In the back room of the shop, Daisy moaned and nudged her empty bowl with her little black nose.
“Don’t give me that,” George said. “I fed you.”
She collapsed on the floor as if she’d succumbed to starvation.
“Knock it off. I don’t need a diva dog on top of everything else.”
He half dreaded Mel’s first day on the job and half welcomed it. She would be a challenge, but she’d give him something to think about besides the way Tish had shut him down.
Long before Mel was scheduled to show up, he’d moved the change drawer from the safe to the cash register. He’d found a sales-tax chart too, and placed it beside the receipt book and a pad of paper for Mel’s benefit.
He’d left the pricier jewelry in the safe where it always stayed overnight. He wasn’t sure how long he would keep it there. If he didn’t have it on display, he couldn’t sell it. But he couldn’t sell it if Mel stole it, either. It was a dilemma.
The back door swung open, and she stuck her head in. “Is it okay if I walk in like this?” she asked in a timid voice.
“Sure. Come on in.”
She entered, carrying a lunch bag, and scooped up the dog with her other hand. “Daisy! How are you today?”
Suddenly recovered from her swoon, Daisy sniffed the bag, her tail wagging.
“You might want to stick that in the fridge.” George pointed to the tiny refrigerator in the corner. “So the dog can’t get to it.”
Mel stashed her lunch beside his and then nuzzled the dog. “Poor baby,” she murmured. “Doesn’t grumpy old George feed you enough?”
“I feed her plenty. She’s a glutton. She has a food dish here, and upstairs, and now out in Tish’s garage too.”
“She’s not a glutton. She’s a hungry girl.” Mel smiled at him over the dog’s head. “I’m ready to get to work if you are.”
“First things first. We need to have a little talk.”
She hid her face in the dog’s fur. “Am I in trouble already?”
“No, but I want to remind you that this is your chance to prove to your dad—”
“Ex-dad, you mean.”
“Show a little respect. If you refuse to call him your dad, at least call him Dunc or Mr. Hamilton. But back to my point. I’m afraid he’s tired of giving you second chances. If you wind up in trouble again, that’s it.”
“Isn’t it ‘it’ already if I’m not even allowed in the house? How much further can he go, George? Anyway, it’s hopeless. I know I’ll mess up again someday, somehow, so I might as well mess up ten times. Or a million times.”
“I see your point, but don’t give up. Just do your best.”
“I do,” she said fiercely. “I always do.”
“And that’s all I ask of you as an employee. I’ll forgive honest mistakes, but I won’t tolerate dishonesty, laziness, or rude conduct. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then. I’d like to have you work three or four days a week, but the particular days might change from week to week. Will that work for you?”
He placed an application and a pen on the worktable. “Here’s your paperwork to fill out.”
“Fun, fun, fun.” She sat with the dog in her lap and picked up the pen.
Leaving her to it, he walked through the showroom, turning on lights and straightening merchandise. At the front door, he unlocked and flipped the Closed sign over to the Open side. When he returned to the back room, Mel was scrawling her signature at the bottom of the application.
“Here ya go,” she said, holding it up.
He took it and looked it over. Her penmanship was wretched, and her spelling was worse.
“You didn’t write down your driver’s license number.”
“I don’t have one. I lost it.”
“Lost it? As in … the state took it away?”
“You mean like for a DUI? What kind of girl do you think I am? Geez, George. No, I lost it. It was in my wallet, and my wallet was in my duffel bag, and I lost the bag in Florida.”
“A duffel bag is a pretty big item to lose track of.”
“I was hitchhiking, okay? And the guy turned out to be scary so I jumped out at a red light. I didn’t have time to grab the bag, but I saved my bedroll.”
“And your life, maybe. Hitching a ride is dangerous.”
“Tell me about it.”
He squinted at her application, trying to decipher her chicken-scratch printing. He made out her date of birth. She was coming up on her twenty-first birthday, but she’d listed only two previous jobs, both in Noble.
“Didn’t you tell me you worked in a restaurant in Orlando? Where’s that info?”
