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  And who could blame Gloria, or Mrs G as I thought of her? It was May, for God’s sake.

  ‘Goodness, Gloria,’ Caron exclaimed. ‘You must be freezing. Why didn’t you come through the back hall?’

  ‘The lights were off,’ Mrs G said, hugging her arms close to her body to warm up. She apparently had been as prepared as I was this morning when she’d made the trip in to open the pharmacy and lunch counter. Mrs G was wearing what my mother would have called ‘a house dress’ and was clutching a white plastic bag.

  Caron - God bless her, rising above the ‘no snow in my shop’ mantra - brushed at the older woman’s shoulders, sending the accumulated flakes to the floor below. ‘They were off only for a few seconds. Way must have fired up the generator.’

  ‘It’s spooky to be alone in the hall, even with the emergency lights on. I don’t go back there.’ Mrs G shivered, but she was looking steadily at Aurora, registering everything Way’s ex - and our weather slut - had said. ‘Are you talking about selling the mall?’

  Aurora looked uncomfortable. ‘I told Way that’s what we should do. It would be a whole lot easier and cheaper than the current plan.’

  ‘What is the current plan?’ I asked. ‘Way hasn’t said much about it.’

  ‘It is the gross national produce,’ Jacque said from his table. He didn’t sound happy about it.

  ‘You mean “product”.’ Caron corrected. English wasn’t Jacque’s first language, so I thought it was cruel of a former advertising copy-editor like Caron to chide him.

  ‘No, he doesn’t,’ Sarah Kingston said. She looked fairly dry, except for the bottom of her baggy trousers. Whether it was the depth of the snow or the ‘wicking’ effect of the hems dragging through it, her pants were wet up to her knees. ‘Gross National Produce is a store. Or, more accurately, a chain of superstores.’

  Ahh. ‘They have one in Minneapolis,’ I said. ‘Eric was telling me about it. The place is huge, with individual stands of produce and bakery, meat and fish, prepared foods -’

  ‘It sounds like our farmer’s market,’ Mrs G interrupted.

  The Brookhills Farmers’ Market was held in the parking lot that stretched between the police department on one side and the town hall and the adjacent fire station on the other. The newest structure is the fire station, which was built to replace the one that was burned down.

  Long story.

  The Farmers Market always started the first Saturday in May, which meant the Public Works Department and Mother Nature, along with mother’s little helper (the sun - what were you thinking?), had tomorrow to get rid of the snow.

  The market was a popular, even mandatory, weekend stop for most of Brookhills, not just for the produce and plants and flowers, but also for the socialization. I love the market, even if I suspected that some of the produce had been purchased bulk at grocery wholesalers instead of grown on local back-forties. The corporate stickers on the ‘homegrown’ apples seemed a dead giveaway.

  ‘Gross National Produce is a Farmers Market, I guess,’ I said, ‘but one on steroids and open twenty-four/seven.’

  Mrs G, who ran the market, looked even unhappier. ‘But what will happen to ours?’

  I wasn’t sure anyone knew that right now, but I tried to reassure her. ‘I find it hard to believe people will want to stroll through a mall instead of outside in the sunshine.’ God knows we had to do enough of that November through April in Wisconsin.

  Oh, and on this year’s May Day, as well.

  Mrs G brightened a bit and I turned to Aurora. ‘Is this thing going to occupy the whole mall?’

  That was the vital question, of course. Uncommon Grounds was on the far end of Benson Plaza and didn’t take up much of the mall’s footprint. Maybe we could co-exist with Gross.

  Memo to file: come up with a less insulting shorthand for the behemoth, just in case they did end up our neighbor.

  But Aurora nodded to the ‘whole mall’ question and my heart dropped. Did the woman realize her gesture had functionally sounded my shop’s death knell?

  Aurora was peering out the window. And every time she saw a flash of lightning or heard the rumble of thunder she nearly clapped her tiny, weather-slut hands in meteorological joy.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be out reporting the storm?’ I was being ornery, but, in my view, I was entitled. Aurora’s predictions about Gross had stolen my thundersnow. Or at least my ability to enjoy it.

  ‘I’d love to be,’ she said, holding up her cellphone. ‘But the towers must be down. I’m not getting a signal, so I can’t get an assignment, either.’

