Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Phoebe
The librarian on duty at the main branch tells me the library used to keep the old Springs Gazette on microfilm, but they gave it all to the college for a public history project a few years ago.
I text Jay to let him know and head home to finish up my work day. At 5:00 PM exactly, I switch into sneakers, cute canvas ones that work with my dress, and go looking for the heart of Serendipity Springs.
The first grid square is the one around The Serendipity. I’ve tried some of the restaurants and cafés already and noted the shops, but this is deep-dive research time. I spend a couple of hours walking the streets around my block. I stop in at every store, pause to read every restaurant’s menu, note every office and residence, and catalog it all with my senses.
I study the fonts on the business signs. I listen to which blocks are quiet versus which ones whoosh with traffic. I smell the blooms in the city landscaping and the ones in planters set outside storefronts. I don’t touch too many things, but I indulge my tastebuds, stopping in at a picturesque Italian place to enjoy a salad and fresh garlic bread by the window while I people watch.
Serendipity Springs is way too big for locals to know everyone, but it doesn’t have that Boston hustle either. People here make eye contact and smile at each other as they pass on the sidewalk.
After dinner, I discover a small shop with “Apothecary” painted across its glass front door. I hope with all my heart that it’s like the apothecary on one of my favorite comfort shows, with a fussy proprietor who has condescending but correct opinions about skin care and candle trends.
Instead, a short older man in tan coveralls looks up from a raw potato he’s slicing at the register. His hair is gray and his face is weatherbeaten, so probably no skin care recommendations. “Help you?” he asks.
“I’m new in town and checking out the local businesses.” It’s what I say in every store I go into. It gets an informative reaction every time, whether it’s someone welcoming me or asking me where I’m from and what brought me here or telling me about Serendipity Springs.
The man makes a noncommittal sound. “Name’s Willard. Lemme know if you need something.” He goes back to his potato.
I glance around. This is not the highly curated TV apothecary experience. The shelves are full of mason jars and reused bottles that definitely used to hold stuff like salad dressing, all with handwritten labels taped to the front. There is a shelf full of candles, but they’re homely, like they were handmade but not hand crafted . Smiling to myself, I decide this might be the perfect slogan for this place.
A shelf full of small jars catches my eye because there are so many of the same kind. Must be their bestseller. I pick one up and read the label. Butt Balm . All right, then. I’m about to set it down when Willard says, “Diarrhea? ”
My eyes fly up to meet his. “Sorry?”
“That what brought you in?” He nods at the jar in my hand. “It’s what we’re known for.”
“Oh, no. Just curious.”
He shrugs. “Nothing wrong with saying you got the runs. That’ll fix you. You can either spread it on toast and eat it to settle your gut, or if you got burning, that means you got fissures in your?—”
“My stomach is good,” I tell him.
“All right, but if you got fissures, that’s when you spread it on like a balm.”
There is no scenario where I can imagine using a product that I can either spread on my toast or my … never mind. I set the jar back on the shelf.
Another shelf holds a half dozen baby food jars filled with dirt. This time I’m smart enough to pick it up with a touch of trepidation. The label reads Wart Cure .
“Working on a fresh batch now, if you want to wait,” Willard says. “Just got to rub a piece of potato on your wart during the full moon, then bury it in holy ground for two weeks. Dig it back up and your wart will be gone. But we take dirt from the cemetery and put it in the jar for you so you can have the holy ground at home. More convenient.”
He says this like it’s not the wildest thing a shop owner has ever said to me.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” I want to keep this man talking because he’s like a character from Stars Hollow come to life. I glance around and spot the perfect gambit. “You carry Jointment?” It’s the only branded product in the shop.
“Can’t make anything better.”
Coming from Willard, that must be the equivalent of granting the Nobel Prize for medicine.
“I assume you’re from here,” I say.
“Yep. ”
“Did you know Foster Martin?”
He grunts. “Yep. Quite a bit older’n me—he knew my father better. But he’d come in for bug candles all the time.”
I nod at the homely candles. “Those?”
“Yep. Foster tried more’n once to get the secret to them out of my dad, but Dad would never sell. Said the Martins got Jointment, but we got the corner on bugs. Foster tried to convince us for years he could make us big-time. Dad appreciated it, but we sell enough. Don’t need the headache of selling more.”
That’s a refreshing way to describe getting rich. “Foster hired me to turn his estate into a museum. I’m Phoebe Hopper, the new director.”
Willard looks up in interest. “That’s happening?”
“It’s happening.”
“Well.” He grunts again, and I flatter myself into believing it’s a pleased sound. “That’s all right.”
I pick up two candles and bring them to the register. “I’ll take these, please.”
“You will, but not for money.” He sticks them in a brown paper bag that says only “Apothecary” in the same plain script as the painted sign. “Welcome to town.”
“Thank you.” I accept the bag with a smile. “If these work, I’ll have VIP opening day passes for you. I hate mosquitos.”
He nods, not smiling as he reaches for his potato again. “See you opening day.”