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part 3 of the story
Penny Candy

© Carl Parsons, May 2022

    “I even hesitated to tell her what I was thinking, Jim, about having to close up the store and all, but I knew that sooner or later I’d have to. So yesterday I just went ahead and did it. Tried to make it as gentle as I could, but guess I failed.”
    “I’m sure you did your best, Charlie. None of us wants to see Lorna hurt. She’s been hurt enough. And you, too. But there’s no avoiding the truth.”
    “No, there sure isn’t. Had Pastor Beattie over to the house last night to help with Lorna and get his advice some. I can’t afford to have her break down on me again. She knows it too and tries her best, God bless her, but those visions, over time, keep coming to her and won’t stay away. More than the medical cost, I just don’t think I could go on without her if anything more serious should happen. We been together so long it’s about like being just one person now. If one’s hurt, so’s the other.”
    “What did Pastor Beattie say? Did he help any?”
    “Did what he could, I’m sure. Calmed her down quite a bit, I have to say that, and gave her some hope. She seems better today. More accepting and less worried about the store. And no new visions or voices, at least not so far today, but I’m keeping a close eye on her.”
    “Well, that’s a hopeful sign.”
    “Pastor told her God knows what we need and will provide it in the long run. Told her that her visions are a gift from God, not a curse, something to help her with her loss, not torment her.”
    “Well, that’s a beautiful explanation, Charlie. And here I thought we Catholics were the ones had the market cornered on signs and visions.”
    “No, not always, not with my Lorna around you don’t,” Charlie said with a bit of a smile. “But she does feel like none of that helped when Colton first went missing. Just mention his name at that time and she started to fall apart. Maybe she’ll change now that Pastor Beattie has talked with her as he did. But for now, the best thing is for her to stay as busy as possible. That’s how I see it. Doctor she went to in Morgantown back when this all first happened said pretty much the same thing. ‘Keep her busy’—that was his advice. Then charged us like he’d just told us the secret for turning lead into gold. Anyhow, work really does give her less time to think about Colton coming back to us. I think that’s why she’s took to making bonbons nearly every night instead of just once a week like she used to. Something to keep herself busy. Plus, they’re one thing that still sells for us, every time.”
    “I understand. Well, let me see what I can do, Charlie. No promises, but I do have an idea. In fact, it’s something I’ve been thinking about even before you called.”
    “What is it, Jim?”
    “Rather not say yet, Charlie. Can’t implement the idea by myself. I need to consult with the Co-op Board members and even have them vote on it. And you know how contrary Travis Lowery can be. Yet there’s no way we’ll ever get him off the board, not that we really want to.”
    “Yes, I sure know all about Travis. What’s more, he’d like to buy this store. Did you know that?”
    “No, never heard that! Really?”
    “Yep, buy it and tear it down, that’s what he’d do. Just like he did the old blacksmith forge down the way there, beyond Lem Dietrich’s barber shop. Tore it down and then put up his tractor repair shop in its place. Did that years ago, but seems like only yesterday to me.”
    “I remember my dad talking about the smithy shop. But what would Travis do with your store if he did buy it?”
    “Replace it with an ice cream parlor, he told me. Can you beat that! You can just guess where the milk and cream would come from.”
    Jim laughed. “Well, did he offer you a good price?”
    “Yeah, good for him, but not for us.”
    “That’s Travis all right, to a T. . . . Tell you what, the Co-op Board has a meeting this Thursday night, and I think I have enough votes to do what I’m thinking of, even if I don’t get Travis’s support, so I might be able to tell you something on Friday. Hate to leave you in suspense, but if it all works out as I hope, maybe then you can tell Travis to peddle his ice cream over at his diner instead of here. How would that be?”
    “That’d be nice, not that I have anything at all against Travis, understand. He’s been a good customer to us and always been a good friend to boot. So’s his family before him.”
    “Well, I’ll see what I can do. That’s about all I can say for now.”
    “I know you will, Jim. You always do your best to keep things in Locust Hill from changing too much or too fast, but I want you to know that Lorna and I don’t want charity. No, won’t have that.” Charlie was shaking his head with vigor as he spoke.
    “Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s definitely not charity I have in mind, Charlie. Not at all, but a genuine business proposition instead. Why, are you Presbyterians opposed to charity?” Jim chuckled.
    “Well now, Jim, I’ll admit to a bit of a mean streak in Calvinism on that topic.” Charlie laughed now, too. “After all, needing charity might mean you’ve fallen out of favor with God and, worse yet, that you were predestined to do it. And that doesn’t bode well for the Day of Judgment, now does it? Might put a soul on the down escalator, so to speak. That’s about what Pastor Beattie would say, I guess.”
    “Well, at St. Benedict’s we’re more into the good works school and so don’t think that charity is a sin either in the giving or the getting. Anyhow, as I said, it’s not charity I have in mind anyway. In fact, I’m really glad you’ve talked with me about this problem as candidly as you have. It’ll help me clarify my proposal. If what I’m thinking works out, Charlie, it could do both of us a world of good. A sensible solution is always the best way forward, I think, one with mutual benefits.”
    Suddenly the store’s entrance door swung open and Harriet Bowersock stepped out onto the porch carrying her empty cargo box. “You boys still blabberin’ out here?” she said. “Must be sumthin mighty real to keep both yuns from your work so long. Bet you ain’t set ‘long ‘side that pretty wife of yorn this much time for years, Jim Russell,” she added as she walked around the truck’s tailgate to the driver’s side. “Probably not since you courted her. Shame on you! And yet here you are yappin’ with ole’ Charlie. Nothin’ pretty about him, I can tell you that. Don’t know what a good woman like Lorna even sees in him!” After stowing her cargo box and climbing into the truck, she leaned out the window to grin at them, content with her chidings, then waved goodbye, and they to her, as she drove away.

