No Parking

by Valentine Wheeler

  “That seems right,” said Marianne. She didn’t like the sound of this, not one bit. “I mean, he could be doing some work on the property. It doesn’t have to be nefarious.”

  “You’ve known him far longer than I have. Does that seem likely?”

  Marianne sighed. “No, it doesn’t. Even with his new running-for-office facelift, he’s the same scumbag he’s always been.” She leaned back in her chair, glancing out the window toward Rana’s half of the building. “I don’t like it.”

  Rana made a sudden noise of surprise and Marianne turned to look at her. She held the croissant in one hand and stared at it, her other hand over her mouth.

  “Are you all right?”

  Her cheeks darkened, her eyes wide, she flicked her gaze from the pastry to Marianne. “This is incredible,” she said, swallowing. “Oh my goodness, Marianne, this croissant!”

  Marianne laughed as the bell over the door rang, announcing a customer. She stood to go help the girl who’d just walked in, grabbing another sambousik for the trip back to the counter. “Thank you for the snack,” she said, wondering if there was a way to politely ask Rana to stick around for the next couple hours so they could have dinner together and hating the nervousness that kept her from being able to ask. “It was delicious.”

  “I’ll be over at the store,” said Rana. “If you’d like to have dinner later.”

  Marianne’s heart lightened. “I’d love that.”

  Rana nodded and slipped out the door. Marianne watched her go until the teen in front of her cleared his throat. “Ma’am?” he asked. “Um, can we order?”

  Flustered, she flicked the espresso machine back on. From the other side of the counter, Zeke snorted as he tied his apron on. “Boss,” he said, voice low. “You’re worse than I am with a crush.”

  “Oh yeah,” she retorted just as quietly as they passed each other at the cake fridge, “wait until Doris comes by with the mail. We’ll see who’s more embarrassing then.”

  “That’s a low blow, boss lady,” said Zeke, hand over his heart. “And rude.” He pointed at her. “Just for that, I’m taking my break the minute coupon lady comes in. Watch me.”

  She couldn’t find it in her gleeful heart to give him any more trouble.

  Chapter Eight

  The next day a sign posted on Rana’s door caught Marianne’s eye as she walked back from the pharmacy with her prescription in hand. She stopped on the sidewalk to check it out. “Closed until Saturday for vacation,” she read. “Huh.” Rana hadn’t said anything about going anywhere, but then, she didn’t have to. They were neighbors, and maybe friends. Marianne’s heart sank at the thought of no casual dinners or shared coffee for a week. I really am in this deep. Zeke was right. What am I doing? She’d missed her shot with Rana—she knew that. All she could hope for now was friendship, which was wonderful on its own. She didn’t need more than that. She really didn’t.

  She waited a moment and then continued toward her own door, heart a little heavier. She wondered where Rana had gone, whether it was back home to Egypt or somewhere else. She’d have to ask on Tuesday, if she saw her.

  “Here she comes now,” Zeke was saying as she entered. The bakery was half full, the tables mostly occupied, and a very short line at the register consisted of a couple locals. She smiled at Zeke, whose face had a dash of panic across it. He didn’t like handling crowds alone, even crowds filled with people he’d known all his life.

  “Sorry, Zeke,” she said, tucking her pharmacy bag and purse under the counter, nearly knocking over the row of small wooden nutcrackers Zeke had lined up on top of the display case. “How can I help you?” She asked the customer in front of the register and then gasped. “Rana! I thought you were away!”

  Rana looked more relaxed than Marianne had seen her—anytime except after their kiss, that is—and had an arm around a tall woman who shared Rana’s smooth olive-brown skin and long nose. The corners of her eyes were barely sprinkled with the laugh lines that Rana had in abundance, and her dimple sat on the opposite cheek from Rana’s. “Nour, this is my very good friend Marianne.” She turned that megawatt, dimpled smile on Marianne, who ducked her head, feeling herself blush at the description.

