He’d be unbearable.
She was not poor, but she was out of work and, essentially, homeless.
What have I done?
Thinking of him motivated her. Whatever she did next wasn’t the point, not so much. The main thing was not to fail. Maybe that was her old lawyer training and natural competitiveness muscling aside fresh desires, but she couldn’t kick the habit. She’d cut herself loose. Given up everything. She fled. Yet she was no saint and I’m no latter-day hippie-dippie. Gawd. She needed to succeed at something, only it had to be something else.
An anteroom allowed her to slip away from the shopkeeper’s scrutiny, but few treasures there sustained her interest. Until a notion, undefined, ephemeral, provoked her. The possibility of a maybe. Hey. This is a thought.
More than a common consideration perhaps, an intuitive flash.
On closer inspection, the little room presented itself as a quaint disaster. A confusion of tastes, a litter of bad ideas, a place where items impossible to sell were ostensibly displayed when really they were being shunted aside in the faint hope that somebody might steal them or accidentally break them, or that their creators would return to remove them to a loving home under a rock somewhere. Way deep. Plaster owls and plastic bouquets and commemorative plaques and plates honouring old inaugurations or civic anniversaries or jamborees. A hodgepodge of kitsch. Unwanted, untended, each surface dulled by dust. Too late to vacuum and now the shopkeeper was edging her way. You’re not so borderline creepy anymore. Just more creepy. Do you, like, practise? Is it an art form with you? As he entered the room and moved closer she marked down his appreciative gaze to being an ill-concealed leer. There, that’s it, that’s the look I despise. The man’s left hand plucked a figurine from a shelf as if the scantily clad buxom Indian princess and her brightly beaded elephant really did deserve and command the whole of his attention.
She turned to him and, before she could rethink or censure herself, put forward, “About your sign in the window.”
That changed his expression entirely.
He needed to collect himself, to reconfigure his approach. He put down the Indian princess. “You have experience in retail?”
“For this job?” She should not have said that, her tone an insult, but the words slipped out lickety-split. Tara recovered with a smile and cheerily declared, “Plenty.” Then quickly rambled on. “I’m not asking for a job. Here’s the thing. I’d like to present you with a business proposition.”
She was thinking on her feet lightning speed.
At least he seemed as startled on the outside as she was internally.
She quavered, grateful for the opportunity to say next, “Ah, there’s a lady at the cash, sir. You may want to attend to her first.”
He nodded, bowed slightly, and backed out of the room. Dude, you back out of a room bowing, who does that? He beamed broadly upon his paying client, yet his glance repeatedly returned to the small antechamber and the mysterious visitor there.
Tara contained her desire to bolt. If she fled now she’d be running away from running away. Instead, she wandered out to the main section of the store. Someone entered—a little old lady balancing a pie on each palm—and she turned at the sound of the door’s jingling bell. The old lady grinned beamed! and shyly she returned a faint flicker of a smile. This seemed a friendly sort of town.
The scent of berry pies reminded her that she was starving.
The bell began to jingle repeatedly, a crescendo to any retailer’s ears as passengers off the train kept wandering in. If nothing else, they found a reprieve from the heat. Tara stepped up to the side of the cash while the proprietor rang up a sale and the elderly visitor waited patiently, balancing her two pies. The woman beamed brightly once more and said, “Another hot one. Whoo! ”
Tara felt a need to match her friendliness. “You aren’t going to—Well, you look like you’re going to—”
The old lady gazed first at one pie, then the other, then fell into a fit of the giggles. She gets me. Just like that, This old lady gets me.
“Oh no, dear,” she laughed. “I’m not going to throw these in anyone’s face. Although you could. They’re for sale. You can buy one in a moment.”
“A little difficult to carry in a backpack.”
“You’re off the train?”
“I am.”
“On your own?” Rather than curiosity, the question expressed dismay.
“Another reason I can’t buy a whole pie just yet.”
“People are after me to bake smaller ones. I’m considering it.”
The first customer in line moved off with her bag of trinkets, allowing the elderly woman to put her pies down on the counter. Each was protected by a cellophane wrap punched with small steam holes. The proprietor was marking up the sheet that maintained a record of their transactions while she removed the wrap.
“They smell great,” Tara marvelled. “You must sell a lot of pies.”
“I started as a cottage industry. Now I’m a major conglomerate.”
Tara laughed. “Because of you I need lunch. Suddenly I’m famished.”
The proprietor’s look mingled surprise and intrinsic regret.
“You’re swamped, sir. I’ll be back,” she said, which appeared to mollify him. “We’ll try again after lunch.”
Without waiting for a response, Tara used only a facial expression to say good-bye to the old lady as she departed the counter and the store. The wee bell tinkled overhead. On the street she was surprised, and waited a moment to verify the image. The pie lady emerged to find Tara admiring her scooter, which carried two more blueberry creations cradled in a basket.
“This is yours?” Tara asked her.
