Needful Things by Stephen King
This stately gavotte--which might be called The Dance of Female Investigation--lasts anywhere from two weeks to two months, and does not apply when someone from town opens a business. That sort of opening is apt to be like an Old Home Week church supper--informal, cheery, and quite dull. But when the new tradesman is From Away (it is always said that way, so one can hear the capital letters), The Dance of Female Investigation is as sure as the fact of death and the force of gravity. When the trial period is over (no one takes out an ad in the paper to say that it is, but somehow everyone knows), one of two things happens: either the flow of trade becomes more normal and satisfied customers bring in belated welcome gifts and invitations to Come and Visit, or the new business fails. In towns like Castle Rock, small businesses are sometimes spoken of as "broke down" weeks or even months before the hapless owners discover the fact for themselves.
There was at least one woman in Castle Rock who did not play by the accepted rules, immutable as they might seem to others. This was Polly Chalmers, who ran You Sew and Sew. Ordinary behavior was not expected of her by most; Polly Chalmers was considered by the ladies of Castle Rock (and many of the gentlemen) to be Eccentric.
Polly presented all sorts of problems for the self-appointed social arbiters of Castle Rock. For one thing, no one could quite decide on the most basic fact of all: was Polly From Town, or was she From Away? She had been born and mostly raised in Castle Rock, true enough, but she had left with Duke Sheehan's bun in her oven at the age of eighteen. That had been in 1970, and she had only returned once before moving back for good in 1987.
That brief return call had begun in late 1975, when her father had been dying from cancer of the bowel. Following his death, Lorraine Chalmers had suffered a heart attack, and Polly had stayed on to nurse her mother. Lorraine had suffered a second heart attack--this one fatal--in the early spring of 1976, and after her mother had been buried away in Homeland, Polly (who had by then attained a genuine Air of Mystery, as far as the ladies of the town were concerned) had left again.
Gone for good this time had been the general consensus, and when the last remaining Chalmers, old Aunt Evvie, died in 1981 and Polly did not attend the funeral, the consensus seemed a proven fact. Yet four years ago she had returned, and had opened her sewing shop. Although no one knew for certain, it seemed likely that she had used Aunt Evvie Chalmers's money to fund the new venture. Who else would that crazy old rip have left it to?
The town's more avid followers of la comedie humaine (this was most of them) felt sure that, if Polly made a success of her little business and stuck around, most of the things they were curious about would be revealed to them in the fullness of time. But in Polly's case, many matters remained dark. It was really quite exasperating.
She had spent some of the intervening years in San Francisco, that much was known, but little more--Lorraine Chalmers had been as close as the devil about her wayward daughter. Had Polly gone to school there, or somewhere? She ran her business as if she had taken business courses, and learned a right smart from them, too, but no one could say for sure. She was single when she returned, but had she ever been married, either in San Francisco or in one of those places where she might (or might not) have spent some of her time between Then and Now? No one knew that, either, only that she had never married the Sheehan boy--he had joined the Marines, had done a few turns there, and was now selling real estate someplace in New Hampshire. And why had she come back here to stay after all the years?
Most of all they wondered what had become of the baby. Had pretty Polly gotten an abortion? Had she given it up for adoption? Had she kept it? If so, had it died? Was it (maddening pronoun, that) alive now, at school somewhere, and writing the occasional letter home to its mother? No one knew these things, either, and in many ways the unanswered questions about "it" were the most galling. The girl who had left on a Greyhound with a bun in her oven was now a woman of almost forty and had been back, living and doing business in town, for four years, and no one even knew the sex of the child that had caused her to leave.
Just lately Polly Chalmers had given the town a fresh demonstration of her eccentricity, if one was needed: she had been keeping company with Alan Pangborn, Castle County's Sheriff, and Sheriff Pangborn had buried his wife and younger son only a year and a half ago. This behavior was not quite a Scandal, but it was certainly Eccentric, and so no one was really surprised to see Polly Chalmers go marching down the sidewalk of Main Street from her door to that of Needful Things at two minutes past ten on the morning of October 9th. They were not even surprised at what she was carrying in her gloved hands: a Tupperware container which could only contain a cake.