  “You must be Rana’s daughter,” said Marianne, shaking her head. She imagined Rana must have looked like this in her thirties, minus Nour’s stylish, thick-rimmed glasses and headscarf. Although maybe Rana had worn the hijab when she’d lived in Egypt. Marianne wondered if that would be a rude question to ask sometime when they were alone. “Welcome!”

  “It’s wonderful to meet you,” said Nour. “My mother has told me so much about you. But we should let the other customers order, Mamti.” Her accent was lighter than Rana’s, the barest hint on the occasional word, and Marianne recalled that this was the daughter who’d been born in Egypt and had only spent a few years in the US before moving back.

  Rana laughed, squeezing her around the waist. “Always looking out for others, that’s my little girl. Marianne, perhaps we could have dinner tomorrow? I wanted to show Nour around town, but I’d love to spend some time introducing you two without all the customers.”

  “My mother wants to prove to me she’s making friends,” said Nour. “We didn’t believe her.”

  “Nour!” Rana’s cheeks darkened. “My daughter is very rude.”

  “So are you,” said Ray from behind them. “I thought you liked your customers. We’re not invited out to dinner?”

  Rana laughed again. “I do like my customers, but I like Marianne better. I’m sorry, Ray, but it’s true.”

  Marianne’s stomach fluttered.

  “Even my wife likes Marianne better than me,” Ray admitted. “I get it. I’d like her better than me, too, when she’s baking.”

  Marianne grinned at him. “Compliment me all you like, but you’re not getting me to make peach pie until the summer.” Her smile softened when she turned back to Rana. “I’d love dinner,” she said. “Would you like a coffee, or a treat? On the house?”

  “Oh, no, thank you,” said Rana. “We’re taking the train into Boston for dinner with an old friend of our family. But we’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Marianne reassured her and then waved as they left, arm in arm.

  Ray raised his eyebrows as he stepped up to the counter. “Well.”

  “What?” She snapped.

  “Oh, nothing.” He grinned. “Do your kids know you’ve gone back to fourteen years old? You’re worse than my Krissy.”

  Marianne looked at the ceiling hopelessly. “Not you too,” she said.

  “Relax,” he said, his voice kind. “I’m glad you’re getting back out there.”

  “I’m not, really. We aren’t—it’s not like we’re dating or anything. I’m making friends.”

  “Well, I don’t look at most of my friends that way.”

  “Maybe your friends aren’t as pretty!” she snapped.

  Ray held up his hands in surrender. “All right, all right,” he said, laughing. “Then I’m glad you’re making new friends. And I’m glad you’re burying the hatchet with that storefront. We all had bets on when you’d finally give in and give a restaurant over there a try.”

  “Oh yeah? Who won the bet?”

  “Nobody. The last bet was for 2013, so I think we all lost fair and square.”

  Marianne handed him his coffee and decided not to tell him that particular hatchet was well and truly unburied.

  *

  As she locked the door and flicked off the lights in the seating area, Marianne called out to Zeke, who was beginning to rinse trays in the sink. “Do you want to earn some overtime tonight?”

  He looked up, suspicious. “You’re not going to ask me to clean the grease traps again, are you? Because that requires, like, triple overtime.”

  She laughed. “No, and after last time, it’s not worth asking you again. I’d rather do it myself than listen to you complain that much again.”

  “Mission ac
complished.” He crossed his arms. “I try not to pick up that learned helplessness man thing as I work on my butch, but, uh, I’ll keep it up for things that gross.”

  “I promise, it isn’t food-related! And it shouldn’t be gross. At least, I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, I’m interested. I do need some extra cash for Joe’s Christmas present.” He grinned. “Getting him a Kindle so he can make all his books large print. I’m tired of him leaving magnifiers and book lights all over the house.”

  “I hope that present includes lessons and a set-up day,” Marianne said, impressed with the thoughtfulness. “Because you know Joe. He’s not big on technology. But that sounds like a great idea.”

  “They’re pretty intuitive,” said Zeke. “And I’m off from school the week you’re closed here, so I can load his books on, and then we can spend some time working on it.”

