Little Town, Great Big Life. Curtiss Matlock Ann

man.

      The dark-eyed stranger grinned a wonderful grin, and Fayrene wondered if she might still be dreaming. Those sleeping pills were awfully strong.

      Across the street, at Blaine’s Drugstore, which was on winter hours and not set to open for another hour, Belinda Blaine, who was not a morning person and not feeling well, either, was in the restroom peeing on a pregnancy-test strip. Somehow the radio on her desk just a few feet beyond the door, which she had not bothered to close, had been left on. (Probably by her cousin Arlo, when he had cleaned up the previous afternoon—she was going to smack him.) Hearing Winston’s familiar voice within two feet got her so discombobulated that she dropped the test strip in the toilet.

      “Well, shoot.” She bent over and gazed into the toilet, trying to figure out the exact color of the test strip.

      “Belinda? You in here?” It was her husband, Lyle, coming in the back door of the store.

      She yanked up her reluctant panties and panty hose, while Lyle’s footsteps headed off to the front of the store. The panties and hose got all wadded together. Her mother swore no one should wear panties with panty hose, that that was the purpose of panty hose. As much as she hated to ever agree with her mother, this experience was about to convert Belinda to the no-panty practice.

      Snatching up the test-kit box, she looked frantically around but found no satisfactory place to hide it. She ended up stuffing it into the waistband of her still-twisted panty hose.

      “Of course I’m here. I was in the bathroom, Lyle,” she said as she strode out to the soda fountain.

      Lyle was on his way back, and Belinda almost bumped into him.

      She asked him where he thought she had been.

      “Well, honey,” he said, with a bit of anxiety, “I saw your car out back, but didn’t see any lights turned on in front here, so I just wanted to check things out.”

      Lyle was a deputy with the sheriff’s office next door. He had just gotten off night duty, and wanted coffee and to chat with her before he went home. Lyle listened to a lot of late-night radio when he was on patrol, which seemed to be encouraging morbid thoughts. Late-night talk shows were filled with a lot of conversation about scary things, such as UFO invaders, terrorist cells and, last night, the report of murderers who broke into the house of an innocent family up north and ended up killing them all.

      Belinda, who made it a point to never listen to the news and really could have done without her husband telling her, ended up walking around with the test-kit box rubbing her skin while she got Lyle a cup of fresh coffee and tried to look interested in his report of world affairs and the idea of installing a security system at their home. Since she was already at the drugstore and had coffee made, she ended up opening early and got half a dozen customers coming in. At least Lyle had someone else to talk to, letting her off the hook.

      All around a radius of the radio signal, roosters came out to crow, and skunks, armadillos and other annoying critters headed back to their dens, while early risers got up to let out the dog, let in the cat and look hopefully for the newspaper, which was often late. Word of Winston Valentine’s wake-up reveille spread, and Jim Rainwater began to take call after call, and to keep a running total of for or against.

      Out front of the small cement-block radio station, Tate Holloway, who had received a number of telephone calls, and Everett Northrupt arrived at the same time. Everett, a short, rather bent man, was in such a state as to forget that Tate was the owner of the station and therefore his boss, and to jostle him for going first through the door. A man with a good sense of humor, Tate stood back and waved the older man on.

      They reached the sound studio doorway just as Winston put his mouth to the microphone for his final reveille. “Gooood Mornin’, Valentinites! This is your last call. GET UP, GET UP, YOU SLEE-PY-HEAD. GET UP AND GET YOUR BOD-Y FED!”

      This time Jim Rainwater over at the controls played a symbol and drum sound, and he and Winston grinned at each other. Jim had more fun working with Winston than he did any of the other volunteer disc jockeys.

      Winston saw Everett Northrupt glaring in the doorway. His response was to lean into the microphone to say, “Well, folks, we’re leavin’ you now that we’ve gotcha woke up. Stay tuned for my good friend Everett, who will ease you into the day. Join me again for the Home Folks show at ten, and until then, remember Psalm 30, verse 5—For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, but a shout of joy comes in the mornin’.”

      The men, all except Everett, chuckled.

      CHAPTER 3

      Belinda Blaine of Blaine’s Drugstore and Soda Fountain

      THE MORNING RUSH STARTED. TING-A-LING WENT the bell over the door. Brrring went the cash register.

      “Mornin’, Belinda. Hey, Arlo. Get up, get up, you sleeepy-heads! I’ll take three lattes and two Little Debbies to go. Hurry up, I’m already supposed to be in Duncan.”

      “Just a large coffee this mornin’. Black. Get up, get up, you sleepyhead. Get up and get your body fed! Uhmmm…second thought—I’ll take a honey bun, too.”

      “Hey, y’all. Get up, get up, you sleeeepyheads! Oran, you got my wife’s prescription? I’ll be back in a minute…wanna get a coffee.”

      “Two large Coca-Colas to go, and here, four packages of peanuts, too. I’m gettin’ my body fed. You know, it’d be great if y’all would serve sausage biscuits.”

      “Whoo-hoo! Everybody get up, get up…and get your bod-y fed!”

      “What is this all about?”

      “Didn’t you hear ol’ Winston this mornin’? Well, he…”

      Whatever happened in town, and of any interest anywhere, would be told and discussed first, or at least second, down at Blaine’s Drugstore and Soda Fountain. Built in 1909, it had escaped two tornadoes, a small fire and been in continuous operation by the same family since its beginning in a tent during the land run. It had been written up in every insurance magazine in the state, been filmed for two travel shows, included as a backdrop in one movie and featured in OklahomaToday magazine. The previous year Belinda Blaine had succeeded in getting the store on the state register of historic buildings. Now the building bore a bronze plaque that Belinda polished once a week.

      The original black fans turned slowly from the tin-lined ceiling winter and summer, lemonade and cold sweet tea were still made from scratch and sundaes were still served in vintage glass fountain dishes at the original granite counter. Old Coke, Dr. Pepper, headache powder and tonic signs graced the walls, along with a number of autographed pictures of notable people who reportedly had dropped in, such as Governor “Alfalfa Bill” Murray and Mifaunwy Dolores Shunatona, Miss Oklahoma 1941 and the country-music stars the Carter Sisters, Hoyt Axton and Patsy Cline.

      The Patsy Cline one was a fake. Fenster Blaine, who had been working all alone one day in 1962, decided to tear the photograph from a country-music magazine and sign it himself, and tell everyone that Patsy had come in. A number of people at the time had recognized his handwriting, but as the years had passed, the photograph remained on the wall and the truth was lost.

      The store was a favorite hangout for teens after school and the first place that parents allowed their young daughters to go when beginning to date. It hosted Boy Scouts and Brownies, the Methodist Ladies’ Circle and Baptist Women on a regular basis. Romances had begun, marriages had ended, business and political deals, large and small, had been struck, at least three holdups had happened, along with several heart attacks, fist-fights and two deaths.

      Pharmacist Perry Blaine, Belinda’s father, had been gone several years now, but a good replacement had at last been found in Oran Lackey, who could not only dispense modern medicines, like Viagra and Cialis, on an up-to-the-minute computerized system, but he also knew the ages-old art of compounding medicinals such as cough-suppressant lollipops and natural hormone creams, just as Perry had done. Because of this ability, the