  That statement was greeted by the sound of simultaneous flip-phones, like Captain Kirk had just decided it was time for all of us to call Scotty and have him beam us up.

  ‘No signal,’ Caron said, flipping hers closed.

  ‘One bar,’ Sarah offered. And then: ‘No, no, wait. There it goes. Nothing. Nada.’

  Damn. That meant I wasn’t going to be able to call Eric today.

  I filed it away under other things to worry about and turned to Sarah, who knew everything ‘real estate’ going on in Brookhills. ‘Back to Gross. Who’s the owner? And why would Benson Plaza want to kick out well-established tenants to gamble on one, big-box store?’

  Sarah shrugged, but I knew her plain face well enough to realize she was holding back. She glanced over at Aurora, but no answer came from the Weather Slut, either.

  Jacque shrugged. ‘The owner? She is our own Naomi Verdeaux. And for your "why”, Miss Maggy, you must ask Way. It is he, after all, who is shtupping my former wife now.’

  Another intake of air. Not quite a gasp, like Mrs G’s earlier at the door, but noticeable nonetheless. This one came from Aurora, still by the window. Instead of addressing Jacque’s comments, though, she turned her attention back outside. ‘Ooh, look at all that lovely precipitation.’

  Talk about your oxy-moron.

  For my part, I wanted to get to the root of this shtupping. ‘Jacque, let me be sure I understand. Way and Naomi are...?’

  ‘Doing the dirty,’ Jacque confirmed. His French accent made it sound almost classy. Doing zee dir-tee.

  ‘But why?’ Caron asked in astonishment. ‘Way is even older than you are.’

  Sarah, across the table from her, rolled both eyes. Though Caron was "even" older than Jacque's thirty-nine, my partner had proven susceptible to the lure of younger men in the past.

  Jacque stood up. ‘I do not remain here only to receive the insult.’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ Sarah said flatly.

  I looked at her. My blunt-spoken real-estate friend seldom forgot that there were potential clients under every rock.

  Now Sarah got up and went to the door. She pushed it open. ‘See?’

  ‘See?’ Jacque said. ‘I see nothing.’

  ‘My point exactly.’ Sarah closed the door and went back to the table she shared with Caron.

  I looked out through the window. There was a snow drift covering the ditch where Jacque’s car had been. If there had been any chance of getting the Peugeot out - and I didn’t think there was - it had disappeared. Along with Jacque’s “baby”.

  I giggled.

  ‘And what is so funny?’ Jacque asked. ‘It is because of you that I am in the ditch again.’

  ‘And the bear,’ I reminded him. ‘Don’t forget the bear.’

  ‘Bear?’ Mrs G gasped. Poor woman, I had unintentionally piled one worry on top of another.

  Which didn’t stop me from giggling again.

  Then I put my hand on her shoulder. ‘Not a bear, just Frank.’

  Mrs G nodded, relieved. She knew Frank from the one time I’d attempted to bring him to the Farmers Market.

  For years, I’d seen Brookfield Barbies strolling the aisles with their poodles and their puggles - a ‘revolutionary’ new cross between a beagle and a pug. Personally, I’d have called the hybrid a ‘bug’.

  Anyway, Frank had taken a disdain to puggles and sat on one, according to the owner of t
he mutant involved. I just figured Frank was tired. He doesn’t operate in ‘Princess and the Pea’ territory. Last week my poor sheepdog fell asleep with his rump on the porch steps and his head down on the grass.

  For Frank’s transgression, real or concocted, he had been banned from the market. Personally, I was just happy a police report hadn’t been filed.

  A sheepdog with a record.

  Speaking of animals, I cracked open the door of Uncommon Grounds to see if Pavlik’s Harley hog was still safe. And so it was, standing relatively unscathed under the plaza’s eaves and our awning.

  As I finished looking out, however, the door was yanked from my hands.

  Chapter 7

  ‘Has anyone seen Way?’ Rudy asked, snow cascading from the hood of his parka. ‘Our esteemed landlord started the generator, but I think it may be running low on gas.’

  As Jacque shot him an annoyed look and stepped out into the storm, Aurora said, ‘I’m not sure, but I need to talk to Way, too.’

  ‘Do you know where he stores the gas for the generator?’ Caron asked. It was a fair question, since Aurora was as responsible for the mall as Way. If our pipes froze - or, for that matter, if we froze - it would be a hell of a mess to clean up for both of them.