  “Okay, well, I’m thinking we might need a couple hours for the project I’m thinking of. We don’t have to do it all tonight, but I was hoping to go through some of the file cabinets, and I need your help and your young eyes.”

  “Now you sound like Joe.” He looked intrigued. “Okay, yeah, that sounds kind of cool. Even the one that’s been there for ages? The wooden one?”

  “I don’t think anyone’s opened that one since my dad died,” she admitted. “It’s probably the best place to start.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not quite sure. The deed to the property, for sure. Anything with a map. We’ll probably know what we’re looking for once we find it.”

  He nodded decisively. “I’ll get the Swiffer. The top of that thing’s so dusty we’ll have to wear masks if we don’t clean it first.”

  She nodded and led the way upstairs, sizing up the filing cabinets along the wall of her office, grabbed a can of wood cleaner, then started getting to work on the front and sides as Zeke cleaned the top. Together they tugged the whole thing out to the center of the office. “I have no idea what’s inside,” she admitted. “I know my dad tried to keep files while Grandpa was training him, but my grandfather always told him he was doing it wrong, and I think once he took over my dad kind of gave up on being very organized. And who knows if Simon even kept any records.” She waved at the other, more modern cabinet. “I know he put taxes in there, but other than that, I’m not sure. I’ve got my own files downstairs—when I took over, I figured it’d be easier to start fresh.”

  “Only one way to find out,” said Zeke, tugging the top drawer open and peering inside. “Looks like it’s not even in files,” he said. “Just dusty, dusty piles. We might want to clear off the table.”

  Marianne got to work. First, she pushed her loose recipe cards all into a box and set it on her desk and then cleared off the pile of her kids’ old macaroni art and report cards to set them on a chair. She winced at the thought of how long it had been since she’d cleaned the office. Her youngest, Jacob, was twenty-four. That made this pile old enough to enroll in college.

  “Okay.” Zeke snapped on a pair of latex gloves. “What?” he said in response to her look. “Dust dries my skin out. I don’t look this good by accident, you know.”

  Marianne smothered a smile.

  Zeke shook his head and grabbed a pile of paper and set it on one corner and then handed her another. “You’re hopeless. Want to start sorting?”

  “Let’s put stuff that’s obviously trash right in the recycling,” she said and pulled the bin closer. “So any old vendor receipts, order forms, stuff like that from before my time, unless it’s more than fifty years old or you recognize the name. And anything that looks important, put it over here.” She waved to her desk chair. “We’ll go through that once we’ve gotten the nonsense out.”

  He nodded. “And if I find any dirty letters, I’ll make a separate pile that you don’t get to see.”

  Marianne threw a Swiffer pad at him, and Zeke ducked, laughing.

  They sorted for an hour or so, finding nothing particularly interesting, but plenty that Marianne put aside. She had a dream of someday writing a book or running some kind of blog about the history of the bakery. Maybe for an anniversary or something, though they’d not done much for the hundredth, which had happened while Luke Leventi’s father Simon was running things. Another mark against that family, she thought, though she knew that was perhaps not a reasonable thing to be angry about.

  “I don’t trust him,” admitted Marianne, passing over another pile of receipts for the recycling bin as she picked up the thread of conversation that had trailed off five minutes earlier. She was glad she’d asked Zeke to help, both for her sake and for his. For his because she knew that Joe was living on social security and couldn’t afford to support his great-grandson without any help from Zeke’s parents, let alone cover the cost of his testosterone and eventual surgery. He had a fundraiser online, she knew, but most of the people donating seemed to be other young trans kids essentially returning the money he’d donated to their own healthcare. None of them could afford much. She’d made donations when she could, but anything she could pay him to do around the shop helped. And this was for her benefit, too, because she knew if she were doing this project by herself, or with one of her kids, she’d be stopping to read every page, reminiscing and mourning her father and mother and grandfather all over again. Instead, she and Zeke were moving quickly, already through the first drawer and onto the second, with a pile only a few inches high of stuff to keep.

