AN: Here we go, another chapter here.
I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Jubilee was a good riding horse and she was every bit as obedient as Carol could ever hope for her to be. She was branded, like Nugget, with Daryl's brand. Two small, interlocking D's made his mark on the livestock that he called his own. The cows they'd lost, too, wore the brands, but Carol doubted they'd ever find the beasts. Whoever had taken them would be smarter than to sell them in town. More than likely they'd already driven them some distance to incorporate them into a larger herd that was probably made up of other stolen livestock.
Carol rode into town on Jubilee and rode directly to the general store, careful to avoid anyone who was bustling about in the busy main street. She hadn't been to town without Daryl since she'd been married—and she'd rarely been before that—but she'd been at least twice with him and she hadn't had any trouble finding her way. At the general store, Carol dismounted and tied her horse, nervously aware of the people around her and what they might say about the fact that she went about without an escort—but small farms couldn't always spare everyone who lived there for half a day. Not without hands to take over the labor.
Carol stepped up on the wooden boards outside the store and walked through the open doors. Inside, the store was empty except for the older man who worked there. He rose from his chair, where he was playing solitaire to pass the time between customers, when Carol walked in.
"Can I help you?" He asked.
Carol swallowed. She reminded herself that she was a respectfully married woman. She reminded herself that she was a farmer's wife with honest money in her pocket. She reminded herself that, as such, she was dressed so that her clothing communicated her position in the world.
"Shopping for my husband," Carol said. "Need coffee, thread, and four yards of that bleached shirting fabric."
The man started to gather together Carol's purchases and, in her mind, Carol went about calculating the price of what she would pay. She examined a few other items while the man gathered together her requests.
"A dollar on the hammer seems pretty high," Carol said.
"Hmmph?" The old man responded.
"A dollar on your hammers," Carol said. "Seems pretty high."
"Can seem what it do," the man responded. "A dollar's a fair price. Taking a cut on what I paid for them. Come in on a freight two weeks ago."
"And I'd say they aren't moving," Carol said. "The hardware don't sell 'em cheaper?"
"A dollar-twelve at the hardware," the old man responded.
"And your gloves?" Carol asked. "You won't budge on them either?"
"Leather didn't come in this year like it shoulda," the man offered as a sort of explanation for the price of the gloves. "Too much cattle froze out there, I reckon. They good made, though. Quality."
Carol's stomach churned as she gathered up a hammer and a pair of good gloves. She carried them toward the counter where her other items were being packaged and she passed them toward the man that was standing there.
"I don't take more'n a dollar credit," the man said. "Your husband got a charge here already?"
"Daryl Dixon," Carol offered. "He's my husband. And I weren't payin' on credit. He don't neither."
A smile flitted across the lips of the store clerk at the mention of cash changing hands. Credit, Carol knew, was the preferred payment method of most who were just getting started, but it was a gamble for store clerks. It was a gamble for anyone who was selling anything. There was nothing that paid better than cash for anything. Carol had learned that from Andrea. The only thing, in some cases, that carried more weight than cash was pussy.
Carol wasn't in the business of paying in trade for pussy any longer.
But pussy wasn't the only thing she had to trade.
Carol pushed the additional purchases toward the store clerk and took out the small purse that Miss Jo had given her as a gift. In the purse she had enough money—some of it tucked away from a few dollars she brought with her from Andrea's—to pay for everything there and leave with change, but she had other ideas.
She watched as the clerk opened his book and tallied up her purchases. She watched him tick off his counting on his fingertips.
And then she stepped away to pretend that she'd forgotten something—to feign that she might be interested in adding something more to her pile of goods.
Carol dawdled long enough to see someone else come into the store. A gentleman looking to buy quite the variety of dry goods like he was stocking his home for the winter that was long before coming again. Carol listened carefully to his order, calculated up what he owed the store clerk, and stepped close enough to the counter to feign interest in some soda crackers while she listened to the clerk give him his total.
"Beg pardon," Carol offered, "but you're short six cents."
The clerk looked at her and the man did too. Carol's heart drummed in her chest.
"Excuse me?" The clerk asked.
"You're short six cents if you charge him that," Carol said. "You added wrong on the flour per pound. He owes you six cents more."
The clerk almost looked indignant, but he worked through his calculations again—or at least pretended to—and quoted the price as it should have been with Carol's additional six cents added onto the total. The man paid the money without argument, took his belongings, and left. And Carol, for her part, pretended to have a certain and distinct interest in a pair of men's boots that she had no real intention to purchase.
She lingered around the store until she'd performed her little trick four more times, much to the visible annoyance of the clerk. Then, feeling that she'd made her point, Carol went up to the counter and counted out her total in front of him before he could quote her the price she was meant to pay for her goods.
"You'd do better to have a bookkeeper," Carol said.
"A what?" The man asked.