“Are you worried I’ll run over your toes? You should be. I might!”
“On purpose?”
“No, silly. But accidents happen. Especially when I’m driving.”
The woman started up the scooter and pulled on her helmet. Slow-moving traffic obliged her to delay a moment. Tara felt transfixed by this geriatric on a colourful, gleaming motorized bike sporting a bright blue blaze of a helmet. She was finding this town charming in unexpected ways.
“I’m Mrs. McCracken,” the old lady told her in response to her scrutiny, her voice muffled by the helmet and its visor.
“I’m Tara.”
“Of course you are, dear,” Mrs. McCracken declared, almost as though she did not believe her, then swung her scooter out into traffic.
■ ■ ■
As she arrived home, Mrs. McCracken felt perspiration leak down the back of her neck. A change of dress might be in order, although she reconsidered as she entered the relative coolness of her home. Fans fluttered the curtains and the house itself stood in the lee of a tall sugar maple and a great eastern pine. The cooling effect may have been more psychological than what could be demonstrated on a thermometer, but certainly the shelter of the house was welcome after the blazing sun.
“I could bake a pie on the sidewalk,” she told Buckminster, her tabby, who, languid on a patch of cool bare floor, could not care less.
She needed to tidy up the kitchen after her baking and deliveries and was concluding the chores when the doorbell sounded. Her old one broke and a new remote bell that allowed her a choice of chimes was installed by her neighbour’s gaunt son. A mystery, that boy. Just when you were guessing that he was good for nothing he turned out to be good for any chore that contractors charged a fortune to accomplish. He accepted payment but without concern for the amount and only seemed happy when he was tinkering. He came over sometimes to see if she’d baked more pies than she was able to distribute, but unfortunately, he wasn’t the one at the door today.
She spoke through the screen to a red-haired lad, a stranger.
“Hello?”
“Good afternoon, ma’am!” he fairly bellowed. “My name i
s Jake Withers and I represent the Rathbone Company?”
She didn’t know what was wrong with a whole generation that couldn’t make a simple statement without it sounding like a question.
“Is that a good thing?” she asked.
“Pardon me?” Jake Withers was having difficulty making out the woman’s form on the other side of the screen, although she seemed slight, old, and, from the sound of her voice, easy pickings.
“I’ve never heard of the Rathbone Company.”
“We’re very well established. I can show you references.”
“I’ve never met a Rathbone. Are they from around here?”
“Well, we’re a company, you know. A company. We’re from everywhere, like. We’re old.”
“Old is good.”
“If you were to come outside, I’ll show you how I can accelerate your property value.”
Mrs. McCracken opened the screen to have a peek at him. He seemed like a nice enough young man. He was backing away from her, which she appreciated. He was not acting as though he planned to storm the premises and tie her up to a kitchen chair. These sorts of things never happened here, of course, but one never knew when somewhere else suddenly became your very own doorstep. She stepped outside into the glaring light.
“Property values don’t interest me one whit,” she explained to him. “I’ll die before I sell. So improving property values can do nothing more for me than raise my taxes. But feel free, talk away.”
Jake Withers, she saw, was staring at the patch of yard where her scooter stood parked. Old ruts from another era remained perceptible along the rising lawn to the garage behind the house where her husband used to park his car. Lawn tools were stowed back there now, and her scooter over the winter. “Just imagine,” the young man brayed, “a gleaming black driveway. Ma’am, for the addition to your property value you should really pay me double, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I won’t charge you double. In fact, because you’re a senior and I respect seniors, I’ll give you a discount right off the bat. Ten percent, no questions asked. I’ll also cut the deposit in half. Ma’am, it’s too hot a day to bicker or barter, so I’ll just give you the best deal possible and lay it on the table. Or on the lawn, ha-ha. First, I want you to imagine that gleaming black driveway up from the road to your garage. A beautiful thing, no? A beautiful thing, indeed. Imagine it!”
“Would you excuse me a moment?” she asked him quietly, and went back inside.
Jake Withers had heard that phrase earlier in the day, or one like it, and this time his antennae were alert.
“You don’t own a shotgun, do you?” He chuckled nervously.
“Certainly not,” she assured him, and carried on inside. She emerged shortly carrying a croquet mallet.
“What’s that?” Jake Withers asked her.
“What does it look like?”
“I’m not sure. It’s colourful enough.”
“A croquet mallet.”
“What’s it for?” To err on the side of caution, he took a farther step down.
“Given that you want to destroy my croquet lawn with your ridiculous driveway, I thought that it might be perfectly fitting for me to bop you one over the head. It won’t hurt that much. I am old, not so strong, so there shouldn’t be too much blood. Don’t you think that’s fitting?”
“Oh, come on!” Jake Withers did a complete spin. “What is wrong with you people in this town! I’m here to pave your driveways and increase your property values and you treat me like I’m the criminal! You’re the criminals! With your shotguns and your weapons! I’m just trying to earn my living here!”
