When I walked into the kitchen to pick out what I’d pack for lunch tomorrow, I found ole Rob Estes sitting at the table with a large pile of Russell Stover candy on the table in front of him.
I’d never seen him at our house, let alone at the kitchen table, let alone at the kitchen table with a pile of chocolate candy. Rob is a retired pharmacist, but he still owns the drugstore, and the Estes Drugstore has carried good ole Russell Stover chocolates for as long as I can remember.
Forget about Rob Estes for just a minute because here is something you should know. My grandmother and I love chocolates more than any food God ever created. And Russell Stover is Grandma’s all-time favorite. And the Russell Stover chocolates Rob brought over weren’t just any old chocolates. They were Mint Dreams. And Mint Dreams are the best kind of Russell Stover chocolates. I love Mint Dreams almost as much as Kraft Caramels.
“Wow!” I said, ogling all that deliciousness and temporarily dismissing the fact that Rob Estes was another of Grandma’s boyfriends and therefore on my list of Suspicious Persons until I decided otherwise. “Is that my after-school snack?”
“Sure,” Rob said, smiling and shoving about two pounds of chocolate my way. He shot a look at Grandma. “If Grace says it’s okay.”
Rob was younger than Grandma by about ten years, but I’m not supposed to know that, so don’t tell anyone I told you.
I put on my best “please, please, please” face, but Grandma twisted her mouth as she thought about it, and I knew that wasn’t a good sign. Otherwise, she would’ve said, “Why, sure, have some.”
“With supper in an hour and a half,” she said, “I think an apple and a glass of milk is a better idea.”
“Oh, Grandma,” I said, bitterly disappointed. “I love Mint Dreams, and there is a whole mound of ’em right there, all wrapped in their shiny silver-and-green wrappers. Maybe I could have a couple of Mint Dreams out of that whole entire box full of Mint Dreams.”
“After supper, for dessert, instead of cake.”
“Grandma!” Boy, oh boy, I didn’t know Myra Grace Reilly could be so hard-hearted.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have taken the candy out of the bag,” Rob Estes said, his face all droopy.
“Oh no!” I assured him, sitting down and staring at that wonderful hill of chocolate. “I like to look at it anyway.” I sighed.
Grandma took an apple out of the refrigerator, and while she was washing it at the sink, Rob leaned toward me and whispered, “How about if I give you an entire box of Mint Dreams for Christmas?”
I felt my eyes widen.
“Thank you!” I breathed. He was fast getting himself off my list of Suspicious Persons and onto my list of Approved Gentlemen Callers, which so far had only one name on it, and that was Ernie Beason.
“Don’t spoil her, Rob,” Grandma said, giving me the apple.
“I’m not spoiling anyone,” Rob told her stoutly. “But if I have a large stock in the drugstore, I might as well share them with special girls who have shiny red hair.”
I liked him better and better. He was genuinely nice, not fakey nice like that rotten old man Rance, who tried to win me over one time with a Kraft Caramel he had pulled, warm and squooshy, from his jeans pocket.
Grandma set a glass of milk in front of me. You’d think with all that candy staring us in the face and me not having any of it, she would have at least put in some chocolate syrup for comfort’s sake. But she didn’t.
“How’s your cold?” I asked Rob.
“All gone now,” he said.
“Yeah, so’s Grandma’s.” I looked over the rim of my milk glass at Grandma’s blushing face. If I thought being sassy was gonna get me a Mint Dream or even chocolate milk, I thought wrong.
Out in the front yard, good ole Daisy barked. She hardly ever barks unless a strange car drives up the driveway, and sometimes not even then. She’s old, so she sleeps a lot and misses things going on.
With all the windows open on that warm September afternoon, voices outside came right into the house. The voice I heard right then sounded mighty familiar.
I knew Grandma heard it, too, because her face went red as fire, and she looked downright caught.
Who do you think was out there? Ernie Beason, that’s who. Grandma’s other—and, so far, her only April Grace– approved—boyfriend, even if Rob brought chocolates.
Well, this oughta be good, I thought as I heard him knock on the front door. I got up to go let him in.
