Kate Wilhelm by Children of the Wind (epub)

Author:Children of the Wind (epub)
Format: epub
Published: 2024-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

THE

BLUE

LADIES

IT WAS ONE OF THOSE LEADEN AFTERNOONS that sometimes comes in August, with hot air pressing down on everything so that even the tree leaves hung limp, unstirring. At five the heat had reached its maximum for the day, but no one knew that yet; few people were out on the streets of Potterstown. Inside the Dairy Maid ice cream store Cissy Truax fanned herself absently. The customers who came into the store remarked how good it felt, but that was for the few minutes it took them to order and leave again. She had been there for five hours now, and it did not feel good to her. It was stuffy and close, and the air was nearly palpable with the odors of vanilla, chocolate, peppermint…

She watched Horace Klein step out from his hardware store across Pine Street, lock the door, test it, and then look up at her and wave. Last week she had worked in his store, substituting for his daughter Mildred who had gone away for a vacation. This week Cissy was working for Charlotte Osborn. Cissy had worked in practically every store in town at one time or another. She waved back at Horace and watched him trudge up Pine Street, where the old maple trees made a tunnel of darkness that looked cool but was not.

Now Wilma Lofts walked down the stairs from the library, across Main Street from the Dairy Maid. Wilma walked in the shade on her way home. A car came across the bridge, slowing only minimally although the town was posted for twenty-five miles an hour. Ned Jason whizzed past on his bicycle, probably already late for supper. He was always late for everything he did.

Cissy sat behind the counter waiting for six o’clock when she would go home. This was not her favorite summer job, she was thinking. At least someone had come into the hardware store now and then right up to closing time. But everyone knew the ice cream store did no real business until after supper or on weekends. On a pad in front of her she had added up the pay for the various summer jobs she had held, almost enough to pay for another semester of school. Not quite, but then school would not start until toward the end of September. She had realized late in the spring that if she buckled down for one more year she would have enough credits to get a bachelor’s degree. For nearly ten years she had gone now and then, taking this and that, never with any real goal in mind, just for something to do, and the credits had been accumulating. She still had no clear goal, but to have made it this far without any great effort seemed an omen to her. She had decided to finish and get the degree. Lee urged her to relax, use what she needed from their savings account, but she resisted. Business was too bad this year.

A Grand Union

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