“Not at the expense of my lawn, you won’t.”
She didn’t have to run him off, he was already leaving on his own accord. He threw his driveway samples into his backseat and flung his hands in the air as he berated the wind. Whatever he was muttering to himself, the flurry came upon Mrs. McCracken as unintelligible.
She watched him drive off, then returned with her mallet to the cool sanctuary of her home where Buckminster yawned in apparent approval. “I’d be better off with a dog,” she told him. “A yappy mutt.” The cat had heard the threat before, and so stretched out, nonplussed, to help cool his furry self.
■ ■ ■
Up from the riverbank, in from the pubs and cafés, out from the curiosity shops, and down from the trails through the woodlands, excursion train passengers flowed back towards the town’s centre and the train station. Tara Cogshill found herself carried along by that current, but as she passed the store she visited earlier she stepped inside. The man with the combed-over haircut and slender nose was hoping for her return. She confessed that his eyes were not so beady, that they were probably his finest feature, soft with a greyness, but believed that they ought to be beady given his subtly creepy demeanour. Icky.
“You mentioned a business proposition.” He wrung his hands together as he spoke. “I confess that I am quite stumped as to what that might entail. How it relates to the sign in the window—I confess to being baffled.”
Tara smiled. He wasn’t that bad a guy, not really. She’d met worse. “You asked if I have retail experience. Isn’t every business, ultimately, about selling? Commerce revolves around buyers and sellers. Intrigue is one lure. If you are willing to concede that I garnered your interest, then you kinda have to concede that I’ve proven something here.”
“Ah, excuse me? Proven what?”
“That I have enough experience to sell. In this case, I’m selling, in a manner of speaking, don’t take this the wrong way now, myself.”
Good speech. Major pat on the—
“So,” the shopkeeper supposed. Tara demonstrated that she was giving him her fullest attention, even as he grew hesitant, still baffled. “So you do want the job.”
“Hardly,” Tara let slip.
He nodded, as though to confirm his own assessment. “I didn’t think a job in retail was part of your—how shall I put this?—persona.”
Sounding creepier, dude.
Taking a breath, she pressed on. “A business proposition, sir, that’s what interests me. My name is Tara Cogshill.” She stuck out her hand. “You are?”
“Willis Howard. I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Cogshill.”
“Tara,” she corrected him. She wondered if she should not correct him twice, for did he not give his names in reverse order? “I’m pleased to meet you . . . Mr. Howard?” He didn’t contradict her, so his first name must really be Willis. “Despite the fact that your anteroom over here is a disaster.”
“Ah.” Willis Howard stepped back, peered over his shoulder. “I do have my secret plans. It’s a question of time and, of course, resources.”
“Precisely. That’s where I come in. At the moment I have time. In a modest way, resources, too.”
“Ah. You want to redesign my store?”
“Not a chance. Not your store.”
“The anteroom?”
“Own it, actually.”
“Excuse me?”
“The products inside, at least. I’m proposing a store within your store. Which saves me the headache of setting up a business in a town where I’ve only just arrived. I don’t even know my way around yet. This spares us becoming direct competitors, as well. My start-up costs will be minimal. Maybe I can get off the ground without high risk.”
“And,” he said, speaking slowly, smiling as though he found the idiocy of her proposition as amusing as it was irritating, “I’m selling you part of my store because—” He let his voice trail off, waiting for her to finish the sentence. Rather than do that, Tara strolled over to the room in question and gave it another look.
She faced him.
“Dull, useless, wasted space that produces negligible revenue. You can’t put items of value in here because you can’t keep your eye on them. You can’t put big-ticket i
tems in here, such as those grandfather clocks, because if you spent time in this room with a customer your clientele on the other side might rob you blind. You cannot afford—it’s illogical—to hire someone merely to keep an eye on this tiny room. So you’ve made it a junk room that just doesn’t pay. No, the only solution that makes sense is to allow me to take over the space, run my own business, one that’s complementary to yours, and pay a percentage of sales in lieu of rent. A win-win-win proposition.”
Her proposal flew out with such alacrity, the bows tied and the buttons done up, that Willis Howard was unable to mount a quick defence. He realized that that was exactly what he was attempting to do—defend himself, and his shop, against her onslaught.
“I’m—sorry. I don’t think so, Miss, ah—Tara.”
The moment he spoke her name she knew she’d won.
“So I should get on the train, then?”
“Excuse me?” Once more caught off-balance.
She showed him her return ticket. “The train? I get on it?”
In his hesitation Willis Howard was truly lost.
“Departure time is in nine minutes,” she reminded him.
Tara started to back away, holding up her ticket. Facing him. Stepping towards the exit, bopping in a slightly exaggerated fashion, as if she, the fish with a hook in her mouth, was pulling the fisherman into the drink.
“There’s a number of complications. Issues. Agreements. I can’t have you in direct competition with me.”
The River Burns Page 6
