The Quaker Café (12 page)

“No need to go into that now,” Grandpa said, snatching control of the conversation
. “Do you know your grandmother and I will be married fifty years in just two months?  That’s a long time, isn’t it boys?”

“Wow,” Evan’s eyes opened wide
. That’s before there were cars.”

Grandpa laughed
. “A little after that. But I did ride my horse all the way from Cedar Branch to Holly Hills to see her one summer.” He looked over at Euphrasia with obvious love. “That was twenty-five miles. Twenty-five miles there and twenty-five miles back.”

“Why?” Nicholas asked
. “What did you do when you got there?”

“Slept.” Grandma said
. “I gave him a glass of lemonade and then he lay down on the sofa and went to sleep. When he woke up he got on his horse and rode home.”

“I loved that horse,” Grandpa winked
. “She was one fine animal.”

Smiles circled the table
. Grandma didn’t say anything, but she relaxed and fell into lighter conversation. An unspoken truce had been called, one of those truces that only married couples who’ve been together for many years understood.

“Hey,” Grandpa said as he pulled two baseball cards o
ut of his pocket. I found a Cal Ripken, Jr. and a Barry Bonds card. Either of you boys interested?”

“Me, Grandpa, me,” said both boys as they held out their hands in anticipation.

For the first time since Liz had so brazenly interrupted his basketball game by surprising him in the buff, she looked straight at Grandpa. Her eyes thanked him. Grandpa nodded.

Chapter Eleven

The morning of the Easter Parade nothing went as planned. Chase had been up throughout the night. At about five in the morning, he shook Liz awake. His voice was strained.

             
“What’s wrong?” she said struggling to unravel the fog in her head.

             
“We’ve got a problem.”

             
More alert to his level of anxiety, she sat up. “What?”

             
“I threw Jitters into the washer and dryer.” Chase choked and Liz thought she saw his eyes water. “He’s never gotten into the laundry basket before, I didn’t think to check.”

             
Jitters was Evan’s pet hamster. Despite his girth he had developed a magical ability to escape from his cage on a regular basis. He had done it so many times that it was normal to see Jitters scamper across the floor behind the television set, or pop out of the sofa from under a cushion. The family had turned his disappearance act into a family game of “Where in the World is Jitters Now?”  Nicholas even suggested they change Jitter’s name to Waldo to coincide with the real game, but that never happened.

              This mischievousness entertained the family endlessly. Even Liz, who had not been overly excited about a hamster to start with, had become attached to the slippery little bloke. Their two aging collies would lie listlessly on the floor as Jitters dashed in front of their noses or across their tails.

             
“Is he dead?”  Liz asked—as if there were a possibility that a hamster could survive a wash and rinse cycle, be tumbled dry, and come out refreshed and invigorated.

             
“Very.”

             
“Do we have to tell the kids?” 

             
“I think we do.” Chase looked ghastly. “We can’t lie to them about it.”

             
“I could,” she volunteered. “I would have no trouble at all lying about this.”

             
“No, we’ll talk to them at breakfast and then I’ll take them with me down to the school. They’ll be some other kids and their dads there; maybe that will distract them.”

             
And so it was agreed. The boys were up by seven and hurried into their clothes with great expectations for the day ahead. Evan had one pair of Levi jeans and a blue Tar Heel T-shirt that he wore year round. His commitment to this particular outfit required that at least one load of wash be done nightly. Liz had tried duplicating the outfit, given that there was an endless array of the same exact jeans and shirts, but to no avail. Somehow Evan always knew. The others were “
too scratchy
,
the neck was too tight
or
it just didn’t feel right.
”  Liz and Chase conceded they had become soft with age, and they reconciled that one of them start the washer every night.

             
Chase fried bacon and scrambled up eggs while Liz packed the car with decorations for the float. The boys put on their clothes and taunted one another over who could find the most eggs. When they sat down to eat, Chase finally spoke up. “I’ve got some sad news boys. Jitters had an accident.”

             
Evan and Nicholas turned their wide dark eyes on their father in nervous expectation. “Accident?” Nicholas said. “What kind of accident?”

              “Jitters was hiding in the laundry basket and I threw him into the washing machine by mistake.”  Chase struggled with the words.

             
Liz could see Evan’s lower lips start to quiver. “Is he okay?”

             
“Actually, he’s not. I’m afraid he’s dead.”

             
Big wet tears began to roll down Evan’s cheeks and he wiped his nose on his shirt. “He was my pet,” he said trying to contain a sob. “I was going to take him on the float with me today. He was my favorite.”

             
“You have the two dogs, honey,” Liz said, as if dogs and hamsters had anything in common. “Jasper and Lady will be on the float.”

             
“But I wanted to take Jitters.”

             
“Well, you can still take Jitters if you want.” Chase spoke up. “We could make a little box for him to lie in and it could be his farewell to everyone before we bury him.”

             
“Would it be like his funeral?” Evan stopped the sniffling and took interest in this new proposal.

             
“It will be a celebration of his life and the fun he had. He’s still your pet and he will always be your pet even after he’s no longer with us in the house.” Liz let Chase take the lead. He seemed to have gained some ground. “You finish your breakfast and then we’ll all go down to the pharmacy and pick out the right box to put Jitters in. How does that sound?”

             
The idea of picking out a box for Jitters seemed to put a new light on the death of the hamster. Evan and Nicholas got up from the table. “Where is he, Daddy?”

