“It’s driving me, all right. But let me think.” He lay his head back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. A few minutes later he said “Rose, you up?”
“Sure, I’ve been waiting.”
“Okay, the glass comes down. But we still open the store an hour later once we get all set up, okay?”
“I thought closing an hour earlier too.”
“No, one thing at a time. We want to see how things work out.”
The partitions were taken down that week, the entire store was painted and brighter lights were put in. They hired a security guard to be in the store all day. They were a little frightened when they opened the store again, but both began feeling much easier when they learned from several new customers that some of the more dilapidated buildings in the neighborhood had been bought by young people in the last few months and that nobody had heard of a store being robbed by someone with a knife or gun in almost half a year.
The students and professors became their customers again and Larry and Rose acted as they always had with them: learning their names, asking where they came from, talking about their own son and how well he had done at that same university, escorting them around the store and pointing out two or three wines that were particularly good for the price and which that person might be interested in by the bottle or the case. Then a month later two men came in, showed their pistols, one on the guard and the other back and forth on Larry and Rose, and demanded all the money in the cash register and safe.
Larry, taking the money out of the safe, said “I thought you guys were gone for good.” The man said “shut up — not another word — or get a bullet through your nose.”
The men got all the money from the store and from Larry’s and the guard’s wallets and Rose’s pocketbook, and left. Larry phoned the police, locked the door and put the “Closed” sign up and said “I think for maybe the first time in my life, or maybe since that first or second robbery here, I’m going to break the law in our store and open a bottle of scotch and have a shot. Rose?” She shook her head. He opened a bottle, the best scotch they had. The guard was still shaking. Larry said “Excuse me, I was just thinking of myself, but I think you need one too.”
“No, I never drink,” the guard said. “Just like I told you when I got the job. A glass of milk will do me if you want someone to drink with, and I think my stomach can use it.”
Larry drank several shots, the guard drank from a milk carton, Rose said she was still so nervous that maybe she’d have a little scotch from Larry’s glass. The police came, reports were filled out, the police said they’d do their best in trying to find the robbers but for Larry and Rose not to get their hopes up, and left. The guard helped Larry put the gates up on the front of the store, then said “So what time you want me in tomorrow — same as usual?”
“No, better you not come in at all,” Larry said. “Nothing personal, but I’ve some thinking to do. No partition glass, too many robberies, our lives in danger and same with yours — what’s a store owner to do? If I need you and you’re not working in some other store by the time I call, I’ll try to get you back.”
During the car ride home Rose said to Larry “So what are we going to do?”
“I was about to ask you.”
“Risk our lives again with no glass of course. What do you say?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“I was only kidding. One of us has to have a sense of humor about this. But no partitions again, Larry. I couldn’t live with them a week.”
“Same here. But what else — an armed guard? One with a gun who’ll try to stop them?”
“First, can we afford one? No. They make almost twice as much as the club guards, plus carry more insurance, and you can’t get one to stay for more than seven working hours a day and only five days a week. And a robber comes in and one not afraid of a guard with a gun, and there are some, then we got fireworks and maybe with us and a customer in between.”
“Then we have to sell the store. You know we’ll practically have to give it away.”
“The stock’s worth a lot.”
“It’s worth more than a lot. But what kind of package store will we have without stock?”
“We’ll open something else.”
“I don’t want to open anything else. At this point in my life I only want to open what I know.”
“Well, open a package store almost anywhere else in the city, and if we don’t have those partitions again they’ll come in and get us once a month. I say we give up the whole thing, invest the money from the sale of the store and stock, and both of us go work for someone else.”
“What about just my working for someone else and you can stay home and sleep late and do what you want and everything you ever deserved. Cooking more. Meetings. Being with your sister and developing some close friends. Going to school and getting as smart as you could have got if you didn’t thirty years ago feel you had to go waste your life by working in the store with me.”
“I worked in it because you wanted to work with someone honest and you wanted my company.”
“That’s true,” he said. “And it wasn’t a waste. But what do you say? You always wanted more time for yourself and to visit Donald where he is and to go to school. We’ll live maybe not as well as we have, but I’ll get a job only in the safest of stores, so we’ll at least live knowing we’ll be alive the next day. I don’t think there’s anything else we can do, unless you insist on getting a job too.”
“Actually, the way you present it makes it sound very nice. Maybe I’ll even be taught by some of the professors who come into the store.”
“I don’t think so. They only teach students for credit.”
“Some of them said they also teach in the adult division for extra cash.”
“If that’s the case, then you will. And they’ll know you and give you good marks.”
“They don’t give marks in adult education.”
“Why not? For all the tuition and work you put in, you ‘ll be cheated if you don’t get them. But that’s what we’ll settle on, okay? Unless you can come up with something better.”
“A dinner tonight in a restaurant would be nice,” she said.
“I’m still so shaken inside from the robbery, I think it’d be wasted on me. I just want to have a small quiet dinner, a little television and then go to bed.”
“After dinner all I want is to read and read, because tomorrow I can sleep as late as I want.”
“We have a lot to do though.”
“We can give ourselves a day.”
“We’re still paying rent on the store, and the utilities. And soon as we sell everything, I have to get a good job.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. They pulled into their street.
“You know what else I think I’ll start doing with all my free time if I also don’t get a job? Inviting some of those students and professors from the store for dinner at our house. Some of them are very lonely. I’m sure they’ll like it.”
“If you do, those nights I’d be sure to get home for dinner on time.”
He parked the car, squeezed her hand, they went into the house.
II
Will’s Book
There’s a young woman in my building’s vestibule. She’s smiling at me as I walk down the outside steps and open the door. I’ve my keys out and am holding a box of books. Do I know her? Someone I’ve only been corresponding with and never seen and who was suddenly in town or around the neighborhood and decided to drop in? There are those. Happened before at least twice. She says “Hi, I’m Denise,” and unfolds what looks like a power of attorney of several pages and with a back and front cover and bound at top.