Elementary

by Jason Zandri

  As Life Goes—Elementary

  by Jason Zandri

  Published with the authorization of Jason Zandri, Connecticut 06492, United States of America

  Copyright ©2015 by Jason Zandri

  All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN

  The example companies, organizations, products, domain names, e-mail addresses, logos, people, places, and events depicted herein are fictitious. No association with any real company, organization, product, domain name, e-mail address, logo, person, place, or event is intended or should be inferred.

  In the place where a real company, organization, product, domain name, e-mail address, logo, person, place, or event is intended, the ownership and copyrights of those aforementioned subjects remain with those owners.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Mark Sanford stood among the boxes in the living room of his father’s former home—a small three-bedroom cape—with a cup of coffee in his hand.

  The weak morning sunlight broke through the early winter cloud cover and came in the windows and around the hanging drapes. It had been nearly sixteen years since he’d lived on South Cherry Street with his parents. He remembered the day he moved out of the house to his apartment at eighteen years of age, shortly after his mother had passed away. He now smiled at the irony of wanting to come back to a place he was so ready to leave in order to start his adult life so many years ago, in an effort now to simply start over.

  The oil furnace kicked on, and the forced air system pushed heated air while he made his way quietly up the stairs to his old bedroom. His son Matthew now lay in Mark’s old bed. The door creaked a little as he went to peer in and that was enough to wake the boy.

  “Dad?” Matthew called out.

  “Hi son, I’m right here,” Mark responded as he opened the door all the way and walked in. “Did you sleep okay?”

  “Not really,” Matthew answered as he sat up. “I guess I’m not used to sleeping here. I suppose I have to get used to it.”

  “Look, sport.” Mark sat down next to his son and ruffled his short brown hair. “I know this change is a big adjustment for you. It is for all of us: you, Grandpa, and me too. I expect it’s hardest on you. Talk to me about it. You were pretty quiet during the car ride here, and when the movers dropped everything off yesterday.”

  Matthew looked over at where the movers had placed his desk, and then he looked about his dimly lit room. They’d focused on this room yesterday, and it was the only one fully set up.

  “What are we going to do with all the stuff that was in here?” Matthew asked, pulling the covers up towards his chin.

  “Well,” Mark said, then took another sip of coffee and scratched the four-day-old gray and brown stubble on his face. “We moved most of it down into Aunt Teresa’s old room at the other end of the hallway, and we can just leave it all in there, like storage. We’re in no hurry to get rid of it, honestly, and Grandpa and I are still discussing things.”

  Matthew rubbed the sleep out of his brown eyes. “Things like what, Dad?”

  “Well, some of the adult things that parents and grandparents have to

  discuss,” Mark said, trying to remain somewhat vague on his details to his only son. Matthew looked at his father, waiting for him to continue. “Did you want to know more?”

  “We talked about this, Dad.” Matthew sat forward. “I’m going to turn twelve in May, and in the fall I’m going to sixth grade. I don’t want to have to pull everything out of you. I want us to talk about things. It’s like you said, some things I won’t understand, but they’re things I need to start learning. So teach me.”

  Mark smiled. “Fair enough, but I’m not just going to volunteer everything. It’s true, we did discuss how the move would change things, and that I’d treat you like you were a little older, but there are still some things that I’m not going to discuss with you. And most things aren’t going to be up for debate or negotiation. You’re still the child, and I’m still the parent.”

  “Yes, sir,” Matthew replied in a meek voice.

  “Having said that, I don’t want to discourage you. What did you want to know?” Mark asked, then took another sip from his coffee.

  “Well …” Matthew sat up a little more. “I know at first you and Grandpa talked about staying here ‘in the meantime,’ but then the conversations became a little more permanent sounding. I guess I’d like to know which way it’s likely going to be. I have to start up in a new school for the remainder of fifth grade and then for middle school. I’m on this side of the tracks; I’m going to have to go across town to Moran while basically everyone at Pond Hill goes to Dag. Are we going to stay a short while or a long one? Are we going to stay here in Wallingford or are we going somewhere else?”

  Mark smiled at the comment, as the conditions of the school changes reminded him of his childhood going from school to school. “Let me start with that. It does look like we’ll be staying longer term, and I’ll get back to that, but I don’t want you to worry about the changes in schools. I missed having similar things happen to me when I was eleven and in fifth grade because of the way the schools were set up at the time. At one point, a little after I went through, the town had three middle schools; Robert Early Junior High School was downtown, and kids got divided between the three schools.

  When the change from Elementary to Junior High happened to me, I found it somewhat difficult. And, I guess, a little stressful having to make some new friends, and being concerned about losing some of the old ones, but it will be different for you. What can end up happening is that you’ll meet a whole new set of kids that will become new friends. Then, once you get to high school,

  there will likely be some interaction from things like cross-town sports events. It may give you the chance to see people casually again. You’ll have an overall advantage of knowing people from both sides of town.” Mark leaned back a little and looked at his son. “You’re a lot like me. You’ll make friends fast here in the neighborhood and at Pond Hill. I’m sure that when the time comes, you’ll make new friends over at Moran too, I suspect.”

