A Humbug Holiday

by London Lovett

  "Thank you."

  "Anyhow, the customers enjoy getting baked goods and then picking up a coffee inside the Hutch to go with their pastry. As it stands now, if they want to finish their breakfast and if my tables are full, they have to walk past your shop to Elsie's tables."

  Elsie put her little fists on her slim hips. "Actually, my tables are almost always full first. You get the spillover customers." Elsie leaned her head toward me. "My tables have a nicer paint finish."

  "Your chairs wobble," Lester noted.

  "There's nothing wrong with my chairs," Elsie insisted. "It's your big head that wobbles. Just look at him. He's always had an oversized head. He's like one of those bobble headed Hawaiian dolls only instead of a grass skirt, he's wearing a flowery shirt. But back to the tables." She returned her attention to me. "You have plenty of space in front of your shop, and Lester and I will make sure the customers pick up after themselves."

  "But there won't be much free space." I walked to the back corner where my rolling carts were waiting to be filled with potted flowers. "Once I open up for business, I plan to use these carts to lure people into the shop. I'll be rolling them out onto the sidewalk on nice days. As you can see, they are quite cumbersome. There just won't be room for any tables. Otherwise, I'd be happy to help." I was new to Harbor Lane, the main street for shops and businesses, and I knew I needed to tread lightly and keep up good relationships with the other shop owners. But I couldn't change my business plan just to accommodate my neighbors.

  I could see the disappointment in their faces. It seemed Lester was the first to agree that it just wouldn't work. He nodded. "Of course, you need the front of the store for your own wares, Lacey. It was silly and greedy of us to ask." He looked questioningly at Elsie, who reluctantly nodded in agreement.

  "Yes, my brother is right. We'll make do with the table space we have. The customers will get used to it. They'll just have to choose which side to sit on."

  "Thanks for understanding," I said as I walked toward the door, hoping they'd get the idea and head out. I had much more to do before my opening.

  Elsie's face softened and she smiled. "Of course, Pink. And let us know if there's anything we can do to help."

  "Thanks." I opened the door for them and watched them walk out. Lester shuffled on his loose fitting sandals back to the Coffee Hutch, and Elsie walked in her usual confident, surefooted manner back to the Sugar and Spice Bakery. Little did I know that the last few moments had been the start of the Great Port Danby Table War. And my little flower shop was situated right between the battle lines.

  Chapter 3

  I finished hanging a few pictures on the back wall and decided to head across the street to see if Lola was interested in getting some lunch. With my shop sandwiched between a bakery and a coffee shop and my extra sensitive olfactory neurons, I seemed to be in a constant state of hunger. I'd hoped for a sample of Elsie's pumpkin bread to get me through the morning, but I hadn't seen or heard from either neighbor since I'd put a crimp in their outdoor seating plan.

  "King, did you want to go out for a bit?" My crow hadn't left his perch all morning. I was sure he'd be extra antsy tonight if he didn't get some wing time. Harbor Lane, the two lane street that ran along the front of the shops and led eventually to the beach, was lined with deep purple flowering plum trees, providing rich color, shade and a place for Kingston to perch when he wanted to behave like a real crow. Of course, his unexpected visit always sent the local sparrows and smaller songbirds into a frenzy, but Kingston paid them no attention.

  The crow ruffled and shook his feathers and eyed the open door. I leaned back waiting for him to swoop past. Instead, he turned away from the door and huddled down for another nap.

  I stepped outside and instantly regretted forgetting my sunglasses at home. The early morning coastal fog had long since been replaced by a crisp breeze that carried with it just enough hint of autumn to make me immediately think about pulling my plush throw blankets out of storage. Even with the lovely summer weather long gone, the sun was sparkling out over the water. The view sure beat tall buildings and streets filled with car fumes.

  I headed across to Lola's Antiques. Lola was just a year younger than me and she ran the antique store for her world traveling parents. She was funny and clever and sometimes, when she was excited or nervous, she talked fast, so fast her words didn't always come out in the right sequence. I enjoyed her company, and she seemed to enjoy mine. We had become fast friends.

