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If their father took up less space now, Bess seemed intent on making up the difference. She was uncomfortable in the quiet their mother's passing had created. If their father spoke less, she would speak more. If the shine on him dulled, Bess would become brighter.

"As if you know what looks best," said Augusta. "You barely pay attention to the customers anyway. You're too busy staring at the new soda jerk, batting your eyes, trying to get him to notice you."

The new soda jerk had been hired as an assistant to the full-time clerk who'd been there for a decade. Fred, the old-timer, was a no-nonsense fellow who ran the soda fountain like a soldier on patrol. He kept the zinc counter polished to a shine at all times, piling soda glasses, ice cream dishes, and sundae spoons in perfectly symmetrical, tidy stacks. The new assistant, George, was not quite as precise, but he was a step up from the last one, who was always having to mop up his own spills. George never overfilled the glasses; he was not sloppy with the walnuts. After a week, George had mastered the lingo. A glass of milk was a "baby." A scoop of vanilla ice cream was a "snowball." If someone wanted a Coke with no ice, George shouted, "Hold the hail!"

"I do not bat my eyes at George," Bess insisted. "Besides, even if I did he's too busy to notice."

It was true that the soda fountain was packed every afternoon. Customers clamored for the red leather stools while calling out their orders for ice cream cones and egg creams. Since George's arrival, business was even busier—pretty girls in dresses sat sweetly at the counter, sipping their sodas more slowly than usual. In between sips, they smiled at George, who seemed completely immune to their charms. Augusta had seen him sneaking glances at Bess whenever he thought she wasn't looking.

"He notices," said Augusta, but she would not elaborate. At sixteen, Bess was already more concerned with men than Augusta considered necessary—she didn't need any additional encouragement. Augusta turned to her father again. "Papa, I want to learn more about your work. I want you to teach me about prescriptions." When Solomon Stern did not reply, Augusta spoke up again. "I refuse to take no for an answer."

This time her father looked up from his newspaper. He sat up a little straighter in his chair and blinked at Augusta from behind his glasses as if she'd suddenly appeared in the space before him. "You sound like your mother," he said before escaping back into his pages.

* * *

The next day, after the school bell rang and the girls made their way to the pharmacy, Augusta carried her books to the narrow back room where her father filled prescriptions. Shelves filled with carefully labeled bottles lined the neat, well-lit space. A locked cabinet held the most dangerous substances—medicines Augusta knew had to be handled with special care. Her father hadn't said she could be there, but he hadn't sent her away, either.

When her homework was done, Augusta watched as her father measured powders on a set of gleaming brass scales. As usual, he wore a white cotton coat over a knit sweater vest and a striped bow tie. After a while, he grew tired of her gawking and put her to work dusting bottles and shelves. This continued for weeks on end; in this way, she began to learn the names of the drugs. Whenever Augusta asked a question, her father pointed to the books sitting on his counter. Then she would skim the pages of the U.S. Pharmacopeia and the thickly bound copy of the National Formulary until she found the answer.

From where Augusta sat reading in the prescription room, she was certain to overhear at least a portion of many of her father's private consultations. Once Solomon Stern realized this fact, he gave his daughter an ultimatum. "In this store, people speak to me in confidence," he said. "They trust that whatever they disclose to me will not be revealed to anyone else. Whatever you hear, whatever you learn about a customer, is never ever to be repeated. If you break this rule, there will be no second chance." As he spoke the words, his eyes bore no trace of their usual softness.

"I understand," Augusta said.

"Being a pharmacist is more than powders and pills." Her father glanced toward the locked cabinet behind her. "Sometimes it means keeping other people's secrets."

For the first time, Augusta had an inkling that her father was more than the melancholy man she knew. He was not only a father and a widower, but a confidant to people she had never even met. She wondered whether that was what helped to keep him going after his heart had been hammered by loss: the part he'd pledged to play—both professional and personal—in the constantly evolving stories of strangers.

* * *

When Augusta grew bored of dusting bottles, she tried convincing her father to assign her more substantive tasks. Eventually he set her to work making simple suppositories. Her father mixed the ingredients first, using cocoa butter as a base. Only then was Augusta allowed to take over, placing the material in a cast-iron machine bolted to the wooden counter. As she turned the crank, the medicated paste was forced into bullet-shaped molds. It was a decidedly unglamorous job, but Augusta was determined to prove herself capable.

She was there, leaning over the heavy machine, her braids half unraveled, her forehead dripping with sweat, when her father came into the stuffy room accompanied by a boy she had never seen before. He was a few years older than she, at most, with an untamable cowlick and chalk-blue eyes. His pants, she noticed, were a bit too short, as were the cuffs on his shirt. He looked as if he could use a hot meal—even one of Bess's over-cooked roasts would do.

"Augusta," said her father, "this is my new delivery boy. He'll be coming in on weekdays after school, like you. The two of you will be seeing a lot of each other."

The boy stepped forward to shake her hand. "Nice to meet you," he said. "Your pop's got a terrific store."

"Welcome," said Augusta. "What's your name?"

The boy ran one hand over the top of his head, but the spiky tuft of hair would not be subdued. "Irving," he said. "Irving Rivkin."