by Kaye George
Yolanda straightened up. “You brought the window already? Great.”
He unclipped a large piece of glass from the holder on the side of his truck.
Tally whispered to Yolanda, “Are you sure it’s the right size? How did he know how big a piece of glass to bring?”
Yolanda laughed. “He came and measured it before.”
Tally nodded, reassured.
“Wait just a sec,” Yolanda said. “We need to get the rest of this debris out of here.” She dashed inside and came back with a large paper bag. She and Tally scooped up what was left of the broken glass, taking care not to cut their fingers. Tally spotted some other debris, some things that weren’t broken glass. She leaned farther into the window and decided it was pieces of a broken plastic Moon Pie. As she picked them up, shiny green stones fell out. She gathered those, too, and stuck everything into the bag. They would be able to easily remove the baskets and other décor from inside, but this clean up of the floor was much easier from the front.
“Okay, we’re done.” Yolanda gestured toward the open space with the shards of remaining broken window glass.
He moved with precision and speed and had the broken pieces removed and the window replaced in what seemed like minutes as Tally and Yolanda watched.
After, he said he’d send a bill, the two women stood looking at what was left of the display for a moment. The baskets remained, full of goodies and beribboned to match their themes. The dogwood and crepe myrtle boughs were still there, too, and undamaged.
“I guess I have to redo the whole window now,” Yolanda said.
“It doesn’t look that bad. It’s just that the candies are missing. If you didn’t know they’d been there, you wouldn’t think anything is wrong. We have a few more, but they would just look lonely if we put them in there.”
“You’re right. I’m exhausted. You want to get a snack?”
“Yes, I can do that. I didn’t know how long this would take so I told the girls I might not be back. But your shop is still open. Can you leave?”
“Ha. You notice I haven’t had any customers since you came. I’ll tell Raul to close up. Let’s go celebrate surviving the Broken Window Incident.”
Tally grinned. “Let’s.”
About the Author
Taken by Megan Russow
One of Kaye George’s quirky claims to fame is having lived in nine states, many of which begin with the letter ‘M.’ Though a native Californian, Kaye moved to Moline, Illinois, at the tender age of 3 months. After college at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, and marriage to Cliff during finals week their senior year, she and Cliff touched upon Sumter, SC, Lompoc, CA (very briefly), and Great Falls, Montana, during his Air Force career.
Kaye is also a violinist, an online mystery reviewer, an award winning short story writer, and the author of four different mystery series with three different publishers and one self published. She has accrued four Agatha Award nominations and one finalist position for the Silver Falchion, as well as national bestseller status with her Fat Cat series written as Janet Cantrell.
