4 Brewed, Crude and Tattooed

by Sandra Balzo

  The sidewalks were impassable, so we were walking along the shoulder of the road. We were on Brookhill Road, mere yards from Uncommon Grounds, when a car came careening around the corner from Civic Drive. The driver saw us at about the same time we saw him, I thought, but he just kept on coming.

  I tugged frantically on Frank’s leash and the two of us dove into the ditch. Too late, I saw that the car was barreling along, in our tracks and nipping at our heels.

  Chapter 4

  It was only when the car sailed over us and came to a halt about fifteen feet away that I realized, not only were we in the ditch that Jacque had slid into earlier, but it was the very same Peugeot that was sharing it with us.

  As Jacque climbed out of his re-stuck vehicle, he snarled something in French. It wasn’t ‘sacre bleu!’ but I’d take bets that it was something ‘blue’.

  Frank and I got to our feet, Frank taking longer because he had four of them. Plus the fact that I’d landed on top of him. Poor furry thing had the wind knocked out of him.

  ‘Slow breaths, Frank,’ I said, scratching him behind one ear as he dragged air into his lungs via shallow gulps. ‘You’ll be fine.’

  Frank looked at me, his expression a mixture of doubt and accusation.

  ‘I didn’t mean to land on you,’ I said. ‘Besides, you should blame -’

  ‘What is it that you are doing on the road?’ Jacque demanded.

  ‘Trying to walk,’ I said. ‘As you may have noticed, there are no sidewalks anymore.’ I looked around. The road was disappearing pretty fast, too. ‘You nearly killed us.’

  ‘It is you and your bear, you come out of nowhere,’ Jacque said. ‘You make me to slam on the brakes and -’ he made a down and up gesture with his hand - ‘poof! My baby is in the ditch again.’

  ‘He’s a sheepdog,’ I protested, wondering what kind of pets the French kept on-leash. Elephants? Dancing bears?

  But Jacque ignored me. ‘And how am I to remove the Peugeot now?’

  It was a good question. The tire tracks of the squad car that had come for Pavlik were already filling up with snow. There wasn’t another car to be seen on the road - or what was left of it.

  ‘I’m starting to think none of us is going to get out of here tonight,’ I said. ‘Including your car.’

  The fishmonger shook his head wordlessly. Then he climbed out of the ditch and, with as much dignity as he could muster, stomped through the deep snow toward Uncommon Grounds. Frank jumped to follow, pulling me with him like I was attached to the rope tow on a ski slope.

  By the time we reached the store, Jacque was already seated at the table he’d been sharing with Rudy when I’d left. Not that it mattered who Jacque was sitting with, since he was scowling blackly out the window.

  Rudy cleared his throat from the table. ‘Umm, could I get some more coffee maybe?’

  ‘Coming right up,’ Caron said, pointedly looking up at the clock above the coffee bean bins. Twelve forty.

  ‘I’m sorry, Caron,’ I said, leading Frank in and closing the door behind us. ‘But we―’

  ‘What in the world?’ Caron was gaping at us.

  Glad she was showing concern for our being nearly obliterated, I explained, ‘Jacque slid off the road again and nearly hit us.’ I patted Frank on the head, dislodging a haphazard crown of snow.

  ‘I don’t care about your adventures,’ Caron said. ‘I’m talking about that.’ She pointed an accusatory finger toward Frank who, despite sitting respectfully, did seem to be melting all over the floor like the Wicked Witch of the West.

  ‘Not to worry,’ I replied hastily. ‘I’ll clean it up.’

  Caron tossed me a roll of paper towels. ‘It’s not just the slush he’s making, Maggy. We can’t have a dog in here. It’s against the health department’s rules.’

  ‘I’ll put him in the service hallway,’ I replied. ‘Frank’s afraid of the thunder.’ As I said it, a muted crash, followed by a long rumble sounded.

  Frank peed, supporting my argument, but not exactly helping his overall cause.

  ‘Get that dog out of here!’ Caron shrieked.

  Gotcha. Sheesh, Caron was strung tightly today.

  I escorted Frank in back, but not all the way into the service hallway. Instead, I found some burlap bags, the kind they ship raw coffee beans in, and made a bed for him in the storeroom.

