Little Town, Great Big Life

The dark-eyed stranger grinned a wonderful grin, and Fayrene wondered if she might still be dreaming. Those sleeping pills were awfully strong.

Across the street, at Blaine’s Drugstore, which was on winter hours and not set to open for another hour, Belinda Blaine, who was not a morning person and not feeling well, either, was in the restroom peeing on a pregnancy-test strip. Somehow the radio on her desk just a few feet beyond the door, which she had not bothered to close, had been left on. (Probably by her cousin Arlo, when he had cleaned up the previous afternoon—she was going to smack him.) Hearing Winston’s familiar voice within two feet got her so discombobulated that she dropped the test strip in the toilet.

“Well, shoot.” She bent over and gazed into the toilet, trying to figure out the exact color of the test strip.

“Belinda? You in here?” It was her husband, Lyle, coming in the back door of the store.

She yanked up her reluctant panties and panty hose, while Lyle’s footsteps headed off to the front of the store. The panties and hose got all wadded together. Her mother swore no one should wear panties with panty hose, that that was the purpose of panty hose. As much as she hated to ever agree with her mother, this experience was about to convert Belinda to the no-panty practice.

Snatching up the test-kit box, she looked frantically around but found no satisfactory place to hide it. She ended up stuffing it into the waistband of her still-twisted panty hose.

“Of course I’m here. I was in the bathroom, Lyle,” she said as she strode out to the soda fountain.

Lyle was on his way back, and Belinda almost bumped into him.

She asked him where he thought she had been.

“Well, honey,” he said, with a bit of anxiety, “I saw your car out back, but didn’t see any lights turned on in front here, so I just wanted to check things out.”

Lyle was a deputy with the sheriff’s office next door. He had just gotten off night duty, and wanted coffee and to chat with her before he went home. Lyle listened to a lot of late-night radio when he was on patrol, which seemed to be encouraging morbid thoughts. Late-night talk shows were filled with a lot of conversation about scary things, such as UFO invaders, terrorist cells and, last night, the report of murderers who broke into the house of an innocent family up north and ended up killing them all.

Belinda, who made it a point to never listen to the news and really could have done without her husband telling her, ended up walking around with the test-kit box rubbing her skin while she got Lyle a cup of fresh coffee and tried to look interested in his report of world affairs and the idea of installing a security system at their home. Since she was already at the drugstore and had coffee made, she ended up opening early and got half a dozen customers coming in. At least Lyle had someone else to talk to, letting her off the hook.

All around a radius of the radio signal, roosters came out to crow, and skunks, armadillos and other annoying critters headed back to their dens, while early risers got up to let out the dog, let in the cat and look hopefully for the newspaper, which was often late. Word of Winston Valentine’s wake-up reveille spread, and Jim Rainwater began to take call after call, and to keep a running total of for or against.

Out front of the small cement-block radio station, Tate Holloway, who had received a number of telephone calls, and Everett Northrupt arrived at the same time. Everett, a short, rather bent man, was in such a state as to forget that Tate was the owner of the station and therefore his boss, and to jostle him for going first through the door. A man with a good sense of humor, Tate stood back and waved the older man on.

They reached the sound studio doorway just as Winston put his mouth to the microphone for his final reveille. “Gooood Mornin’, Valentinites! This is your last call. GET UP, GET UP, YOU SLEE-PY-HEAD. GET UP AND GET YOUR BOD-Y FED!”

This time Jim Rainwater over at the controls played a symbol and drum sound, and he and Winston grinned at each other. Jim had more fun working with Winston than he did any of the other volunteer disc jockeys.

Winston saw Everett Northrupt glaring in the doorway. His response was to lean into the microphone to say, “Well, folks, we’re leavin’ you now that we’ve gotcha woke up. Stay tuned for my good friend Everett, who will ease you into the day. Join me again for the Home Folks show at ten, and until then, remember Psalm 30, verse 5—For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, but a shout of joy comes in the mornin’.”

The men, all except Everett, chuckled.

CHAPTER 3

Belinda Blaine of Blaine’s Drugstore and Soda Fountain

THE MORNING RUSH STARTED. TING-A-LING WENT the bell over the door. Brrring went the cash register.

