Page 37 of Open Season

ELEVEN

It occurred to Daisy she needed to do one last thing to change her image, so during her lunch hour on Monday she went to Clud’s Pharmacy and bought some condoms.

Clud’s was the best choice of the three pharmacies in town, because Cyrus Clud had lived in Hillsboro forever and knew everyone, and his wife, Barbara, worked as the cashier so he wouldn’t have to pay anyone else a salary. Barbara Clud was at least as big a gossip as Beulah Wilson, and she didn’t know what the word discretion meant; that was how it had become common knowledge that a certain city councilman took Viagra. The fact that Daisy Minor had bought condoms would spread far and wide to their circle of acquaintances.

Cruising nightclubs was fine, and nightclubs were probably the richest hunting ground, but Daisy didn’t want to ignore the available men in Hillsboro, either; in fact, a local would be a much better choice for her, since she wanted to live near her family. The problem was, she didn’t know that many single local men; the few in her church were all younger than she was, and she didn’t find them particularly interesting anyway. Hank Farris was single, but the Farrises were trashy and there was a reason why Hank had never been married: he stank. Badly. So Daisy didn’t count him as eligible, in any way.

But people talked, especially in a small town like Hillsboro with its spiderweb of acquaintances and kin. Just let someone say, “You know Evelyn Minor’s daughter, Daisy? The librarian? I hear she went into Clud’s and bought a whole case of condoms. My lands, what’s that girl up to?” Before she knew it, interested men would be crawling out of the woodwork. She’d have to weed out the undesirables, of course, but she figured a big portion of them would disappear when they found out she had no intention of actually using any of the condoms. They were merely a conversation piece, as it were.

On the other hand, she had never suspected buying condoms would be complicated. She stood in aisle five and stared at the stacks and rows of boxes. Who on earth knew there were so many choices? And what did the sexually hip young woman buy these days?

For instance, was something called a Rough Rider desirable or not? Daisy thought probably not, because that sounded like something a motorcycle gang would buy, assuming Hell’s Angels wore condoms. And what about ribs? Did it matter if a condom was ribbed or unribbed? Lubricated or not? On second thought, she opted for lubricated.

And on third thought, Cyrus Clud had an enormous selection of condoms, far more than she would have expected for a small, independent pharmacy. Surely condom sales couldn’t be that brisk, since one could find them in so many other places.

She picked up a pack labeled “Tickle Her Fancy,” read the back, and hurriedly returned it to the shelf. Maybe Cyrus had a niche clientele. Maybe she needed to warn Chief Russo to keep a close eye on aisle five at Clud’s Pharmacy, because judging by the variety offered here, there were some hinky things going on in Hillsboro.

At last, desperate, she picked up a box called the PartyPak—that should cover all bases—and marched up to the register, where she plunked the PartyPak down on the counter in front of Barbara Clud.

“I hope everything’s all right with Evelyn and Joella,” Barbara said sweetly as she picked up the box, which was her way of priming the pump to find out if anything was wrong with anyone; then she noticed what she was holding and gasped. “Daisy Minor!”

Someone came up behind her. Daisy didn’t look around to see who it was. “Cash,” she said, as if Barbara had asked, and fished some bills out of her wallet to hurry along the process before half of Hillsboro lined up at the register. She had thought she would be able to accomplish this with an air of sangfroid, but she could feel her face heating. One would think Barbara had never sold condoms before, from her expression of shock.

Barbara began to turn red, too. “Does your mother know about this?” she whispered, leaning forward in an effort to keep their conversation private. Thank goodness for that much, at least, Daisy thought.

“Not yet, but she will,” Daisy mumbled, thinking the phone lines would be burning as soon as she walked out of the store. She extended the money, trying again to just get this process completed.

“I’m in a hurry,” said a deep, grumbly voice behind and above her, and Daisy froze. “Just ring the damn things up.”

She couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to. She knew that voice; she’d heard it much too often lately. If she could have, she’d have vanished on the spot.

Barbara’s face took on a purple hue as she scanned the bar code, the register chirped, and a total appeared in the little window. She took Daisy’s money, silently handed back the change, and shoved the PartyPak into a white paper sack emblazoned in red with the words Clud’s Pharmacy. Daisy dropped the change into her purse, took the paper sack, and for the first time in her life left a store without saying thank you to the person who had waited on her.

To her absolute horror, Chief Russo didn’t buy anything, just fell into step beside her. “What are you doing?” she hissed as they stepped onto the sidewalk. “Go back and buy something!” Maybe the redness of her face could be attributed to the heat rising in waves off the sidewalk. Maybe he wouldn’t notice she was mortified.

“I don’t need anything,” he said.

“Then why did you go inside in the first place?”

“I saw you go in and I wanted to talk to you. Condoms, huh?” he said, eyeing the paper sack with interest. “That looks like a big box. How many are in it?”

“Go away!” Daisy moaned, marching down the sidewalk with the PartyPak clutched to her chest. When she had hit on the plan of buying condoms to get men to notice her, she hadn’t meant him and she certainly hadn’t meant now. She had a half-hysterical vision of a line of men following her down the street, trying to peek into her sack. “She thought I was buying them for you!” By now at least one person, perhaps two, had heard the news of Chief Russo and Daisy Minor buying a huge box of condoms. The chief had even said he was in a hurry! She swallowed another moan.

“I can buy my own condoms, thank you,” he said.

“You know what I mean! She thought they were for us—that we . . .” She trailed off, unable to give voice to the idea.

“We’d have to be rabbits to use that many on our lunch hour,” he observed. “I don’t think it’s possible. How many are in there, six dozen or so? That’s seventy-two, so even if we had the entire hour, that means, roughly, using one about every fifty seconds.” He paused and looked thoughtful. “That isn’t the kind of record I want to set. One every hour, or every two hours, that would be different.”

She actually felt faint with shock, though she supposed it could be from practically running in the noonday heat. With his longer legs, he was pretty much at his normal stride; he wasn’t even panting.

Not that she was panting; she didn’t want to even think about panting while he was talking about using a condom every hour. She was breathing fast, that was all.

“You’re overheating,” he said. “Let’s stop in the Coffee Cup for something cold to drink, before you pass out on the sidewalk and I have to carry you.”

Daisy whirled on him and said with muffled outrage, “She’s probably already called my mother, and goodness knows who else, telling everyone that we bought a PartyPak of condoms on our lunch hour!”

“Then the best thing for you to do would be to go to the Coffee Cup with me so we’d have witnesses that we didn’t go to my house and do our best to use them all. PartyPak, huh?” He grinned. “I bet there’s an interesting variety. Let me see.”

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