  “So what happened? After high school and all?” Matthew moved around a little under the covers to get more comfortable.

  “Well, like with all things, time and tide cause things to drift. You have new interests and interactions with other people, at work and socially.

  Sometimes high school friends make the transition, and you carry together.

  Most of the times you don’t and you go your separate ways. Sometimes, decades later, things can renew, but it’s very rare. I don’t expect—now that I’ve come back to Wallingford—to find many old friends that I’m going to begin suddenly to hang around with. The connections with some will still be there, I’m sure, at some base level.”

  “What about the house and Grandpa’s store?” Matthew asked and sat back up.

  Mark got up off the bed and paced over to the desk. He took another sip of his coffee then set the cup down. “The house,” he said with a bit of a sigh and a pregnant pause. “Grandpa is going to give us the house. You and me.

  He wants both our names on it. Mine for now and yours for the future. He’s going to stay in Florida year-round now, and when the time comes, he’ll leave that to Aunt Teresa. Because some of these changes were unexpected, he’ll come up for short visits to see us and to gather some of his things. He has things here still he’d like to take with him and keep. But instead of spending six or so months here in Connecticut and then the rest down in Florida, he’s just going to stay there.” Mark walked over to the window that overlooked the back yard and pulled back the blind slightly to see the light snow t
hat had started to fall. “As far as the store goes, Mr. Hemsworth didn’t want to renew the lease with Grandpa, so as of January first next week, it’ll be empty again. I thought it made sense to make the lease payments and work the store myself. I can work the hours in the store, and then decide what I want to do with the garage bays.”

  “What do you mean, Dad?” Matthew asked with an increased level of interest.

  “Well,” Mark said, as he turned away from the window and walked back

  over to his coffee. “I’m not a mechanic. Certainly not on the level Grandpa was, and I can’t work a garage for much more than fluid changes, tires, belts, hoses and a few other minor things. I was thinking of maybe expanding the convenience store through all the space and just sell fuel. That’s down the road right now. I have to get us settled here and things up and running there first before I start making wholesale changes like that.”

  Matthew looked at his father and leaned forward as if to say something, and then leaned back.

  “You were thinking something,” Mark said quietly and looked over. “Go ahead. We can’t have a conversation and discuss things if it’s going to be one sided.”

  “Well, I remember you told me that when you were a kid you used to work in the store with Grandpa once in a while. And you had a paper route. I thought maybe I could do that.”

  Mark smiled and stepped over to the desk chair then sat in it. “A newspaper route is a big responsibility.”

  “I know, like we talked about on the car ride here,” Matthew said, and his eyes glinted with enthusiasm.

  “Yes.” Mark nodded. “Well, this is the time of year that routes open up.

  It’s the worst part of the winter, and the Christmas tips are all over. Carriers that were thinking about giving routes up do it around this time of the year.”

  “Is that how you got your routes?” Matthew asked, as he turned down his sheets and swung his feet off the bed.

  “Well, the one in the morning I got because my friend Larry was giving it up. It was an easy sell to the paper company because I already knew the route. Then, when Jacob up the street on the adjacent route broke his leg, I did his for a while and then he didn’t want his anymore. I think I was the only kid with eighty customers. They were large routes to start with. Also, what made it easier is The Record doesn’t have a Sunday paper,” Mark said as he enjoyed the little stroll down memory lane with his son. “I have to call the papers about getting product to the store. I can chat with the circulation manager about any open routes and if they still allow twelve-year-olds take them.”

  “And the store?” Matthew hopped down and put on his slippers. “Can I help in there after school for a few dollars? I’ll keep my grades up, and I won’t let them slip. When you give me chores around here, I’ll get them done too.”

  “Baby steps,” Mark said, then took the last sip of coffee. “Let’s see what turns out how, and we’ll go from there. I might not have much free cash flow from the store to afford you. I’ll need afternoon coverage, and I need to pay someone as it is.”

  Matthew started to walk out of the room, and Mark got up to follow him.

  “Are you going to work the store the hours that Grandpa did or the way the last person renting the store ran them?”

  “Well, when Grandpa ran the store there were blue laws where you couldn’t be open on Sundays, so you were granted a day off in that manner.

  Grandpa used to be open by six in the morning and closed round about the same time in the evening. On Saturdays, he’d open about seven and close a little after one. Mr. Hemsworth opened by five in the morning, and between him and his wife and his older son, they kept the place open to ten at night, seven days a week,” Mark answered as they both went down the stairs and made their way into the kitchen. The kitchen had an older style that hadn’t been updated in quite some time. Mark went over to the coffee pot, a new automatic drip coffee maker, which he’d brought with him during the move, and refilled his cup. Matthew picked through the boxes, looking for something to eat, and settled on Boo Berry cereal. “I think we’ll have to see what works for us. We need some money to pay for bills and utilities here at the house and to cover the expenses at the store. We’ll need to be open enough and offer service and items to customers to meet their needs to support that, but I don’t need to go crazy. I’m not looking to get rich or anything like that, and that would never happen in a corner store anyway.

