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Fine.”
    “Did you need something?”
    “No, I just …”
    “Are you okay? I mean, after, you know.”
    “Oh, yeah. I’m fine. It’s final next week. Got the paperwork from the clerk’s office. I’ll be single again.”
    “I’ll pass word to lock up the ladies.”
    He laughed. “Right. Speaking of ladies, is Tammy Sanders still working there?”
    “Yes,” she said, and Clint could tell she was cupping the phone, talking softly. “It’s Tammy Adams now.”
    “Oh.”
    “That why you called? Looking for a date?”
    “Not really. I don’t guess.”
    “Well?”
    “I don’t know. I was just talking to a woman about some dirt band fundraiser.”
    “Sorry, bro. I’m plumb out of tickets. Sold the last pair to Skinny Dennis this morning.”
    “No, I was just, this woman was saying how the girl went missing.”
    “Staci McMahen. I know. Isn’t it awful? Can you imagine? How terrible is that?”
    “Yeah, it’s pretty bad, yeah. She said that the girl had been going out with one of the Pribbles.”
    “Danny? Yeah. I think Marlene mentioned that.”
    “She said you were going out with one of the Pribbles, too.”
    “Dwayne.”
    “I guess.” Clint counted off a few seconds of silence. “You still there?”
    “I’m here.”
    “Well?”
    “Well, what?”
    “Well, I was just wondering if you were still going out with him.”
    “Who I date is none of your business, little brother.”
    “I know, I just, you know.” He shifted the phone from one ear to the other, then back. “I don’t know.”
    She took a deep breath into the phone. “Dwayne and I are no longer an item, if you must know. Though it isn’t any of your business.”
    “Okay.”
    “Clint, a couple of drunk Mexicans.in hadasare you okay? You sound weird.”
    “Weird?”
    “Like lost. Distracted.”
    “Yeah, I don’t know. I’m fine. Just a lot going on.”
    “You need to talk about it?”
    “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
    “Clint, if this is about the divorce, I mean, just think about Mom and Dad. How miserable they were and then when they got divorced, how much happier they were.”
    “They were always happy. Everything was fine.”
    “No. You don’t remember. You were too young. They were miserable.”
    “No, they weren’t.”
    “Okay.”
    “They were happy. They were always happy. Everything was fine.”
    “Okay. Okay. I can come over at lunch. Or tonight. We can have dinner. It’s girls’ night out, but I can—”
    “It’s cool. I have to work late anyway.”
    “I can treat. It’s no trouble.”
    • • •
    “Hey, Clint. Can I talk to you for a second?”
    Clint finished tying his apron, picked up the price gun, and walked toward Ron’s office. “Sure, boss. What you need?”
    “Just need to have a quick chat,” Ron said, moving behind the folding card table he used for a desk. “Close the door behind you.”
    Clint sat down, rubbed a $1.49 pink sticker onto the inside of his index finger. “What you need?”
    “Clint, as you know, we’ve been making some changes around here.”
    Clint nodded.
    “This is a tough economy. Consumer confidence, right? The big chains. The competition. All the regulations. Things like that, you know?”
    Clint nodded. Looked up at the wall behind Ron at the wood-mounted photographs of the Little League teams the grocery store had sponsored through the years, the faces he couldn’t quite make out.
    “So, as you know, we’ve been making some changes around here,” Ron said. “And we’ve had to make some difficult choices here. Not choices, really. I mean, if we had a choice, maybe. But we don’t have a choice. We have to do what we have to do. Nobody is happy about any of this. Is this making any sense?”
    “Are you trying to fire me, Ron?”
    Ron laughed. “No, no. It’s just that, we’re rolling out some furloughs. Time off. You can think of it as a vacation. An extra three weeks in the next six months.”
    “Extra vacation?”
    “Well, not