“I didn’t put it down because I don’t remember the phone number. Or the manager’s name. I mean, his name was Rocky, but I don’t think that was his real name.”
George imagined a swarthy, tattooed hoodlum running a biker bar. “No, probably not. Name of the restaurant?”
“Fishy’s.”
“A high-class joint, obviously.”
“It was all right. They had good fries.”
“Were you a waitress?”
“No, I bussed tables.”
“It’s the restaurant where you got framed for stealing cash?”
“Yes.” Her cheeks colored.
“Did you have access to the register?”
“No. It was a jar. A glass jar. You know, one of those charity things? For a little girl who’d been burned in a house fire. Somebody was collecting money to help with the hospital bills. Geez, I wouldn’t steal from a three-year-old with third-degree burns. The jar just sat there on the bar. Anybody could have taken the money. They said it was me, but I didn’t take it. I put money in a few times. Not a lot, but I wanted to help.”
“You’re sure you were framed?”
“I’m sure. Go ahead and call, if you can find the number. Ask for Rocky or Marlene. They’ll tell you I was a hard worker. They didn’t want to let me go.”
“But they did let you go. Because they thought you stole from a charity.”
“That’s what they thought, but they were wrong.”
She said it so sincerely that he found himself believing her. Wanting to, anyway.
He studied the sloppy application again. “Did you work at Fishy’s the whole time you were out of town? Two years?”
“Well, no. There were a few other jobs too, but I didn’t want to put them down because”—she squirmed in her chair—“it’s embarrassing.”
He waited. Remembering stretches of Florida interstate that were crowded with billboards for strip clubs, he felt sick. Not Mel. Not Stu’s baby sister.
“Okay, okay!” she said. “I was a housekeeper at a trashy motel just off I-75. It was horrible. And I picked strawberries with a bunch of people who didn’t speak English, and I worked for an old guy who sold orchids and oranges by the side of the road.” She paused. “Oh yeah, and I worked at a car wash.”
“There’s nothing dishonorable about manual labor. You don’t need to be embarrassed unless you were doing something illegal.” Thinking of a blue Corvette and a gold watch, he dropped the application on his desk. “Okay. We’re open for business. Customers seldom show up before 9:30, but that gives us time to do a few chores.”
She wrinkled her nose. “What kind of chores?”
“Like chores at home. Basic housekeeping.”
She heaved a dramatic sigh. “All right.”
“Melanie,” he said in his sternest voice, “if you don’t want to do the work, save both of us some grief by telling me right now.”
“No, I’ll do it.”
“With a good attitude.”
“With a good attitude.” She mimicked his severe tone perfectly.
“Your attitude is especially important when you’re dealing with customers. Pretend you love working here, even if you don’t. Even if you can’t stand the customers. Even if somebody wastes an hour of your time while she makes up her mind about a cheap teacup, and then asks you to gift-wrap it.”
She puckered her lips as if she’d eaten a lemon. “You want me to be a phony?”
“I want you to be courteous.” He pointed toward the front of the store. “Let’s make sure you remember how to work an antique cash register.”
She followed him behind the counter. Hands clasped behind her back, she studied the ornate gilt surfaces of the machine. “Wow, that’s a fancy one.”
“Of all the registers I’ve restored, this one’s my favorite.” Not for sentimental reasons, though, but for its extravagant style. Every curlicue of the design seemed to celebrate the process of collecting money.
“It’s even older than the one the Howards use at their gift shop,” he added.
She showed no reaction to the name. “Huh. Can’t you afford a newer one?”
Enjoying the irony, he refrained from telling her how valuable an antique NCR could be. “I love the old ones. There’s never a paper jam or a problem with the power supply. But as you know, a 1910 model can’t tell you how much change to give back. You have to use your head.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.”
“Show me. Pretend you’re ringing up a sale. Let’s say it’s a twenty-dollar item, plus tax.” He handed her the chart for calculating the sales tax.
She flashed him a look of unadulterated irritation but consulted the chart. Twice. Then she rang up the sale, seeming to enjoy the clash and clang of the machine as much as he did.
“There,” she said. “Happy now?”