  Lola was wearing one of her many rock and roll t-shirts, a Janis Joplin relic, coupled with faded jeans and a black felt fedora. Her curly red hair popped out on all sides from beneath the tight hat. She was busy adjusting two massive fairy tale style pumpkins on a bale of straw, a rustic touch that looked oddly out of place in front of her quaint shop. Lola told me that once her parents had given her the go ahead to update the store, she'd hired a painter to cover what she had termed as the 'gray pallor of death' on the shop's exterior with a pale, smoky blue. The color looked chic and especially lovely with the wide top to bottom windows. The traditional paneled front door, the wide trim running above the windows and the sheer white curtains made the shop look as if it had been plucked up from some Paris street corner and delivered neatly to Port Danby.

  Lola leaned back to admire her holiday display. "What do you think? Too hee haw?"

  "Not at all. I think it's perfect."

  "Good thing you like it." Her brown eyes were the color of cocoa in the midday sun as she turned to look at me. "Since you're right across the street, you'll be looking at it for the rest of October."

  "I had not thought about that. But my opinion stays firm. It's festive and it reminds me that I'm going to need to add some little baubles or something to my shop. I've been so busy getting the shop ready for business, I forgot that it would be opening just before Halloween. Maybe some orange and black garland or something across the window. By the way, Elsie mentioned you had some goat bells. I need something for my door."

  "Thank goodness. That'll be one bell down. Sometimes I think my parents are losing their minds from spending so much time at thirty thousand feet." Lola reached for the door. "They sent an entire box of rusty old bells. Even the goats were probably happy to see them go."

  Lola's dog, a Boxer, lifted his heavy head from the pillow long enough for me to pet him. He was small for a Boxer, the runt of the litter, apparently. His diminutive size had earned him the name Late Bloomer. Fortunately, for the dog, most people just called him Bloomer.

  Lola dipped into the back room to retrieve the box of bells. I wandered around the shop. I'd been in it more than a dozen times, but I was sure I still hadn't seen all the hidden treasures tucked in every nook and corner.

  As badly as Lola had wanted to update the antique shop, the interior had, for the most part, remained dark and dated, a sharp contrast to the chic exterior. But moving century old glass cabinets, curios and book shelves would have taken more time and money than Lola had for a remodel. Every inch of the shop was brimming with relics and treasures of the past. Floor space was limited to just enough passage for two people to walk side by side, which was probably for the best. According to Lola, the forest green carpeting that covered the entire floor was better left hidden beneath the antiques.

  The clang of several bells was followed by the click clack of Lola's boots. She held up a bell with impressive patina and a colorfully fringed leather strap. "This one has the best sound." She rang it again and yelled out in a long, southern drawl. "Come to supper, y'all!"

  "Hey speaking of supper, I'm starved. Are you interested in lunch?"

  "Yes. Let's go to Franki's Diner. She made some of her corn bread yesterday. It goes great with her chili."

  "Sounds yummy." I leaned against the front glass counter and absently fingered the pile of flyers sitting on top of it. "Elsie's been baking pumpkin bread all morning, and my mouth hasn't stopped watering. I thought she'd bring me a taste sample, but I think I upset her."<
br />
  "Why is Elsie upset? Not that I really care because she's always upset about something. I thought runners were always supposed to be high on those endolphins. She must not be catching many on her run."

  "It's endorphins and you don't actually catch them."

  Lola walked behind the counter to grab her purse. "Either way, Elsie needs some. What's she upset about?"

  "It's nothing really. She and Lester wanted to use some of the space in front of my shop for their tables." I quickly changed subjects not really wanting to talk about Lester and Elsie behind their backs. They had been truly supportive neighbors, and I knew Lola could gnaw away at something if I let her. I picked up a flyer from the stack. "The Port Danby Pumpkin Contest. Biggest pumpkin wins a hundred dollars."

  "Yep, welcome to Hokey Town, U.S.A."

  "Then call me hokey because I love that I am now living in a town that has a pumpkin growing contest. Do a lot of people enter?"