“Mornin’, Belinda. Hey, Arlo. Get up, get up, you sleeepy-heads! I’ll take three lattes and two Little Debbies to go. Hurry up, I’m already supposed to be in Duncan.”

“Just a large coffee this mornin’. Black. Get up, get up, you sleepyhead. Get up and get your body fed! Uhmmm…second thought—I’ll take a honey bun, too.”

“Hey, y’all. Get up, get up, you sleeeepyheads! Oran, you got my wife’s prescription? I’ll be back in a minute…wanna get a coffee.”

“Two large Coca-Colas to go, and here, four packages of peanuts, too. I’m gettin’ my body fed. You know, it’d be great if y’all would serve sausage biscuits.”

“Whoo-hoo! Everybody get up, get up…and get your bod-y fed!”

“What is this all about?”

“Didn’t you hear ol’ Winston this mornin’? Well, he…”

Whatever happened in town, and of any interest anywhere, would be told and discussed first, or at least second, down at Blaine’s Drugstore and Soda Fountain. Built in 1909, it had escaped two tornadoes, a small fire and been in continuous operation by the same family since its beginning in a tent during the land run. It had been written up in every insurance magazine in the state, been filmed for two travel shows, included as a backdrop in one movie and featured in OklahomaToday magazine. The previous year Belinda Blaine had succeeded in getting the store on the state register of historic buildings. Now the building bore a bronze plaque that Belinda polished once a week.

The original black fans turned slowly from the tin-lined ceiling winter and summer, lemonade and cold sweet tea were still made from scratch and sundaes were still served in vintage glass fountain dishes at the original granite counter. Old Coke, Dr. Pepper, headache powder and tonic signs graced the walls, along with a number of autographed pictures of notable people who reportedly had dropped in, such as Governor “Alfalfa Bill” Murray and Mifaunwy Dolores Shunatona, Miss Oklahoma 1941 and the country-music stars the Carter Sisters, Hoyt Axton and Patsy Cline.

The Patsy Cline one was a fake. Fenster Blaine, who had been working all alone one day in 1962, decided to tear the photograph from a country-music magazine and sign it himself, and tell everyone that Patsy had come in. A number of people at the time had recognized his handwriting, but as the years had passed, the photograph remained on the wall and the truth was lost.

The store was a favorite hangout for teens after school and the first place that parents allowed their young daughters to go when beginning to date. It hosted Boy Scouts and Brownies, the Methodist Ladies’ Circle and Baptist Women on a regular basis. Romances had begun, marriages had ended, business and political deals, large and small, had been struck, at least three holdups had happened, along with several heart attacks, fist-fights and two deaths.

Pharmacist Perry Blaine, Belinda’s father, had been gone several years now, but a good replacement had at last been found in Oran Lackey, who could not only dispense modern medicines, like Viagra and Cialis, on an up-to-the-minute computerized system, but he also knew the ages-old art of compounding medicinals such as cough-suppressant lollipops and natural hormone creams, just as Perry had done. Because of this ability, the store was growing an ever-enlarging mail-order business and even made some veterinary medicines. They also carried vitamins, herbs and homeopathic remedies, all of which were coming back around in popularity.

Vella Blaine had installed Oran in the apartment above the drugstore, enabling him to be available day and night. Some people wondered why in the world Oran would take on such a job, when he could have gone with Walgreens over in Lawton and not had to work nearly so hard. Oran, who had been a medic in the army and gone through some tough times in Somalia and Afghanistan—fights hardly anyone back home knew about but which had left him with chronic fatigue and a bad limp—was a shy, solitary man who did not like the bustle of a large pharmacy. He came from Kansas City and had absolutely no family. He had found one when he came to Blaine’s Drugstore. Not only the Blaines but the entire town needed and wanted him. He knew all of his customers by name, and was privy to many intimate details of their lives. He had on numerous occasions saved people money and possibly from death by his careful monitoring of their medications. He had embarrassed quite a few doctors and made them hopping mad because he found their mistakes. He had, very quietly and as only Belinda knew, put one unscrupulous doctor out of business.