“Yes ma’am. That’s the sound of commerce, even if it’s only a trial run. Now, here’s an important tip. If somebody gives you, say, a twenty, don’t put it in the drawer right away. Leave it on the ledge above the drawer until the customer takes the change and seems happy with it.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“So somebody can’t give you a ten, wait until you’ve closed the drawer, and then claim they gave you a twenty.”
Comprehension dawned in her eyes. “Oh, wow! Sneaky!”
Hoping he hadn’t given her a brilliant new idea to try sometime, he led her into the back room and introduced her to his vintage Bissell sweeper. Never having seen one, she was intrigued.
“You mean you don’t have to plug it in?”
“No ma’am.”
“Does it run on batteries?”
“No. When you push it back and forth, the little brushes pick up almost everything.”
“Awesome. It’s like those weird lawn mowers that don’t have motors.”
He fought to keep a straight face. “It’s a similar concept. Sweep the floor mat by the front door and the carpet in front of the register, please. When you’ve finished, you can clean fingerprints from the front door and display cases and so on. But never use any of the cleaning supplies on the merchandise without checking with me first. One squirt of Windex can ruin a valuable antique. Got it?”
“Got it.” She hurried away with the Bissell, her ponytail swinging.
George shook his head. If she could learn some new habits, even if it started out as playacting, maybe the habits would do her good. Or maybe she’d only be whitewashing a sepulcher. If she ran into trouble with the law at some point, his new status as her employer put him in danger of being dragged along for the ride. He tried to dismiss the unsettling thought, but it lingered.
It was a quiet day, as Tuesdays often were, but the slow pace was perfect for training her. Early in the afternoon, he decided she’d observed enough transactions. It was time for her to work the register alone.
The customer currently browsing the store was a retired teacher who stopped in perhaps twice a year and never spent more than ten dollars. If Mel somehow offended Miss Meyers and she never came back, it wouldn’t be a great loss.
“Here she comes,” he said softly as the woman approached the counter. “This one is all yours.”
“No,” she whispered, in a panic.
“What’s wrong? You did fine on your practice run.”
“But I know her. She’ll hate me.”
“Get over it, Mel. Do your job.”
It was too late for her to argue. Miss Meyers was nearly upon them, her bad hip making her list to the left like a car with a flat.
Mel looked terrified but attempted a smile. “Hello, Miss Meyers.”
“Hello, dear,” the woman said. “Do I know you?”
“You were my teacher,” Mel said faintly. “Second grade. I’m … I’m Melanie.”
Miss Meyers lowered her glasses and smiled at her. “I’m sorry, dear, but I’ve taught so many children. I can’t possibly remember them all.” The woman placed three doilies on the counter. “These were in the three-for-four-dollars pile.” She reached into a cracked leather handbag and pulled out an equally decrepit change purse.
Mel tucked the doilies into a bag. Then she ran her forefinger down the sales-tax chart. “That’ll be, um … um … four twenty-four, please.”
From the tiny coin purse, Miss Meyers extracted a ten-dollar bill, folded in fourths. Mel unfolded it and placed it on the ledge above the drawer.
She hesitated, moving her lips, apparently going over the process in her mind. Then she pulled out four ones, two dimes, and four pennies, and placed them in the woman’s hand. “That’s four twenty-four,” she said breathlessly.
Too stunned to speak, George raised his eyes to Miss Meyers’ face. She appeared to be oblivious to this highly irregular method of making change.
Mel reached into the cash drawer and pulled out a penny and three quarters. “Four twenty-four,” she repeated under her breath. “Twenty-five,” she said, her voice gaining strength as she dropped a penny into the woman’s outstretched palm. “Fifty, seventy-five, five,” she chanted, counting out the quarters. Then she placed a five-dollar bill on the woman’s palm. “And five makes ten.”
“Thank you, dear.” Miss Meyers stuffed the money into her coin purse.
“Thank you.” Mel beamed and handed her the bag. “Have a wonderful day.”
“You too.” Miss Meyers beamed back and leaned closer to George. “Keep a sweet girl like her at the register and you’ll do twice as much business.”
