The congregation was gathered in the Wilbur General Store but not entirely sure of what it was gathered for. All it seemed to know for certain as a group was that some sort of crisis had developed – or was developing – and that Juliette Rose was somehow at the bottom of it, which surprised no one. They clustered in small groups strung out in the aisle or huddled in the back booths with a good deal of crossover from group to group. Liz and Juliette Rose would have told them what was going on but they were in the back room behind the counter talking to Roger on the phone.
I should probably explain that this Wilbur General Store represented the last of a dying breed. Built along the lines of an Iroquois longhouse, it was tall and wide and stretched out the better part of a half-acre. Inside was a deli and ice cream counter with stools to the left as you entered. The booths were on the right side lined up under the front windows all the way down to the far end.
Across from you and against the back wall was another counter, the one you brought your various purchases to. This counter was a glass case, and inside was about every kind of candy known to civilized man. I probably don’t need to tell you that that counter was Mecca for Wilbur’s kids, and although it made things a little obnoxious for adults trying to buy stuff for supper for about two hours after school let out because they had to fight their way to the cash register through throngs of small fry agonizing over which sweet tooth to honor that day, Liz loved having kids around and wouldn’t move it.
“What about another counter and register for us?” the customers kept complaining. “You know, Liz. Separate. Give the kids their own corner.”
It would have solved the problem but the truth was that Liz wasn’t interested in solving the problem. She liked the happy, discordant mess around the candy counter, and she liked that it forced adults to deal with kids they didn’t know and wouldn’t otherwise have spoken to. She was of the opinion that modern adults either dismissed kids way too easily or hung too much on them in the way of adult expectations. The candy counter being the only counter fostered conversations and connections between the two groups that would never have happened otherwise, and she was in favor of that. She felt it gave the adults a more realistic sense of who their kids were.
Before she bought the WGS, you see, Liz had been a social worker. The counter was the result of what she had learned. Either that, or her own private revenge mechanism. Whichever it was, its dual purpose would remain as long as she owned it and anybody who didn’t like it could hike the fifteen miles down the mountain to the convenience stores in Tully if they preferred them. She really didn’t give a damn.
But I was telling you about the store.
The huge open space in the middle wasn’t all that open any more, being filled with racks and racks of everything from food to power tools to toys and pet supplies. There were pegboards loaded with little bags of screws, nuts, bolts, and washers; bins of records and tapes; tables piled with work clothes and t-shirts and baseball caps; and one whole far corner was devoted to providing the trappings, accoutrements, and accessories associated with hunting and fishing, from waders to hooks to orange vests and those silly hats with the ear flaps that come down and turn anyone up to and including Tom Hanks into an instant dork.
I hasten to add that so far as I know Liz was not herself either a hunter or fisher but she respected those who were even if personally she thought they ought to get a life that didn’t involved the killing and maiming of animals that were minding their own business just for the so-called “sport” of the thing. She had never understood it, admired it, or practiced it. It frankly baffled her, but she didn’t figure it was her job to tell people how to live, so she didn’t. This was an attitude appreciated by all who were aware of it. Not everybody was.
In short, while the Wilbur General Store was noticeably minus sawdust, Labrador retrievers, and pickle barrels, it was, thanks to Liz Profitt, plentifully supplied with the graces and communal tolerance of an old-time New England general store, not to mention a similarly wide range of stock items. It was, almost effortlessly, what chain and big box stores pretended to be with a total lack of believability, and it was the natural place for Wilbur’s denizens to get together when something was brewing.
