Resigned, I pull out my standard answer and drop it on the table. “Edith, you know I love you, but I really don’t want to talk about my personal life.” I pick up my tablet again. “I just want to finish my morning paper before I head to the store. Not to be rude, but if you’ll please excuse me.” I tip my head toward her table, where her friend Carlene is chatting over the back of her booth seat with yet another friend. “Besides, looks like your food’s ready.”
She finally hauls herself out of the other side of the booth. She leans in and kisses the top of my head before she picks up her cup of coffee, which she’d carried over from her own table where the waitress is now setting down Edith and Carlene’s food.
“You know where I live, sweetie. First Tuesday evening of every month, seven sharp. I’ll even feed you my famous homemade blueberry pie.”
“I know. Thank you.” Once I’m alone again, I breathe a sigh of relief and resume reading. I love Edith and my other friends. I really do.
But I get more than my fair share of “peopling” at work. When I’m done for the day, all I want to do is vegetate on my sofa.
Okay, yes, usually reading, but reading doesn’t mean I want to be in a book club.
I expend enough energy trying to put on a smiling face every day, meaning I don’t have any to spare after hours.
No matter how well-intentioned my friends might be.
* * * *
It’s 6:35 a.m. when I unlock the hardware store’s back door, let myself in, and shut off the alarm. We don’t open until 7:30 today but I always like to be early.
I enjoy the quiet.
The store’s been in my family for over fifty years. My dad’s father started it and kept it running until Dad took over. Grandpa has been dead over twenty years, but I remember when he still worked in the store, even after my father was technically running it.
Grandpa never could let it go, and it was forever a source of irritation to Dad, who felt it was passive-aggressive commentary on how he ran it.
It wasn’t, though. Grandpa just wanted to feel…useful. Needed.
Like he wasn’t being put out to pasture.
I think I always knew I’d end up running it, mostly because I wanted to. Both my parents and Grandpa insisted I go to college first, though. My business degree and marketing minor have helped me keep our local store relevant when many others like it have long since folded. From my grandfather and father I learned the fine arts of customer service, communication, and building community loyalty.
It’s why I know a little about everything from horse feed to electrical wiring, from holiday light displays to raising chickens, from smokers to canning systems, and the difference between mustard greens and collard greens.
It’s why people will pay a little extra to purchase from my store rather than order something from Amazon, or drive all the way over to the large home improvement store in Colley. In fact, I frequently have customers drive all the way here from Colley, because I will special order items, or stock things that the big-box store can’t be bothered to order.
I don’t take that community support for granted, either. I guarantee you when a water pipe explodes in your basement in the middle of the night and you can’t afford an emergency plumber call, the Mega Warehouse manager won’t get out of bed to sell you what you need to fix it so your kids can flush the toilet in the morning when they get up for school.
He also won’t hurry over to your house to look at the situation first to see exactly what you need and make sure you know how to safely remedy the issue.
Or roll up his sleeves to show you how to properly braze a new pipe into place.
It’s impossible for me to compete on price and volume, so I make up for that in other ways. So far, it’s provided me with a comfortable life. Adjusted for inflation, the store’s even more profitable now than when my father and grandfather ran it. Years ago, my father learned not to kvetch at me when I came up with new ideas, like kids’ classes, and partnering with the library to create exhibits. I don’t mean I’m rich—far from it.
But I don’t have a mortgage on the house or the store, we pay our bills on time, I can afford to pay my employees a decent wage that keeps them loyal to me, and I can even give them health insurance, full-timers as well as the part-timers.
Overall, life is good.
Even if it feels like I encounter painful memories every time I turn around. If there is one area of my life that’s not blessed, it’s my love life. Apparently, all the blessings I have gained are balanced out by that dark emotional cave I do my best to avoid. Three years out, you’d think I’d have moved on.
Not so much, it turns out.
I flip on lights as I make my way through the building and, eventually, upstairs to my office on the second floor. I take the stairs instead of the elevator to the upstairs, because I need the exercise, quite frankly.
Today, we’re holding a class on orchids for the ladies’ group from the Methodist church, but that’s not until after lunch. We do more than just teach our classes here—we loan and rent the space out to other local groups and events, too. Sometimes, we have more than one thing going on, because we have a smaller, unused office that we use for things like meetings and potlucks in addition to the larger space. It used to be my dad’s office, but Mom finally made him clean it out and I haven’t had the heart to use it for anything else.
We have guest presenters come in to lecture and teach on a variety of topics. We bring in small artisan shows. We host the local schools’ science fair competitions every year, plus we work closely with the science departments of those schools to help them with their curriculums.
Wearethe community.