“Here,” Grandma said, shoving two Mint Dreams at me. “Eat these. I’ll get the door.”
She hurried to the front door, but Rob stayed right where he was, blissfully ignorant that his rival was only a few yards away. Didn’t he hear Ernie’s voice telling Daisy she was a good girl? I reckon not. I sure hoped he wasn’t hard of hearing like old man Rance. I don’t think I could have put up with hollering in another man’s hairy old ear holes ever again, for as long as I live.
Not one to waste the opportunity before Grandma realized what she’d done, I ripped the shiny wrapper off of a Mint Dream and bit into it. That thick milk chocolate cracked softly between my teeth and released its fluffy, gooey, creamy mint filling. Both tastes melted together on my tongue and slid sweet and smooth down my gullet in the best way you can imagine.
“Yummm,” I said, closing my eyes for a moment so I could taste it and feel it for as long as possible. I licked a bit off my upper lip and took another bite.
“Like it, do you?” Rob said. I could hear the smile in his voice.
“Yup,” I said as best I could with a mouthful of dreamy candy.
Footsteps came toward the kitchen.
I popped open my eyelids and hid the rest of that Mint Dream and the other one in my lap. There came Grandma with the most peculiar and guilty look on her face, and right behind her followed good ole Ernie with his arms full of groceries. He was smiling real big and talking as he came down the hallway.
“. . . and since you didn’t come into the store, I figured you’d be wanting your usual order. I added a few things I thought you’d like—” He broke off as he came into the kitchen and caught an eyeful of Rob and his big ole pile of Russell Stover candy.
“Well now,” he said, stopping all of a sudden. “Well now.”
Those two men just looked at each other for the longest time while Grandma stood there with a frozen smile on her face. The steady tick-tick of the yellow clock on the wall sounded real loud.
You see, I’m pretty sure each man had a suspicion he was not the only feller in Grace Reilly’s life but probably had never let himself think about it to the point he’d admit such a thing out loud.
Now, I don’t hardly see how this could be, because both men live in Cedar Ridge, and Cedar Ridge is a small town, and Rough Creek Road is a small community, and only a few miles separate the two. Everybody knows everything about everybody else in both places. This whole bit with those men coming face-to-face with my grandma caught right in the middle was bound to happen sooner or later.
I wonder if either one of ’em knew she’d been getting quite a few phone calls lately from Reverend Jordan, the Methodist minister.
“Well now,” Ernie said one more time. Then he put those four paper sacks full of groceries on the countertop and said, “How do, Rob? You been keepin’ well?”
Rob looked steadily into Ernie’s eyes, and it was like those two guys tried to read each other’s minds.
“I’m doing fine, Ernie. How about you?”
Ernie nodded. “Same.”
They just kept staring at each other, and in the background Grandma watched, flashing her gaze from one to the other and back again. I couldn’t tell if they were gonna start swinging punches, or if they were gonna sit down and have some coffee and candy.
Finally Grandma moved toward those groceries, laughing kinda loud and crazy. “Well now, Ernie, this was real thoughtful. Look here, Rob, what Ernie did. I couldn’t make it to town yesterday, so he brought all these groceries out to me. And lookie there, Ernie. Rob brought us all some chocolate. Get you some, Ernie. Want some coffee? Rob, you want some more coffee?” Grandma was talking a hundred miles an hour and pulling groceries out of the bags like there was no tomorrow.
“No, thanks. I need to be getting home,” Rob said, standing up at the same time Ernie moved toward the doorway, saying, “Thank you, no. I have to get back to the store.”
“Well, you don’t have to hurry away,” Grandma said to no one in particular. She started stuffing that food into the cabinets without any rhyme or reason. She even put a dozen eggs where the plates go, for Pete’s sake!
Boy, oh boy, right there was a big fat reason never to have a boyfriend, let alone two of them. They just mess up everything.
“You think they’re gonna slug each other?” I asked Grandma as soon as those men left.
She sent me right out of the room, so I hightailed it into Mama’s bedroom to tell her what was going on.