Page 8 of Just (Fake) Married
I flipped the sign in my store window for Chuck’s BBQ to Open.
“Whatcha making?”
“Brisket. Beef ribs.”
I spun the little wheel underneath the sign to the image of a cow.
This was it. His whole marketing campaign. Open or Closed and type of animal. Most likely, he would sell out by three pm.
Chuck grumbled his way out the door, sending the bell over the door ringing, letting in a blast of frigid air and Mrs. McCormick, the best teacher in the Gulch, if I had anything to say about it.
“Oh! It’s a cold one out there!” she cried, unwrapping her scarf so I could see her face. Her glasses steamed up in the heat of the store. “Harmony!”
Like it would be anyone else here at the store. But that was Mrs. McCormick, always happy to see people, as if she’d been missing them for years, even though it had only been days.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes, dear. Feels like the Christmas to New Year’s break is years, instead of just one week.”
“So are you, Mrs. McCormick. And I’m happy to be back.”
“Dear, when are you going to finally start calling me Dottie? You haven’t been in my class for decades.”
“Wait? Are you calling me old?” I asked.
I couldn’t call her Dottie. It just wouldn’t come out of my mouth.
“Only one of us is old,” she said, and came over to press her cool face to mine. “But it isn’t you. You look adorable. That color is so good on you.”
I wore an old, navy blue sweater, a bright yellow knit cap, and fuzzy purple fingerless gloves, because, despite the potbelly stove going full blast in the corner, it was cold in the nooks and crannies of our old store.
“You need help with anything?” I asked her.
“No. I’m just going to poke around. I’ll holler if I need you.”
She wiped the steam off her glasses and headed back into the packed shelves of our family store, the old wooden floors squeaking as she went.
I looked down at my blank piece of paper and waited for Mrs. McCormick to decide she needed me after all.
“Harmony!” Mrs. McCormick’s voice came from the far back corner of the store, in the hardware section. “Could you help me?”
“Of course!” I yelled, and got off my stool to go find her. From her bed behind the cash register, Jenny, my blind Border Collie, lifted her head, sensing my movement, and barked in a panic.
Jenny was not taking losing her eyesight well.
Luckily, I’d found the solution to that problem, and beside her in her bed was Bruce. A white goose who’d been injured and stranded on our property last spring. Her wing never healed right and she claimed Jenny and me as her own.
Bruce honked once and rested her elegant, long head on Jenny’s furry one. Jenny settled back down to sleep. Bruce did the same, laying herself down beside her in the dog bed.
Odd though they were, they were my constant companions, and should my New Year’s resolution be to form a country band, I would call it Jenny and The Bruce.
“Hey, Mrs. McCormick,” I said, when I found her amongst the aisles.
The low ceiling was still decorated with white Christmas lights. I didn’t take down the lights until the last thaw. January and February were hard enough. Twinkle lights made everything better.
“Do you have anything that will kill a ground squirrel?” She lifted her glasses so she could read the back of a box of rat poison.
“What? Like…a trap?”
“Yes!” She turned wide, blue eyes on me and jerked her head so her glasses fell back down on her nose. “You have any of those?”
