Kids skateboarded in as though the store was an extension of the boardwalk, new homeowners with bags of decorative lightbulbs pirouetting out of the way, hulking beer leaguers in the back playing foosball while they got their ice skates sharpened.
Vicker’s Hardware was as much a social center as a place to buy spackling, recipient of multiple civic awards, sponsor of dozens of athletic teams.
Kerwin Vicker’s kid didn’t want it.
Ethan designed software, was on the west coast, wasn’t coming back.
Late one night Kerwin thought about faking a heart attack to lure Ethan back, see if he could make him fall in love with the place.
The thought was fleeting, and Kerwin had to reconcile that when he was too old to run the little empire he and his mom had created, he would have to sell.
An attractive blonde in her forties walked in- sure, wall brackets are aisle seven, followed by more skateboarders, who always knew where they were going, followed by Charles and his alien scope.
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