On Wednesday the twentieth of October the World Series went to a seventh game in St. Louis, and the whole counter had an opinion about it, though there was not a man in the Derrick who had ever been to St. Louis or cared particularly about the Cardinals or the Brewers either one. It was something to talk about that wasn't Penn Square.
The Gilstraps came in at ten after seven. Neva saw right away that something was different, though it took her a minute to know what. Velma was the same, slow off the curb, her hand on Hiram's arm and the magnifying glass swinging on its ribbon. The boy was the same, the green shirt this time, the satchel, the cowlick. It was Hiram. He was wearing the white shirt and the gray hat as always, but he walked to his stool like a man walking to the front of a church, and when he sat down he didn't take off his hat right away. He sat with it on for almost a minute, his hands flat on the counter on either side of the saucer, before he remembered and took it off and set it crown-down beside him. His right hand, when he lifted the cup, was not quite steady.
Troy read the board. "Chili. Chili and a grilled cheese, two seventy-five. Fried chicken, three pieces, with mashed potatoes and green beans. Pie of the day is —" He stopped. Neva had written it herself and knew what it said, which was COCONUT CREAM AGAIN — COY MADE TOO MUCH. "Is apple," the boy said, and sat down.
"Apple," Velma said. "That's nice."
Neva turned around and looked at him. He was spinning his stool a quarter turn left and a quarter turn right and looking at nothing. She opened her mouth to say, Honey, it's coconut, and then she shut it again, without knowing why, except that it seemed to her she had just watched somebody do something on purpose.
She packed the sack. Pimento cheese, an apple, two cookies, milk, and a dollar fifteen out of her apron. When the Gilstraps got up to go, she came around the end of the counter and slid it into the satchel on top of a library book called My Side of the Mountain, and the boy said thank you, ma'am, to the strap, and went out ahead to open the car door for his grandmother. And Hiram, instead of following his wife out, stopped beside Neva and stood there with his hat in his hands.
He was taller than she had realized. She saw that he had shaved badly that morning, a nick on the jaw with a bit of toilet paper on it, and that he was breathing like a man who had climbed stairs.
"Ma'am," he said.
"Mr. Gilstrap."