This is a small town. A not-even-one-stop-sign on Main Street small town. A no doctor, no dentist, no ophthalmologist small town. If you have a fever, or need a tooth pulled, or your eyeglasses are so bad that you mistake your next door neighbor’s dog for a possum (no matter that they are both slow and stupid, you should be able to see the difference), you have to get in your car and take a 25 minute drive to the next town. And with gas prices what they are, a lot of folks are waiting for all three to coincide so that the trip won’t be wasted on just one errand. I know that I wait until the chore list piles up so high that I can spend 3 hours running around, and I always come home wondering why I didn’t take care of some of these things sooner.
But we do have the prerequisite small-town grocery store, complete with a butcher’s counter in the back and coffee served up by a big-busted blonde store clerk. Wanda’s her name and she fits it to a “T”. Smacks her gum, “honey” this and that to all the customers, a twang in her voice that would make you think she’s from 3 states south of here. But we all love her and love what she stands for. Our small town.
Wanda came in one day, proud as a peacock, because her oldest daughter was pregnant. “Here, take a look at the baby,” she said to me that morning, thrusting an ultrasound photo in my hand as she sliced up my American cheese (the store sells cheddar and Swiss too, and a nice reduced-fat provolone for those of us watching our waistline, but nothing exotic like Monterey Jack or Muenster). I’ve always been a bit confused on which way’s up with an ultrasound photo, so I took a glance and handed it back. “Beautiful,” I exclaimed in my most sincere, baby-appreciating voice. But Wanda wasn’t going to have anyone do a quick once-over on her first grandchild. She slapped the cheese on the marble counter, walked around front and handed me back the grainy photo, bad as a Polaroid taken in a rainstorm. “Do you see him smile?” she asked. I wasn’t sure which blurry body part was the baby’s head, no less what its facial expression was, but I enthusiastically said. “Oh, of course, right there,” and waved my hand around the entire picture. That seemed to satisfy Wanda, and she made her way back to my cheese, which she expertly wrapped in brown butcher’s paper. A quick marking of the price with a grease pencil and I was off.
Later in the afternoon I walked over to the post office to mail off my electric bill payment and I ran into Joan, who works with Wanda during the noon rush. Joan helps make the hoagies and ham sandwiches that the contractor crowd comes in for, and later cleans up so Wanda can go in back and put her feet up for half an hour. Joan has a good heart, but a big mouth. “Did you hear about Wanda’s new grandbaby?” she asked. I told her about seeing Wanda and the ultrasound earlier, and her face split into a huge grin. “Poor Wanda,” she said through her smile. “She spent the whole morning showing off that thing, making everyone look and purr over the baby’s smile. But after Doc Adams took a look at it she tucked it back into her purse. I doubt she’ll show it off for a while.”
Doc Adams is retired now, but at one time he had a thriving family practice right in town. People still stop and ask him about their gout or their bum elbows, but he just brushes off the questions and pretends that his hearing aid’s turned down.
“Why, what did Doc Adams see?” I asked. “Is there something wrong with the baby?”
“Oh, no, the baby’s fit as a fiddle, Doc says he’s a fine specimen. Only he’s not smiling in the picture. Wanda was looking at the thing catawampus and the roundness she thought was his head was actually his bee-hind. When he told her that she put it away real fast like and never mentioned it again. I wanted to ask her what the smile really was but she didn’t seem to be in mood to talk.”
I went in few days later for a pound of low-salt honey ham (Walter and the dog love the stuff). Wanda was there of course, and she chatted like always, but no mention of the baby. As I turned to leave my eye landed on the ultrasound, taped to the wall. On it someone had taken the grease pencil and outlined the baby, complete with a half smile on its face. You know, it’s amazing how clear those things can be when someone points out what you’re looking at.
