by Delia Parr
She sat for a couple of minutes at the corner, waiting to turn. As she had feared, traffic on the avenue was very heavy. After a gracious driver waved her on, she urged the car into the slow-moving line of cars, and spied a police officer a block ahead who was directing traffic off Welles Avenue.
“Not a detour. Not now,” she groaned, envisioning driving through clogged side streets and losing more time. The avenue was occasionally closed for town events, but as far as she knew, nothing was scheduled for today. She opened her window and leaned out to get a better view, but she didn’t see any barricades stretching across the street behind the officer, which meant that something unexpected must have happened.
As she got closer, she recognized the officer as young Joe Karpinski, better known as Officer Joe to the children he befriended on his bike patrol. He stopped in at Sweet Stuff frequently to check on things, and she never let him leave without some wrapped candy to pass along to the children he met on his beat.
Moving at a crawl, she pulled over a little when she reached him and lowered her window. “Did I forget some kind of event in town today?”
“Not today,” he replied as he bent down and looked in. “Mrs. Butler! I just heard over the scanner that the dispatcher is trying to reach you.”
Instinctively, she pressed harder on the brake, fearing that Aunt Dorothy had taken ill in the short time that had passed since Charlene had left. She felt the blood drain from her face.
She must have looked like she was going to pass out, because Officer Joe reached into the car and placed his hand on her shoulder. “No one’s badly hurt, but I’m afraid I can’t say the same about your store.”
She pulled in a huge gulp of air. “My store? This—this is about my store?” she asked, recovering slightly from panic mode and realizing that if Aunt Dorothy had taken ill, Daniel would have called and the police department would not have had to detour traffic along the avenue.
“Yes, it is. I didn’t mean to alarm you. I forgot about your aunt being so sick,” he said.
“What happened at the store?”
“Apparently one of the residents from the Towers, who probably should have turned in his driver’s license long before now, tried to avoid hitting a squirrel, stepped on the gas pedal instead of the brake and lost control of his car. Unfortunately, he ended up driving right through your storefront window. Good thing you don’t open early, or you might have been inside.”
Her heart skipped a beat. If she hadn’t stopped at the lake to pray, she could have been there when that poor soul had had his accident. Quickly, she said a silent double prayer—to thank Him for keeping her safe and for the man who had driven into her shop.
“Was the driver hurt?” she asked.
“Nothing serious, but they just took him to Tilton General to make sure,” he said. “Give me a second. I’ll let the dispatcher know you’re on your way, and clear out some of this traffic so you can turn and go straight down the avenue. You won’t be able to park near your store, though. We’ve got the whole block shut off from traffic.”
The moment he left her, her cell phone rang. She fumbled in her purse, finally found the phone and flipped it open without looking at the screen to see who was calling. “Hello?”
“Charlene? This is Aunt Dorothy. The police called—”
“Yes, I know. Is Daniel there?”
“He asked me to call you and let you know he’d meet you at the store. How bad is it?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’m still a good distance away, but I’ve got to go now. The police are redirecting traffic so I can drive around the detour. I’ll call you when I know more.”
“Be careful.”
“I will,” she promised, and closed the phone.
With visions of her pretty little shop reduced to nothing but a broken dream, she followed Officer Joe’s directions, turning and heading down the avenue.
She parked the car and walked to a wooden barricade a couple of storefronts away from Sweet Stuff. Two fire trucks and several patrol cars were parked in the center of the street in front of the shop. A tow truck had just begun pulling the car out of her store, beeping loudly as it backed out to the street again.
Broken glass and smashed brick crunched underneath both sets of tires. The sound of glass falling from the store window to the brick walkway shattered Charlene’s nerves. Blinking back tears, she trembled from head to toe until she felt a strong arm wrap around her shoulders.
When she looked up, Daniel was smiling down at her with tears in his eyes. “When the police called, I was afraid I’d lost you. I thought for sure you would have been inside when the car rammed into the shop. I wanted to believe it when I was told you weren’t there, but I really wasn’t convinced you were all right until I spied you standing here.”
She leaned into his embrace and felt him trembling, too, as she wrapped her arm around his waist. “I would have been inside, but I stopped in the park to say a prayer by the lake,” she murmured, and sighed, recalling how they used to pray together at home nearly every day. “We used to pray together,” she whispered.
He tightened his arm around her. “We still can,” he said, his voice husky with emotion. He held her for a few moments before letting go. “It—it looks like they’re asking everyone to move farther back, and there’s a police officer headed our way. Are you feeling up to checking out the damage now, or would you rather wait? It might be better if I take you home—”
“No,” she insisted, and straightened her back. “I’d rather see the damage now.” She looked up at him. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m not sure I could do this alone.”
Ben Jenkins, a police officer who was also her customer, approached them wearing a pained expression. “I’m real sorry about your store, Mrs. Butler. I can take you up there now to get a closer look, but you’ll have to wait to get inside until an engineer checks for any structural damage. We’ll set up a smaller barricade and have an officer on duty here until then, so you don’t have to worry about anything.”