Most people had pretty much forgotten that Vella and Perry had two daughters. Their eldest, Margaret, who had grown up the favored and really beautiful one, had left town some twenty-three years ago in the Ford Mustang her parents had given her as a high-school-graduation present. She had gone all the way to Atlanta, which she apparently considered far enough away and where she had built a good career as a travel specialist. Margaret had come home only three times. The last time had been when Perry Blaine had died. She attended the funeral and the reading of the will, got her inheritance in cash and picked up a few mementoes her mother thought she should have and left again, this time going all the way to a new home in Miami.

Belinda was the daughter who had stayed. Except for a year and a half away in college—she had quit during her sophomore year—she had lived all her life in Valentine. This was not something she had planned, although she did say, and without apology, that she never had desired to live anywhere else. She had begun working in the store at nine years old. She thought it silly to go out and struggle to find a job when she had a perfectly good one handed to her. Belinda had never possessed much ambition, and she was not ashamed of this. She considered herself a smart woman, and found ambition highly overrated.

Belinda’s keen intellect—she had surprised everyone by being valedictorian of her graduating class and the second highest in academics for the entire state that year—combined with a blunt nature, had tended in her early years to discourage male attention. She had seen the unhappiness in her parents’ marriage and calculated that her chances of following in their footsteps were high, so she felt she would do best to avoid such a union. Also, she did not care to change herself to accommodate a man, and this, as far as she could see, was the foolish thing that women kept doing.

Then one fall evening, as she was driving home, Lyle Midgette came by in his brand-new police car and pulled her over for speeding, and actually gave her a ticket. None of the other officers, not even the sheriff, ever gave her a ticket. Lyle was such a pleasant, even-tempered man that no insult she threw at him affected him. And even further, after that he went to following after her like a puppy dog.

Lyle had moved up from Wichita Falls to take the deputy position in the sheriff’s office. He was a man dedicated to law enforcement, something of the complete opposite of Belinda, who lived by her own rules. He was also a Greek god in his tan deputy sheriff’s uniform. The instant Belinda saw him, against all of her good sense, she had fallen into such lust as she had never known. For Lyle’s part, he often said that the minute he laid eyes on Belinda, he fell in love.

Belinda asked him if he did not mind that she was of a womanly shape. He said straight out, “Oh, that’s what I like. You remind me of my mother.”

Another woman might have been offended. Belinda was practical. She asked to be introduced to his mother, who lived all the way down in Wichita Falls—another really good thing, as far as Belinda was concerned.

As it happened, Lyle was the only boy after four older sisters, who all spoiled him so much that he had not had to walk a step before the age of three. And his sisters, as well as his mother, were all full-figured like Belinda, which proved to her that humans were given to liking what they knew, just as she liked the drugstore.

At the time of their meeting, Belinda, having existed primarily within her mind, had little idea of her sensual, womanly side. That changed with Lyle’s abundant attentions. She quickly came into full bloom. One day she found the Home Shopping Network, Delta Burke lingerie for womanly figures and Nina dyeable pumps, and her life changed forever. Valentine was fifty miles from a mall, but everything that you could want—and that you might not want others to know you bought—came right to Belinda via Buddy, the UPS driver.

As it turned out, having known and served most of her customers for all of her life, Belinda already knew their most intimate likes and dislikes. She began buying for them as well as for herself, and pretty soon she not only had a good personal shopping business going but was supplying the drugstore with all manner of unique specialty and gift items. She installed an entire perfume counter with locally hard-to-find scents such as Coco, Interlude and Evening in Paris. She stocked the favored brand and color dye for every woman in town who did her own hair, and every preferred shade of cosmetic and fingernail polish. The store’s profits soared. Belinda discovered yet another talent—making money hand over fist, and with little effort at all.

Three years ago, Belinda had finally allowed Lyle to talk her into marriage. They had a small but lovely church ceremony, and in the end Belinda was secretly thrilled. But she insisted on keeping her own name. She felt to change would cause all manner of complications at this late stage of her life. Everyone knew her as Belinda Blaine of Blaine’s Drugstore and Soda Fountain, not to mention that she was of a size to wear a DD cup bra. The name of Midgette just did not fit her at all. It didn’t even fit Lyle, who was six-two, but one could not change what one had been born with. One could only seek to make the best of it.

