“Miss Mary?” Mr. White’s voice slices the air like a paper cut. “Is there a problem here?” It’s weird how he can smile at me but keep that teacher tone with Miss Mary.
“Miss Caroline, how would you like to choose a piece of penny candy?” He was holding out the big glass jar with fingerprints all over from where all us kids point at the exact piece we want. It had been refilled and was brimming full of Mary Janes, Tootsie Rolls, little-bitty Necco wafer rolls and Hershey’s. It was so packed that Mr. White’s thumb knocked a piece onto the floor when he gripped it from the top. The Mary Jane was lying on the floor between us like it was saying “Pick me, pick me!”
“I’m sorry, sir.” I stare at it while I say this, hoping it would magically unwrap itself and hop into my watering mouth. “I don’t have any money with me right now.”
“Oh, don’t be silly—” he smiles even nicer “—this is a gift. Take your pick.” He says this last part in Miss Mary’s direction, even though I think he was talking to me. Before he has time to change his mind, my arm, like it had a mind of its own, shoots down to the floor, past the old glass jar, and scoops up that Mary Jane.
Miss Mary was busying herself with the zipper on her gray cover-up that has White’s Drugstore sewn over her heart and looks just like Mr. White’s, but is gray instead of, well, white.
“Am I to understand you got separated from your escort?” he asks me. This always happens: people ask questions right when I’ve got my mouth full and I can’t answer. Mr. White’s so polite, though, and he keeps talking till he sees my jaw stop moving up and down on the peanut toffee. “This must be my lucky day, if this is true. I was just thinking how nice it would be to have a helper in the back room, someone to alphabetize bottles, you know, get things in order. Would you be so kind as to help me out for a bit, young lady?”
He timed this question perfectly: I had just finished scooping the Mary Jane that was stuck in my back teeth out with my tongue. “Yes, sir, but I don’t know if I’m allowed.”
“What if I call your momma for you and we can ask her permission,” he says.
“Yes, sir,” I say. I don’t know where I’d have gone, anyway, since Richard had up and left me there. Mr. White went over to the phone near Miss Mary’s cash register and dialed our number without even looking it up—that’s a small town for you, I guess.
“Libby? Dan White.” He pauses waiting for Momma to greet him. Then he clears his throat, “A-hem, well, don’t mean to bother you, but Miss Caroline and I were wondering if I might be able to retain her services for the day, here at the store. It seems her companion had some, ahem, pressing matters to tend to, so if you could spare her I’d be much obliged.”
Pause again. No telling what Momma is saying from the look on Mr. White’s face. He must be tired, his eyes are halfway closed and he looks like he was studying for a test, memorizing her voice or something.
“I don’t quite know,” he says, shifting his eyes over to me for some reason. “We had a bit of a wait, so I’m sure he’ll stop back in when he sees we’re not so busy after all.” Then he winks at me and his voice rises back up to a normal level.
“Well, it’s settled then,” he says, clearing his throat again. “I’ll keep Miss Caroline here with me until five and then I’ll bring her on home—” Pause. “Oh, it’s no trouble ‘tall. I have to go out that way, anyway, to pay a call on the Godseys.” Pause. “See y’all then. Bye.”
It takes my eyes a few seconds to get used to the back room, which was night compared to the day outside. Mr. White was right: it was a mess back there. Momma would say it’s a viper’s nest. There’s barely enough room for me to walk to the other end of the room; the boxes are piled one on top of another in every spare space on the floor.
“Here’s what I was thinking,” Mr. White says from behind me, surveying the packed crowd of cardboard. “A lot of these boxes are pretty much empty. If you could go through and find the ones that only have one or two bottles in them, take those bottles out and put ‘em all here on this lower shelf, and then go back and break down the boxes, that’d make a lot more room.”
“Where do I put the empty boxes?”
“Come on out back and I’ll show you where we stack for the garbageman.” I turn and follow Mr. White back into the store and then out the door that leads to a tiny parking lot out back. A huge Dumpster sat in one of the spaces.
“Just stack the flat pieces here, next to the Dumpster.”
“Okay.”
“You sure you’re up to this?” he asks me.
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, then,” he says, patting me on the head. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You’re just like your momma. Once she sets her mind to something, she never lets it go.” He walks back into the store, smiling.
I liked the idea of straightening up the storeroom. Plus, this way when Richard comes back, he cain’t call me lazy.
One by one I empty out most of the boxes that sit about eye level to me. Mr. White was right; a couple of boxes only have one bitty bottle in them. They were just waiting for someone to remember them. I have no idea how much time has gone by, but I do know that I’ve flattened fifteen boxes flat and it’s time to start taking them out to the Dumpster.
When I cut through the store with my first armload, Miss Mary is tapping into the calculator, figuring out how much to put on Mr. Blackman’s tab. Back and forth I go and pretty soon I’ve taken out all the pieces I’d worked on.
“Oh, my dear Lord,” Mr. White says when he comes in to check on me later on. Uh-oh. I hope I haven’t messed up, but I look over at him and his open mouth is turning into a smile. A real smile, eyes and all. “Well, I’ll be darned. Miss Caroline Parker … you’re hired!”
I’m hired?
“Sir?”
“The job’s yours if you want it,” he says, running his eyes over the spaces I’d made on the floor. Now two people can stand side by side in there. “I guess I didn’t realize how much we needed you. You think your momma could spare you once or twice a week?”
“B-but, I’m only eight,” I say, my face getting all red for some reason. “Are eight-year-olds allowed to have jobs?”
Mr. White looks at me the way I think my own daddy used to look at me and I don’t feel embarrassed anymore. I feel relieved. “Honey, with what all you’ve been through,” he says real soft-like, “seems to me you could use a little break now and then. Place to get away. You know.”
And right then I guessed I did know what he was talking about. I nod. He pats me on the hand, shakes his head and turns to go back out to the store.
“Little Caroline Parker,” he says more to himself than to me. “Little Miss Caroline Parker.”
I wonder what Emma is going to think when I tell her. Maybe Mr. White would let her come with me to work. She’s scrappy but she’s strong, that’s for sure. No telling how many boxes we’d get through, working together. She sure could use a break now and then, too.
A
