Paige glanced at her watch. Again. Eight fifty-eight. Where was Clarissa? Dawn, of course, would not arrive for another twenty minutes, but Clarissa had never been late. At least not for the few days Paige had been at the pharmacy.
Thankfully, Mrs. Trout arrived with the keys to the front end of the store. Otherwise, they would have been stuck standing outside the door, waiting beside the two customers whose silhouettes now cast shadows through the glass.
Hurry up, Clarissa.
Hopefully when they opened the doors in a couple of minutes, neither customer would need a prescription filled. Late starts and annoyed customers were a bad combination for the start of a new day.
The shadows at the door shifted, keys clanked in the lock, and suddenly Clarissa let herself and the customers in. Her voice projected through the store. “Sorry, all. Traffic was terrible. Thought I was going to be late there for a minute.”
“You are late.” An elderly man in a rumpled suit made no effort to keep his voice low as he headed toward the antacids. The other customer, a woman with a red nose, went straight to the cough and cold section.
Clarissa made a face behind the man’s back, then smiled at Paige. “I was thinking you should be ready to start opening by yourself. If nothing else, maybe this little arrangement will get me out of Nashville’s rush hour. If you open, I’ll wait an hour, and save a ton of stuck-in-traffic time. You’re up for it, right? Dawn’ll be here, and I’ll come in by eleven to give you a lunch break. Then maybe Saturday, I’ll leave after noon and let you get your feet wet with closing shop. Saturdays are always slow back here, anyway.”
Paige exhaled slowly. “I . . . guess so.” She didn’t have a full grasp of the computer yet. Dawn did, but she was consistently late for work. Quite late, usually. Still, Paige could at least open on time. “I don’t have keys.”
“That’s right. I keep meaning to get the extra set from Mrs. Trout and give it to you.”
“Mrs. Trout?”
“Mrs. Trout. The front-end clerk. Let you in here today.” Clarissa looked at Paige as if she were an idiot.
“I know who she is. What I meant was, ‘Why does Mrs. Trout have all the keys?’ ”
“Because she sometimes gets here before I do, like today. And she sometimes comes in on Sundays and does a little merchandising work up front.”
“But she has the key to the dispensing area, too?”
“Well, yeah. They were on the same ring and I didn’t want to separate them. I was afraid I’d lose one if I did. It’s not like she’s up here selling narcotics. I mean, look at her. She’s hardly the criminal type.”
“I didn’t say she was. Still, it’s against the law. What would happen if a state board inspector just happened to be around that day?”
“Like board inspectors are going to spend their Sunday afternoons in this town, looking for Mrs. Trout and her kind to be wandering free in a pharmacy.”
It did sound foolish. Why should Paige make waves? She could still feel the joy from mailing her signing bonus just in time for her mother’s first payment. Just being employed was a blessing. But disaster sometimes came unexpectedly. “You never know.”
“I do. Look, I’ve been doing the work of three people here. If Mrs. Trout is willing to come in on her day off and help me, I’m not going to get all ballistic on her. I’m going to appreciate the gift for what it is and get on with my life—which has enough issues without inventing more to worry about.”
Paige looked at her young boss, hoping the bravado proved true. The worse-case scenario had already played out in her own life. She vowed never to go through that hell again, no matter what she had to do.
Clarissa poured thick red syrup into the bottle. On the floor above them, construction teams rattled and banged. She was on the verge of a headache. How much longer would this day last? She looked toward Paige, and her annoyance grew.
Paige mumbled under her breath as she looked from prescription, to label, to stock bottle, to medicine vial. “Yeah, looks good. One more quick check.”
Aaagh! She was so meticulous it was maddening. It took her forever to do anything. Did the girl ever laugh? The only word that came to mind was dull. The more she thought about it, the more it really burned her that her grandfather had hired this—what did he call her? A hard worker? Slow worker was a more accurate description. It didn’t take much to look busy if it took you an hour to do anything.
Her grandfather had been deceived by slowness and freckles— that little smatter of freckles across Paige’s button nose. Yep, combined with her wide-eyed innocence, it took the girl-next-door look to a whole new level. Cuteness. It fooled old people every time.