When Winston came into the drugstore, everyone went to clapping and cheering him.

Winston made a courtly bow. “Thank you…thank you. I commend your good taste.”

At his voice, Belinda laughed right out loud, so rare a happening that she received a number of curious looks.

Winston said, “I guess I accomplished somethin’ this mornin’. I got a full laugh out of Miss Belinda Blaine.”

“Oh, yeah, you made me laugh,” she said, with the image in her mind of dropping the pregnancy-test kit in the toilet.

As Winston held court at his usual table, surrounded by a knot of other gossipy old farts, Belinda brought him a cup of coffee and a sweet roll.

When her mother had left on her European vacation, she had said to Belinda, “The store and Winston are in your hands. Don’t let either of them die on me while I’m gone.”

Her mother had meant it as a joke, but they both knew there was a kernel of truth in the sentiment. The store and all who came in it made up their lives.

The day became quite dreary, and the midmorning lull started early. She had sent Arlo to the storeroom to unpack boxes. All was silent from there. The low drone of the television sounded from the rear of the pharmacy.

Taking a feather duster, Belinda strolled along the health and intimate products section, whacking here and there, until she came to the pregnancy-test kits. She scratched the back of her head.

They had three different brands. It had been the $6.99 one that she had dropped into the toilet. The $9.99 product guaranteed to give easy-to-read results.

Could she read it in the toilet, should she drop it? She really hated flushing money away.

Just as she reached for the box, the bell rang out over the front door. She snatched back her hand as if from a flame and went to whacking the duster. At the end of the aisle, a familiar figure passed.

“Emma! Hey, girlfriend! What are you doin’ out this mornin’?”

“I’ve got to get my hair color.” Emma pointed at her head as if for evidence.

“Well, come on over and get a cup of coffee on the house,” Belinda called, and headed for the soda fountain counter.

What a treat! Emma Berry was her best friend, although somehow the two of them had not seen much of each other the past winter. Emma was deeply into her art—she designed greeting cards and stationery that sold in the drugstore—and into her family, which had increased with a new daughter-in-law the past fall.

And things had just sort of changed, as things often did…but in that instant of seeing her friend, Belinda thought: I will tell her.

Emma brought the box of L’Oréal light ash blond to the cash register and dug money out of her purse with pretty manicured hands.

Belinda handed back change, saying, “Latte or coffee? On the house.”

“Oooh, latte.” Emma scooted her small frame up onto a stool at the counter. “I only like yours.”

Belinda stuck a large cup beneath the aromatic, steaming machine, while Emma chattered on about needing caffeine because she had been up that morning since half past six, when, over the radio alarm in the new coffeemaker, she heard Winston shouting and then found out that John Cole was already heading off to work.

“Don’t put any whipped cream on it. Did you hear Winston this mornin’?”

Belinda, who had paused with the whipped cream can pointed, said, “Oh, yes, I heard.” She brought the steaming cup to Emma at the counter. Her thoughts were in something of a tangle, wondering why anyone would want a coffeemaker with a radio in it at the same time that she tried to figure out how to bring up the subject of her worries.

“I’m afraid he’s gonna have a heart attack,” Emma said. “Can I have a spoon?”

Belinda handed her one. “Winston? Well, we all are. He is ninety-two.”

“No. John Cole. Really? I didn’t know he was that old. He’s workin’ twelve- and fourteen-hour days…again,” Emma added with pointed annoyance.

Belinda thought, John Cole…Winston…John Cole again. Conversation with Emma was apt to be a little convoluted.

“I’ve learned by now, though, that I cannot control him,” Emma said, aiming for resignation, although she did not quite reach her mark.

Belinda agreed, and the two women tossed around comments about how everyone had their own lives to lead, the sort of practical statements that everyone knows but forgets when trying to help other people live their lives.

Then Belinda leaned forward on the counter. “I’ve been goin’ to call you.”

“You have?”

Belinda nodded, then found herself averting her gaze. “Uhhuh. I…” It was just silly. She should not speak of it.