It was, the locals said when discussing it later, just like her.
2
The display window of Needful Things had been cleansed of soap, and a dozen or so items had been set out there--clocks, a silver setting, a painting, a lovely triptych just waiting for someone to fill it with well-loved photographs. Polly glanced at these items with approval, then went to the door. The sign hanging there read OPEN. As she did what the sign suggested, a small bell jingled over her head--this had been installed since Brian Rusk's preview.
The shop smelled of new carpeting and fresh paint. It was filled with sunshine, and as she stepped in, looking around with interest, a clear thought came to her: This is a success. Not a customer has stepped through the door yet--unless I'm one--and it's already a success. Remarkable. Such hasty judgments were not like her, and neither was her feeling of instant approval, but they were undeniable.
A tall man was bending over one of the glass display cases. He looked up when the bell jingled and smiled at her. "Hello," he said.
Polly was a practical woman who knew her own mind and generally liked what she found there, and so the instant of confusion which struck her when she first met this stranger's eyes was confusing in and of itself.
I know him, was the first clear thought to come through that unexpected cloud. I've met this man before. Where?
She hadn't, though, and that knowledge--that surety--came a moment later. It was deja vu, she supposed, that sense of false recollection which strikes almost everyone from time to time, a feeling which is disorienting because it is at once so dreamy and so prosaic.
She was put off her stride for a moment or two, and could only smile at him lamely. Then she moved her left hand to get a better grip on the cake container she held, and a harsh bolt of pain shot up the back of it and out toward the wrist in two bright spikes. The tines of a large chrome fork seemed to be planted deep in her flesh. It was arthritis, and it hurt like a son of a bitch, but at least it focused her attention again, and she spoke without a noticeable lag ... only she thought that the man might have noticed, just the same. He had bright hazel eyes which looked as if they might notice a great deal.
"Hi," she said. "My name is Polly Chalmers. I own the little dress and sewing shop two doors down from you. I thought that, since we're neighbors, I'd come over and welcome you to Castle Rock before the rush."
He smiled, and his entire face lit up. She felt an answering smile lift her own lips, even though her left hand was still hurting like a bastard. If I weren't already in love with Alan, she thought, I think I'd fall at this man's feet without a whimper. "Show me to the bedroom, Master, I will go quietly." With a quirk of amusement, she wondered how many of the ladies who would pop in here for a quick peek before the end of the day would go home with ravening crushes on him. She saw he was wearing no wedding band; more fuel to the fire.
"I'm delighted to meet you, Ms. Chalmers," he said, coming forward. "I'm Leland Gaunt." He put out his right hand as he approached her, then frowned slightly as she took a small step backward.
"I'm sorry," she said, "I don't shake hands. Don't think me impolite, please. I have arthritis." She set the Tupperware container on the nearest glass case and raised her hands, which were encased in kid-leather gloves. There was nothing freakish about them, but they were clearly misshapen,
There were women in town who thought that Polly was actually proud of her disease; why else, they reasoned, would she be so quick to show it off? The truth was the exact opposite. Though not a vain woman, she was concerned enough about her looks that the ugliness of her hands embarrassed her. She showed them as quickly as she could, and the same thought surfaced briefly--so briefly it almost always went unrecognized--in her mind each time she did: There. That's over. Now we can get on with whatever else there is.
People usually registered some discomposure or embarrassment of their own when she showed them her hands. Gaunt did not. He grasped her upper arm in hands that felt extraordinarily strong and shook that instead. It might have struck her as an inappropriately intimate thing to have done on first acquaintance, but it did not. The gesture was friendly, brief, even rather amusing. All the same, she was glad it was quick. His hands had a dry, unpleasant feel even through the light fall coat she was wearing.
"It must be difficult to run a sewing shop with that particular disability, Ms. Chalmers. How ever do you manage?"
It was a question very few people put to her, and, with the exception of Alan, she couldn't remember anyone's ever asking her in such a straightforward way.
