TWENTY-THREE

There was no anniversary party on Saturday. No ukulele, no songs, no gathering of friends or pig on a spit. I was a nervous wreck all week, but Mama said I couldn’t call to check on Biz because they were all probably too busy to talk to me. She didn’t realize the Parkers were probably wondering why I hadn’t called.

Deacon knocked on the door a little after eight on Saturday morning. Mama was still so hyper from the accident, she’d been up with the sun every day since. On this morning she was flying around the house in her nightgown, smearing peach-colored paint on one wall, sunshine yellow on another, and had targeted a third to test robin’s-egg blue before getting my opinion.

“James called,” Deacon said. “They’re all staying with Kori’s brother in Boston. They’ll be there until, well, until Biz is better, or something. In the meantime, I’m going to try and run that store for them.”

I leaped up from the couch. “I’ll come help!”

Paint dripped from a brush in Mama’s hand. “How is the little girl?”

“Brain injury. Still unconscious, but they’re giving her something to keep her that way until the swelling goes down. She has a tube draining—” He pointed to the back of his head and winced.

“Will she, I mean is she—”

“They don’t know yet,” he said quickly.

“What about the pony that hurt that child? Will they get rid of it? It must be dangerous.”

“What happened wasn’t the pony’s fault,” Deacon said quietly.

I’d been scrambling around getting my shoes and other things I’d want for the day when I heard Mama say I couldn’t go with Deacon.

“What?”

She dumped the brush into the bucket of paint. Speckles of blue flew out and landed on the floor, but Mama didn’t even notice. “I want to help that family, sugar, God knows I do. But I can’t let you anywhere near that pony.”

“That’s crazy! The pony isn’t in the store—she lives in the barn.”

“Maggie won’t have to go near her,” Deacon said. “Truthfully, I could use the help. It’s peak tourist season. We need to keep the store open so the family can pay their bills.”

She turned to me, narrowed her eyes, and wagged her finger in my face. “If I see you anywhere near that pony, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . I don’t know what, but believe me, it won’t be pretty!”

This was Mama’s way of saying I love you and I don’t want you to get hurt, without having to actually say the words. We weren’t accustomed to doing that back in Georgia. But I wondered, if it had been Lucy, would she have been able to say it outright?

The store was a mess. Like a near disaster, unrecoverable mess, and it had only been open half a day since the accident. Vegetables had fallen out of the bins and rolled onto the floor, trash spilled from the can, sweaters and flannel shirts without hangers lay on top of the toilet paper shelf. Outside, people were lined up waiting for us to open. Deacon took a pot of coffee and a stack of green cups out for them to help themselves while we did a superfast cleanup.

From the second we let the customers in until the very end of the day, it was nonstop insanity. The tourists didn’t know what had happened to Biz, so they didn’t know how frazzled Deacon and I were just trying to keep up. They didn’t know he’d never had a job where he used a cash register in his whole life, and that even though I was five foot eight inches tall, I wasn’t a teenager yet and hadn’t had any job, ever. They were not shy about pointing out the half-empty shelves. I couldn’t run fast enough to keep them all happy.

At seven o’clock, Deacon locked the door and switched the sign to Closed. I collapsed onto the stool behind the counter and buried my face in my hands.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he mumbled every time I wailed. “We did our best. That’s all we can do.”

In my head, I knew none of the craziness in the store that day was my fault. I also knew I wasn’t responsible for Biz’s accident, and I’d done the best job I could in both things. But in my heart, I felt like a big, fat failure.

Deacon drove me home and came inside to tell Mama why I was so overwrought. “I don’t know how I would have made it today without her,” he said.

A hot bubble bath never felt so good as the one I got that night. I scrubbed and scrubbed my whole body, as if I could wash away the voices of those customers complaining in my ear. I climbed into bed, still wrapped in my towel, and fell asleep. It was the first time I slept through the night since Tuesday.