  Maybe we can mimic, to a large degree, Grandpa’s old schedule in the store.

  I’ll certainly need someone to work there part-time with me to cover hours at the end of the day and for afternoons when I need to be out of the store for things.”

  Matthew dug out a bowl for his cereal. “Would you try to keep the same weekend hours too?”

  “Well, I’ll probably need to make Saturday a full day like any weekday. Maybe I can close a little earlier. It depends on how those last couple of hours does on late Saturdays. That’s where more of that need and demand is for having someone in there part-time. If there’re enough sales to merit the part-timer, I’ll leave the store open. Otherwise, I can close it earlier.” Mark set the coffee cup down and took the coffee pot over to the sink to rinse it out. “As far as Sunday goes, I’ll likely have to open at least

  until noon for people to come in and get fuel, coffee, their newspapers, and whatever else. Again, we’ll have to see how it goes.” Matthew took his cereal over to the table and listened to his father. “You have to remember too,”

  Mark said as he put the rinsed pot away and cleared out a couple of items from the dish drying rack. “Depending on the status of having someone there part-time, or not, you might need to come over to the store after school and stay with me in there to do homework and whatnot until I close on a given day.”

  “Oh.” Matthew sighed. “Couldn’t I just let myself in and sit and do homework here? Eleven is old enough to watch myself.”

  Mark raised his hand, palm outward, and then went over to one of the boxes to unpack a few small items and put them away. “I know you are, and the town is plenty safe. That’s not the issue. For a little while, it might simply be more practical to have dinner at the store right around closing time. A little

  ‘kill two birds with one stone’ thing. You could get off the bus at the corner of John Street and then just walk the six blocks to the store. If the weather is really bad, you can ride it up to Ward Street and get out and come up the one block. I’ll make sure to talk to the bus company about the other stop option.

  That way, you can be at the store at four thirty and do your homework to about five thirty, and I can make us a little something to eat as I close up.

  Then we can head home together.” Matthew didn’t respond, but Mark could see a little disappointment. “Look,” he continued. “Everything is fluid. This is how I see things starting out, but we can discuss some changes depending on how things work and how responsible you keep yourself. One of the issues is going to be in the mornings. I can get you out of bed, but you’re going to have to get yourself on the bus. It’s either that or you’ll have to come to the store and get picked up from there.”

  “I think I can do that on my own here—especially if it works out and I can get that paper route. I’ll just come home from the route, get cleaned up, eat, and hop on the bus.”

  Mark smiled at his son as he moved into the next box of items. “I know we’ll figure all of this out together. It’s a restart for both of us. We’ll make the best of it.”

  Matthew finished his breakfast quietly while his father continued to put everything in the kitchen away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  When Mark had finished moving the last of the items around the main part of the convenience store, he stepped through the adjoining door to the three garage bays with the design layout in his hands. He laid it down on the workstation table when someone approached the glass walk-in door to the garages, then he made his way over to unlock the door.

  “Hi,”
Mark said and swung the door open in the late afternoon winter darkness. “Sorry about the lack of lighting outside,” he said as he looked up at all the overhead lights that were turned off. “But we’re not open for a couple more days and I was trying not to attract people to the building early.

  I’m figuring on a formal opening on Monday. Can I help you with anything?”

  The young woman stepped inside and stomped her boots to kick the freshly fallen snow off. “Hi,” she responded with downcast eyes and in a hesitant voice, then she took off her woolen hood and removed her hat. “I saw your ad in the paper, for part-time help, and I was hoping to catch you while you were in here, so I could apply.”

  Mark raised an eyebrow to the young woman. “Well, you’ve already scored a couple of points with me for taking the initiative by walking here in the snow to put in the application.” He looked out of the door at the oncoming snowstorm. “And fairly quickly too; I don’t think the ad ran more than one day.” Mark motioned for her to step back into the main store then reached behind her to re-lock the walk-in door to the garage area. Matthew peeked out of the office area, where he had been finishing his homework, to see whom his father was talking to.

  “So I see you had design plans,” the young woman said as she unzipped her coat part of the way and pointed to Mark’s hand with the paperwork, doing her best to make small talk and seem at ease. “Are you planning to expand the store side or re-open the garages for car repair?”

  Mark could tell she was nervous and trying to make small talk, but she was fairly effective in her process despite being uneasy. She came across as genuinely interested, rather than simply making the comments only for the purposes of small talk. “Well, Miss …”

  “Diane. Diane Wakeford.” She remained tense but did extend her hand to shake Mark’s.

  “Miss Wakeford. Did you grow up around here?” Mark asked as they shook hands.

  “Yes, I’ve lived here my whole life. Twenty-four years,” Diane said and

  took her hand back quickly.