Chapter 2

March 15, 1986

"Luke, nails," I heard my father's voice call from across the crowded hardware store. It was the first warm Saturday afternoon of the year, and my father's store was experiencing a rush, a phenomenon that happened in the hardware business only a few times a year.

I handed a customer his screwdriver and took the money he handed me. "Luke, nails!" I took the money across the store to the cash register to make change. I pushed the cash register door closed none too gently, and heard the familiar crash of the change inside. "Luke!" I practically jogged back to the place where the man whose change I'd gathered was standing.

I pushed the man's change in front of him. "Have a nice day," I muttered without making eye contact.

"Hurry up, boy!"

I ran to the back storage room and picked up four boxes of nails. I hurried over to the counter where my father was standing with an impatient, red-faced customer. I slid the box off the top of the stack onto the counter in front of him and wordlessly stocked the other three boxes in their usual spot below the counter.

My father glanced at the small stack of nail boxes I'd stocked. "Three? We're gonna need more than that, we're packed today!"

Although my dad appeared stressed and impatient, I knew he wasn't. Days like these were what he lived for. He loved this store, and a good day for the store was a good day. I once again returned to the storage room for a pile of nail boxes, and this time took so many that I had to balance the stack with my chin.

"That's more like it," he said when I appeared once again at the counter. "Grab me another notepad, willya Luke? We're almost out of paper."

I once again returned to the stockroom, this time in search of a notepad. I looked on the right wall beside the bolts where there was usually a stack, but saw nothing. I searched the room for a good five minutes before I heard my father's call again. "Luke! Get out here!"

I gave up my search and jogged out to the store to see what my dad wanted. "Didya get that notepad?"

"I couldn't find one," I said apologetically. "I think we're out."

"Run over to Doose's and get one to hold us over."

"Yeah," I said, and headed to the door, anxious to escape the chaos. Before I got there, however, I passed Tom, the contractor that was one of our best customers. I waved a greeting, and he flagged me down.

"Hey, Luke!" he called over the three-foot space between us. Tom was the kind of person that was always shouting, even if you were right beside him. "Could you fill an order for me?"

"Actually, Tom, I was on the way to…"

"Great," he said, interrupting me. "I'm swamped today, kid. I appreciate your help. I'm gonna need two cratesa nails, a saw, two of those new hammers ya got last week, and three flathead screwdrivers."

I sighed. Better to fill the order now. I brought Tom his nails, which he passed off to a workman outside, and went back for the rest. I heard the phone ring, immediately followed by a "Luke! Paper!"

"I didn't get it!" I said apologetically, walking up to my father. "Tom's here, he had a big order and he was in a hurry. I had to fill it."

He looked at the saw in my hands, one of our more expensive models. "That for Tom?"

I nodded.

"Well then give it to him, for cryin' out loud!"

I hurried over to Tom and gave him the saw. "Thanks, kid," he said.

As I made my way back to the counter, I heard my dad answer the phone. "William's Hardware." I hoped it wasn't an order. "Okay, no problem," he said easily. "So that's… three hammers…"

It was an order. I cursed under my breath. I stood by in case I was needed for memory aid.

He dragged out his speech, trying to buy himself time. In one fluid motion, he grabbed a charcoal pencil, intended for marking wood, from the nearest shelf and lowered himself to a crouching position beside the counter. He scribbled the order on the counter below where the phone was so quickly that it was barely legible. I cringed. There was no way we were ever going to get that off.

Before another customer could distract me, I left the store in favor of Doose's. I wasn't going to let another order come in while we were paper-less.

I grabbed the first notepad I saw and got in line. I had hoped to be in and out of the store within minutes, but there was a girl in line in front of me that seemed hell bent on taking as long as possible to check out.

She looked to be about the same age as I was, but I didn't recognize her. That didn't, however, mean much of anything. Lately I had been unlikely to come in contact with anyone that wasn't at my school or a patron of the store, and she definitely wasn't the hardware store type. As much attention as I paid to the other students at my school, I wasn't even sure she didn't go there. The students at Stars Hollow High were, as a rule, a waste of breath, and I'd given up bothering to associate with them.

She was only checking out two bags of coffee, a large container of applesauce, a box of Mallomars and a coloring book, but somehow it was taking approximately three years.

"Isn't this the cutest coloring book?" she asked the sales boy, who couldn't have been less interested.

He nodded, his expression blank.

"Oh, shoot, do you have crayons? I think my daughter broke all of hers."

"Next to the coloring books," he said in a bored monotone.

"Hang on, I'll be right back," she promised.

When she walked away, I held up my notepad for the cashier to see. "This is all I have. Can you check it out while she gets that?"

"Sorry, I already started checking her out."

I sighed. Never underestimate the brain power of a Doose's Market cashier. "Fine, I'll wait."

The girl came back, crayons in hand. "Okay, here."

The cashier proceeded to ring up her now six items at what seemed like a snail's pace. When he had finally finished, she painstakingly counted out exact change.

The cashier took what seemed like ten years to count out the change she handed him. "I need ten cents more," he eventually told her.

Rather than handing over the dime, she argued. "No, I counted right."

"No you didn't. You gave me thirty-three cents. I need forty-three."

"I counted forty-three."

I could see that the cashier was about to count out the change in front of them, which would inevitably take the rest of my life, and I needed to get back to work. "Here!" I dropped a dime on the counter in front of the cashier. "Take the damn dime and ring me up, already. I'm in a hurry."

"Where could you possibly have to be?" the girl asked me rather rudely.

"Work."

"Oh," she said simply. She took her bags and left the store. As rude as she was, I couldn't help noticing how pretty she was.

As the cashier rang up my notebook, I put her out of my mind. I'd never see her again. "Dollar twenty-eight."

I handed him a five, and he gave me my change. I didn't count it, not because I trusted his math, but because I honestly didn't care if it was correct. A few cents didn't matter in the grand scheme of life.

I grabbed the notebook and headed back to the store. I handed my dad the notebook. "Thanks. What took you so long?"

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, you know. The usual incompetent Stars Hollow crowd."

"The cashier counted wrong again?"

"No, he told the girl in front of me that she counted wrong. They never actually determined whose fault it was. I gave the cashier the dime they were arguing about to save time."

He chuckled. "Smart move."
"I thought so. You know that charcoal is never going to come out of the counter, right?"

He shrugged, a gleam in his eye. "We'll leave it there a while. Nobody'll see it. If they do, it'll make for interesting conversation."

I smiled. At that moment, somehow I knew the writing would always be there, and I'd always be there to see it.