"Someone to keep track of your goods," Carol said. "What comes in. What goes out. Someone to keep track of what your customers were to pay. What they might get asked to pay elsewhere in town." Carol walked off a step or two and examined the window—something not being put to good use, in her opinion—before she turned back to the man. "Wouldn't hurt, neither, to have someone that could help you arrange things. Set 'em up so that—things that people's likely to buy? They're easy for them to see. Easy to catch their attention. Remind them that they needed somethin' they were just about to forget. Set up your window so that—things that they didn't know they wanted? Could draw them right in off the street. The wives? They'll be doing the buying for their husbands in town. Your window should draw them right on in."
Andrea had taught Carol, after all, that the biggest sale was made at the door. Teasing men with what they could have—the very best that they could purchase—would bring them in. Then, even if the price was a little too high on what they thought they wanted, they were still likely to make the purchase of a lesser package.
"And I s'pose you expect me to think you know what you're talkin' about?" The man asked.
Carol smiled at him.
"I already earned you twenty seven cents over what you woulda brought in," Carol said. She crossed the room to stand and look at the man, face-to-face. "I'm a married woman. Good at what I do. Everything I do. Fast, too. And I don't have to be home for a while to get supper going. Ten cents on an hour. Take home at the end of the day. And if I don't earn you that and more back?" Carol shrugged her shoulders. "Then you let me go and I don't say nothin' else about it. I can read and write, and I can cipher."
The clerk narrowed his eyes at Carol.
"Ten cents on an hour?" He asked.
Carol nodded her head.
"Payable at the end of the day," Carol said. "Every day you want me to come and work."
"Payable in credit?" The man asked.
Carol shook her head.
"Cash," Carol said. "In hand. Carry home. Just as I paid you. I can start now."
"And what would be my motivation to pay you to come in here and turn things upside down?" The clerk asked.
Carol laughed to herself.
"The increase on your dime," Carol said. "I made you nearly three hours of my wages in less than twenty minutes. You won't get no better turn around than that."
"And your husband?" The man asked. "What's he gonna say about you workin' here for me?"
Carol's stomach turned a little. She didn't know what Daryl might say or how he might feel about her working. She could imagine that he wouldn't be thrilled with the idea. She could imagine that he might feel like he was letting her down by making her work both in their home and off their farm.
But she also felt like she could make him see her side of things. She could make him understand that she could help. She could contribute. She could bring money in that they needed. Money that would keep them going until the crops brought in the rest.
And she could build a reputation for herself. She could put her face out there. She could become well-known around town. She could finally stop worrying that, every time she saw someone looking at her, they were remembering her from Andrea's house. She could stop worrying that they were remembering who she'd been before. She could be confident that they knew her because they'd seen her working a perfectly respectable job in town at the general store.
Carol could talk to Daryl. She was learning his language.
"I'll handle my husband," Carol said. "Don't you worry about that. Do we got a deal?"
"I'll put you on a trial run today," the clerk said. "Ten cents on an hour. We'll see how you do at the end of the day."
Carol nodded her head.
"Fair deal," Carol said. "Will my mare be alright outside?"
"She'll be there when you're looking for her," the clerk responded. "Don't got horse thieves around here. Not that would dare to show they faces in town with the sheriff about."
"I'll need to leave in time to get supper ready," Carol reminded him.
"You keep track of your hours," the clerk responded. "That's your job, after all. But you're workin' here? You start now."
Carol nodded her head and offered him a hand to shake. He seemed hesitant about shaking her hand at first, but finally he stuck his hand out and shook hers.
"You won't be sorry," Carol said. "I can promise you that."
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With forty cents in her pocket that she wouldn't have had without her efforts, and with her purchases loaded into Jubilee's saddle bags, Carol headed for home. She watched the sky as she rode. She'd get home in plenty of time to have Daryl's supper ready and on the table for him when he was ready to eat. She'd have enough time, before bed, to patch the shirt she'd put to the side to patch, and she'd have time to prepare things for the morning.
She hoped that presenting her purchases to Daryl, and offering him the forty cents as well, would work to soften the impact of what she had to say to him. She hoped that it would work to win him over to her side. He might see, easily enough, that this was something that was good for the both of them. This would help them get where they were going at a little faster rate than they were already headed there.
Ten cents an hour was respectable pay for a respectable job—and the money would spend as good as any money ever had.
It was a down payment on their life. It was a down payment on their future. It would buy the things that Daryl needed to give them the life that they both dreamed about.
Carol had earned a decent amount of money in her life, and she'd spent almost as much, but this would be the best money that she'd ever earned and the best that she ever spent. And Daryl, she was sure, would eventually see things her way.
She just needed to get home, prepare supper for him, and figure out exactly how she was going to present it to him so that he saw, and so that he understood, that it was her choice. But her choice to work in no way meant that she thought he couldn't take care of her. It didn't mean that she thought he couldn't be the best kind of husband that any man could be. He was already that.
It just meant that she felt that there was more that she could do, as the good wife he wanted her to be, to ensure that they lived the best kind of life that they could.
And forty cents in her pocket—earned in the most respectable way possible—was the best help that she had to offer.