“Like making sure I haven’t lost my entire supply of pistachio fudge?” she asked dryly.
He grinned. “That’d be the first thing I’d check.”
After introducing the two men, Charlene took Daniel’s hand as they walked down the middle of the street and around the emergency vehicles to approach her shop. She wondered how long it had been since they had held hands like this. Who had stopped reaching for the other first? It didn’t matter, she decided—not now when this felt so good, and so right.
She was surprised that the adjoining health-food store wasn’t damaged at all, but the gaping hole in the window of her store was just as jagged and huge as she’d feared it would be. A single piece of stained glass hung precariously from one section of the window. The other pieces were gone, along with the pink lace curtains—save for a strip of torn lace that had caught on one of the broken points of glass. Smashed and broken gift baskets that had once lined the bottom ledge were scattered about the floor of the shop, like peanut shells that littered the stands after a ball game.
Seeing the destruction, she felt her heart fill with grief. Looking beyond the window into the shop, she saw that the vintage candy on the hutch had flown everywhere, although the hutch itself seemed to be intact. Unfortunately, she couldn’t say the same for the glass cases that held her chocolates. What appeared to be several large, tin ceiling tiles, which must have been dislodged by the force of the car hitting the building, had made a direct landing on the cases, shattering the glass and showering the candy with splinters, making it a total loss.
Curiously enough, her front door had escaped any damage. The pink-and-white Closed sign was still hanging straight, and the sign listing her store hours was also in place. She turned to address Ben Jenkins, who had remained at her side. “Would it be all right if my husband and I went in through the back door? I’d like to check my workroom and get the cash from the register, if that’s possible.”
The officer grimaced. �
��Maybe a little later. We’re expecting someone from the utility company to arrive here soon to check the gas line first before we let anyone on either side of this block open for business. Like I said, we’ll have an officer here until everything is checked out, so don’t worry about the contents. In the meantime, you might want to get somebody over here this afternoon to board up the window.”
“I can handle the window,” Daniel said. “Will you call us when it’s all clear to go inside so I can get started on it?”
The officer nodded. “Someone will. Absolutely.”
Charlene heard the men continue talking, but she didn’t register what they were saying. The shock of seeing Sweet Stuff destroyed was too great, and she was consumed by thoughts of having to disappoint the many customers who were counting on her candy for their Easter celebrations.
“We’d better go. I need to get a few sheets of plywood,” Daniel urged, pulling her back from her thoughts as the officer left. “I’ll drive you back to Aunt Dorothy’s first. We can get your car later.” He led her to the brick sidewalk on the other side of the street, where police officers were attempting to disperse a crowd of onlookers.
Andy Johnson, the owner of the health-food store, made his way out of the crowd and rushed toward her. “Mrs. Butler!”
Charlene stopped and let go of Daniel’s hand to take the white shopping bag that Mr. Johnson held out to her. “I’m so sorry about your store, but I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you weren’t there. While the EMTs were helping poor Stanley Murphy to the ambulance, I managed to slip inside your store. I dumped the contents of your cash register into the first bag I could find. You are planning to reopen, aren’t you?” he asked, finally stopping to draw a breath as he wiped the sweat that had beaded up on top of his bald head.
“I—I imagine I will,” she replied, hopeful that insurance would cover most, if not all, of the damage. Touched that he would think of her welfare when they’d barely spoken more than a couple of words to each other in the short time since he’d opened his store, she managed to offer him a smile.
“A lot will depend on what the engineers have to say,” Daniel interjected, and then introduced himself. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, I have some plywood to buy. I’m concerned about getting the window boarded up before it rains, and I’d like to take my wife home first.”
“No!” Mr. Johnson said quickly. “I mean, don’t buy any plywood. I’ve got a couple of sheets in the basement, along with all the tools you’ll need.” He took out his business card and handed it to Daniel. “Once you hear from the police that the building is safe, call me. I’m going to stay as close as they’ll let me to watch over things, anyway. I’ll meet you back here. I’m sure there are a couple of other folks who’d like to help you, and we could have the store boarded up in no time.”
“Thank you. You’re very kind,” Charlene said.
“Thank you,” Daniel echoed. “I’d be grateful for your help.”
“I’ll wait to hear from you, then,” Andy Johnson said, then turned and walked away.
When Charlene heard the ring of a nearby cell phone, she realized she must have left her purse in her car. “I promised to call Aunt Dorothy when I got to the store, but I forgot. And my cell phone is in my purse in my car. It’s just a block down the street, this way,” she said, pointing straight ahead.
Daniel pulled out his cell phone and handed it to her. “My car is closer. Use my phone,” he said, and then reached for her hand again.
She smiled, squeezed his hand and held on tight.
Chapter Nineteen
Only minutes after she’d finished teaching her last class, Ellie picked up her mail in the main office, then hurried down the hall, to escape to the relative peace and quiet of her own office.
When she turned the final corner, eager to slip inside her own space before anyone came out of the faculty room across the hall to delay her, she spied three students who should have been in class gathered around an open locker. She stopped, raised a brow and stared at them.
