Chapter 6
Story: They Laughed at Her Cardboard Box, Then She Named the Trust Account
Wade stood in the doorway for a long moment, letting his eyes adjust to the dimmer light of the store. He was wearing the same white polo with the COLERIDGE & SON logo, same khakis, same loafers. He looked out of place among the cinderblock walls and the old shelving units — like a man who'd come to a hardware store in a costume someone had told him was appropriate.
"Junie," he said.
"Wade."
He stepped inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. Junie stayed where she was, behind the counter, her hands still on the spade bit set she'd just put back on the display rack.
"I saw the sign," he said. "Halftime."
"Half-finished."
"That's what I said." He walked over to the counter, not quite looking at her — his eyes moving around the store, taking in the boxes, the shelves, the price tags she'd been putting up all morning. "This is Frank's place."
"Was Frank's place. He retired."
"He sold it to you."
"Yes."
Wade was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "You're not going to make this easy, are you?"
Junie looked at him. She looked at the white polo, the gold logo, the red sunburn across his forehead. She remembered him as a kid — Marcus's little brother, always a few years behind, always trying to catch up, always a little bit resentful that the older brother had gotten the store.
"Wade," she said slowly, "you cut the ribbon at a store that wasn't yours, told the whole town it was finally in the right hands, and then pretended you didn't know about the clause that made it yours ten feet from me while I was carrying my own box out the door. I don't think I'm the one making this hard."
"I didn't know about the clause."
"You didn't ask."
The silence sat between them for a moment. Outside, Delia had stopped painting — the sign was done, or nearly done — and a few people were standing across the street, watching the two of them through the plate-glass window.
"You could have told me," Wade said. "You could have said, 'Wade, there's a clause in the trust. You can't put your name on the door.' You could have saved us all—"
"I could have," Junie said. "And then what would have happened?"
"What do you mean?"
"Let's say I'd told you about the clause. Let's say we'd had a conversation, you and me, before the ribbon-cutting. What would you have done?" She leaned forward on the counter. "Would you have changed the plan? Would you have asked me what I wanted to do with the store? Would you have sat down across the table and said, 'Junie, you've been doing the books for eighteen years, what do you think we should do next?'"
Wade's mouth opened and closed.
"I didn't think so," Junie said, not unkindly. "You'd have gone ahead anyway. You'd have figured I was bluffing. You'd have painted the sign, cut the ribbon, told the town it was finally in the right hands — and then, when I showed you the clause, you'd have had Elena call me and make it personal. You'd have made me the villain. The cold widow with the paperwork." She shook her head. "I saved us both the show. I read it out loud, in front of the priest, and there was no way for you to pretend it wasn't real."
Wade stared at her. His hands had come out of his pockets, and he was gripping the edge of the counter.
"So what now?" he asked. "You're going to run me out of business? You're going to put up your sign across the river and watch me go under?"
"I'm not going to watch anything, Wade." Junie's voice was quiet, calm, the voice she'd used at the ribbon-cutting. "I'm going to run my store. I'm going to do the books and stock the shelves and call people by name, and if the store on Main Street can't survive across the river from a store called Coleridge Hardware, that's not because I did something to you. That's because you spent six months running a hardware store without doing the work."
"What work?"
"The books," Junie said. "The inventory. The accounts receivable. The tax returns." She looked at him. "You know what Elena asked me on the sidewalk? She asked who paid for the paint. She asked it twice. And you never once asked me how much the paint cost, or whether it came out of the trust's operating budget, or what the tax implications were of charging a capital improvement to a trust account." She paused. "You've been running that store for six months, Wade, and you haven't looked at the books once."
Wade blinked. "The books—"
"Are in a cardboard box on the floor of this store," Junie said. "I brought them with me. Every invoice, every receipt, every tax return, eighteen years of it." She nodded toward the box, which was sitting in a corner near the counter, still full of the records she'd carried out of the old store. "You can have them back. I'll make copies of anything I need. But you should know — the paint was four thousand, six hundred and twelve dollars, and it was charged to the trust's account, which is exactly what I told Elena when she asked me the first time."
Wade stared at the box. Then at Junie. Then at the box again.
"You've been—" he started. "You've been carrying the books around with you this whole time? Since the ribbon-cutting?"
"I've been carrying them with me since the ribbon-cutting," Junie said. "They're not heavy. They're heavy the way records are heavy, not the way furniture is heavy."
Wade's face went through several colors. He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again.
"You know what, Junie?" he said finally. "You can have it. You can have the name. You can have the store across the river. You can have the whole damn thing." He turned toward the door. "I never wanted to run a hardware store anyway. I wanted to sell it — flip it, to a developer, turn it into apartments or condos or whatever. Elena wouldn't let me. She said the family name had to stay in the family." He shook his head. "She told me to rebrand. She told me it was my chance to prove myself. And then she walked me right into your trap."
"I didn't set a trap," Junie said.
"You didn't have to." Wade's hand was on the door. He turned back to look at her. "The trap was already set. Marcus set it, and Mom buried it, and you spent eight years making sure it stayed set until I wandered into it."
"That's not—"
"Isn't it?" Wade's voice was flat now, the loudness gone. "You've been the trustee for eight years. You could have told me about the clause a hundred times. You didn't. You waited. You set the box down on the sidewalk, and you waited, and you let me cut the ribbon, and then you read the clause out loud to Father Ray in front of the whole town." He looked at her, and his eyes were cold, the cold blue of a man who had just spent six months building something and watched it get taken away. "That was a trap. It was a good one. But it was still a trap."
He turned and walked out the door, letting it swing shut behind him.
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