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there are things that happen in this life that have no explanation. I wonder why I am always defending myself to my daughter. When I figure that one out, perhaps I’ll be ready to tackle the big issues with her, including the ones Misty Lassiter has prematurely placed on the front burner of our lives.
    The Tuesday lunch special at the Soda Fountain is soup beans and corn bread, so all the regular diehards pile in for the bargain. (We’re doubly busy when the first of the month lands on a Tuesday because the black-lung benefit checks arrive.) I’m stuck in the pharmacy filling meds while Fleeta mans the Soda Fountain. It gets crazy.
    “Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney, I’m a-goin’ to Florida, and don’t try and stop me!” Spec announces from the door.
    “You’re going on vacation?”
    “Yup. Surprised?”
    “Very. You’ve never had one.”
    “No, only if you count when me and Leola take the kids to the lake. But we ain’t never left the state. I figger after forty-seven years, my wife deserves a sandy beach and a mai tai. What do you think?”
    “I think it’s fantastic. When are you going?”
    “Thanksgiving. First off, we’re gonna drive down and spend six days at Disney World, then we’re gonna hit Sarasota—she got her a cousin down there—and then we’ll circle back up the coast of the Sunshine State and come on home.”
    Fleeta hollers from the Soda Fountain. “Spec, stop jackin’ your jaw. I ain’t holdin’ this seat of yorn no longer, I got me a wait list over here.” Spec never misses a lunch special, so he motions to Fleeta that he’s on his way.
    Iva Lou greets me from the door (I guess everybody in town has a yen for soup beans today). “I had to double-park behind your Jeep, it’s so crowded,” she says as she places her purse on the counter.
    “No problem. I’m not going anywhere.”
    “Need a hand?”
    “You can do labels if you want.” I give Iva Lou the labels run off the computer. She adheres them to the prescription bags as I load the sacks.
    “I hired Serena Mumpower out of Appalachia to be my assistant at the library. Top of her class at Mountain Empire.”
    “How’s that working out?”
    “She’s on the phone constantly. Most popular girl in the county, I believe.”
    “She’s pretty.”
    “Ain’t nobody
that
pretty.”
    “You’ll have to have a talk with her.”
    “I guess. I don’t want her to use the Slemp Library as Dial-A-Date.”
    “Feel like running over to Appalachia later?”
    “Sure. What do you need?”
    I whisper, “Etta needs a—a bra. I thought we’d go to Dave’s.”
    “I wouldn’t miss it. Etta’s first bra? Nothing like a bra to define a figger and emphasize a waistline. I can’t believe it. Etta is a young woman who needs support! This is my favorite feminine rite of passage. Well, maybe my favorite was hittin’ the hair dye for the first time. I was fourteen when I got yeller streaks in my hair, did ’em myself with peroxide. Big chunky streaks like Tammy Wynette on her greatest-hits album. That’s when I discovered that not only do blondes have more fun, they have
all
the fun.”
    “We’re going for utilitarian here, not Wonderbra,” I remind Iva Lou.
    “Well, if you want plain industrial bras, why don’t you just cross the street over to Zackie’s and get ’em in a box? Mike’s has training bras too, and they’re just across the way.”
    “Etta doesn’t want to shop in town. She’s a little sensitive about the whole thing. She tried to convince me to go to Kingsport, but I don’t have time.”
    “I’ll wear my darkest sunglasses and a Lana Turner scarf so nobody recognizes us.”
    “Don’t laugh. I think Etta would like that.”
    Iva Lou and I have worked out a routine to make Etta’s first bra-shopping expedition casual. Iva Lou is going to buy a pair of boots; I’m going to look at a skirt set that’s on sale; and buried in a list of things that Etta needs is her first bra. I called Julia Isaac, who