on the road each way not so much. So between Gran’s doctor advising me that I needed to spend more time with her and my love for the store, I immediately put in an offer for the shop. The thought of the business being converted into one of the chain dollar stores and Gran having to gointo an assisted-living facility had galvanized me into action.
The Thornbee twins’ grandfather built the dime store when Shadow Bend was no more than a stagecoach stop, and the town had lost enough of its heritage when so much of the farmland and orchards had become housing developments for Kansas City commuters. Now instead of fresh fruit and fields of corn or soybeans, we had cookie-cutter houses, a fancy golf course, and a country club.
The excited voices of my customers drew me back from my reverie. There was no acoustical tile or cork matting to mute their lively conversations. Instead, the old tin ceiling and hardwood floors amplified the sound of people socializing with their neighbors and friends. Although I had doubled the interior space, installed Wi-Fi, and added the basket business, I had tried to keep the character of the original five-and-dime intact.
Noting that Hannah was behind the soda fountain and Dad was handling the register, I proceeded to the candy counter. I used the few minutes it took people to notice that I was there to study my father. Kern Sinclair was tall and lean, and held himself as erect as an army general.
Although I had inherited his height, I had gotten my mother’s more voluptuous body type. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been blessed with her willpower and never had been able to stick to her eight-hundred-calorie diet plan. My hair was a combination of Mom’s blond and Dad’s auburn color, but now that my father had a few strands of gray, our shades were closer than when he was a young man.
There were lines in my dad’s face that hadn’t been there before he went to prison, but all in all, I wasrelieved that he seemed to be adjusting well to his sudden freedom. From the expression in his bright green eyes as he chatted with the woman buying a pair of cupcake flip-flops and a Cupcake Weekend T-shirt, I suspected that he enjoyed working in the store and that he might become my permanent employee. How I felt about that possibility was still up for debate.
The shoppers finally noticed me and suddenly there was a line at the candy counter. For the next hour, I worked steadily, packing chocolate confections into little white pasteboard boxes. But as a young woman wavered between a hand-dipped hazelnut crunch truffle and this month’s signature candy, a bonbon containing macadamia nuts, Cointreau, and white chocolate, I glanced over at Hannah as she filled soda fountain orders.
I would miss the quirky teenager when she left next month for college. Hannah’s way of dressing fooled a lot of people into underestimating the girl, but I had come to recognize that she wasn’t weird, just a limited edition.
Today Hannah wore an extremely tiny cream miniskirt trimmed in leather and chains, a teal tank that was cinched from her bustline to her hip and laced up the back, and plum leather wedge-heeled sneakers. Most adults figured anyone who sported such outrageous outfits was too bizarre to be perceptive. This assumption was a serious miscalculation on their part.
The line at the candy case had dwindled to a mother, daughter, and granddaughter trio, and as the young girl made her selections, I listened to the two older women discussing Fallon’s death.
“I heard that they have no idea what caused that girl from the cupcake company to drop dead.” The grandmother, busy pulling her short shorts from the crack of her butt, didn’t bother to lower her voice. “One of theEMTs’ wives told me she was throwing up something fierce. Then suddenly she just keeled over, went stiff as a board, and started twitching and jerking like she was dancing the Watusi.”
“A young woman like that, it was probably a drug
The Thornbee twins’ grandfather built the dime store when Shadow Bend was no more than a stagecoach stop, and the town had lost enough of its heritage when so much of the farmland and orchards had become housing developments for Kansas City commuters. Now instead of fresh fruit and fields of corn or soybeans, we had cookie-cutter houses, a fancy golf course, and a country club.
The excited voices of my customers drew me back from my reverie. There was no acoustical tile or cork matting to mute their lively conversations. Instead, the old tin ceiling and hardwood floors amplified the sound of people socializing with their neighbors and friends. Although I had doubled the interior space, installed Wi-Fi, and added the basket business, I had tried to keep the character of the original five-and-dime intact.
Noting that Hannah was behind the soda fountain and Dad was handling the register, I proceeded to the candy counter. I used the few minutes it took people to notice that I was there to study my father. Kern Sinclair was tall and lean, and held himself as erect as an army general.
Although I had inherited his height, I had gotten my mother’s more voluptuous body type. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been blessed with her willpower and never had been able to stick to her eight-hundred-calorie diet plan. My hair was a combination of Mom’s blond and Dad’s auburn color, but now that my father had a few strands of gray, our shades were closer than when he was a young man.
There were lines in my dad’s face that hadn’t been there before he went to prison, but all in all, I wasrelieved that he seemed to be adjusting well to his sudden freedom. From the expression in his bright green eyes as he chatted with the woman buying a pair of cupcake flip-flops and a Cupcake Weekend T-shirt, I suspected that he enjoyed working in the store and that he might become my permanent employee. How I felt about that possibility was still up for debate.
The shoppers finally noticed me and suddenly there was a line at the candy counter. For the next hour, I worked steadily, packing chocolate confections into little white pasteboard boxes. But as a young woman wavered between a hand-dipped hazelnut crunch truffle and this month’s signature candy, a bonbon containing macadamia nuts, Cointreau, and white chocolate, I glanced over at Hannah as she filled soda fountain orders.
I would miss the quirky teenager when she left next month for college. Hannah’s way of dressing fooled a lot of people into underestimating the girl, but I had come to recognize that she wasn’t weird, just a limited edition.
Today Hannah wore an extremely tiny cream miniskirt trimmed in leather and chains, a teal tank that was cinched from her bustline to her hip and laced up the back, and plum leather wedge-heeled sneakers. Most adults figured anyone who sported such outrageous outfits was too bizarre to be perceptive. This assumption was a serious miscalculation on their part.
The line at the candy case had dwindled to a mother, daughter, and granddaughter trio, and as the young girl made her selections, I listened to the two older women discussing Fallon’s death.
“I heard that they have no idea what caused that girl from the cupcake company to drop dead.” The grandmother, busy pulling her short shorts from the crack of her butt, didn’t bother to lower her voice. “One of theEMTs’ wives told me she was throwing up something fierce. Then suddenly she just keeled over, went stiff as a board, and started twitching and jerking like she was dancing the Watusi.”
“A young woman like that, it was probably a drug
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