             
As they looked at the dead hamster laid out on a towel in the laundry room, Liz had to admit he had puffed up rather nicely all things considered. One side of his head was a bit flatter than the other from the spin/dry cycle, but Chase had arranged him in a way that didn’t show too much. Liz cleared the table and they all headed out the door and in two separate cars. After they left the pharmacy, Liz would head over to the float, while Chase took the boys to the egg hunt.

As the two cars pulled up in front of the pharmacy Liz saw that Frank had already opened the store
. He substituted for Chase when needed, a tremendous help. He stuck his head around from the back room when they walked in and waved. “Thought you’d be at the school by now.”             

“We will be shortly,” Chase said, “got to pick up a couple of things first.”
             

             
Frank walked around in front of the counter and shook hands with each boy. “Do you look like your dad,” Frank smiled down at Evan and then over to Nicholas. “And you, young man, you’re the spitting image of your mom.”

             
“He’s got my looks, but more of my mother’s traits,” Liz said. “Now Adam, I think he’s got my personality.” 

             
“Oh yes, he’s a honey. Still out in where is it?  Arizona?”

             
“New Mexico,” Liz corrected. “Baby due in November.”

             
“And Nat’s wedding. That’s soon, too, isn’t it?”

             
“October.”

             
“Isn’t that grand?” Frank patted Evan on the top of his head, which Liz knew Evan hated. “I remember when your dad was a soda jerk here every day after school. He ever tell you that?”

             
“Yes, sir,” both boys said simultaneously, obviously wanting to join their father.

“Yep, your dad was one of the best soda jerks I ever had
. Always on time. Didn’t give away free sodas to his friends. Used to have a soda counter, right over there.”  He pointed up towards the front underneath one of the large mirrors. “Good boy, your dad was. Good boy.”

The boys knew this story by heart
. Chase had told them many times how he loved working here; the memories were the reason Chase became a pharmacist. In the mornings in the front part of the pharmacy, men would gather for a coke with Bromo-seltzer to settle their nerves, or a coke with a shot of ammonia for a morning boost. Up front there was a checker table. In the backroom behind the pharmacy counter a few regulars met daily for several hands of poker. Chase’s job was to have the poker table cleared of the drug orders no later than 3:00 when the game started. If Grandma and Grandpa Hoole ever knew what went on in the back room, they never said.
If you don’t want to know the answer, don’t ask the question
was a pretty standard motto, although not a Quaker one.

              “Come here, boys.”  Chase called out from the back. “See if one of these boxes will work.” The spell was broken and the boys ran to join their father. Chase gathered cotton to stuff in the appointed box. Upon hearing of Jitters’ demise, Frank rose to the occasion and offered his condolences and approval for an appropriate send-off. Things seemed to be back on track.

“I expect Dad will be in before long,” Chase said to Frank as they started out the front door.

“Hope he brings coffee.” Frank held the front door open and patted each boy’s head one more time as they walked by him. Nicholas grimaced; Evan ducked. Liz hopped in her Toyota and called out a parting reminder to come to the float directly after the egg hunt.

*****

             
The activities began at 10:30 a.m. with the Easter egg hunt, then the parade a half-an-hour later. Meanwhile downwind, the pork barbeque was being prepared on the opposite end of the school yard, where a team had been up most of the night with the smokers. At 2:00 that afternoon, the baseball play-off of the various small town men’s clubs started as middle-aged men pretended to be in their prime and pulled their colored T-shirts over their sweatshirts. By the end of the game most realized that they were older than they thought, and still out of shape. There would be a lot of pulled muscles, hamstrings, and backaches the next day.

The pharmacy was prepared
. Each year when Liz and Chase collapsed into bed at the end of the festivities, Liz would rub Chase’s shoulders and say, “Do you think all that work was worth it?” 

             
“Absolutely,” he’d say as he adjusted his ice pack.

*****

Historically, the Easter Parade had been initiated by the churches and decorated with appropriate religious themes. There had been a traditional parade where people dressed in their Easter bonnets and walked down Main Street. The Quakers, in contrast, dressed in their regular browns and grays and sat on benches on the back of a flatbed.

Over the years the parade had become more eclectic
. The high school band joined in playing
Peter Cottontail
, and the volunteer fire department added their fire engine and sirens. The barbecue sales were initiated as a fund raiser for the fire department. The men’s club offered to do the egg hunt. The town began to solicit more entries for the parade and invited the homecoming queen, cotton queen, tobacco queen, and peanut queen, all to join, riding in a variety of vintage cars shined and buffed for the event.

Liz had the Quaker float assigned to her by default
. This year she had arranged for the float to be the grand finale with the bubble machine streaming throughout the town. Liz had seen such a float the past summer when she’d been with the boys at a July Fourth parade in St. Paul, and they had begged her to do the same thing for the Cedar Branch parade. Why not? This was for the kids. They could bring their pets. They’d have bubbles. It would be fun.

When she got to the staging site Henry Bennett had already parked one of his flatbed trucks at the end of parade line in the space marked
Quakers
. Billie and Webster were waiting. Of the few young Quaker women left in town, all were working the country store and craft booths. Liz had recruited outside help
just to keep the rabbits at one end and the dogs at the other
, she’d said. Billie had been her usual good sport.

Bedecked in a gigantic deep carmine pink silk bow that took up the front of her cherry blossom sweater, and a pink floral Easter bonnet the size of an umbrella, she looked anything but Quaker
. Webster had on a Persian pink tutu and ribbon.
Not really a Quaker image either,
but Liz wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. This wasn’t exactly a Quaker-looking float, anyway.