As a boy in better days, when his father had kept the store, he had fallen under the spell generated by that special and seductive mixture of scents peculiar to places where foods were gathered in the bulk, in barrels and boxes and jars and wooden tubs, and he had never escaped the spell.
It is true that the enchanting odor was gone now, or greatly diminished, but it was not gone from the memory of Cameron Fleming. In a mute and simple way, Cameron was a poet, and he had the poet’s capacity for intense recollection.
As everyone has realized at one time or another, there is nothing so tenacious as a remembered odor, nothing so calculated to bring back by association all the objects and events and emotions connected with it.
And that’s how it was with Cameron Fleming.
Every morning, when he unlocked the front door of his store and entered from the street, he could actually smell the magic effluvium of yesterday as surely as if the pickle barrel still stood, the tub of peanut butter still leaked the oily scent of goobers, and the hanging stalk of bananas still trailed a spoor of golden tropical fruit.
It was relatively late when Cameron married Millicent Hooker. He was, to be exact, thirty-two at the time. The marriage was hardly a success, but neither was it a disaster. It was merely dull.
Cameron was not greatly upset by the barrenness of his domestic life. He had the store, and the store was enough. For a time, that is. Until, to give a beginning to his decline, the day that Mrs. Hardy came in for a pound of round steak and a dime’s worth of onions.
Caroline Hardy was about Cameron’s age, about forty, but she was, so to speak, much older and younger at the same time. She had married young and lived hard and buried her husband, who had died at the age of thirty-eight, and she was tired. She did not, however, look tired. Neither did she look forty. She looked maybe thirty-five or thirty, depending upon the time of day and the degree of light and sometimes the character of the night before.
She was not actually pretty, and probably had never been, but she had magnetism and flair; even the simple gingham dress that she wore into the store was somehow, on her, like a party frock.
Cameron Fleming, approaching her, felt suddenly wistful, as if he had, after all, missed more in his life than he had known.
“Good afternoon,” he said. “May I help you?”
“I’d like a pound of round steak, please,” she said.
Behind the meat counter, he cut the steak and weighed it and wrapped it. Portent of the future, passing unnoticed, he gave her a pound and a quarter.
“Will there be anything else?”
“One large onion, please.”
“I’m afraid the onions aren’t large today. Two or three smaller ones, perhaps?”
“Two should be sufficient.” He selected two, the largest he had, and put them on the scales. They weighed out at twelve cents.
“That will be a dime,” he said, blowing his profit.
With her purchases in hand, she seemed loathe to leave. She looked slowly around her, and her pink lips formed the smile for which they were always prepared.
“What a perfectly charming store,” she said.
“Thank you,” he said. “It’s been in the family for years. My father ran it before me.”
“So much better, I think, than these great cold barns that pass for markets nowadays.”
“I’ve never had the pleasure of waiting on you before, have I?”
“No. This is the first time, but I assure you it won’t be the last.”
“I hope not. I sincerely do. Are you new in the neighborhood?”
“I moved into the house at the other end of the block just two days ago.”
“If you’d care to open a charge account, I’d be glad to accommodate you.”
“I’ll think about it. It might be convenient. My husband is dead, and I must work for my living. That’s why I moved here. Starting Monday, I have a job as file clerk at the cement plant.”
“I’m sure an account would work out satisfactorily for both of us.”
“You’re very kind. Anyhow, I shall certainly come again. My name, incidentally, is Mrs. Hardy. Caroline Hardy.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Hardy. I’m Cameron Fleming.”
She smiled again and nodded briskly.
“Well, I must get back. I’m really not quite settled yet. Good-by, Mr. Fleming.”
That was on Thursday. On Saturday she returned to open an account and buy a week’s supply of groceries.
Although she arrived at a time when trade was slack, the store being empty of other customers, their second encounter lacked, nevertheless, the delicious intimacy of the first. This was due to the presence of Jimmy Cobb, an explosion of red hair and freckles that Cameron employed as a part-time assistant for fifty cents an hour. His presence this day did not actually hamper Cameron’s actions in any way, for they would have been totally innocent in any event, but he managed, just by being there, to take the fine edge off things.
In the end, however, Jimmy proved himself useful, for Cameron ordered him home with Mrs. Hardy to carry the two large sacks of groceries that she bought.
Like all merchants, Cameron delighted in making large sales, but it must be said that his delight on this occasion was qualified by regret. Mrs. Hardy having bought for the week, it followed that it would be that long before he would see her again. The thought depressed him, but soon he was whistling softly as he went about his work.
It was entirely possible, after all, that Mrs. Hardy had forgotten some necessary staple and would have to return for it during the coming week. In Cameron’s experience, women were always remembering the cakes and caviar and completely forgetting the sugar and salt.
And so, indeed, it turned out. Wednesday afternoon, about five-thirty, the telephone rang, and Cameron answered with the routine phrase.
“Fleming’s Grocery.”
“This is Caroline Hardy, Mr. Fleming.”
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Hardy. What can I do for you?”
“Is Jimmy Cobb there?”
“Yes, Jimmy’s here.”
“Well, I’m in the middle of baking, and I discover that I have no baking powder. I wonder if you could have Jimmy run right up with a can?”
“Certainly. Right away, Mrs. Hardy.”
“It’s very accommodating of you.”
Cameron’s accommodation did not end with his agreement to send the baking powder. Leaving Jimmy to mind the store, a rare occurrence, he gave the delivery his personal attention. Three minutes later, having walked up the block by way of the alley, he was approaching Mrs. Hardy’s back door.
Mrs. Hardy, in the kitchen, was at once domestic and alluring in stretch pants protected by a bright patch of apron. Millicent, thought Cameron sadly, never wore stretch pants in the kitchen or elsewhere, and if she had the effect would hardly have been comparable.
“Why... Mr. Fleming!” Mrs. Hardy said. “How kind of you to come yourself. I’ve put you to no end of trouble.”
“Nothing of the sort,” Cameron said. “Jimmy was busy, and I thought the walk would do me good.”
“Well, you must stay and rest a moment. May I offer you something? Coffee? A glass of sherry?”
Strangely exhilarated, shedding restraint with a sense of daring, Cameron accepted sherry. The sherry, poured from a bottle taken from a kitchen cabinet, was of cooking quality, but, being no connoisseur of wines, he did not know the difference.
Mrs. Hardy had a glass with him as a convivial gesture, and he was astonished, consulting his watch on the return trip down the alley, to discover that he had lingered in the kitchen a full ten minutes. In the store, under the completely innocent observation of Jimmy Cobb, he had a delicious sense of guilt, as if he had just come hot and smoking from an assignation.