Free A Table By the Window by Lawana Blackwell Page B

Oklahoma in the early 1800s, and those who stayed didn’t do well. Fortunately, I don’t think that’s the case any more. The tribe owns several businesses around Philadelphia, Mississippi. An industrial park, golf course, and the like.”
    Ruby fished out the nozzle with two fingers and began working on it with a pin. The town, she explained, started out as a general store at the crossroads of what later became Highway 42 and Main Street, owned by a former Union officer, who decided he had had enough of Minnesota winters. “Addison Lockwood was his name. He married a local farmer’s daughter, a Margaret Moore.”
    â€œOne of your ancestors?” Carley asked.
    â€œMy ex-husband Don’s. A great-great-great-great aunt or something like that. Our telephone directory—such as it is—has more Lockwoods and Moores than any other name. Even Smith, my maiden name.”
    She said a town gradually grew around the store, helped along by lumber mills cropping up in the region, and especially when Lovely Lady Lingerie opened up a garment factory in the early 1950s. But Tallulah hit a recession in the late sixties when the factory closed. In the mid-seventies, the remaining residents began meeting in the fellowship hall of First Methodist to figure out a way to revive the economy and stop the exodus of families.
    Bart Lockwood, owner of Lockwood Funeral Home, had a vested interest in the matter. He pointed out how a fair number of people still came to shop for antiques at Red Barn Emporium, owned and run by retired Tallulah High School principal, Harold Moore, and his wife, Nadine. Hattiesburg was booming, with its university, hospitals, and industries, as was the gulf coast. There was no lacking for customers in Mississippi. What if more such shops were to open?
    Rather than feel threatened, Harold and Nadine understood that more shops would draw more customers, thereby increasing their own business. They gave classes on what to look for during buying trips up north and to Dallas and Atlanta. Landlords realized it was in their best interest to entice budding entrepreneurs into empty buildings by offering extremely favorable terms. Most shops were founded by women whose husbands were already employed, or retirees of both sexes who already had sources of income.
    The experiment went dismally slow for three years but then took off after Bill Moyers aired a segment about the Mennonite community and bakery in nearby Columbia, Mississippi, and devoted three minutes to Tallulah and its antique shops.
    â€œThere’s a plaque in the lobby of Town Hall dedicated to Bart Lockwood,” Ruby said, replacing the nozzle onto the can. “But the poor fellow passed away of a stroke before he got to see the results of all his hard work.”
    She aimed the nozzle at the inside of the cup, gave it a quick spurt, and smiled. “And there you have it.”
    â€œI’ll remember that trick,” Carley said, taking the can from her.
    â€œIt also works to switch out a nozzle from a can of hair spray or air freshener,” Ruby said, and winked. “But then you don’t have an excuse to visit.”
    By ten o’clock, Carley had finished dusting the furniture and dry mopping the hardwood floors. At ten-thirty she lay curled on her side on the soft mattress of the front bedroom. Loretta had warned against leaving any space heater burning overnight, and so the dark air was growing chill. An owl, perhaps two, hooted from somewhere not far from the east window. But Carley drifted into sleep easily, her stomach filled with offerings from thoughtful neighbors, her body warm beneath a sheet, two blankets, and two quilts stitched by her grandmother’s own hands.
    ****
    Wednesday morning after breakfasting on zucchini bread and tea, Carley showered, applied makeup, and dressed in her V-neck coral sweater and favorite slacks of soft black twill. The clock read 8:30, a half hour before Kay