6. Consolation of Community

    “So you’re giving up at last, is that it?” Gracie Evans asked Charlie with her characteristic diplomacy. She slid back the door to the dairy cooler and plucked out a carton of brown eggs as she talked, not even looking at Charlie, then placed the eggs gingerly on the counter in front of him before looking up. Her friend, Irma Lambert, another of the Keepers, already stood at the sales counter with her own dozen of Bowersock brown eggs.
    “Where’d you hear that, Gracie?” Charlie asked while ringing up their purchases. Even as he asked, he was enumerating to himself the possible sources.
    “Well, Irma here’s the one told me,” Gracie replied, relieved to have her friend nearby as a ready excuse.
    But quick to defend herself, Irma explained, “And I overheard it at church Wednesday night, Charlie. Several people saying it. From what I could make out, they were tellin’ it’s caused by that new place—that convenience store on that corner lot Sandie and Freddy Cunningham sold off. The one right along Shawnee Highway. A choice location, for sure.”
    “And by now,” Gracie added before Charlie could reply, “the phone lines from here plum out to Zion Ridge are burning up with the news. So, Charlie Crandall, I sure hope you weren’t expecting to keep this store’s demise a secret for long.”
    “Yes, our problem is the new store,” Charlie confessed, “and no, I didn’t expect it to stay a secret for long but didn’t expect it to become headline news, either.” He laughed a bit, then said rather sadly, “Besides, nothing’s decided yet. You need to keep that in mind, ladies.” He lowered his voice still more as he saw Lorna approaching from the storeroom. Leaning toward them he added in a hush, “The new store’s a challenge for us, no doubt about it. Just don’t talk about it when Lorna’s around. Bothers her some.”
    Gracie and Irma looked at each other and then caught Charlie’s drift.
    “Okay, we understand,” Irma said quietly.
    Still, Gracie felt compelled to add, “But like I said, the phone lines out this way are burning up with the news. No one wants to see it happen, Charlie. Rest assured of that. None of us do.”
    “Thought you of all people, Gracie, wanted to see another store open up out here. Isn’t that what you’ve always said?”
    “Yes, see one open but not see this one close,” she replied in a whisper. “There’s a big difference, you know. Cause if it did happen, where would we go to buy Harriet’s eggs or Lorna’s bonbons or all the fresh produce you sell here in the summer and fall? The convenience store won’t serve for any of that, you can bet your life on it. It wouldn’t be the same around here without this general store, and losing it certainly would not be in the spirit of all we Keepers have pledged to one another to preserve Locust Hill. So we can’t have it close, Charlie Crandall, and that’s that.”
    “Well, I’m glad to hear you finally admit it, Gracie. But your concern . . . ,” and now Charlie bent forward and whispered to them again, after a glance in Lorna’s direction, “it might come a just bit too late unless we can figure out some way quick to save it. Others, as you may know, are not as anxious to preserve the past as we are.”
    “You wouldn’t mean Lord Lowery across the way there, now would you?” Gracie gave an elegant wave of her right hand toward the Lowery home while clutching her carton of eggs in the other. “He wouldn’t be like that if he was a Methodist.”
    “No, Gracie, not just him. Travis wants to see the community grow and prosper and seems to think that can happen without harm to anyone, if you know what I mean.”
    “But most of all he wants to make money from all the growin’ and prosperin’, if you know what I mean, Charlie. And wants it no matter what the changes are or who gets hurt by them. I’d say he’s quite willing to ignore any harm that comes from change even when he knows about it.”
    “But maybe he’s right about change, Gracie. Just look what’s happened in Parkeston. They knocked down their City Building a year or two ago as though it meant nothing. Now if a magnificent landmark like that can’t be saved, what chance has our little general store way out here got?”
    “Not sure I know, but I guess you’ll figure it out,” Gracie said. “I do see your point, but at least now you know how we feel about it.”
    “I do,” Charlie said, nodding his head, “and thanks for that.”
    “Well, Gracie,” Irma piped up, “I need to get home with these eggs ‘fore they commence to hatchin’! You comin’ along or stayin’ here to agitate Charlie some more?”