“Er, yes,” he said. “Thank you, ma’am. Come see us again sometime.”
Miss Meyers hobbled away, humming.
“Cool,” Mel whispered. “She doesn’t remember me.”
Glowing with pride, she watched her former teacher walk out with the three doilies and not a penny less than she’d arrived with.
George massaged his scalp, hard, with both hands. The good news was that Mel might not have stolen from her previous employers. Not intentionally, anyway.
The bad news? He needed to confront her immediately. If she overreacted and stormed off, then he didn’t want her working there anyway.
He cleared his throat. “Mel, we need to have another little talk.”
Upstairs at her desk, Tish checked the time. Past five. Mel wasn’t back, so George hadn’t found cause to fire her yet.
He was a good man. A kind man. Tish had already admitted to herself that she liked him, so she didn’t understand why he sometimes spooked her so. When he spoke to her so gently … or teasingly … she froze inside. The night before, on her porch steps, she’d half expected him to lean in for a kiss, but then she’d panicked. He would want to know why, and she wouldn’t know what to tell him.
Part of it was that he’d apologized for the “little nuisance,” quoting the first words she’d said to the dog at her door. Knowing he’d heard the whole thing, she felt as if she’d opened a window to her heart just when he happened to be passing by.
She didn’t want to think about it anymore. She’d had enough of the online job hunt too, so she decided to take another look at the McComb letters. If nothing else, they would remind her to be grateful. Compared to Letitia, she lived a cream-puff life. Being unemployed for a while was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Tish zoomed in on one of the most poignant letters.
I’ll be home soon, dearest Mother. I have lost everything but Nathaniel, who was once the delight of his father and his sister who now repose in the vile earth of Alabama …
When Tish had visited Noble with her dad, he’d driven to the town’s oldest cemetery, thinking Nathan might have been buried there. She’d stayed in the car, trying not to cry. She hadn’t been ready to visit a cemetery—any cemetery—but she hadn’t wanted her dad to know how hard it was. He hadn’t found Nathan’s grave, but when he’d climbed into the car again, he’d been more angry than disappointed. Pressed for an explanation, he’d said he’d found a separate area where slaves were buried, but their graves weren’t marked.
“As if they weren’t God’s children too,” he’d said. “It’s evil.”
She’d agreed with him, but she’d been more focused on her private grief. Even now, she couldn’t comprehend the wickedness of slavery or the way it had bled into succeeding generations, long after the Civil War.
She lifted her gaze from the letter, recognizing that the “darkies” mentioned in that old book were former slaves, as were the people Nathan and Letitia must have hired as household help—for a pittance, probably. Carpetbaggers hadn’t been known for their generosity.
The front door slammed. “Tish! Tish! Are you up there?”
“I’m up here, Mel,” she hollered back. “I’ll be right d—”
Mel’s feet pounded up the stairs. “I gotta tell you,” she yelled, halfway there already.
Tish shook her head. There went her plan to keep the second floor as her private sanctuary.
Mel burst into the room, her socks sliding on the smooth wooden floor. “George cleared my name! I mean, he practically called me stupid, but I already know I’m stupid. It was, like, really embarrassing, but he taught me the right way to make change. Sheesh, I’m an adult, I’m nearly twenty-one, and I can’t do something that simple?”
“What are you talking about?”
“He watched me counting change for a customer, and I did it all wrong. See? It proves I didn’t steal from anybody’s cash drawer. It was all an accident. A dumb mistake—every time!”
Tish’s natural skepticism kicked in, but she decided to ignore it. If George believed this new theory, she would too. “That’s great, Mel.”
“Isn’t it?” Smiling, she looked around the room. Her eyes lingered on the sewing table in the corner. “This reminds me of my mom’s sewing room. You really like to sew? That’s weird.”
“What’s weird about it?”
“It’s kind of a mom thing to do. Or a grandma thing. Anyway, my mom’s sewing room is half filled up with Scarlett O’Hara stuff. She spends a ton of money at George’s shop ’cause she’s a Windy.”
