Gary takes the opportunity to excuse himself with a nod.
“Tell the boys I said hi,” I call after him.
He raises a hand without turning around. “Will do.”
Mrs. Pritchett finishes her gravel monologue, squeezes my arm, and tells me to eat more, which is her standard farewell.
I watch her wheel her cart toward her truck, terracotta pots rattling, sun hat blazing in the morning light.
Then I push through Crawford’s front door into the familiar smell of concrete dust and machine oil.
The supply list is folded in my back pocket. Lye, coconut oil, labels, parchment.
Fifteen minutes, in and out.
I grab a basket and head for the back aisle, already running the production math.
Four batches before noon, labels by three.
My fingers brush the edge of a shelf display as I pass, and I think about Oz’s hands.
The way his surface gives and firms.
The way he held a pizza slice like an artifact.
I wonder if he’d like the hardware store.
All these textures, all these materials.
Eighty years in a cave and a storage unit…
The lye is where it always is, bottom shelf, behind the drain cleaner.
I grab two containers and check the expiration dates out of habit.
Coconut oil is one aisle over, and Crawford’s only carries the bulk tubs, which is fine because I’ll burn through five pounds this week alone.
I wedge the tub into the basket and feel the handle creak under the weight.
Labels take longer.
They’ve rearranged the paper goods section again, which in a store this size means someone moved one shelf unit threefeet to the left and threw off my entire spatial memory.
I find the blank label sheets behind a display of binder clips and grab two packs.
Parchment paper, mercifully, is right where it should be.
I’m done.
Everything on the list, fifteen minutes flat.
I should go to the register, pay, drive home, and start the first batch while the morning’s still cool enough to work with the studio door open.
Instead I drift.
Crawford’s has a miscellaneous section near the front, a rotating wire rack and two shelves of whatever Jim Crawford thought might sell that quarter.
Bird feeders, flashlights, a truly ambitious selection of drawer handles.
