“Alice,
you can either stay here at Johnson’s Drug or come with me to the Knollwood
Market while Dad is speaking with Pastor Spaulding. What do you wanna do?”
asked Dovie.
“Ummm.”
Alice tilted her head. “I’d really like to buy Joy something, but I don’t know
what yet.”
Dovie
smiled as Alice looked at the shelves of jarred candy. “Guess you’ll be staying
here then, silly goose. I’ll be back in about half an hour, and we’ll see if
you’ve made up your mind by then. You know Joy is too little to eat candy,
right?”
“Yeah,”
said Alice, “but I thought I could give her a lick of mine. I’ve never been an
aunt before, so I just wanna make sure I do it right.”
“Alice,
I can already tell you’re gonna be the best kind of aunt to Joy the kind that
spoils her rotten. Dovie laughed. “Meet me at the market when you’re done.”
Alice
tried to decide what to spend her five cents on. She wondered what Joy would
like. There were the peppermint candies that she always got when she came to
Johnson’s Drug Store, but maybe Joy would enjoy the butterscotch candies more.
She briefly thought about getting a chocolate coin to share but shook the
thought away, realizing it would melt before they got home. Chocolate coins
were best eaten right after purchase. Alice opened the jar to the peppermint
sticks and inhaled deeply, letting the minty scent tickle her nose.
Unable
to choose, Alice put the lid back on the peppermint jar and again stared at the
rows of candy, begging one to answer her question on which to buy. Suddenly, a
hard bump pushed her hard into the shelf. She quickly caught herself before
swinging around to see who did it.
Alice
couldn’t help but gasp in shock as a black boy paused beside her. She hadn’t
seen a colored boy in Knollwood the entire time she had lived there. She had
seen many in the shelters and food kitchen her family had frequented back when
they were homeless during the Great Depression, but seeing one in her hometown
was like seeing an elephant away from the circus.
“I’m
sorry. I didn’t mean to,” the black boy said before hurrying out of the store.
Alice
shrugged and turned back to the candy. Accidents happened and he had said he
was sorry. All the colored people she had met before were nice enough, she was
sure this boy was no different.
Before
she could continue her candy debate, three more boys bumped into her as they
quickly left the store. None of them, however, stopped to apologize.
“How
rude,” she whispered before her eyes grew wide. Those three boys were sure in a
hurry, and she didn’t think it was a coincidence that they bumped her right
after the colored boy.
Her
candy quest forgotten, she followed the boys out of the store and watched as
they ran down the crowded Main Street as if looking for someone or something.
Alice searched the street but saw nothing alarming. As she turned to go back
inside, a flash of movement caught her eye. Across the street, between the meat
market and the post office, the black boy hugged the wall as if trying to
disappear.
Alice
glanced down the street again at the boys, who were now making their way back
towards Johnson’s. She waited until the boys went behind Annette’s Café before
spurting across the street to the black boy. She didn’t stop when she got to
him but grabbed his hand and pulled him along with her.
The
boy resisted.