  “Mr. Leventi?” Zeke looked up from the pile. “Why not?” He smiled. “Well, I mean, I know why not generally—because he’s a sleazeball—but why specifically now? What did he do?”

  “That’s the thing,” said Marianne. “I don’t know what he’s up to.” She sighed. “I liked it better when he ignored the place except to get rent.”

  “You like his tenant better now though.”

  “Well, that’s true.”

  “Maybe he’s hanging around Rana to try to get a date?”

  Marianne shook a finger at Zeke. “Don’t even think that. Get me a new pile—I’m not paying you to tease me about the cute neighbor.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “So, you do think she’s cute.”

  She groaned. “Of course, I do! Come on, you have to admit she’s a good-looking woman. But I’m not trying to date anybody, Zeke. Now can we get back to work?”

  He laughed as he headed back around the cabinet to dig out another pile of folders. At least in this drawer everything was hung instead of sitting in a crumpled, dusty stack.

  “Hey, is this it?” asked Zeke, his short twists poking up from behind the file cabinet the only part of him Marianne could see from her seat. “Hey, boss, holy crap, I think this might be what we’re looking for!” He stood, stepping carefully over the piles of papers on the floor. Marianne spun in her chair as he approached, rubbing dust from her face with a rag. Even the hanging folders were soaked in dust.

  “What did you find?”

  “Looks like a folder from your dad. That’s his writing, right?”

  “In 1969,” read Marianne. “You might be right.” She tried not to get her hopes up. No matter what she found, a lot of work stood before her. If the deed said she owned the lot, that was great and would solve one problem, but the official border with Rana’s property was still up in the air. If the documentation said she didn’t have rights to the lot—well, she’d cross that bridge if it came to it. She opened the folder.

  A pile of yellowing papers fell out onto the table, their musty smell filling the air. Zeke perched on the stool beside her, intrigued. “Look at this!” He pulled out a photograph, black and white with a thick white border on heavy paper. “It looks exactly the same.” He was right. The photo showed the bakery, circa 1948, according to the note on the back. The brick was the same, the letters freshly painted on the windows, and the sidewalk neatly swept. The only thing missing was the porch.

  Marianne stared at the man in the suit and the teenage boy besid
e him, both staring seriously into the camera; her father and her grandfather in front of the bakery that was both of their lives and already a family institution for a generation when the photo was taken. She tried to see her son Jacob in the faces of the two men standing on the stoop. There was Anna’s nose and her own wide-set eyes, but none of her children had the distinctive Windmere fair coloring and thin frame her father and grandfather shared.

  “Why do you think they sold it?” asked Zeke. “I mean, that’s what we’re trying to find out, right?”

  “Well, my grandfather was long gone by then,” said Marianne. “And my father—the war changed him, Zeke. Just like a lot of guys. And I don’t know…he had me to raise, and my mother was sick. Maybe he felt like it was too much for him to handle.” She picked up a page and began to try to piece out the worn cursive. “‘Bounded northerly by the water known as Crow Creek for fifty-seven feet, northeasterly by the land of F. P. Nottingham eighty-six feet, easterly by the cliffs forty-nine feet…’ This might be a copy of the original deed to the property. Wow, Zeke, this is amazing!”

  “Your family’s had it that long?” asked Zeke, leaning over her shoulder. “Since when?”

  “The property? Since 1866,” said Marianne. “My great-great-grandfather Marvelle bought the land with his bonus when he came home from the war. Then his son Talmadge turned it into the bakery.”

  “The Civil War?” asked Zeke. “He fought?”

  “All the men in the town did pretty much right from the beginning,” said Marianne.

  “All the white men, you mean,” Zeke corrected. “I know the black guys didn’t get to fight until late in the war.”

  “You’re right,” said Marianne. “Joe’s granddad fought, right?”

  Zeke smiled. “Joseph Green. Family hero. His mom’s dad who’d escaped North Carolina with his mom a few years before the war. Grampa knew him, he says, and he says he’s named after him. He died when Grampa was nine. That’s why he made sure we knew about him.”