  ‘I don’t bother with those things.’

  Aurora said it in the same tone the CEO of my former company had once said to me, ‘I don’t remember names. PR people remember names.’ I’d already grown tired of pulling the guy’s corporate chestnuts out of the fire. That Christmas - the one just after Ted left me - I happily left them roasting and quit.

  And I’d never looked back, though I had caught my checkbook register seeming wistful a couple of times.

  ‘Good,’ I said to Aurora. ‘Then you can sit here and freeze your butt off like the rest of us.’ As I said it, I had to repress a shiver. It really was getting cold and my jacket was soaked through.

  Aurora rubbed her bare arms and looked at her coat hanging on the chair.

  I put my hand on it. Misery loves company.

  Aurora swallowed hard. ‘Fine, I’ll go look for Way and find out where the gas cans are located. Or Oliver, for that matter. He should know where they’d be.’ With that, she exited through the back door.

  I probably should have let Aurora take her coat, since Oliver, assuming he was the one clearing the parking lot, could be found by just following the sound of the snow-blower. Even as I thought it, though, the roar of the machine died. And it didn’t sound like an easy passing.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ I said, as it first thudded, then gurgled and, finally, went silent. ‘The John Deere must be down to fumes, too.’

  ‘Good. That poor boy must be tired,’ Mrs G said. She had been unusually quiet up to this point, sipping a cup of coffee she’d poured for herself. ‘Oliver can’t possibly clear all this snow on his own. His father should be ashamed. It’s nearly three in the afternoon and the snow continues to fall.’

  Gloria Goddard had to be pushing eighty-five, but she was still a beautiful woman. Natural grace and great cheekbones would do that for a person. Having a husband twenty years her junior might have helped, too. Mrs G was a ‘cougar’ before anyone had even thought up the label.

  Sadly, though, Mrs G’s husband, Hank, had died about a year ago, accidentally shot by a buddy while they were deer hunting in northern Wisconsin. Worse, it was the only trip in the space of the last two decades that Gloria hadn’t accompanied her husband ‘up north’.

  ‘I may not be a great shot,’ I remember Mrs G saying at Hank’s funeral, ‘but I sure as hell wouldn’t have mistaken him for a deer.’

  With Hank gone, Mrs G was left to run the pharmacy they’d started together. I knew that she was lonely, despite the attempts of those of us around her to provide some companionship. Thing is, daytime eventually turns into night. When Ted left me, I’d wake up at 2 a.m. every morning. The loneliest hour in all the twenty-four, when the fresh start of dawn seems a lifetime away.

  The one silver-lining for Mrs G?

  Oliver.

  He and Mrs G had bonded, maybe because being Way and Aurora’s son created its own version of loneliness. Oliver had grown up around the mall, reading comic books at the pharmacy while eating balanced meals - if peanut butter cups and Pepsi are counted in the new food groups. When Mrs G got wind of that, she’d taken him under her wing and become a surrogate grandmother.

  I wondered how either of them would survive without the pharmacy.

  For now, though, Mrs G was still the mom of the strip mall. ‘I brought you candles from the store,’ she said, standing up and digging into the plastic bag imprinted ‘Goddard’s Pharmacy’.

  ‘These,’ she held up two candles in the shapes of apples, ‘are close-outs from Christmas. Cinnamon, I think. And these -’ she had a handful of small metal boxes - ‘are off the cosmetics wall. I think you pack one in your suitcase when you’re on the way to a cheap affair. They smell like a whorehouse.’

  ‘That has my name written all over it,’ I said, grabbing a couple of the metal boxes.

  ‘Same here,’ Sarah said, taking two for herself.

  Mrs G gave her a suspicious look. ‘Wait a minute. You’re not a tenant here.’

  Sarah seemed affronted. ‘My office is right down the street. We lost electricity, too.’

  Mrs G grabbed back the boxes. ‘Then you buy your own candles. What do you think I am? The Red Cross?’

  Sarah stood down. Nobody in Brookhills with any brains at all got into a pissing contest with Mrs G.

  ‘I’m heading back to the pharmacy,’ the older woman said, rolling up the leftover candles in the plastic of the bag.

