Big Cherry Holler - Adriana Trigiani [28]
“I’m going to hire more help for you.” Pearl offers.
“No, I’m sorry, Pearl. No.”
“But you need it,” Pearl blurts. It’s no secret that with the mines closed, anyone with a miner in the family is struggling.
“We’re doing fine.”
“Let’s say that you are doing fine, I still need help. I’m looking to expand, and I want to keep the flagship going strong. I’d have to hire a manager; who better than you?” Flagship? Little Main Street Mulligan’s Mutual Pharmacy a flagship? What is Pearl talking about?
I turn to Pearl. “You’re expanding?”
“I’d like to open a pharmacy in Norton. I’ve been looking at a building.”
“You’re serious?”
Lew pulls out a file and shows me a picture of the old insurance building, which has been abandoned for several years, in downtown Norton.
“We’re talking to the realtor right now,” he tells me.
“I think my concept of a down-home variety drugstore is one that can work anywhere. And Norton needs a pharmacy. They have two hospitals but no pharmacy.”
“Pearl’s on to something here. You should consider this,” Lew says, peering at me over his glasses.
I know I should. I’d have fewer Night Worries about the bills, college, and pensions. And the other part of all of this is just selfish. I’ve missed my pharmacy. I loved making the day-to-day decisions; I used to be a person who ran something. Being in charge gave me a sense of accomplishment that I don’t get working part-time or at home scrubbing the oven. I still have to scrub the oven, and that’s okay, but I love my job.
“Ave, please do this. I wouldn’t have anything, I wouldn’t be anything, if you hadn’t helped Mama and me. It forever changed us. I owe you.” Pearl looks off for a second, and then that familiar concentration crease between her eyes deepens. “And I don’t like owing people. So let me at least begin to pay you back by sharing in the success of Mutual’s.”
“The chain,” Lew pipes in.
“Let me see what you’ve got there.”
Lew hands me papers; Pearl lets out a whoop and claps her hands. It’s a simple deal. On the flagship store, I will be salaried as a manager and pharmacist and take 50 percent of the profits; the other share goes to Pearl. As I sign my name, I am thinking of my daughter and her future. She needs security. My husband will never leave Cracker’s Neck Holler, and now that he’s found work he enjoys, I have to contribute all I can, however I can.
As Pearl and I walk back to the Pharmacy, she chatters on about her business plans, and I think about my family. This break will help us; I’m tired of worrying, and maybe this will help me stop. Ever since Joe died, when something wonderful happens, I have a moment of elation, then I remember my son and feel a pang of doom. What good is anything without my son to share it with? Now that I’ve ruined the moment for myself, I plunge further into despair. I feel a strange sense of defeat: here I go again, I’m tied down to a business I didn’t choose in the first place. When I gave the Pharmacy to Pearl, it was a no-strings deal. I knew the power that guilt can have over a person because it had defined my life. How I wanted to do the choosing and be free to invent myself. I had made a plan. I was going to leave Big Stone Gap and find myself out there in the world, seek my happiness, own my destiny, have a life of adventure before it was too late. Instead of going away, though, I fell in love and stayed here. I married Jack Mac and believed that the only cage I had been in was one of my own creation. Why do I now have that old boxed-in feeling when I should feel relief?
Jack’s truck is parked in front of the Mutual’s when we return. “I hope Etta’s all right,” I tell Pearl.
When we get inside, we find Jack, Rick, and Mousey working with Otto in the Soda Fountain. Etta is wearing Fleeta’s smock and painting one of the wood panels on the base of the counter.
“Hey, what’s going on?” I say to the men, who look up but keep working.
“Well,