{"id":1339,"date":"2021-06-08T13:43:20","date_gmt":"2021-06-08T13:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=1339"},"modified":"2021-06-10T19:04:40","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T19:04:40","slug":"take-a-look-at-the-five-and-ten-by-connie-willis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=1339","title":{"rendered":"Take a Look at the Five and Ten by Connie Willis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Take a Look at the Five and Ten<\/em><\/strong> by Connie Willis (Asimov\u2019s SF<\/em>, November\/December 2020) opens at a Thanksgiving dinner where Ori the narrator (a sort of adopted stepdaughter of the husband of the couple) has to cope with a variety of snooty and\/or eccentric relatives: the wife and daughter are supercilious, the aunt constantly corrects and scolds everyone and laments the decline in standards, and Grandma Elving talks incessantly and with great detail about a Christmas job she had in Woolworths as a teenager. The wife can\u2019t stand Grandma Elving\u2019s endless stories and constantly tries to change the subject, but Dave Lassiter, the daughter\u2019s boyfriend, is interested because he is studying neuroscience and is finishing a project on TFBM\u2014traumatic flashbulb memory\u2014and realises that Grandma\u2019s vivid memories may be a case of that.
Then, on the Monday after the dinner, Ori gets a call from Gramdma asking for a lift to the doctors. However, when they get to their destination, Ori discovers that Grandma has arranged to meet Lassiter, who wants to interview her for his TFBM research project. The rest of the first part of the story sees Lassiter undertake many long interviews with Grandma, eventually becoming convinced that her intense memories are trauma related. Later on, after making little progress in discovering what the buried trauma might be, there are hints that it might possibly involve a young man called Marty who worked on the lunch counter with Grandma.
During this period Lassiter and Ori spend a lot of time together, and this is redoubled when Grandma suggests that they go to the city to look at the store to see if it will jog her memory:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wind was definitely blowing today, a biting wind that whipped icily around the corners, but Grandma Elving didn\u2019t seem to notice, she was so busy remembering what stores had once been there. \u201cThere was a shoe repair shop there,\u201d she said, pointing at the Planet Fitness gym. \u201cIt had a neon sign that said, \u2018Soles While You Wait.\u2019 With a \u2018U\u2019 instead of the word You.\u2019 It was right next to a Christian Science reading room, and I always thought the sign should be in their window instead.\u201d
\u201cWhat about the store?\u201d Lassiter said, turning her wheelchair so she was facing the building where the Woolworth\u2019s had been. \u201cDo you remember where the door was?\u201d
\u201cYes, it was right there,\u201d she said, pointing at one of the windows of the 7-Eleven. \u201cIt was a big double door, and above it was the store\u2019s name in gold letters on a red background\u2014F.W. Woolworth & Co.\u2014and in the corners, 5c and 10c,\u201d and it looked like she was seeing it right now.
And seeing the whole store. \u201cThe candy counter was near the door,\u201d she said, pointing, \u201cand so was Christmas merchandise\u2014tinned fruitcakes and bath sets and shaving mugs, and over in the corner was Gift Wrapping. I loved working in Gift Wrapping because you could see outside, the cars and the people hurrying by with their shopping bags and packages, all bundled up in their hats and scarves and boots.\u201d
\u201cWhere would the lunch counter have been?\u201d Lassiter asked.
\u201cThere,\u201d she said, pointing to the left. \u201cIt stretched half the length of the store. It had stools all along it and booths coming out from it, like that,\u201d she said, gesturing.
\u201cAnd you and Marty and Ralph worked behind the counter?\u201d
\u201cYes, I made the sandwiches and dished up the blue plate specials, and the boys grilled the hamburgers and hot dogs and made the fountain drinks, which was good. The first cherry Coke I tried to make, I got cherry syrup all over, and Marty said\u2014\u201d
She stopped short. \u201cThe cosmetics and notions departments were in the middle,\u201d she said, starting again, \u201cand over there,\u201d she pointed to the right, \u201cwas Gloves and Scarves, and behind it was Stationery, which I loved working in because Andy worked there. He was so cute.\u201d
\u201cBefore, when you were telling us about the lunch counter and Marty,\u201d Lassiter said, kneeling down next to her wheelchair, \u201cdid you remember something?\u201d
\u201cNo,\u201d she said, but doubtfully, and then burst out, \u201cIt\u2019s so maddening! Every time I think I have it, it disappears!  p. 179-180<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

After this they go and have lunch, where Grandma disappears into the loos for an inordinate amount of time leaving Ori and Lassiter together to talk. Then, when Grandma returns, she remembers the Christmas manger figurines she had been collecting at the time, and how Marty bought two of them for her. Subsequently she dispatches Lassiter and Ori to scour the thrift stores for a set, in the hope that the figurines will jog her memory. Eventually they find what they are looking for, and Grandma reveals that Marty died when he was young.
However, we eventually find out towards the end of the story (spoiler), when Grandma ends up in hospital during Xmas dinner, that she already has a set of figurines at home\u2014and that the interviews, the trip into town, lunch, and the search for the figurines, and all the time that they spend together, was actually Grandma\u2019s plan to matchmake Ori and Lassiter. And, worse, Ori learns that Marty wasn\u2019t killed, which leaves her with the unenviable task of telling Lassiter that Grandma\u2019s manufactured trauma is not true and that his research is based on falsified information, something that will likely cause him to fail his course.
The final part of the story reveals that Grandma\u2019s vivid memories were created by a feeling of intense happiness while she stood at the door of Woolworths one evening. Ori has her own experience of this when she hears Lassiter say that he didn\u2019t her earlier hypothesis that this was the case as it would have meant that he couldn\u2019t go on seeing Grandma\u2014and her.
This is a well told and entertaining romcom (the daughter provides a couple of amusing interference episodes during the story), and the evocative final description of Granma\u2019s flashbulb moment, as well as Ori\u2019s epiphany in the lift, are fittingly seasonal. They are also enough to overcome the late switcheroo of the trauma plot device.
I note in passing that this is a mainstream piece, not SF or fantasy.
***+ (Good to Very Good). 21,650 words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Take a Look at the Five and Ten by Connie Willis (Asimov\u2019s SF, November\/December 2020) opens at a Thanksgiving dinner where Ori the narrator (a sort of adopted stepdaughter of the husband of the couple) has to cope with a variety of snooty and\/or eccentric relatives: the wife and daughter are supercilious, the aunt constantly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334],"tags":[296,217,4,335,29],"class_list":["post-1339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connie-willis","tag-296","tag-3-5","tag-asimovs-sf","tag-connie-willis","tag-novella"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1339"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1378,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339\/revisions\/1378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}