Page 52 of Hello, Summer
“He’s much better, thanks, Miss June,” Conley said.
“What can I get for you today? How about a nice ice cream cone? With extra sprinkles?”
She was still holding Conley’s hand between her own birdlike hands.
Conley glanced around the store. “Right now, I’m looking for Sean.”
A moment later, Skelly stepped out from the stockroom. He held up a white paper sack. “Guessing you’re here for your grandmother’s meds? I felt bad we didn’t have this one ready earlier. Hope you didn’t have to make a special trip into town.”
He came around the counter and gently disengaged his mother, walking her back to her perch.
“No trouble. I was just over at the office,” Conley said. “Hey, since you’re a pharmacist, how about selling me a bottle of aspirin?”
“You sick?”
“No,” she said. “I’ve just got a throbbing headache.”
“I’ll give you some aspirin, but have you eaten anything today?”
“Come to think of it, I haven’t,” she said. “But I think my headache is more from tension than hunger.”
“Mom, do you think you can watch the counter while I fix Sarah some lunch?” he asked. “It’s slow right now, but if you need her, Ginny is in the back room, unpacking stock.”
“All right,” June said calmly. She sat back on her stool and folded her hands in her lap.
Skelly handed her a paper cup with two tablets. “Cherry Coke?” he asked, his hand poised above the soft drink fountain.
“Please.”
He scooped crushed ice into a tall plastic cup and squirted deep red cherry syrup nto it, then added the carbonated drink, finally plopping a maraschino cherry on top.
She swallowed the pills with a gulp of the icy concoction.
“Wow,” Conley said, “talk about a trip in the wayback machine. I don’t think I’ve had a Cherry Coke this good since the last time your mama fixed me one while I was sitting right here at this soda fountain.” She glanced toward the back of the room, where the older woman was sitting placidly, leafing through a comic book.
“She just asked me if my dad was taking the meds your dad prescribed.”
“Sorry,” Skelly said. “Up until just now, I thought she was having a pretty good day. She loves coming into the store. It seems to center her or something. Her happy place, you know? Plus, it’s fairly early in the day. Evenings are when the confusion and agitation usually seem to set in.Sundowners,the doctors call it. Now how about lunch? What’ll you have? Grilled cheese, chicken salad? BLT? I’ve got some great-looking tomatoes. The sky’s the limit as far as you’re concerned.”
Conley didn’t have to look up at the menu board. “I’d love a Kelly burger.”
“You got it.”
He opened an under-counter refrigerator and brought out a stack of thick patties separated by neat squares of waxed paper and slapped two on the griddle. Then he held up a plastic tub of thinly sliced onions and another of chopped mushrooms.
“You going full Kelly?” he asked.
“Why not?”
“Think I’ll join you. I haven’t eaten today either. We had a busy morning.”
He drizzled oil from a squeeze bottle onto the grill top and when it was sizzling added the onions and mushrooms, stirring them briefly with a broad-bladed spatula.
Conley propped her elbows on the red Formica countertop, sipped her Coke, and watched as Skelly moved behind the counter with an ease gained from long practice.
He took two seeded hamburger buns from a bag on a shelf above the grill, split them, and placed them on the grill beside the burgers, pressing down on them with the back of the spatula. Skelly added a scoop of bright orange pimento cheese to each meat patty, waited another moment, then ladled on the sautéed vegetables.
And then he was plating his creation, sliding the buns onto two plates, topping each with a burger. “All the way, right?”