"I went right on sewing full-time as long as I could," she said. "Grinned and bore it, I suppose you'd say. Now I have half a dozen girls working for me part-time, and I stick mostly to designing. But I still have my good days." This was a lie, but she felt it did no harm, since she told it mostly for her own benefit.
"Well, I'm delighted that you came over. I'll tell you the truth--I've got a bad case of stage fright."
"Really? Why?" She was even less hasty about judging people than she was of judging places and events, and she was startled--even a little alarmed--at how rapidly and naturally she felt at home with this man she had met less than a minute ago.
"I keep wondering what I'll do if no one comes in. No one at all, all day long."
"They'll come," she said. "They'll want a look at your stock--no one seems to have any idea what a store called Needful Things sells--but even more important, they'll want a look at you. It's just that, in a little place like Castle Rock--"
"--no one wants to seem too eager," he finished for her. "I know--I've had experience of small towns. My rational mind assures me that what you've just said is the absolute truth, but there's another voice that just goes on saying, 'They won't come, Leland, oohhh, no, they won't come, they'll stay away in droves, you just wait and see.' "
She laughed, remembering suddenly that she had felt exactly the same way when she opened You Sew and Sew.
"But what's this?" he asked, touching the Tupperware container with one hand. And she noticed what Brian Rusk had already seen: the first and second fingers of that hand were exactly the same length.
"It's a cake. And if I know this town half as well as I think I do, I can assure you it will be the only one you'll get today."
He smiled at her, clearly delighted. "Thank you! Thank you very much, Ms. Chalmers--I'm touched."
And she, who never asked anyone to use her first name on first or even short acquaintance (and who was suspicious of anyone--realtors, insurance agents, car salesmen--who appropriated that privilege unasked), was bemused to hear herself saying, "If we're going to be neighbors, shouldn't you call me Polly?"
3
The cake was devil's food, as Leland Gaunt ascertained merely by lifting the lid and sniffing. He asked her to stay and have a slice with him. Polly demurred. Gaunt insisted.
"You'll have someone to run your shop," he said, "and no one will dare set foot in mine for at least half an hour--that should satisfy the protocols. And I have a thousand questions about the town."
So she agreed. He disappeared through the curtained doorway at the back of the shop and she heard him climbing stairs--the upstairs area, she supposed, must be his living quarters, if only temporarily--to get plates and forks. While she waited for him to come back, Polly wandered around looking at things.
A framed sign on the wall by the door through which she had entered said that the shop would be open from ten in the morning until five in the afternoon on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. It would be closed "except by appointment" on Tuesdays and Thursdays until late spring--or, Polly thought with an interior grin, until those wild and crazy tourists and vacationers arrived again, waving their fistfuls of dollars.
Needful Things, she decided, was a curio shop. An upscale curio shop, she would have said after a single glance, but a closer examination of the items for sale suggested it was not that easily categorized.
The items which had been placed out when Brian stopped in the afternoon before--geode. Polaroid camera, picture of Elvis Presley, the few others--were still there, but perhaps four dozen more had been added. A small rug probably worth a small fortune hung on one of the off-white walls--it was Turkish, and old. There was a collection of lead soldiers in one of the cases, possibly antiques, but Polly knew that all lead soldiers, even those cast in Hong Kong a week ago last Monday, have an antique-y look.
The goods were wildly varied. Between the picture of Elvis, which looked to her like the sort of thing that would retail on any carnival midway in America for $4.99, and a singularly uninteresting American eagle weathervane, was a carnival glass lampshade which was certainly worth eight hundred dollars and might be worth as much as five thousand. A battered and charmless teapot stood flanked by a pair of gorgeous poupees, and she could not even begin to guess what those beautiful French dollies with their rouged cheeks and gartered gams might be worth.
There was a selection of baseball and tobacco cards, a fan of pulp magazines from the thirties (Weird Tales, Astounding Tales, Thrilling Wonder Stories), a table-radio from the fifties which was that disgusting shade of pale pink which the people of that time had seemed to approve of when it came to appliances, if not to politics.