Just then the bell over the door rang out. Both women looked over. If Belinda had not already stopped talking, she would have then, because the person who came in was Gracie Berry, Emma’s daughter-in-law.

Emma waved and called out, “Hi, honey!”

Belinda felt her spirit dipping as she watched the women hug.

“We’re drivin’ down to Dallas,” Emma told Belinda. “Gracie has a meetin’, and afterward we’re goin’ shoppin’.”

“Ah-huh,” said Belinda, her gaze moving back and forth between the two women.

It was somewhat astonishing how much the women, not at all blood kin, favored each other. Emma was fair and Gracie dark, but they were of the same petite size, and possessed of the same sort of innocence and liveliness.

Belinda offered to put Emma’s latte in a foam cup to go and asked if Gracie would like something to drink.

“Thank you. I think I would like a latte, too.” Gracie had a very polite and precise way of speaking. She was from “up north,” as everyone said, a beautiful, very stylish young woman.

Belinda turned to the rear counter and focused on carefully filling the foam cups and putting on the lids.

She waved away Emma’s offer of payment. “You two have a great day.”

“We will…thanks!”

Standing there with her hands flat on the counter, Belinda watched through the glass as the two women disappeared down the sidewalk. Then she gave a great sigh. She felt like a tiny speck on the great big planet.

Fayrene Gardner came blowing in the door, then paused to shake her plastic rain cape.

“Hi, Fay. Wet out there?”

As expected, the woman shot Belinda a frown. She hated the short version of her name.

“Hello, Belinda.” Spine straight, she looked forward and flounced—there was no other way to describe Fayrene’s walk—her skinny frame directly to the pharmacy counter, calling in a faint and wavering voice, “Oran?”

The lanky pharmacist came shooting out from the back. “Good mornin’, Miss Fayrene. What can I do for you today?” he asked with such a tender and delighted expression that Belinda had to turn away, rolling her eyes.

Shy Oran loved bold Fayrene, who was way too dense to see it. Or if she did, she discounted the man’s feelings. She never was interested in a quality man. Thank goodness, was Belinda’s opinion. Occupying herself straightening the nearby perfume counter, she listened without any shame nor reaction to Fayrene’s annoyed glances.

“I think I need…” Fayrene looked at Belinda and dropped her tone lower, causing Oran to lean over close. Belinda heard about every other word. “…to…off…sleepin’ pills…some natural…I could…”

“Well, yes,” Oran said soothingly and with some eagerness. Since he had come to work at the drugstore, he had been trying to help Fayrene, who kept getting dependent on one prescription drug after another.

Finding the sight of the two together annoying, Belinda left the perfume counter and went to the soda fountain register, opened it and began counting the cash, something she often did to settle herself.

Going out the door, Fayrene called out to Belinda, “When you speak to your mama, you be sure and tell her how much we all miss her.”

“I’ll do that.” There were some people you just wanted to smack.

Only seconds on the heel of that thought came the sound of squealing tires and a scream.

Belinda hurried toward the door, but Oran was already ahead of her and sprinting outside with his paramedic bag swinging from his hand.

Belinda saw Fayrene’s legs on the wet pavement and people coming from everywhere. She ducked back into the drugstore, got an umbrella and hurried out again to hold the umbrella over Fayrene and Oran and a man she did not recognize, who came from the café.

Talk about never a dull minute.

The phrase was repeated half a dozen times during the lunch hour. The conversation was now divided between Winston’s morning reveille, the rain, which had entered the picture, and Fayrene getting hit by a car. Between making three chicken-salad sandwich lunches, four hot barbecues and a number of jalapeño-cheese nachos, Belinda downed two extra-strength aspirin for a headache that had reached pounding proportions. Glancing over at Oran, who was still sitting at a table drinking his second hot coffee, she shook two more aspirin into her palm, grabbed a small glass of ice water and took both to him.

“Doctor, tend thyself.”

He had really been shook up. Luckily there had only been a tiny bit of blood on Fayrene’s skinned knee, and Oran had been able to press a bandage over it almost without looking. Belinda thought the torn fabric of Fayrene’s pants had shook him up the most. That and the handsome stranger who had come to lift Fayrene and carry her back to the café, leaving Oran staring after them.