  A ding at the door and I turned. Geez, we should have a blizzard every day. It was good for business. On the other hand, nobody was paying for their drinks. A classic Catch-22.

  Or $4.95 for a latte.

  The new arrival was a woman I’d seen around but without a formal introduction. I’d sure heard about her, though.

  Naomi Verdeaux folded back the hood of her fur coat. ‘I’m so glad you’re open. I’ve been circling, looking for Way Benson. I think there might be a dim light on in his office, but nobody answers my knock.’

  ‘We’re on the generator,’ I said, ‘so you might have seen the automatic emergency lights. I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Maggy Thorsen.’ I stuck out my hand.

  ‘Of course,’ Verdeaux said, pausing to tug off thin leather gloves one finger at a time before shaking hands with me. ‘Way has told me all about you.’

  ‘Really? Like the details of our lease and when it expires?’ I asked pleasantly as I poured her a cup of lukewarm coffee. The generator was just barely keeping the lights on now. There was no way it could heat the water so we could brew more coffee or even keep the crappy stuff already in the pot hot.

  ‘That’s not nice, Maggy,’ Caron said, taking the cup out of my hand and extending it to Verdeaux. ‘I’m Caron Egan. I think we met at Christ Christian.’

  Christ Christian, you might recall, is the big church up the street from my house. Anyone who’s anybody belongs to it. I don’t, which I guess tells you something right there.

  Verdeaux waved aside Caron’s coffee offer. ‘No, thank you, and please don’t apologize. Your partner is right. To be honest, Way did show me your lease. It was necessary for our negotiations.’

  I heard the back door close and turned to look for Mrs G, but she already had disappeared into the service hallway.

  Like Aurora, Verdeaux was a PB-EB - petite, blue-eyed blonde. She turned to Rudy, who had shrugged out of his parka, for support. ‘As Town Chairman, I know you advocated the idea of a “destination” shopping experience. Our project will be a boon to Brookhills.’

  I wasn’t sure that the inhabitants of Brookhills needed - or even wanted - to become a ‘boon town’. It seemed to me they were happy to be left to themselves. Sort of like Switzerland, except snootier.

  Rudy was smiling at Verdeaux. ‘I have no doubt that Way, who took
over from me as chairman, feels the same.’

  Before Verdeaux could answer, Sarah chimed in, ‘An upscale organic food store can only be good for Brookhills. It’s a wonderful idea.’ She was gushing and the Sarah I knew didn’t gush.

  I cocked my head toward Naomi Verdeaux, but spoke to Sarah. ‘Client?’

  ‘Hope so,’ she said, passing me to get to her potential pot of gold. ‘I don’t know if you recall, but I’m Sarah Kingston. I worked with Jacque when he opened Schultz’s.’

  ‘Of course,’ Verdeaux said, sticking out her hand. ‘Good to see you again.’

  ‘Same here. And if there’s anything―’

  ‘Wait a second,’ I interrupted. Jacque Oui was known only as Brookhills’ fishmonger to the stars, reigning over the seafood counter at the small specialty store. ‘If Jacque’s the owner, then why is the store named Schultz’s?’

  Verdeaux looked at me. ‘What were we supposed to call it, Oui’s?’

  ‘Or Oui-Oui’s?’ Sarah contributed, and they started cracking up.

  ‘Maybe Oui-Oui-Oui?’ Verdeaux offered.

  ‘All the way home?’

  Now both exploded in laughter. They’d be rolling on the floor any minute.

  I decided to leave the two women to their bonding.

  ‘I think I'll go look for Way and Oliver, too,’ I said.

  Still giggling, Sarah and Verdeaux just waved their hands at me. Caron eyed them uncertainly, as though she wasn’t sure what the joke was and wouldn’t be comfortable joining in until she did.

  I stepped out into the hall and closed the door.

  Chapter 8

  Once in the rear hallway, I was stabbed by a frigid blade of wind. Damn, I must have been in such a hurry when I took the trash out earlier that I’d left the outside service door open.

  From our shop’s back door, you could turn left and travel down the inside of the ‘L’ to the other businesses in Benson Plaza. If you turned right, though, you could exit into the secondary parking lot, where the extra spaces and trash dumpsters were. The arrangement made it very handy for us, though we often stashed the plastic garbage bags in the hall anyway, to dispose of later.