  ‘You take a nice nap,’ I told him. ‘And if Caron comes in here, pretend you’re a rat.’

  I bucked out my front teeth and raised my hands, fingers apart so the nails would seem like claws.

  Frank did three turns around the burlap bed and lay down facing the wall. I’d been dismissed.

  Taking off my sodden jacket, I hung it on a hook on the back of the office door and looked down. Caron had been so busy reacting to Frank’s presence, that she hadn’t scolded me about not taking off my boots.

  Too bad, because now as I slipped out of them, I stepped right into the puddle of dirty water they’d left on the floor. Served me right, I thought as I stuck my wet sock-feet into the tennis shoes I kept at the store.

  When I returned to the front of Uncommon Grounds, Caron was wiping up after my boots. And Frank.

  Rudy still had an empty coffee cup in front of him.

  ‘Let me guess,’ I called over to him, ‘you’re in even greater need of more coffee?’

  When he nodded, I checked a timer on the pot. ‘This was brewed more than thirty minutes ago,’ I told Rudy. ‘Why don’t you let me start a fresh pot?’

  Rudy raised his hand. ‘Not necessary. The stuff in the barbershop sits all day.’

  Jacque roused enough to concur. ‘It is true. His coffee, she is very, very bad.’

  ‘Well, then this should be “very, very good” by comparison,’ I said, pouring Rudy a cup and taking it to their table.

  They’d chosen the draftiest spot in the place, along the windows and adjacent to the door. However, it did give a spectacular, if gloomy, view of the storm.

  I circled back behind the counter and rubbed my arms. A latte seemed just the thing for this kind of weather. I took out the skim milk and dumped some into a stainless steel pitcher, before sliding it under the frothing wand and turning it on. As the milk steamed, I tamped espresso into two portafilters - handles with small metal baskets attached for the grounds. Twisting them on to the machine, I flipped a switch over each one and the dark brown espresso started trickling down into the shot glasses below.

  As I dumped the shots into a latte mug, I looked over at Caron, who had moved on to straightening the runner in front of the door.

  ‘Can I make you a latte for the road?’ I asked, thinking about her appointment.

  Personally, I thought she was crazy venturing out into the storm, but I had something of a ‘glasshouse problem’ there, given my insistence on trekking home to let Frank out.

  ‘I’m not going,’ Caron said, proving she was either smarter than I was or that my tardiness had pushed her so late that she would have missed her appointment anyway. ‘The office called me on my cell just after you left and said they were closing at noon today. And Sophie texted to ask if I could post a “Closed For Snow” sign on The Bible Store. Apparently, nobody in their right mind is out and about.’

  I think Caron meant it as a slam to me, but I was busy digesting the fact that Sophie Daystrom, well into her eighties, text-messaged. Next thing I knew she’d be on FaceBook. MySpace. YouTube. eHarmony. Octagenarians R Us.

  Before I could get my head around all this, a frigid wind blew through the store. In the doorway stood what might have been a Yeti, but was, in fact, even scarier.

  Sarah Kingston. And she was in a snow-covered snit.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Caron moved forward, her roll of paper towels cradled in the hollow of her elbow like a hunter carrying a shotgun. Caron seemed concerned, but I thought her private agenda was to catch Sarah - and the two inches of snow on her - before the real-estate broker could stray off our rug.

  ‘OK? Do I
look “OK”?’ Sarah snapped, channeling Sophie Daystrom from this morning. ‘It’s a frickin’ nightmare out there.’

  ‘You didn’t make it to your office?’ I kept the coffee pot between Sarah and me. For my protection.

  ‘I made it, but a helluva lot of good it did me. The power is out. No lights, no heat. You have power.’ She was looking at me like I’d struck a deal with the devil. Or at least the ghost of Thomas Edison.

  I decided the best defense was a good offense. ‘We should call the TV station and complain. A correct forecast would have prepared us for this.’ Like venturing out with boots and a coat, instead of sneakers, a T-shirt and jeans.

  ‘You’ll get Aurora fired,’ Caron said. She’d given up trying to keep Sarah on the rug. In fact, my partner looked like she’d given up on everything important to her as she slumped into a chair.

  Sarah shrugged and joined Caron at the table. ‘Doesn’t matter. She’s on her way.’

