Page 78 of What Remains True
“It’s my pleasure. I like having you around.”
Merry Anna went home and changed out of her church clothes into shorts and a T-shirt. She went outside to tend to her plants, checking them and pinching off dead leaves. She was delighted to see more tomatoes beginning to ripen on the vines. She wondered how long it would be before she could pick a few. With the morning rain, she was careful not to overwater them. She found the mindless work to be relaxing.
She thought about today’s sermon, and it made her reflect on the anger she’d felt when Adam came home so late Friday night. Her heart was getting in the way of her good judgment.She’d been worried—a little—but more so, she’d taken it personally. She wished she’d gotten her point across without losing her temper.I’ll try harder next time something happens like that.
—
She woke up on Monday morning to the sun shining through that wonderful stained glass window. A bird chirped outside her window with such exuberance that she got up to see what all the fuss was about. She spotted him right away, sitting on the fence line. His head bobbed, his neck stretched, and with each of his movements, the sounds from the songbird dipped and rose.
She stood there, smiling and watching, until the bird finally lifted his wings and flew across the way. Maybe Tara was his next stop.
She stepped outside. Thankfully, the weather finally broke and it was almost bearable. She got dressed and headed out a little early to give herself enough time to walk down to the coffee shop and enjoy a cup while sitting outside, overlooking the river, rather than guzzling the brew inside the store between tasks.
There were two people working the counter, and the line was moving fast. She ordered a cup of coffee and a slice of breakfast bread, which looked a lot like carrot cake without the yummy cream cheese frosting. She carried her purchase outside and took a seat near the railing. It wasn’t easy to sit still and just listen to what was going on, but she did it, and she felt good about that.
She opened up the store and went through the orders that had come through the online site over the weekend. Those orders kept her busy until Krissy came in at lunchtime.
“How’s the morning been?” Krissy asked.
“No customers, but we had a ton of orders over the weekend. I’ve got almost all of them packed up and ready for the post office.” She pointed to the stack against the back wall.
“How’d you get all that done so fast?”
“No interruptions, I guess. It was so quiet that I actually went to the front and double-checked that I’d turned the sign to Open on the front door.”
“Thank goodness for the online store. I’d love to expand that. It’s been going so well. I originally created that website to move a bunch of hand-painted scarves that I got an amazing deal on. They were so beautiful that I couldn’t pass them up, so I put some in the store and then put the rest out on the internet. It was perfect timing, being close to Mother’s Day. I sold out of them in just a few weeks. That online store has proved to be a nice secondary income stream.”
“It’s certainly a great sales funnel. You might find, too, the broader your online reach becomes, the more customers you may gain by way of people adding this town to their itinerary just because they love the online store.”
“When I’m able to get to it.” Krissy looked around the store. “It’s a tiny shop, but it takes all my time searching for unique products.”
“It’s a big job being owner, buyer, marketer, tech support, and cashier.” Merry Anna had a team of people working on those things in each store back home. “You know, that’s something I could do on days like this when we don’t have many customers. I wouldn’t mind. I like to be busy.”
“Really? That would be awesome. I’ll make a list of the items and show you where to update the database that feeds the website.” Krissy’s smile was all Merry Anna needed to move forward on that project.
“Yes! I could also check vendors for sales and things like that in case you want to do something like a special overstock item each quarter, since that worked so well last time.” Merry Anna grabbed a pen and made a list with checkboxes next to each one.
“What did you say you used to do back in DC?”
“I don’t think I ever said. Mostly a little bit of this and a little bit of that,” Merry Anna said.
“Well, you are most certainly a treasure, and I’m so thankful you landed here for a while.”
“I am too,” Merry Anna said.
At the end of the day, Merry Anna felt as though she had put in a good day’s work and balanced it with some quiet time working on ideas for Hardy House.
On her way home, she decided to stop in the feedstore to see if Adam could tell her what kind of birdseed to get for the songbirds.
Adam must have seen her walking up, because he greeted her at the door. “How are you doing?”
“I’m great,” she said. “I woke up to the prettiest serenade this morning.”
“Oh, sorry. I don’t usually sing that loud in the shower,” he said, pretending to be embarrassed.
“Ha, no, it was definitely not you, but I was thinking maybe I’d get a bird feeder and some seed for songbirds. Can you help me with that?”
“I can.”