7. Consolation of Perspective

    In the late afternoon Lorna was taking her turn at the cash register when the Windsor family stopped by the store. Artie Windsor, a retired merchant marine, had sailed the world over for twenty years after leaving Locust Hill as a teenager. Now he’d returned with his young wife, Miku Hirata Windsor, having charmed her away from her native Osaka to a farm in Locust Hill. And now they had a three year old daughter, Hana, their “Flower,” and soon would have another child. They also had an orchard full of cherry trees. Done with the sea, Artie had bought land on Zion Ridge and become an orchardist, specializing in Montmorency cherries, all for Miku, who couldn’t bear the thought of spring without cherry blossoms. Now she had her very own cherry trees, and they were beginning to bear fruit.
    And Miku’s daughter—today Hana wore a sunflower dress with bold yellow and orange blossoms surrounding dark brown centers. Already she displayed her mother’s beauty—the daintiness of her face with such small and perfectly shaped lips and nose. And with such dark almond-shaped eyes, eyes that never merely glanced at the world but always peered out below her black bangs as though to see right through to the heart of things. Her father must have given her just the breath of life, for all else that moved and mattered about her was her mother’s. Only Hana’s skin was perhaps a half-shade lighter than her mother’s bronze tone, maybe not even that.
    As the Windsors stood before Lorna, the parents with their tiny daughter and even before Artie could lift the child up to the penny candy jar, someone touched Lorna’s shoulders from behind, the same way Charlie would do each morning to take her jacket or coat or sweater. But this was not Charlie. He was in the back of the store, showing work pants and carpenter’s aprons to Harmon Cleary, the local handyman. The hands touching her shoulders were warm and the voice at her ear just as warm, whispering to her, “Momma, watch what happens here and never be afraid again. Nothing is lost to change, not even me. Don’t fear for me. Don’t fear for the store or for Dad or for Locust Hill. Just watch.”
    Then, suspended from her father’s hands, Hana reached into the candy jar and grasped a chocolate mint wrapped in silver foil with her tiny brown hand. Then dropped it. As Lorna watched Hana, she thought, No hand like hers has ever reached into this jar. No, not in all these years, not until Hana came along, and I never realized it until now. No hand so brown, so different. A hand from another world, yet born right here.
    “Uh-oh! No, not that one, Papa,” Hana squealed with laughter, then grasped instead a roll of Necco wafers. “This one!” she proclaimed, lifting the roll up to her nose and then to her father’s nose. “Smell, Papa!”
    Artie gave the candy a perfunctory sniff and said to Lorna, “She loves the purple licorice wafers in these rolls while her mother only eats confections made from seaweed. Two strange girls I’ve got!” Artie laughed as he lowered Hana back down to the wooden floor. “Now, Hana, you must pay Mrs. Crandall.”
    Lorna walked to the opening at the front end of the candy counter and stooped down to receive Hana’s pennies. And Hana counted them, counted them out loud—slowly, deliberately, and accurately—dropping them one at a time into Lorna’s hand.
    “There, Lorna-san, my five pennies,” Hana announced and made a little bow.
    “Why, thank you, Hana. My, you count so very well. Who taught you?”
    Hana grasped her father’s pantleg as if to say, “This one!” but in fact said nothing. Hana’s mother, who had watched the purchase in silence, took two steps back from the counter and bowed as well, at least the best she could with her swollen abdomen. The little family then departed with Artie bidding Lorna to “say hello to Charlie for us. Say we’re sorry we missed talking with him.”
    Lorna waved to the Windsors, then crossed her forearms and placed her hands on her own shoulders as a shivering person might do. The other hands were gone now and so was the voice, but the comfort of both remained. This time Lorna felt no pain or panic, trusting now that the apparition would come again whenever needed to console her and remind her that change was not to be feared or fought or allowed to conquer her with despair.

