Page 22 of Upstate

He shrugs. “We used to bring the kids out here in the summer when they were little.”

The kids—two self-assured women in their twenties and a teenage boy taller than his dad—disperse throughout the barn to browse. They entertain one another with their finds without asking for my help, which is a relief since I’m barely aware of how the shelves are organized.

While they shop, I open a Mademoiselle magazine to the next installment of “A Woman’s Place.” Evelyn’s banter with old Mr. Burgess reminds me how Wren said she got along with everyone, despite being such an oddity herself. I can imagine the look on Junior Burgess’s face when Evelyn climbs down that ladder after fixing the slate roof all by herself. If only I had half her moxie, I think, putting down the magazine as my customers approach the front table.

Each member of the family totes a couple of hardcover classics. I add up prices scribbled on the flyleaves of novels by Jane Austen and Edith Wharton, James Michener and John Steinbeck, Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison, Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison. I’m impressed at the breadth of their selections; I had no idea all these books were on my shelves.

“That’ll be ninety-five dollars.” Not knowing how to calculate tax, I let that slide for now.

“Do you take Apple Pay?” the patriarch of the group asks, phone in hand.

“Apple Pay?” Shit. I’ve had my Certificate of Authority for less than twenty-four hours and I’m already failing as a business owner. “I’m not set up for credit cards yet. Do you have cash?”

He does not, which is just as well, I suppose, since I have no way of making change. Fortunately, his son and I both have PayPal. After the father promises to reimburse him, the boy transfers me the money. They walk away happy, purchases in hand, but I’m obviously unprepared for in-person shopping. I imagine a disappointed Evelyn clucking her tongue at me.

I keep the bookshop open until five o’clock, but no other customers appear. I lock up and head to the house for that coffee I’ve been craving. I’ve already made an espresso shot when I realize I’m out of almond milk. There’s aren’t many beans left, either. I’m not in the mood for a trek to the Price Chopper in Glens Falls, which didn’t carry the brands I like anyway. Then I remember Wren mentioning a food co-op. Might as well give it a try, I think, grabbing the keys to David’s van for my first foray into the village of Schuywich.

Chapter 11

“A Woman’s Place” by Evelyn Cabot

Mademoiselle, January 1957

I expected that renovating an old house would challenge my ingenuity and stretch my skills. What I’d forgotten was that a woman doing what society considers “men’s work” can so quickly get her labeled a danger to herself and others. Even the simplest thing, like attempting to replace a missing slate, can raise the hackles of perfect strangers. You may never have stepped as far out of line as climbing on a roof, but I’m certain the readers of Mlle who’ve had similar encounters (and who among us has not?) will share my suspicion that the opposition presented as being for our own good is part of a conspiracy to keep us in our place.

Within a day of moving into my wreck of a house, I’d filled every line of a legal-sized piece of paper with a list of things that absolutely had to be done before the place could be considered habitable. Many tasks, from repairing plaster walls to refinishing the pine floors to replacing broken windowpanes, I’ll eventually do myself or with the help of a friend. Some projects, like drilling a new well for running water and installing septic for a flushing toilet, will have to wait until I’ve replenished my bank account. There’s one job, though, that shot to the tippy-top of my list, as it was crucial to accomplish before winter set in: replace the missing roof slates.

The slates themselves I gathered from where they’d landed on the overgrown lawn after sliding off the roof. In the workshop, I found a worn leather toolbelt and a wooden ladder that extended far enough to reach the eaves. The village librarian proved ever so helpful by lending me a copy of the National Slate Association’s 1926 primer Slate Roofs. The technique, as described, seemed fairly straightforward. All I needed to cross the job off my list were the right tools and sufficient courage. Courage I could only find within myself. Tools would need to be purchased — which is what brought me, earlier this week, to the one and only hardware store in Schuywich.

There are better bargains and more variety to be had in Glens Falls or Saratoga Springs or Rutland, Vermont, but most folks upstate depend on our little towns and villages to provide everything we really need. It was in this civic-minded spirit that I entered Burgess Hardware, the last brick storefront along Main Street, its wide porch cluttered with everything from rakes and wheelbarrows to barrels of nails to rolls of chain-link.

I pulled open the door, jangling a sweet-toned bell above the entrance. A wizened man, face lined and hands gnarled by a lifetime of hard labor, was perched behind a marble counter on which sat an antique cash register. I’d been told that Burgess Hardware was a three-generation shop. The founder had apparently retired to tending the till while his son, out of sight at the moment, kept the shelves stocked and the orders filled. I figured the grandson must be out driving the delivery truck.

Old Mr. Burgess ashed his cigarette and greeted me in a gravelly voice. “Help you find something, Miss?”

“I’ll let you know,” I said. “Mind if I look around awhile?”

“Help yourself.” Pointing down a narrow aisle, he added, “Clothespins and canning supplies are that way.”

I obediently followed his pointed finger past shelves of domestic necessities before venturing off to explore the rest of the store. I took my time perusing a dizzying variety of wares, less than half of which I recognized, before locating three of the four items I needed: a slater’s hammer with a square head and sharp point, a flat metal ripper, and a box of copper hooks.

“Looks like your husband is set to fix some shingles,” said old Mr. Burgess, looking over the things I presented for payment.

Sidestepping his assumption, I said, “I didn’t see copper roofing nails.”

“Sell ’em by the pound. How much does he need?”

“One should be enough.” According to Slate Roofs, I’d be reattaching most of the missing slates with hooks; the nails were just in case.

“Hey, son, come on out here!”

Another Mr. Burgess, this one a burly fellow in his fifties, appeared from some back room. “Whatcha need, Pop?”

“Lady wants a pound of copper roofing nails.”

“Best tell your husband not to dawdle,” Burgess the Second said as he noisily scooped nails from a barrel. “November’s late in the year to get up on a roof.”

“Right you are, son,” the old man added. “Junior was saying he delivered to a contractor yesterday who was cussin’ about morning frost making the job he’s on a hazard.”