Page 57 of With a Grain of Salt

“Fuck,” I grumble when I realize I’m only holding the damn receipt.

Now I have to walk back to the damn counter and probably endure more attempts at gossip.

I muster up my best smile I can manage before turning back to Sadie.

“I left my change.”

She smiles right back at me. “I added that to your deposit.”

“Doesn’t do me much good in the bank. I need quarters.”

“We won’t have quarters until the armored truck gets here on Wednesday.”

“I was told the same thing last week.”

“Mr. Hinkle came in less than an hour after the truck left and got all the quarters.”

“Again?” I ask, trying my best not to sound like a petulant child. “What are business owners supposed to do?”

“You can ask Mr. Hinkle if he’s had time to sort through the quarters,” she suggests.

“I’m not… listen, can you just hold some back for me?”

She shakes her head and the glint in her eyes tells me she’s not doing me any favors because I refused to gossip about someone else in town.

“It’s first come first served here at First State Bank of Lindell.”

I grind my teeth in annoyance as I glare at her, the fake smile I managed moments ago nowhere in sight.

“We don’t have favorites, Mr. Conroy. I can get you more dimes and nickels.”

“I have plenty of dimes and nickels.”

“Maybe change the prices of your drinks so quarters aren’t needed?” she suggests.

I swear the woman is purposely trying to goad me into being mean.

“Thank you,” I say rather than the other options my head conjured up.

I refuse to let my irritation settle inside of me. I won’t let it control the other things I have planned for this morning, but as I climb into my truck and drive across town, I know I’m only going to grow more annoyed with where I’m headed next.

I smile at Mrs. Hyde when I open the door to the office and see her sitting at her little desk.

A mid-morning game show blares from the television, and she doesn’t even bother to turn the sound down, opting to just speak louder over the noise instead.

“Good morning, Walker. Did you have an appointment today?”

I look down at the book she uses to schedule Barrett’s appointments and see that the entire week is blank. Maybe his drinking this weekend has more to do with a failing business than anything else, but how the man handles his work life is none of my concern. How he treated Claire Saturday evening is, whether she asked me to help or not.

“He told me to stop by this morning when we chatted at the wedding,” I lie, because I don’t want her to feel like she missed something. “In fact, he told me to just come on back when I got here.”

She smiles and waves her hand in the direction of Barrett’s office, but I’m already heading in that direction.

Maybe before his behavior at the wedding, I might’ve been surprised to find the man sitting at his desk, leaned back in his office chair, with his head tipped back, asleep.

I fight the urge to dip my hand into the jellybeans on his desk and see how many I can throw into his mouth before he wakes up.

I take a seat in the chair across from his desk and kick the front of it.

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