  Lola straightened up her sales receipts. "No, mostly it's just a contest between Beverly Kent and Virginia Hopkins, two elderly widows who live out on Culpepper Road. They're longtime neighbors, but things get pretty un-neighborly between them during pumpkin growing season." She pulled out a receipt. "Speaking of Beverly. I hate to gossip—" she began.

  I raised a brow at her to silently question that statement.

  "O.K., right. I love to gossip. This morning Willy Jones, the fisherman—" She looked at me for affirmation, but I shrugged my shoulders. "Anyhow, he's an old guy who has a fishing boat down in the marina. He's married to Theresa Jones. They've been married for about a hundred years."

  I blinked at her. "Did I mention the starving thing?"

  "Right." She put the receipt back on the pile and grabbed her 'closed for lunch' sign. She continued with her story as she hung it. "Well, about a week ago, Theresa brought in a box of old things, and there was a class ring from nineteen tickety two or some other long ago era. It was a nice one with a big blue stone, and it was strung from a thin, feminine chain."

  We walked out onto the sidewalk, and I silently hoped her story was going to get more interesting.

  "Not sure what school because Port Danby High has a green stone in their senior class ring. Not that I bought one. I mean who wants to wear a big old ring like that on their finger?"

  We walked along Harbor Lane. As long as we were heading closer to food, I decided there was no harm in hearing the rest of her story, meaningless details and all.

  "Anyhow, Theresa brought in the box of goods, but I didn't have time to go through it all. There were a few old porcelain vases and a framed sampler she said she'd found at an estate sale but nothing too exciting. So I gave her a hundred bucks for the lot, and she left saying she was going to get a manicure and some new face cream with the money."

  We walked past the Port Danby Police Station, although it was more just a tiny building with two front windows and two reserved parking spots out front. The Port Danby black and white patrol car rarely left its reserved spot. The second car was a blue sedan with one of those specially marked license plates that an undercover police officer might drive, only they weren't so undercover due to the specially marked plates.

  "Let's cross here." Lola interrupted her story long enough to glance back and forth for traffic.

  I followed behind her. "Probably not the best idea to jaywalk right in front of the police station."

  Lola blew air through her lips. "They don't care unless it's tourist season." We crossed the street and reached the sidewalk in front of the diner.

  The outside of Franki's Diner reminded me of an old fashioned train station with a big clock stuck in the center of a stumpy tower that jutted up from a charcoal gray metal roof. White multi-paned doors finished off a long line of symmetrical yellow trimmed windows. Yellow and purple pansies had been haphazardly planted along a thin flower box running the length of the building. They were an odd contrast to the exterior colors. I would have suggested something taller and more pastel like snapdragons. Although snapdragons might not have survived the coastal fog.

  "So?" I said managing to make the one syllable sound like a question.

  "So?" Lola countered.

  I rolled out a heavy sigh. "The ring story? I'm hoping there's more because otherwise there was a lot of build up for nothing."

  "Oh yes, the ring. Well, this morning, old Willy came into the shop, huffing and puffing as if he'd run all the way from the marina. He was seriously about to fall over from a stroke. He wanted to know if I'd sold the ring yet." Lola laughed. "As if some century old class ring would be a hot item."

  "You do run an antique shop."

  "True enough. So I sold him back his own ring and gold chain for twenty bucks and off he went a happy little fisherman. Of course, he made me promise not to tell Theresa. I figure he'll probably give it to Beverly because she was his high school sweetheart back in the day."

  Lola reached for the door of the diner.

  "Beverly?" I asked.

  Lola stopped in the open doorway and looked back at me with an annoyed brow. "The woman on Culpepper Road who grows big pumpkins. Keep up, Pink. That's how this story started. Remember?"

  "Actually, I don't remember because it was so long ago."

  "Funny woman."

  I followed Lola to a table. "Seriously, I think I grew some gray hair in the meantime."

  Lola stopped at a table that was halfway down the line of windows. "Will this do, granny gray hair?"

  "Yep."

