Big Cherry Holler - Adriana Trigiani [94]
“I’m tellin’ ye. It’s a lot of work, but I love it,” Fleeta says as she goes behind the counter.
“I thought you didn’t want a soda fountain in the Pharmacy.”
“I didn’t. Till it was here. Then once it was here, I got to like doin’ the bakin’. And makin’ the lunches. I just added soup beans and cornbread to the menu. See?”
“Fleets, you have found your passion.”
“Maybe.” Fleeta blushes; she doesn’t think of herself as passionate.
Ed Carleton has done a good job subbing for me in the pill department. He’s caught up; the new orders are only as of this morning. I feel good as I slip into my smock and take my place on my bar stool behind my counter. I missed my job. I sort through the new orders. There is one for Alice Lambert for a very potent drug usually prescribed for cancer patients to counter the nausea that comes from chemo and radiation.
“Fleets? What’s happening with Alice Lambert?”
“I told Eddie to refer her orders over to the Rite Aid in Appalachia.”
“No, it’s okay.”
“She has cancer. I guess her meanness done turned on her.”
Fleeta walks away. Now, there’s loyalty for you. Fleeta cannot forgive Alice for the way she behaved after my mother died. As I count out twenty-four tiny pink pills and load them onto the knife to place them in the bottle, I wonder why I feel sad. Is it because Alice Lambert is the last person left from my old life? When she’s gone, will it all be ancient history?
Etta is in town, spending the night with her girlfriends. I’m sure she will tell them all about her crush on Stefano and about Pete Rutledge and peach lip gloss. She hung a picture of Tom Cruise over her bed; Pete must have triggered her new taste for brunette men with flashy smiles.
Jack is working late. Or so he says. I go to bed at my usual time; often, when I wake up, he’s already up and dressed and making coffee. I try to stay awake to see if he even comes to bed at all; I know at least one night he fell asleep in the living room in the easy chair with the television on. I keep waiting for the right time to have our talk, but there doesn’t seem to be a right time. Maybe he is avoiding me. I’m not sure.
I have a chance to go through the house for the first time since our return last week. I have a stack of pictures from vacation to put away. I’ve bored everyone I know from St. Paul to Pennington Gap with the pictures of the summer snowcaps in the Alps—enough is enough. I sent some off to Papa, and I’ll put the rest in the box where they stay until I fill albums with them. I pull the box out of the hall closet. I hear a mew. Shoo the Cat peers out at me, annoyed that I’ve found his hiding place. I give him a quick kiss on the head.
I sort through the box. I really need to get some photo albums. The box is practically full. I study the faces in the pictures. We look so happy; we are a family. The pictures from last Christmas are as clear and bright as the ones from years before. We were back on track. Ready to celebrate again. Weren’t we happy last Christmas? And yet I sensed something. I was scared, even then, that Jack Mac was slipping away from me. I wasn’t just being paranoid. I know that all men look at women. But I couldn’t get that stupid Halloween Carnival out of my head. I remember it in such vivid detail, right down to the way the popcorn balls smelled so sickeningly sweet as I watched my husband chitchat with Karen Bell. What is that little voice in our head that tells us to Watch Out? How do we know when to heed the warning signs instead of chalking them up to PMS, or getting older, or just having a bad day?
I put the pictures in the box. Jack’s canvas work vests are hanging in the closet. He didn’t wash them while I was gone (obviously); he just wore them and hung them up again. I pull them off the hangers and head for the sun porch to wash them.
I pull keys and nails and bolts and scraps of paper out of