.
Finding the sight of the two together annoying, Belinda left the perfume counter and went to the soda fountain register, opened it and began counting the cash, something she often did to settle herself.
Going out the door, Fayrene called out to Belinda, “When you speak to your mama, you be sure and tell her how much we all miss her.”
“I’ll do that.” There were some people you just wanted to smack.
Only seconds on the heel of that thought came the sound of squealing tires and a scream.
Belinda hurried toward the door, but Oran was already ahead of her and sprinting outside with his paramedic bag swinging from his hand.
Belinda saw Fayrene’s legs on the wet pavement and people coming from everywhere. She ducked back into the drugstore, got an umbrella and hurried out again to hold the umbrella over Fayrene and Oran and a man she did not recognize, who came from the café.
Talk about never a dull minute.
The phrase was repeated half a dozen times during the lunch hour. The conversation was now divided between Winston’s morning reveille, the rain, which had entered the picture, and Fayrene getting hit by a car. Between making three chicken-salad sandwich lunches, four hot barbecues and a number of jalapeño-cheese nachos, Belinda downed two extra-strength aspirin for a headache that had reached pounding proportions. Glancing over at Oran, who was still sitting at a table drinking his second hot coffee, she shook two more aspirin into her palm, grabbed a small glass of ice water and took both to him.
“Doctor, tend thyself.”
He had really been shook up. Luckily there had only been a tiny bit of blood on Fayrene’s skinned knee, and Oran had been able to press a bandage over it almost without looking. Belinda thought the torn fabric of Fayrene’s pants had shook him up the most. That and the handsome stranger who had come to lift Fayrene and carry her back to the café, leaving Oran staring after them.
Oran gazed at the pills in her hand as if he didn’t know what they were, but then he took them. Handing her back the glass of water, he gave her a crooked