Mama didn’t want me to go back the next day. I knew Deacon wasn’t expecting me, but I couldn’t leave it all to him. I just couldn’t, especially after saying he wouldn’t have made it without me on Saturday. Besides, if I couldn’t be with the Parkers, it was one thing I could do to still feel like I was a part of them. One little thing they’d appreciate when they got home.

You’re one of us.

But I wasn’t, not really. If I had been one of them, I’d be in Boston, not at home with Mama, who apparently liked Lucy better than she did me anyway.

Early in the morning, I grabbed my jacket, left Mama a note on the kitchen table, and walked to the store. As soon as she got up and realized where I was, she’d make me come home, but at least I could help Deacon get the day started until then.

He was restocking the jam aisle when I came through the back door. “Does your mama know you’re here?”

I hung my jacket on a hook. “She’ll find out as soon as she gets up. I left her a note. What needs to be done first?”

He paused, two jars of blueberry preserves in his hands. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay, the clothing section is a mess again. Why don’t you start there, I’ll finish this, then we’ll reevaluate.”

“I’m on it.”

The store didn’t open until eleven, seeing how it was Sunday. By the time Deacon unlocked and flipped the sign to Open, we had it in pretty decent shape. Not like if Sue and Kori were running it, but good enough. Tourists poured in so swiftly it didn’t take long to get behind again. Deacon punched keys on the cash register and checked people out as fast as he could. I did my best to answer the nonstop flow of questions, while running back and forth to keep the shelves full.

“Young lady, young lady!”

“Yes, ma’am?”

A woman pointed to an empty section. “Don’t you have the big tin cans of maple syrup?”

“One second, I’ll get it for you.”

When deliveries came, Sue made sure the boxes in the storage room were stacked so the labels faced out. (“That way if someone needs to find something quickly, it’s printed right on the front.”) I said a silent thank you and ran to get the large syrup. But the lady didn’t want a can quite that big.

“Do you have one that’s a little smaller? In-between size. I can’t carry that on a plane.”

I made the trip again and brought her the in-between size.

“How much is it? There’s no price.”

“I’m not sure. Deacon will know up front.”

She looked at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world and said, “Don’t you work here?” then walked away without even a thank you. I wanted to throw something at her back and shout that I was only twelve, but three other people were waiting for me. Instead, I plastered a smile on my face and went to help them.

“Do you have that white fudge without nuts? Last year you had it. I can’t eat nuts, but the white kind is my favorite.”

“Is this butternut squash? Or acorn?”

“Your apples are bruised. Do you have any fresh ones in the back?”

“What’s the date on the cider?”

“Do you have Ben and Jerry’s? You can’t come to Vermont without getting Ben and Jerry’s.”

“I like this sweater, but I want one in blue, do you have blue? Sky blue, not dark.”

Up front, Deacon had run out of bags. “Maggie, bags! Can you get them?”

Bags. Bags. Bags. My mind went blank. A lady at the counter watched me, tapping her feet.

“Where’s that girl? We need help over here.”

“Don’t you have Sorel boots? We want the fuzzy kind, like what’s in the ad.”

“Maggie! Bags, please!”

Now he was shouting. The lady reached across the counter to get her money back. A bus pulled up out front and let loose a mass of new tourists. They swarmed and spread out through the store like a SWAT team. I looked at the clock. It wasn’t even noon yet.

I ran to the back for extra bags. Bags, bags, bags. Looked in the closet, at the labels on the boxes, even in the laundry room. Where the heck were the bags? I ran to the counter. The lady had left, but there was a long line waiting to be checked out and Deacon was sweating.

“Did you get the bags?”

“I can’t find them.”

“They’re in the back, in the closet.”

“I looked, they aren’t there.”

“Damn,” he said under his breath. He went to check for himself, and came back with a box of lilac-scented trash can bags. “This will have to do for now.”

“Is there someone who can help me back here? I’ve been waiting.”

The bell on the door binged. Just when I thought the top of my head might explode, and the tension in the store vibrated like an electric wire, Mama strode in, all dressed up like she was going to church.