The Charm Quark, Helen, has an easy way with the customers in the shop. They take to this not ever completely serious woman, respond, perhaps because she in her way asks them to respond. Many customers know her name and some ask for her when she is not working.

The time a man asked Helen’s advice about what to have for dessert — he was making his first wok dinner that night and didn’t know how to end it — Helen said without a blink, “Apple pie.”

“Wow! Why apple pie?” The man was taken off balance by her certainty.

“Just suppose your meal isn’t everything you want it to be,” Helen said. “I’m sure it will be great — but just in case, with apple pie you have a dessert that cannot fail. Cake’s too heavy. Chocolate cake out of the question. Apple pie never fails.”

The man bought two. There was only a short pause after he went out the door before Helen said, “Lemon cookies probably would have been a better choice, but our pies are slow-moving.” And she laughed.

Darlene said she didn’t like to give advice like that, because the customers’ tastes varied so much it was hard to judge. Still laughing, Helen raised both hands and patted the side of her head: “It’s not hard, once you get the hang of it.”

Darlene, wearing her usual white apron and black scowl, says, “I just wish we could get that old mailman back again. There’s nothing in the world’d make me happier. This new guy comes in every day like a politician running for office.”

“Give him a chance,” Helen says. “In a few months he’ll be as bored as we are and you’ll love him.”

“I don’t have much use for mailmen. They never bring me anything but bills. This guy smiles at me every day now. Where’s he coming from? Look’en for free cookies?”

“People are nice to us, generally.”

“Where’s the money in that?”

“You’re looking for money, you came to the wrong place,” Helen says.

Darlene speaks quietly: “I have to tell you, I found a way to make an extra dollar or so.”

“A second job?”

“Here,” she looks around. “A woman came in a few days ago and bought bread and I don’t know what all — came to a perfect twelve dollars on the register. I was alone at the time. You must have been in the back. She fumbles in her wallet. You ever notice how some women, not the men, like to give you the exact amount, even the pennies sometimes? This one gives me, finally, a ten and two ones and she flies out the door. I held the money in my hand. Before I knew what I was do’en I folded it up tight and slipped it right here. So quick. I never thought about it.”

“I know why.”

“So you tell me.”

“You think he owes us — like when he doesn’t pay us when we call in sick.” Darlene shoves her hands beneath her apron. “I’m not sure. I think I took it from her not him.”