On the day of my sore throat, however, I found Gladys Howard standing in the aisle that offered women’s products on one side and baby items on the other, something I’d always found to be a bit of an oxymoron. “Hey, Miss Gladys,” I said to her.
“Allison Middleton,” she said. Gladys Howard always greeted the young men and women of our town by their first and last names.
Miss Gladys was a wonder to me. Her husband of only a few years had been killed early on in Vietnam, leaving her to raise twin towheaded boys. Her parents owned the drugstore, so she went to work for them and had managed it as far back as I could remember. Although a strikingly beautiful woman, she’d never married again—never dated that I’d heard of—but instead dedicated herself to her sons, her community, and the drugstore.
Thinking back on it now, Gladys Howard had not even hit forty the day I walked into the store for a prescription and some lozenges, but her elegance and life-wisdom made her seem at least a decade older. She was also a woman I wanted to be like, which was why I sought her out each time I came in, hoping maybe a little of her would rub off.
She straightened an item on the shelf, then turned to me. “How’s your mama? I missed church last week, so I haven’t seen her in a week or so.”
“Mama’s fine,” I told her. Miss Gladys and Mama were in the same church circle and occasionally met in each other’s homes for coffee and planning. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, yes. Yes. I don’t know what happened Sunday. I completely overslept, and the boys were at a friend’s so …” She smiled broadly then. “Did you hear that the boys have both been accepted to Southern? Thank the good Lord they took after their daddy in the smarts department. So … I guess in the not-too-distant future, I’ll be rambling around in that house all by myself.” She spoke the words as if this were a fate worse than death, but the pride in her voice brought a smile nonetheless.
“What will they major in?” I asked.
She laughed lightly as she crossed her arms. “Oh … girls probably.” Then she cleared her throat and said, “I’m just thankful neither of them wanted to follow in Dan’s footsteps and join up.”
Awkwardness settled around us. I wasn’t a child anymore, but I wasn’t a grown woman either. I had no idea what it meant to love someone and then lose them, especially to something that made no sense. “Well,” I said, pointing to the back. “I’m here to pick up a prescription.”
Life returned to her eyes and she asked, “Are you sick?”
I touched my throat as I’d done earlier and said, “No, ma’am. Just a tickle, but Dr. Carter …”
Miss Gladys touched my arm lightly as she leaned in and half-whispered, “Honey, wait till you see what we’ve brought to town.”
“Ma’am?”
“He’s charming. He’s not too bad on the eyes. And he’s single.”
I looked toward the back of the store, then again at Miss Gladys. “Ma’am?”
“His name is Westley. Spelled with a ‘t’ in the middle. Westley Houser. He’s our new pharmacist. Graduate of the University of Georgia, but his daddy is a provost over at Southern.”
I furrowed my brow. “Where do they live?” I asked because I’d never heard of the Houser family. And living in our little town meant knowing everyone in it. And most of their business.
“Over in Stoneham,” she said, jutting her head back a little toward the south end of town to indicate a community forty-five minutes on the way to Savannah. “I don’t know how we managed to snag him here, but I reckon he wanted to stay close to home. Of course, there’s nothing in Stoneham, so …”
That much was for certain. A few grand old houses, a couple of stores, and a tiny post office. Two churches with a cemetery each to house their dead, headstones leaning against time behind each one. “Well,” I said, taking a step toward the back. “I’ll just have to check him out.”
“You do that,” she said with a conspiratorial grin.
In the end I don’t know who checked out whom, but from the moment we set eyes on each other, life stopped long enough to draw us together as if it had always intended to do just that.
That evening, right after supper and the washing and drying of the dishes, the phone rang. My father answered as he always did when at home. A second or so later, he called me to the phone and said, “Some young man for you,” then extended the handset in my direction, his expression matching my confusion.
“It’s Westley,” my caller said after I’d said hello. “Westley Houser.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but words refused to come. After a few seconds he added, “Are you there?”
“Yes,” I said finally. “Yes … but how did you get …”
“Your phone number is part of your records at the store.”
“Oh.”
“Not that I couldn’t have looked you up in the phone book. By the way, did you know you’re the only Middleton in Bynum … or the whole county for that matter?”
“I—yes.”
“Hey, I know it’s last minute, but can I interest you in a bite to eat? I just finished up here and I’m starving.”
I looked around the room, my whole being now completely out of sorts and my sore throat nothing more than a vague memory. My father stared at the television. My mother had picked up her knitting and, feet tucked under her, sat on the sofa. She worked the needles furiously and by instinct. I stood behind Daddy’s chair, aware that