  Chapter 5

  ‘On “way” you say?’ Jacque snorted. ‘It is truer than you know, I believe.’

  Again, I wasn’t sure what he meant, but Rudy chose that moment to get up, pull on his coat and leave. As the door closed behind him, I heard the plaza’s big John Deere snow-blower start up.

  ‘Is Aurora on her way here?’ I asked Jacque, but he just laughed harder.

  Sarah regarded him suspiciously. ‘No, Maggy. I meant “on her way” out of a job. I heard Aurora is getting the boot from TVR. The age thing.’

  ‘The...?’ Caron straightened up and pushed back her blonde hair. Excuse me, the ‘Vibrant Blonde’ hair that just last month had been ‘Radiant Red’ and, for the forty-four years before that, brown. Lower case. ‘Aurora’s not old.’

  ‘That, my dear, is in the eye of the beholder. Or, in this case, the eye of the station manager.’ Sarah nodded at Caron. ‘New hair looks good, by the way.’

  ‘Midlife crisis color job,’ I contributed. ‘But blonde or not, Caron is right. Aurora can’t be more than - what, thirty-five?’

  Aurora - prophetically named by her parents after the meteorological ‘Aurora Borealis’, otherwise known as the Northern Lights - had been quite a bit younger than Way when they married.

  Way continued to like them young. And petite, blonde and blue-eyed, judging from the women he’d run through both pre- and post-Aurora. And maybe during Aurora, for all I knew.

  A lot of that went around in Brookhills, trust me on this one.

  Sarah shrugged. ‘Even thirty-five is old for television, especially now that “high definition” is here to stay. Besides, weather sluts need to be tiny, with perky breasts. Aurora is still tiny, but lately her boobs are flying at half-mast.’

  I snickered, earning a glare from Caron, who I knew was considering having her own puppies hoisted. She gestured toward Jacque, who seemed to be transfixed by a copy of Who Moved My Cheese? from our bookshelves.

  ‘There’s more to a woman than a pretty face and perky breasts,’ Caron said indignantly.

  I thought about pointing out that if Caron really believed that she could save herself thousands of dollars in hair dye, Botox injections, and ‘surgically-enhanced’ tah-tahs over the next few years. But, no: in our town, growing young is half the fun.

  Speaking of Brookhills’ Barbies - they of the expensive SUVs, plastic faces and legs hinged at their wasp-like waists - one of them had pulled up in a Lincoln Navigator.

  Given the thing was the size of a garbage truck - which is what Brookhills uses to plow its streets - I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised the vehicle had gotten through the snow storm.

  The Barbie in question climbed out, stepping down into a drift. Which particular doll we’d drawn was difficult to identify, since the fur-trimmed collar of her coat was pulled up to protect her face from the blowing snow as she approached and finally yanked open the door.

  Fur. Blowing snow. In May. Even accompanied by a

  thunder-and-light show, it just wasn’t right.

  ‘Aurora is an educated woman. A meteorologist,’ Caron said, getting up to serve the arriving customer.

  ‘Yeah, well “the meteorologist” got it wrong.’ I pointed out the window. ‘Aurora said the snow was supposed to stay south of us, centered over Chicago. We were going to get just rain up here.’

  ‘Apparently you missed this morning’s forecast.’ The customer folded down her collar and stomped her boots, sending newly-crusted slush flying.

  Aurora Benson smiled her best weather-slut smile. ‘The line of demarcation between the snow and rain moved farther north than I anticipated last night. We can expect another ten inches of wet, sticky snow by tomorrow morning. Maybe more.’

  ‘Great.’ I was wondering, all of a sudden, how Pavlik, Frank and I were going to get to my house. Even if the snow stopped and the Harley could make it through the snow, Fat Boy was not going to accommodate a man, his moll and her faithful dog.

  ‘If you have a radio,’ Aurora said brightly, ‘you can tune into 88.6 and our Weather Center will keep you up to date.’

  Aurora ‘Bore-ye-all-of-us’ (forgive me) was already getting on my nerves. To the point I wanted to smack her one. And steal her SUV.

  A long rumble of thunder sounded as the lights in the store flickered.

  ‘Thundersnow,’ Aurora said. ‘A true meteorological rarity.’

  I threw Caron and Sarah a satisfied look. I knew my Milwaukee micro-climate facts.