  Chapter 4

  Franki breezed by and dropped two menus on the table. Harried or not, her perfectly sculpted beehive, a hairdo she wore to give the place a fifties flair, had not lost one inch of symmetry. It sat in perfect mid-century glory right on top of her head. "I'll be back in a minute. I'm swamped. Janie called in sick this morning, so I'm basically a one woman show out on the dining floor today." With that rushed narrative, she hurried off to the pick-up window.

  I'd only been inside the diner three times, and during those visits I'd learned that Franki Rumple, the proud owner of Franki's Diner, was a single parent, raising four teenagers, two sets of twins. Taylor and Tyler were two lanky sixteen-year-old boys. They were impossible to tell apart, and their names were equally confusing. Franki liked to complain that the only thing they were good at was making trouble, but she always talked about them with a mom's loving twinkle in her eyes. Kimi and Kylie had just turned fourteen, and they seemed to be a little less trouble than the boys. They were also easier to tell apart because Kimi liked to wear purple and Kylie preferred pink. Franki claims that once the second set of twins was born her husband took it as a sign the marriage was cursed and left. I would have taken it as a sign that the man was just a coward, but we all saw people through different lenses.

  Lola pored over the slightly greasy menu as if she was making some grand life decision.

  "I thought you were going to order the chili." I leafed through the menu too.

  "I am. Just thought I'd check in case something better popped out at me." Lola slapped the menu shut, resulting in an air current that made the red curls around her face vibrate. Her nose crinkled as she lifted her hands to her face. "Ugh, I smell like goat. I'm going to just run in and wash up. Order the chili and corn bread for me. And an iced tea with lemon."

  "Right. Got it." I decided to have the same.

  I sat back and glanced around. The inside of Franki's Diner was a predictable parade of shiny red vinyl, polished chrome and white laminate, but every time I walked in I felt this wonderful sense of nostalgia. At first, I couldn't quite pinpoint the source of it. Then it occurred to me that the red diamond pattern tiles running along the white tile base of the counter were exactly like the pattern in the kitchen of my childhood home. The chain of red diamond tiles brought me back to chilly winter mornings when my mom would lace hot tea with gobs of honey and we would sit and gab and gossip about everything from friends to Aunt Ruth's frightening new hair color. It was funny how small details
could so easily take you back in time.

  There were a few familiar faces sitting at the other tables. So far I'd only learned the names of the shop owners in close proximity. A woman I'd never seen before was sitting two tables over sawing angrily away at a steak as if the slab of meat had somehow wronged her. She was an elderly woman with chestnut hair and a long thick line of gray roots. Her fingers were red and raw as if she spent a lot of time washing dishes or gardening. The sunburn on her nose seemed to indicate the latter. Whoever she was, she was not having a good day, and neither was the steak on her plate.

  Lola returned and slid into the seat just as Franki came over to take our order. She gave her beehive bun a push to center it on her head and looked down at her notepad.

  I smiled up at her. "Two orders of chili and corn bread, and two iced teas with lemon."

  "That's easy enough." Franki scribbled something on her pad. "And the corn bread is excellent today. I added in some green chili for a little pop of flavor." Franki was one of those people who took pride in her work, and it showed in the quality of her food. I'd also discovered that if you were a new customer, which I was just several visits ago, she liked to hover over the table to see if you approved or not. The first time I came in, I'd ordered a cheese omelet. Franki stood over me, waiting for me to take my first bite. As I carried the eggs to my mouth, I worried that I wouldn't like it and then I'd have to force a cheery smile, spout false accolades and continue eating it. Fortunately, it was delicious.

  "I'll be right back with your chili." Franki scurried off on her sensible nurse style shoes.

  The rather angry woman several tables over was still terrifying her food with a steak knife. I tapped Lola's foot and glimpsed past her shoulder. "Don't turn around but who is the growly, grumbly woman sitting two tables over? She looks upset."

  Naturally, as was always the case when someone was told not to turn around, Lola twisted back to look at the woman. She turned back around looking disappointed as if she'd expected something far more exciting than a woman sawing at her food. "Oh her." Lola sat forward to speak softer. "That's Virginia Hopkins."