“A what?”
“A Windy. That’s what we call people who collect Gone with the Wind junk. Except we don’t call it junk. We call it memorabilia. Collectibles.”
Tish smiled at Mel’s wholehearted adoption of George’s terminology. “I see. Well, do you think you’re a good fit for the job?”
“Yeah. It’s fun except for the chores. I get to wait on customers and everything, but he’ll only need me part time so it won’t be much money.”
“Maybe you can find another part-time job too.”
“Maybe. Hey, I’m starving.” Mel headed toward the doorway. “I’m gonna grab something to eat. You want anything?”
“No, thanks. Save some room for supper. I’m making stir-fry.”
“Okay.”
Mel was back in two minutes with a yogurt and a spoon in one hand and an apple in the other. She set the apple on the sewing table and started the yogurt. Leaning in, she studied the computer screen. “What’s that?”
“A letter that the original Letitia McComb wrote to her mother after her husband died.”
“The mother’s husband?”
“No. Letitia’s husband. She lost her daughter too.”
“That’s sad.”
“Yeah. Maybe the whole town had good reason to hate them, but I feel sorry for them anyway. According to Letitia’s letters home, they went through some real tragedies.”
“What happened?” Mel pulled the chair away from the sewing table and straddled it while she ate.
“From clues in the letters, I think Letitia couldn’t get pregnant for a long time, and then one baby was stillborn and another one died when he was only six months old.”
“That’s sad,” Mel said again, scooping a spoonful of yogurt from its container.
“She finally had two healthy children, a boy and a girl, when she was in her early forties.”
“Huh. My mom was almost that old when she had me.”
“And Nathan was a lot older than his wife, so he was probably in his mid-seventies when the two children were teenagers.”
Mel laughed. “Geez, and I thought my dad was old.”
“Nathan made a bundle of money when he and Letitia first came to town, but apparently he lost most of it in the last few years of his life. He died when their son was sixteen.”
“What did Nathan die of? Old age?”
“The letters don’t say, but a few weeks after he died, their daughter died of malaria. She was only fifteen.”
Mel stopped with a spoonful of yogurt halfway to her mouth. “That’s awful. That’s like … tenth grade. Before she’d had a chance to go to prom or anything.”
“Yes, and Letitia was afraid she’d lose her son too. She wanted to move home to Ohio, but she hadn’t been aware of Nathan’s money problems. He was so far in debt that she wasn’t even sure she could afford to leave town.”
“What did she do?”
“From what I’ve read, my best guess is that someone pressured her to sell this house, dirt cheap. Then she and her son headed for Ohio with almost nothing.”
“You mean somebody cheated her out of her house? Right after her husband and daughter died?”
“It was probably legal, even if it wasn’t kind or honorable.”
Mel shrugged. “What goes around, comes around. He wasn’t exactly honest himself, was he?”
“Apparently not.”
Mel set down the empty yogurt cup, crunched into her apple, and leaned toward the computer again. “So that’s Letitia’s writing? It’s pretty.”
“It’s called Spencerian penmanship. A whole generation of schoolchildren grew up learning that style.” Tish scrolled down the page to show Mel the closing lines. “Can you make it out? The writing is so small in the actual letters that they’re easier to read on the screen, zoomed in.”
Mel squinted at it and shook her head. “Read it to me.”
“Monday next,” Tish read, “abandoning our loved ones to their graves in this hostile land, young Nathaniel and I shall leave for Ohio and your faithful affection. My dear Mother, you have never ceased to keep the door open for us. Lord willing, we will see your face soon, and you shall embrace your grandson for the first time amid the gentle landscapes of home.”
“It sounds like she was really homesick. I know how that feels.” Mel made a face. “At least her mother wanted her back.”
“Maybe yours does too.”
“Ha!” Mel glared at the sewing machine, picked up her empty yogurt cup, and walked out.
Tish stared out at the trees and wondered about Suzette Hamilton and Mel. Ann Lattimore and Letitia McComb. Barb Miller and Tish McComb. Mothers and daughters, of all people, should try to stay connected.