Chapter 19

Meg and her sisters were visiting with their mother in the kitchen so the teacher and Meg's father retreated to the screened porch with cold bottles of Iron City beer.

"Thank you," the teacher said, feeling a bit uneasy. "Haven't had one of these for a while, last time I visited Gettysburg I think. This is a nice beer like Latrobe's good old Rolling Rock."

The older man smiled and raised his squat bottle. "Now they tell me you and Margaret are planning on getting hitched this spring. That true?"

The teacher laughed. "And you get all the bills. That's what she told me."

"I'm sure her older sister, that's Lucy, the principal, has her nose out of joint, but the other one doesn't seem to care. Always thought Teresa might become a nun, way she was as a kid, always so serious. She's still at Slippery Rock, graduate work, got several job offers, social work mostly. Smart girl."

"Where'd she do her practice teaching?"

"Harrisburg, inner city, bad neighborhood. Made me worry some."

"Having three girls can't be all fun and skittles." He drank and put the bottle down, wiping his mouth with his hand.

"You are right about that. Ready for a another one?"

He shook his head. "You still an active pharmacist? She told me you had three stores now."

"Oh yes, pay 'em a hundred bucks a year to keep my license up to date. And running three stores is sometimes a pain; hired a fine bookkeeper recently. Helps a lot. Got a good woman in the strip mall, gives shots and everything, hires and fires, but the other guy there's kind'a lazy, likes to get out and sit at the soda fountain and chat with folks."

"Don't think I ever saw a lazy pharmacist. Saw several that just about worked themselves to death."

The gray-haired man nodded. "I know the type, can't relax, nothing but worries, a shelf duster and bottle counter. Always worried somebody's stealing."

"You ever been robbed?"

Meg's father smiled and nodded. "Several times, goes with the territory, hard drugs mostly, night time break-ins, never held up."

"I always told the guys I worked for that when the crook asked for the money, I was going to give it to him. They understood."

"Good rule, yessir, good rule. Think I'll spread that word. Don't want no heroes, 'specially dead ones."

"How's your old store doing, the one right here in Mechanicsburg?"

'That's where I started, Lord, forty-some years ago, something like that. It's holding its own despite the Walmart out on the Pike, damn their eyes."

"We still don't have that problem. Land's too dear I guess."

"You're lucky. Downtown it's CVS and Walgreens I'm fighting, and winning now and then. Got a man, biggest man I ever saw, must weight 350 pounds, was going to be a pro football player till he ruined his knees, pulling guard's what he was. Lordy, I'd seen him coming around the end, I'd a'scampered.

"Man gave out more flu shots and lollypops than anybody in the state I'm sure. Great with kids."

He left to get some more beer, and Meg came out and sat down beside him on the old redwood settle. "How're you doing? Getting along all right?" she asked, smiling and patting his thigh. "We've got the wedding solved, all wrapped up. Even found you a best man."

"Really?"

"Yep, girls couldn't decide who'd be maid of honor so I going to use Bootsie McGill, my old classmate. Boy, wait'll you meet her, redhead, drink you under the table. And don't play poker with her, never."

Her father returned with three beers and resumed his chair, licked his lips and smiled. "Assume you two have been living together lately."

"Yessir," the teacher said, somewhat embarrassed. "Hate to admit it, but marriage was my idea. Moving in was hers, mostly."

Meg laughed and then choked on her beer, red-faced.

"You've been married before Meg told us."

"Yes sir, back a ways, for twelve years. Wife and child killed in a car accident and fire a few years ago. Hell of a shock." He sniffed and shuddered. "Sometimes it haunts me, gets in my dreams."

"Yep, never get over a thing like that. How old are you, don't mind me asking?"

"Be thirty-nine next month, born in 1941, kept my father out of the draft for a good while."

"Well," he said with a smile, "you are sure old enough to know better. Meg's pretty smart you know, bossy too."

"Yep, I'm used to women running things. My Ma did and so did my wife, gave me one check at a time."

"You better be," Meg's father said. "The girls, all three of them like to run things; ran my soda fountain from time to time. Tried to run the store too, moved things around, did displays, suggested changes. Pretty good at it, and of course, being good looking didn't hurt none."

"She didn't tell me." He smiled at the woman next to him.

"Makes a mean sundae and a great banana split. We use 3B ice cream, pretty good stuff, real creamy. Meg, why'n you take him down and show him the store and make him a nice hot fudge sundae."

"Ok, sure, good idea," she said, "if you'll come along. I'll make you a vanilla soda with a cherry on top."

"Druther have a lemon phosphate, putting on some weight," said her father, patting his belly.

Meg's mother nixed that idea since her pot roast was about done, so they went out to the garage at Meg's suggestion. "Wait'll you see this," she said, nudging him as the big garage doors rolled up.

"By damn," the teacher cried, "it's a ga'damn Avanti, a Studebaker Avanti! Geezeus!"

Her father stood there proudly. "Yep, spent almost ten years trying to get it, finally bought it off the poor man's widow."

The teacher lay on his back in the small spare room that his lumpy daybed shared with piles of Pharmacy Today magazines, National Geographics, a very old Remington typewriter, several piles of what looked like textbooks, a big, cardboard Candy Cupboard display, an upright vacuum cleaner and several boxes of jumbled up children's toys and books. It had been a nursery and then a guest room and was now just storage.

It was his first night alone for some time. He did not like it. He knew his brain was busy, churning up old pains and fears. He tried to sleep and failed, wishing he had one of the pills he used to take.

From down the hall he could hear the chatter and giggling coming from the big bedroom where his wife-to-be and her sisters slept, the room with bunk beds that they had used as kids. He lay with his eyes open, staring aimlessly at the shifting patterns of light on the papered ceiling, trying to concentrate on nothing, on calm. His seldom-worn pajamas felt uncomfortable, but since the house's only bathroom was well down the hall, they were needed. Meg had insisted, a funny look on her face.