Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Write CONTEMPORARY FICTION (10/30/14)
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TITLE: Town In Chains | Previous Challenge Entry
By Virginia Lee Bliss
11/06/14 -
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“Good morning, Mr. Feldman.”
Glumly, he handed her the prescription.
“Hi, Ben.” She waved at Mr. Feldman’s son who was stocking shelves. He barely answered.
At the lunch counter, she smiled at the Feldman’s daughter. “Egg salad sandwich for me, Sarah. How’s senior year?” Sarah frowned.
Shelby looked at the other customers. “What’s wrong?”
“You haven’t heard?” Jim Najarian, owner of Millfield Auto Repair, grimaced. “XDX Pharmacy might open a location in Millfield.”
Shelby snorted. “XDX—junk food, stupid greeting cards, cheap toys, automatic doors closing on you.”
Mrs. Feldman joined them. “We can’t compete with chains.”
“But we need you,” cried Shelby. “When Grams was up to eight prescriptions, your husband looked into it and found a doctor who got her down to two. He could have made money, filling all those scripts, but that’s not his way.”
“When my leg got infected during the 2013 blizzard, I couldn’t get out of bed.” Matt Gustafsson pushed his stool away from the counter. “You folks delivered my medicine, no extra charge.
“First XDX, then All-Hardware,” Matt continued. “There goes my hardware store.”
“Try finding a clerk at All-Hardware who knows their merchandise,” said Jim.
“At your store, I get good advice.”
“And I can trust my car with you, Jim. Not like those big city dealers.”
Shelby had entered the drugstore in sunshine. Now she exited under a black cloud.
On this surprisingly mild December day, she walked down Millfield’s Main Street. Every one of its shops and services had been here since before she was born.
Millfield Savings provided loans for small businesses. Would the bank that survived the Great Depression of the thirties, be devoured by some chain bank in the greed of the twenty-tens?
If she hadn’t just eaten, she would have stopped at Jacques and Marie’s Bakery for a cup of coffee and a Quebecois tourtière that the Chantals always baked at Christmastime.
Better eat there soon. By next Christmas, Jacques and Marie’s might be Do-a-Donut.
She bought oranges at Ibrahim’s Grocery. The first Muslim family in Millfield, they strove to provide the best for their customers.
Grocery Giant would swallow them up. Shelby shuddered.
One of her high school friends, Lily Huáng, approached her.
“Lily! How’s college?”
“It’s wonderful…but…the tuition…”
“What happened?”
“I’m afraid for our restaurant. If XDX moves in, Chop Suey might open a location here too.”
“Lily, everyone knows Chop Suey can’t compare to Eighth Moon.” Relying mainly on simple local ingredients, the Huángs prepared all their dishes to order.
“We can’t compete price-wise.”
“Gotta run, Lil. I’ll stop by Eighth Moon next week.”
She went to Tom’s Farm and Garden Supply for sand and birdseed. Tom Washington had converted the nineteenth-century barn into one of the most respected stores of its kind.
“Now see here, Miss Shelby. I’m not havin’ you lug fifty pounds of sand. I’ll stop by with it and put it where it’s handy.”
“What about XDX, Tom?”
“You know what I think.”
“But what do we do?”
“We’re gonna hafta fight, Miss Shelby. We gotta stand together—the whole town. The Town Meeting’s right after New Years.”
The Town Meeting. She’d never been into politics. But now…
Tom laughed, his white teeth flashing against his black skin. “You and me and everybody in Millfield, we’re small town folks. “City folks openin’ up stores here don’t understand us.
“Miss Shelby, you’re educated, you speak real fine. The townsfolk, they’ll listen to you. Us older folks, they’ll say we’re just set in our ways. But if a young person speaks up…”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“I can’t—”
“Start preparin’ your speech, Miss Shelby.”
Walking home, she called Lily from her smartphone.
“…that’s it, January 7. Let’s meet before New Years and we’ll talk.”
Wednesday evening, January 7. Despite frigid temperatures and icy roads, the Town Hall meeting room was packed.
The mayor called the meeting to order. A representative from XDX presented the company’s plan.
When he had finished, the mayor announced, “Shelby Bailey will now speak.”
Shelby went to the podium, her stomach turning somersaults, her mouth parched.
In the audience, she saw the Chantals, Feldmans, Gustafssons, Huángs, Ibrahims, Najarians, Washingtons, Father O’Malley, Parson Brown, Rabbi Greenberg…the whole town was there.
Our town. She whispered a prayer and began to speak.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
All the persons and stores mentioned in this entry are fictional. The town of Millfield is also fictional, but it is modeled after my own small town. This story is dedicated to small towns everywhere, where the values of Main Street are threatened by those of Wall Street.
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God bless~
I really enjoyed the way that your MC stood up for her fellow towns people. I would love to know what it was that she said! Well done.
Very sensitive portrayal of the anxiety that pervades many small towns, underlining another truth - that every business is a people business.
Great writing.
God bless~