8. Resolution

    Friday finally came and Jim Russell telephoned the store, called in the late afternoon. Lorna answered. Could he come by their house this evening? Had important information for them. In fact, proposals for them to consider. His voice seemed bright with optimism. “Why yes,” she said, “Of course, you can, Jim. This evening will be fine.”
    As Charlie and Lorna walked home through the village that evening, the cats raced ahead of them, stopping now and again to look back, waiting for a moment for their patrons to catch up, then racing off again, anxious now for dinner. Lorna watched them until Charlie asked her, “Is that all he said, Lorna? Some proposals? Nothing specific?”
    “That was all, Charlie. But don’t worry. Jim’ll come and explain himself. I’m not worrying about it anymore. You yourself said not to. Pastor Beattie said not to. And . . . and now, well, I’m not going to.”
    “I’m glad to hear that, but I sure am anxious to know what proposals Jim’s got for us.”

* * *

    Jim came promptly at seven, just as he’d told Lorna he would. They sat at the kitchen table, which Lorna had been especially quick to clear that evening.
    “So what is it, Jim?” Charlie asked right away. “I’m on pins and needles to know! What have you got?”
    “Quite a bit for the two of you to consider, Charlie. The Co-op Board put a lot of thought and work into the proposals I’m going to show you. Spent much of the week on them, in fact.” As he spoke Jim fished three sheets of paper from a manila folder he’d brought with him. “Here they are,” he said, offering one sheet for Charlie, one for Lorna, and keeping one for himself. On the papers was a typed list of items, which he then proceeded to read:
    “1) The Locust Hill Farmers’ Cooperative wishes to lease the Crandall’s General Store in order to sell small item hardware—such as hand tools, screws, bolts, washers, and nuts—along with work clothing, footwear, and related accessories—such as handkerchiefs, bandanas, belts, and sunglasses. This is not an all-inclusive list but is meant to illustrate the types of items intended in this agreement.
    “2) The Cooperative also wishes to employ Charles and Lorna Crandall as managers of the store with salaries and benefits comparable to the Cooperative’s other employees
    “3) The Cooperative will purchase the existing stock of hardware and clothing items now owned by the Crandall’s and on sale in the store; the purchase will be made at the current fair market wholesale value after a joint inventory.
    “4) The Crandalls will still be responsible for the insurance, property taxes, utilities, and maintenance of the store and grounds during the lease period.
    “5) If in the future the Crandalls should wish to sell the store and property to the Cooperative, and the Cooperative should wish to purchase the same from them, the amount paid in lease payments up to the date of sale will be applied to the purchase price.
    “6) During the duration of the lease, the Crandalls may still sell such other items as both parties deem appropriate—that is, items such as confections, baked goods, and other food products from local producers and sold in the store on consignment, as in the past.
    “7) The store will also continue to host each growing season the sale of local produce and may charge producers a reasonable fee for doing so.
    “8) The Cooperative will construct at its own expense a driveway linking the two properties for the convenience of their mutual customers.
    “9) The store must display at all times signage provided by the Cooperative designating the store as an affiliate of the Locust Hill Farmers’ Cooperative.
    “10) The Crandalls will be responsible for maintaining the financial records of Cooperative sales and expenses separate from their own sales and expenses.”
