Free Dale Loves Sophie to Death by Robb Forman Dew Page A

his hands on the other side of the counter. “He almost never shops for himself, you know,” he said.
    “Oh, no?” she asked.
    “No…no. He had a girl helping him out for a while. A secretary, I guess. She used to come in sometimes. Now he usually sends one of those boys down. One of those people who works for him. I think that girl must have quit.”
    “Oh, yes,” Dinah said pleasantly, drawing out the vowels a little to show her interest and also so as not to seem affronted. She wouldn’t have hurt Jim’s feelings.
    “Well, he’s come in pretty often, lately. He just buys a few things at a time. I don’t think those boys ever get just what he wants.”
    Dinah explained what she needed, and Jim went back into the meat locker to get a side of beef from which to cut it. When he returned and was standing at his porcelain table sideways to her, he continued his part of the conversation. “It’s a funny thing, though, about Dr. Briggs, you know. Sometimes I think he’s kind of gone to pieces. Do you remember my son, Pete? He’s up at OSU now?”
    Dinah nodded.
    “Well, last year he had to have an operation.” He looked up at Dinah with a reassuring shrug. “He’s fine, now. It turned out not to be anything serious. But, anyway, he was pretty scared beforehand. He was working here in the store with me, and he was real worried about the idea of being cut open.” Jim paused to pull out a long sheet of paper, in which he would wrap Dinah’s roast, from the serrated-edge holder over his table. “Do you want me to cut this into cubes for you, or do you want to do it yourself? It’s no extra charge.”
    “Oh, no. I can do that,” she said. “I don’t know exactly what size I want them.”
    Jim nodded in agreement, and went on, “Well, I really got to be afraid he wouldn’t go through with it, and I finally called up Dr. Briggs, you know, and just asked him if he would talk to Pete about it. I knew your dad was still seeing some patients, and he’s known Pete all his life. Anyway, he said he’d be glad to. He asked me if Pete could bring along some meat and groceries when he came, just to save him the walk that day. I guess your father has some pain still, getting around.”
    By this time Jim had wrapped and tied the meat and put it on the counter in front of Dinah, but he was standing with both hands resting on the glass and leaning toward her, so Dinah didn’t take up the package yet. She saw he had more to say.
    “Well, Pete took all the groceries over to him. He carried them through to the kitchen for Dr. Briggs and waited while your father checked over them all and put them away. But your dad had ordered a thick T-bone”—and Jim held his fingers up to approximate the thickness—“and he didn’t put that away. He just put it there on the table, and began to ask Pete all about his operation and when it was going to be and all, while he was unwrapping that steak. And then when he got it all untied, and the paper off of it…well, then your father took one of those long carving knives out of a drawer. The kind of knife you use to carve a turkey or a ham, Pete said. And he kind of flung it point down into the beef, so that it stood straight up there on the table. Then he looked up at Pete and said, ‘You see, your surgery won’t be any different than that. No different than that at all.’” Jim looked earnestly over the counter at her, declining to judge the incident, but anxious to impart it, nevertheless.
    Dinah just stood there a moment, struck dumb by so much information. But finally she responded, “Well! That’s terrible! Poor Pete. What did he do?”
    “Oh, Pete went on and had the operation. It turned out fine.”
    Dinah had all the things she needed, and she paid the cashier and walked out of the store into the sunshine dappling down onto the shaded sidewalk and went slowly home carrying her groceries. A smile slipped down over her face; she was intrigued by her father’s splendid