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Show 248 to the glass door. The customers always hurried, thinking that he was waiting for them so that he could close, so that everyone could go home. They never bought anything that they hadn't specifically c«>me in for- cough syrup or baby aspirin-sometimes a prescription. Never any cosmetics. There was one nervous young man, with quick darting eyes. Mr. Richards hesitated a moment before unlocking the door. But the young man went straight back to the pharmacist, and in quick, low tones, bought a package of prophylactics. After that, Mr. Richards said the hell with it. And he went back to spending the last few minutes emptying the trash in some agreement he had worked out with the janitorial service. Toward the end of the week, the new delivery boy came on the job. He was not a boy, though, he was a man in his late twenties. Married, with two kids, and a third one "in the chute" as he said. He worked full time at the largest department store in the center, selling appliances- washing machines and dryers and refrigerators-and had taken this job temporarily, only until summer, to see him through the hospital bills. Although cordial enough, he was a quiet man-Sharon suspected part of the reason he was so quiet was simple fatigue: after being on his feet eight hours at the other job, he should have been at home with his wife and kids, propped in front of the t. v. for the evening. She suspected that he knew this, but that he was determined not to resent the job, the time away from his family. She also suspected that Mr. Richards knew this; but he neeeded someone, after all, to deliver the prescriptions. Someone dependable. And this man did do the job consistently and efficently. But he was not someone with whom she could pass the time. Someone to talk with. Someone who would drop by her counter on his way to |