    When he finished reading the last proposal, Jim leaned back in his chair and said, “Now we drew up all this language yesterday without the help of a lawyer, so this is not our formal proposal yet, but it truly is what we’re thinking and have agreed to on our side. The document is specific enough for all of us to talk about, at least.”
    “What would the lease rate be, Jim?” Charlie asked. “Nothing here about that.”
    “True enough, we didn’t have enough time to get to that point, but we’re consulting right now with some realtors we know to determine the lease rates in the county on comparable properties. You might want to do the same so that we can reach an agreement faster.”
    “Okay, I can see that,” Charlie responded.
    “On the Co-op’s side,” Jim continued, “what we’re trying to do is avoid having to pay for an expansion of our existing store, which would shrink our parking area and require a large outlay of cash, something we’d rather not do right now. We could take out a loan, of course, but with this agreement, we wouldn’t have to make a downpayment to a lender and could pay you a monthly lease fee instead of interest going to some bank in town. You make money; we save money and time. Then, later on, when you two are ready to retire, we would make a final payment to you to purchase the property, if necessary. Helps both of us that way and gives you a reliable source of income now that could bridge you to retirement later on. And it keeps the store open and active, which we believe the entire community wants to see. Plus, you both would have salaries paid to you for managing the store and keeping its books. Not a lot of money to be sure, but the salaries would also come with medical benefits and life insurance if you want it. . . . Well, what do you think?”
    Charlie stared at the paper he held, hitched up his glasses to be certain he was seeing it right, but Lorna’s heart already raced ahead. For her, the words on the paper had become visions, even as she stared at them, visions of their old age together, Charlie’s and hers, gathered here as pictures might be in a photo album, like the one she kept of the coffee table in the parlor. She placed her forefinger on the words “the Crandalls” and felt a mellowness transfer from them, rising up her finger like warm water through a straw, racing on to find her heart. And when it did, she spoke. “The Co-op Board really agreed to all this, Jim? They would really do all this for us?”
    “Yes,” Jim replied. “Yes, they sure would. And agreed to it all unanimously, I might add. So you know what that means.”
    Charlie quickly responded, “It means that even Travis Lowery voted for this?”
    “As a Board member myself, I should never say how any individual Board member voted, so let me just repeat—the vote was unanimous.”
    Charlie smiled, feeling his shoulders lighten and his own heart fill. “This is very generous, Jim, very generous, indeed.” Then he looked at Lorna. She was smiling, too, more than he’d seen her do since Tuesday when he first broached with her the threat to the store. In fact, her face now seemed perfectly tranquil, even angelic. Then, looking back at Jim, Charlie echoed Lorna’s words, “You would really do all this for us? You and the Co-op, I mean?”
    “We would, and do it happily. Of course, your agreement to these proposals would mean that the store wouldn’t be completely yours any longer and most likely would eventually belong to the Cooperative.”
    “But it would still exist, wouldn’t it, Jim?” Lorna hastened to ask the question she knew was still on Charlie’s mind.
    “Yes, it sure would,” Jim replied. “We certainly wouldn’t be buying it to tear it down. We couldn’t claim to be Keepers of the Village if we did that.”
    As Charlie and Jim rose to shake hands, Lorna felt other hands touching her shoulders again, and their warmth flowed throughout her body once again. And the voice spoke again, “See, Momma, nothing to fear. You don’t have to worry anymore, not even when change comes.”

 

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