Fern works the store for a week and has a steady stream of customers. However, since she's the only employee running the store for now, she closes the store on Tuesday afternoons after lunchtime so she can have a day off.
She spends the first 2 hours of her afternoon off cleaning her apartment. Then, she collects groceries for the week off the shelves, puts her grocery money in the register, and carries the food through the red door to pack it into her fridge and cupboards. She laughs to herself the entire time at the idea of being the grocer and the customer all at once.
After all her chores are done, she walks down 23 and turns onto the gravel road that winds around Bear Lake. She walks the gravel road for 10 minutes, waving to the people sitting on porches or doing yard work at the camps she passes. Finally, she comes to her family's camp. She walks a few feet off the road, jumps the two steps up onto the back porch, and lets the screen door slam behind her.
She enters the kitchen, where Aunt Marcy is cutting up a watermelon. Aunt Marcy looks up, smiles, greets her, and goes back to what she was doing.
"Where's James?", Fern asks.
"Oh, he's out playing in the yard. I told him not to go in the water 'cause I'm not there to watch him. If you're gonna be there to watch or swim, tell him he can go in," Aunt Marcy replies without looking up from the juicy red watermelon.
James is Fern's 10-year-old cousin. Aunt Marcy and her husband, Jim, tried for years to have a kid, and when they had given up and were in their 30's, along came James.
Unfortunately, when James was 3, Jim was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer and died shortly after. Marcy loved Jim, and she fell into a deep depression when he died. She pulled through for the sake of James, but she's always been much quieter since.
Fern nods in return and continues through the kitchen, stops in the hallway at the bathroom to use it and put on her bathing suit, and goes out the front door onto the deck.
She sees James staring very intently at a bucket sitting on the grass, and calls out to him. He looks up at her and his face immediately lights up into a grin, and he wildly gestures for her to join him in his vigil.
Fern steps off the deck and strides across the lawn, wondering what kind of creature James has caught. However, when she reaches the bucket filled with water, she sees that there's nothing in it, and she's confused.
"James, what are you staring at, there's nothing in the bucket yet."
"I know, but I'm trying to imagine that there's a fish in there because I can't catch one."
"Why can't you catch one? Your father's old pole should be lying in the shed somewhere."
"Oh yeah, I already found the pole, but I don't have any bait and Mom said she won't buy me any 'cause I can find it myself, but I don't know what she's talking about, 'cause I've never seen any worms around here."
Fern threw her head back and laughed. On seeing James' confused look, she offered to help him look.
They spent the next half an hour lifting up rocks and old pieces of wood and scooting under the shed to find worms and put them in a Tupperware container.
Finally, James had enough worms to go fishing. He tried showing their handiwork to his mother, but she didn't seem too thrilled about it. He plodded down to the dock with Jim's big old pole, a container of worms, and a wedge of watermelon.
Fern took a moment to look around and decide what she was going to do next, and decided on paddle boarding.
Paddle boarding is what it sounds like, you stand on a board and use a long paddle.
She dragged the paddle board into the water, grabbed the paddle, and climbed on. She steadied herself while bent in half before straightening to stand up and starting to paddle.
Fern paddled around the entire lake, waving occasionally to the people swimming, fishing, lounging in lawn chairs, and mowing the grass at their camps.
A couple of hours later, she arrived back at her camp. James wasn't on the dock anymore, but she saw smoke coming from the grill and hoped there would be food.
After pulling the paddle board up on shore and tossing the paddle on the grass, Fern headed up the yard toward the deck. She didn't see Aunt Marcy or James anywhere outside. She stepped up onto the deck and walked over to open the grill, peeking at the burgers inside. They looked almost done, so she walked through the house to the kitchen to grab a plate and some condiments.
Fern found Aunt Marcy and James at the kitchen counter, cleaning the little bluegill he had caught. Fern commented,
"Nice fish," and gave James a high-five, before telling them the burgers were ready.
The trio washed their hands, grabbed plates, and loaded up their burger buns with condiments before heading out to the deck to eat.
After dinner, Fern hugged them both goodbye and started the walk back to Freeman Market. On the way, she remembered that she needed to pay the rent to Mr. McAllister when she got back, since it was still before sunset and not too late to visit him. In order to build the store, she had saved up enough money to buy the lot it sat on and build it without taking out a loan, but she needed the empty lot next to it to use as a parking lot. She didn't have enough money yet to buy that empty lot and refused to take out a mortgage, so she leased it from a sweet old man, Mr. McAllister. She hoped one day that she would have enough money to buy it from him and put in a couple of gas pumps, but for now she dutifully paid the rent each month.
When she got home she grabbed the cash and headed down the road a little ways to pay the rent in person. That night, she slept soundly.