A red-faced Alicia Conners, a student in Ellie’s second-period honors class, nudged the locker closed with her knee. “Mrs. Waters is here,” she croaked, and scurried off with her two girlfriends following on her heels.
“Rank and reputation have their benefits,” Ellie murmured to herself, rather pleased that she’d only had to show her displeasure to get the students moving to class. She turned to enter her office when Meghan Vincent-Douglass, one of the youngest teachers in the school and a Welleswood Wonder, came out of the faculty room.
A first-year mathematics teacher, Meghan had an Ivy League graduate degree, a Barbie doll figure and a condescending attitude that irritated a lot of people.
“Oh, there you are,” Meghan crooned as she clicked her way over to Ellie in stiletto heels more suitable for a formal affair than the classroom. “Bless your heart. Don’t you look so professional and so dedicated again today.”
Ellie bristled, but she kept a smile pasted on her face. “Hello, Meghan,” she replied, and reached for the doorknob to make her exit before losing valuable time listening to the young woman’s usual prattle about how she wanted to bring Welleswood High School out of the Dark Ages, a term that historians had abandoned years ago.
“I’m just on my way to see Tommy Murphy’s guidance counselor, Mr. Grant,” Meghan said in a low voice, forcing Ellie to pause and listen. “That poor sweet boy is bound to be very upset about what happened, and I’d like to make sure he gets all the support we can offer him.”
Ellie had taught Tommy last year. Although she would scarcely have described the teenager as a “poor sweet boy,” she was concerned about what might have happened to him that required the intervention of his guidance counselor. “Why? What happened?”
“Haven’t you heard?”
“Obviously not,” Ellie replied.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Meghan said, patting Ellie’s arm. “You’re much too busy taking such good care of your students and the members of your department to spend any time at all in the faculty room.”
Sighing, Ellie decided not to argue. “What happened?” she asked again, directing their conversation back to the point.
Meghan’s gaze grew troubled. “Poor dear. His grandfather, I mean. He had an automobile accident not half an hour ago, right in the middle of town.”
“Was he badly hurt?” Ellie asked, loath to admit that Meghan was right to get the counselor involved, because Tommy would be very upset if anything had happened to his grandfather.
“From what we understand, he’s only shaken up by the whole experience. They took him to the hospital by ambulance, just to be on the safe side.”
“That’s good news,” Ellie replied. She had known Tommy’s grandfather, the elderly Stanley Murphy, for many years. He and his wife, Margaret, had lived up the street from Ellie’s mother until a few years ago, when they had sold their home and moved into the high-rise for senior citizens.
Ellie was surprised, however, that the news about the poor man’s accident had spread to the faculty room so quickly, and she worried that Tommy might also have heard about it, since it was hard to enforce the school rule requiring students to keep their cell phones turned off during the school day. “How did you find out about the accident so soon?”
“Actually, I only heard about it just now in the faculty room. Mrs. Anderson was talking about it. Apparently Mr. Elliott’s cousin was having a late breakfast at The Diner when the accident happened and sent a text message to him with all the details. He told Mrs. Anderson, since they teach in adjoining classrooms, and she told the rest of us. Naturally, I thought at once about helping Tommy.”
“I’m sure Mr. Grant will appreciate your interest and make sure Tommy knows his grandfather wasn’t hurt,” Ellie said.
“I’m more concerned that the other students don’t tease Tommy about it,” the younger teacher said. “The latest research tells us that it’s better to address all forms of intimid
ation, including teasing, rather than ignore it.”
“I’m not sure we have to worry about the students teasing Tommy about his grandfather simply because he had an accident on the avenue,” she countered, not bothering to add that there weren’t many students in the entire school who would dare to tease Tommy about anything.
“The accident is only the half of it. The poor soul plowed right through the plate-glass window into Sweet Stuff,” Meghan said, shaking her head. “Half the students here stop there on their way home to buy candy, when they would be much better off walking right next door for some unsalted nuts or naturally dried fruit. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been trying to get more active in the PTA,” she explained earnestly. “I honestly think we should make a real effort to convince the candy-store owner to either stop selling candy to the students after school or at least limit what they buy. Sugar causes all sorts of health—”
“I’m sure they’ll be glad to have the benefit of your insight,” Ellie said, too worried about Charlene to care if she was being abrupt with Meghan. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go inside and make a few calls to make sure the store’s owner wasn’t hurt in the accident.”
Meghan sniffed. “You don’t have to bother. She’s fine. At least, that’s what Mrs. Anderson said, although there were quite a few teachers concerned about their orders for Easter candy, as much as I was.”
Ellie narrowed her gaze. “You ordered something from Sweet Stuff?”
“Of course not. I ordered some special treats from Natural Wonders for Easter, but Mrs. Callow said she had gotten another text message from her son-in-law, who was having his hair cut at the time. He rushed out of the barber shop when the accident occurred, and sent a text message that Sweet Stuff was pretty damaged, but Natural Wonders seemed to be just fine. So my order should be, too,” she explained. “I’d love to keep chatting, but I really do need to get to Mr. Grant before this period ends,” she said, then turned and clicked her way down the hall.