Clarissa sighed, put the label on her bottle, and took it to the counter. “Alana, your prescription is ready.” She knew if she didn’t get away now, she was going to say something she’d regret. Who knew if Paige was reporting back to her grandfather; she needed to at least be civil and hope for the best. But that wasn’t going to happen if she stayed beside Paige for another second. She was going to blow. Where could she go that wouldn’t be overly conspicuous? From upstairs came some more clanging and she had her answer.
Cory.
He was the one distraction in Shoal Creek that made it almost bearable. And he hadn’t called in over a week now. It was time to heat things back up.
“Hey, Paige, I’m going to check on the work upstairs—find out when they’re going to stop making all that noise. It’s driving me crazy.”
Paige looked up from the computer screen. She glanced pointedly at the line of prescriptions waiting on the counter, then back at Clarissa. “Do you think now is the best time for that?”
“I’ll be right back.” Honestly, it was only three prescriptions.
Maybe Paige would move a little faster if she didn’t always have someone there to carry the load for her.
Besides, the noise was annoying, and it served her patients’ best interest to check on progress. Of course, the fact that the supervising carpenter was such a premium specimen of manhood would make the fact-finding mission less painful.
She went up the steps to what had been the theater balcony. It was now the staging area for all the work going on in the building— the travel agency next door was almost complete, then they were putting in a boutique up here.
When she reached the top of the stairs, she could see the men busy at work. Unfortunately, Cory was not among them.
An electrician leered down from his ladder. “Can I help you, or’d you come up here to see me?”
Disgusting.
“Just checking progress.” She wasn’t about to ask for Cory.
She walked back down the stairs, resigned to her fate of boredom. But when she opened the door to the pharmacy, she saw him. At the counter. Stuck talking to the Dull One. Better mobilize a rescue.
She smoothed her hair with her fingers and walked up beside him. “Hello, Cory. What brings you here?” She smiled at him, tilting her head just enough so that she knew her upturned eyes produced maximum effect.
“I heard a rumor there was another beautiful girl working down here, and thought maybe this was changing from a pharmacy to a modeling agency. Decided I better get down here and see what all the fuss was about.” He spoke loud enough for Paige to hear, and he grinned back and forth between Clarissa and Paige, his dimples working their effect. “Of course, Ken always exaggerates about these things, but this particular time, I’d say he got it right.”
Paige’s cheeks turned pink, but she never looked up from the computer when she said, “Cory, will you cut it out and let us get back to work? You do want your mom’s medicine today, right?”
Cory looked at Clarissa, cleared his throat, and sobered just a little. “Turns out, my mom needs a refill. Paige said she can call the pharmacy in Sledge and get it transferred over here.”
“I told you I could do that three months ago.”
“Did you? Must have slipped my mind. Of course, no surprise there. Lots of things slip my mind when there’s something more interesting to think about.”
Clarissa did not like the way Cory grinned at Paige. Obviously he was trying not to be rude, but still, if he didn’t watch out, he would give Paige the impression he liked her or something. That’s all we need, to have the Dull One mooning over Cory. It would make her even slower than she already is.
“Well, I’ll leave you ladies to your work.” He tapped once on the counter. “Thanks, Paige.” He winked at Clarissa as he walked past, but somehow it felt dismissive. Condescending even. The way a jock in high school would wink at the homely-but-smart girl who had just done his homework for him.
Clarissa watched him walk away, wishing she could think of an excuse to follow. When he reached the door, he stopped and turned. Of course, it had all been an act. A macho act. He’d give her a knowing smile now, to let her know they’d hook up later.
Instead, he waved toward Paige and disappeared out the door. Was that a blush on his cheeks as he turned away?
Clarissa licked her lips and walked up beside Paige. “So, you’ve met Cory now.”
Paige continued to count pills with her spatula and didn’t answer until she was done. “Actually, I met him about twenty years ago. He was a couple of years behind me in school, but I’ve known him all my life.”
“Where did you say you’re from again?”
“Sledge. It’s about fifteen miles south of here. Small town, a lot like Shoal Creek.”
Clarissa thought of Becky, probably planning even now the new yoga studio in the Lancaster Building. She thought of her father, drinking his way into another oblivion. She looked at little Miss Apple Pie before her and remembered Cory’s obvious attraction to her. What would it take to make something go right?
She knew the answer. It was always the same. Stay focused and work hard. It was the Richardson way.