  ‘And because it’s just barely cold enough to snow,’ Aurora continued authoritatively, ‘the water content in the snow is very high. When the heavy, wet snow falls on the electrical wires, it clings. Eventually the weight of it...’

  The lights flickered again, hung on by their toenails for a second and then went out. The ‘O’ on the readout of the battery-powered coffee-bean scale was the only bright spot in the dim room. We might not have a radio, but electricity or not, we’d be able to weigh our raw material. Couldn’t use our grinder or brewers, of course. Or the cash register. Or running water, for that matter, since the pumps that brought it into the store were also electric. But then, given the white-out beyond the windows, we wouldn’t be getting any sane customers anyway, so why worry?

  A whoosh followed by a hum signaled that someone had fired up the emergency generator.

  As the cacophony of beep-beep-beeps coming from the assorted electrical devices that now needed to be reset started, Aurora slipped out of her coat and laid it over the back of a chair.

  ‘I need to find Way,’ she said. ‘Do you mind if I leave this here to dry and go through the service hallway?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Caron said, eying the splotches of dirty slush coming off the bottom of Aurora’s coat and landing on Caron’s clean floor. ‘Do you know when the snow will be cleared from our parking lot?’

  Aurora sighed. ‘The snowplow driver quit, so Way called me, trying to track down Oliver to snow-blow the parking lot.’ She nodded toward the sound of the John Deere outside the window. ‘I didn't know where he was, but apparently Way found him.’

  God forbid either parent should know the whereabouts of their seventeen-year-old son.

  Recalling Frank’s odd reaction to the name of his master-in-absentia, though, I wondered if this was another omen. I made a mental note to call Eric at school, see how he was faring.

  ‘Are the Twin Cities getting snow?’ I asked Aurora, figuring I should get full value out of tolerating her here. Eric attended the University of Minnesota’s flagship campus in Minneapolis/St. Paul - the Twin Cities to most of us and just The Cities for Minnesotans.

  ‘No. This storm is centered around the Great Lakes. Your son, Eric, goes to school in Minneapolis, doesn’t he?’ She sounded wistful, like she wished her son was off to college, instead of cutting his high-school classes in order to hang around a strip mall.

  ‘Sophomore year,’ I said. ‘He loves it.’

  I said it because it was...well, what you said to other parents. The truth was, though, that I really
was a little worried about him, even pre-Frank, the Canine Clairvoyant.

  Final exams were imminent and Eric seemed to be getting increasingly tense and maybe a little depressed. I tried to ask him about classes and girls and all that college shtick, but he’d get irritated with me. Said I was checking up on him.

  I was, of course, but he wasn’t supposed to trip to it so readily.

  The snow would be a great excuse to call and see how he was.

  ‘Oliver is thinking about Minnesota,’ Aurora said. ‘Or maybe LaCrosse or Madison.’

  University of Wisconsin in Madison was Wisconsin’s flagship school. It was also tough to get into. Eric had good grades in high school and tested well, but he had been waitlisted at UW, before opting for Minnesota instead. I didn’t think Oliver’s grades were any better. In fact, I was pretty sure they were worse.

  ‘Has Oliver applied?’ I asked Aurora of her son. ‘He’s a senior, right?’

  ‘He is, but Way wants him to take a year off. He says Oliver needs to get some “life experience” before he goes off to school.’

  I was all for life experience, but I had a hunch that what Way really wanted was an indentured servant - one who could work at the mall full-time during the coming year.

  Which reminded me: ‘Is Oliver going to snow-blow the whole parking lot? That will take forever. Why did the snowplow guy quit?’

  A cold wind whistled through the store, signaling the front door had been opened again.

  ‘Way didn’t pay him,’ Aurora said. ‘Honestly, if I’d known it was going to be even more of a pain in the ass to be that man’s business partner as it was to be his loving wife, I would have forced him to sell Benson Plaza to a developer, taken my half and run.’

  There was a gasp at the door, which made us all turn to the sound.

  Chapter 6

  Gloria Goddard, owner of our little mall’s pharmacy, stood just inside the shop. Snow covered her thin shoulders like ‘a mantle of white’, though she didn’t look like she was feeling the whole Winter Wonderland vibe of the song.