Becoming Grey: Episode 1

Chapter One 

Ridgemont, Minnesota — July 1st, 2017 

Ridgemont was the kind of place where strangers held doors for each other, drivers waved someone through an intersection, and neighbors appeared with casseroles when a family hit hard times. It was also the kind of place where concern traveled nearly as quickly as gossip, and sometimes wore the same smile. 

Few places embodied that particular mixture of community and familiarity better than Grey’s General Store. 

Grey’s wasn’t the only place in Ridgemont to buy groceries. National chains had arrived years ago, building their enormous stores and glowing signs along the newer commercial roads on the western side of the city. Some had done well. Others had come and gone. 

Grey’s had simply remained. 

The original Grey’s General Store had been part of Ridgemont almost as long as Ridgemont itself. Generations of the Grey family had owned and operated it, expanding as the city grew around them. What had begun as a single general store generations earlier had become four grocery stores spread across Ridgemont by 2017. 

The current generation belonged to Stuart and Sally Grey. 

They had spent years cultivating relationships with the farms surrounding Ridgemont, buying as much produce and other goods locally as practical. Tomatoes, sweet corn, cucumbers, potatoes, berries, meat, dairy and dozens of other products traveled from farms surrounding the city directly onto Grey’s shelves. When Minnesota’s seasons made that impossible, regional agreements kept the stores supplied without abandoning the philosophy that had helped Grey’s survive against competitors many times its size. 

It wasn’t necessarily the cheapest grocery store in Ridgemont.  Howver, it also  wasn’t the largest. But generations of Ridgemont families had shopped there, and there were still plenty of residents who would drive past two larger supermarkets to get to Grey’s. 

Stuart liked to say that was because people could taste the difference. Sally usually reminded him that it was because half their customers had known his father. Both were probably right. For their daughters, however, Grey’s General Store was considerably less romantic. It was where they had grown up. 

Callie Morgan Grey was the oldest, born November 18th, 2002. Her younger sister, Hannah Willow Grey, had followed on March 6th, 2005. By the summer of 2017, fourteen year old Callie and twelve year old Hannah had spent enough time inside Grey’s to know things about the stores that no customer ever would. 

They knew which freezer door needed an extra shove before it latched.  

They knew the stockroom door at the original location swelled during humid weather and had to be kicked near the bottom to open it. 

They knew their father kept a box of chocolate-covered peanuts behind the paperwork in his office and believed neither of his daughters knew about it. 

They knew their mother could somehow hear the sound of someone sitting down when they were supposed to be working from approximately three counties away. 

And Callie knew that stocking canned vegetables on a beautiful Saturday morning in July was a violation of at least one provision of the Geneva Convention. 

She pushed another can of green beans onto the shelf. 

Then another. 

Then another. 

There were, Callie had decided sometime around the second cardboard case, entirely too many green beans in the world. 

She sat back on her heels and looked at the remaining boxes stacked beside her. 

“This is child labor.” 

From somewhere on the other side of the aisle, Hannah answered, “You’re not getting paid?” 

“That’s not the point.” 

Hannah’s face appeared around the endcap. 

At twelve, she still had enough little sister energy to make simply looking pleased with herself irritating. 

“I’m getting paid.” 

Callie stared at her. 

Hannah smiled. 

“You are not.” 

“Dad gave me five dollars.” 

“For what?” 

“Helping Mrs. Anderson carry her groceries.” 

Callie narrowed her eyes. “That was a tip.” 

“Still money.” 

“That doesn’t count.” 

“It counted at the vending machine.” 

Callie looked toward the front of the store. 

“Hannah.” 

Her sister was already disappearing. 

Callie stood. “Did you spend all five dollars?” 

No answer. 

“Hannah!” 

A laugh floated back from somewhere beyond produce. 

Callie sighed and picked up another can. 

Saturday mornings at Grey’s had been part of her life for as long as she could remember. When she and Hannah had been little, that had meant sitting in the office with coloring books, snacks, toys, and whatever movie their parents could put on to keep them occupied. 

Then they had gotten old enough to help. 

Callie still considered that an unfortunate development. 

Not that she hated Grey’s. 

She didn’t. 

There was something comforting about the place that she would never have admitted aloud, particularly within hearing distance of her father. She knew the employees. She knew the customers. She knew where everything belonged and could walk through half the store without really looking where she was going. 

People knew her, too. 

Sometimes that was nice. 

Sometimes it meant being fourteen years old and having complete strangers know embarrassing details about your childhood. 

“Callie?” 

She closed her eyes. 

Mrs. Larson. 

Of course. 

Callie turned around and found the elderly woman standing behind a shopping cart containing enough vegetables to suggest she was either preparing Sunday dinner or feeding an infantry company. 

“Hi, Mrs. Larson.” 

“Look at you.” 

Callie glanced down at herself. 

Grey’s General Store T-shirt. Jeans. Sneakers. 

Still there. 

“You’ve gotten so tall.” 

Callie smiled politely. 

Her mother had trained that smile into both daughters before either of them was tall enough to see over a checkout counter. 

“That’s what everyone keeps telling me.” 

“Fourteen now?” 

“Fourteen.” 

“Fifteen soon.” 

“November.” 

Mrs. Larson nodded knowingly, as though Callie’s birthday was an upcoming municipal event. 

“Driving next year.” 

Callie brightened despite herself. “That’s the plan.” 

“Your poor mother.” 

From two aisles away came Sally Grey’s voice. 

“I heard that, Margaret.” 

Mrs. Larson laughed. 

Callie couldn’t help smiling. 

That was Ridgemont. 

That was Grey’s. 

Everyone knew everyone, or knew somebody who knew somebody, and apparently there was nowhere on Earth far enough from her mother to prevent Sally Grey from hearing something embarrassing about her eldest daughter. 

Callie returned to her green beans. 

At fourteen, she had already begun thinking about the life waiting beyond Grey’s General Store. She loved her parents. She loved Hannah, despite substantial evidence that Hannah had been placed on Earth specifically to irritate her. She even loved Grey’s. 

But she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life here. 

Callie liked figuring out how things worked. 

Computers. Electronics. Machines. Anything she could take apart, understand, improve, or occasionally destroy while attempting the first three. 

She didn’t know exactly what that meant for her future yet. 

College, probably. 

Engineering, maybe. 

Somewhere bigger than Ridgemont. 

Definitely. 

There was plenty of time to figure it out. 

She was fourteen. 

High school stretched ahead of her. College existed somewhere beyond that. Adulthood was still an indistinct country populated by jobs, apartments, bills, and people who voluntarily watched the evening news. 

Callie had plans, insofar as fourteen-year-olds had plans. 

She would finish school. 

She would go to college. 

She would build a career. 

She would eventually leave Ridgemont and discover what existed beyond the endless Minnesota fields surrounding it. 

There was no particular reason, on that warm Saturday morning in July, for Callie Morgan Grey to believe her life would unfold any differently. 

So she picked up another can of green beans and put it on the shelf. 

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