Most--although not all--of the items had small plaques standing in front of them: TRI -CRYSTAL GEODE, ARIZONA, read one. CUSTOM SOCKET-WRENCH KIT, read another. The one in front of the splinter which had so amazed Brian announced it was PETRIFIED WOOD FROM THE HOLY LAND. The plaques in front of the trading cards and the pulp magazines read: OTHERS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST.
All the items, whether trash or treasure, had one thing in common, she observed: there were no price-tags on any of them.
4
Gaunt arrived back with two small plates--plain old Coming Ware, nothing fancy--a cake-knife, and a couple of forks. "Everything's helter-skelter up there," he confided, removing the top of the container and setting it aside (he turned it upside down so it would not imprint a ring of frosting on the top of the cabinet he was serving from). "I'll be looking for a house as soon as I get things set to rights here, but for the time being I'm going to live over the store. Everything's in cardboard cartons. God, I hate cardboard cartons. Who would you say--"
"Not that big," Polly protested. "My goodness!"
"Okay," Gaunt said cheerfully, putting the thick slab of chocolate cake on one of the plates. "This one will be mine. Eat, Rowf, eat, I say! Like this for you?"
"Even thinner."
"I can't cut it any thinner than this," he said, and sliced off a narrow piece of cake. "It smells heavenly. Thank you again, Polly."
"You're more than welcome."
It did smell good, and she wasn't on a diet, but her initial refusal had been more than first-meeting politeness. The last three weeks had been a stretch of gorgeous Indian summer weather in Castle Rock, but on Monday the weather had turned cool, and her hands were miserable with the change. The pain would probably abate a little once her joints got used to the cooler temperatures (or so she prayed, and so it always had been, but she was not blind to the progressive nature of the disease), but since early this morning it had been very bad. When it was like this, she was never sure what she would or would not be able to do with her traitor hands, and her initial refusal had
Now she stripped off her gloves, flexed her right hand experimentally. A spear of hungry pain bolted up her forearm to the elbow. She flexed again, her lips compressed in anticipation. The pain came, but it wasn't as intense this time. She relaxed a little. It was going to be all right. Not great, not as pleasant as eating cake should be, but all right. She picked up her fork carefully, bending her fingers as little as possible when she grasped it. As she conveyed the first bite to her mouth, she saw Gaunt looking at her sympathetically. Now he'll commiserate, she thought glumly, and tell me how bad his grandfather's arthritis was. Or his ex-wife's. Or somebody's.
But Gaunt did not commiserate. He took a bite of cake and rolled his eyes comically. "Never mind sewing and patterns," he said, "you should have opened a restaurant."
"Oh, I didn't make it," she said, "but I'll convey the compliment to Nettie Cobb. She's my housekeeper."
"Nettie Cobb," he said thoughtfully, cutting another bite from his slice of cake.
"Yes--do you know her?"
"Oh, I doubt it." He spoke with the air of a man who is suddenly recalled to the present moment. "I don't know anyone in Castle Rock." He looked at her slyly from the corners of his eyes. "Any chance she could be hired away?"
"None," Polly said, laughing.
"I was going to ask you about real-estate agents," he said. "Who would you say is the most trustworthy around here?"
"Oh, they're all thieves, but Mark Hopewell's probably as safe as any."
He choked back laughter and put a hand to his mouth to stifle a spray of crumbs. Then he began to cough, and if her hands hadn't been so painful, she would have thumped him companionably on the back a few times. First acquaintance or not, she did like him.
"Sorry," he said, still chuckling a little. "They are all thieves, though, aren't they?"
"Oh, absolutely."
Had she been another sort of woman--one who kept the facts of her own past less completely to herseif--Potty would then have begun asking Leland Gaunt leading questions. Why had he come to Castle Rock? Where had he been before coming here? Would he stay long? Did he have family? But she wasn't that other sort of woman, and so she was content to answer his questions ... was delighted to, in fact, since none of them were about herself. He wanted to know about the town, and what the flow of traffic was like on Main Street during the winter, and if there was a place nearby where he could shop for a nice little Jotul stove, and insurance rates, and a hundred other things. He produced a narrow black leather notebook from the pocket of the blue blazer he wore and gravely noted down each name she mentioned.