I set it down on the table, avoiding Ellen’s eyes. “Did you know our building had a name?” I ask.
“Yep. It’s up on this little stone medallion right in the middle of the roofline. It’s just so dirty you can’t see it anymore.”
“Did you know it was ‘architecturally significant’?”
She picks up the letter and stares at it. “No. I can’t think why it would be. I’ve always thought it was fairly ugly.”
“He can’t do this.”
She gives me a sad little smile. “Betcha he can. In fact, I’m not even surprised. The way things have been going in this neighborhood, it was only a matter of time.”
“I wonder if anyone else has gotten a letter.”
“Depends on when their leases are up, I guess. Maybe I’ll mosey down the row and see what I can find out.”
“We can get organized, you know. The people around here won’t let it happen.”
“Wyn, I wouldn’t count on too much support. There are a lot of new people in the neighborhood. They probably moved here exactly because of things like this. It’ll boost property values, pretty things up—”
“Making the streets safe for yuppies and franchises, I know. But he can’t just come in here and kick us out. I think the first thing we have to do is call him and protest the increase. There must be some kind of law—”
She laughs, but not happily. “For somebody who’s still trying to get a financial settlement out of her ex-husband, who’s already remarried…you should know better.”
“Well, if we can’t fight it, there are other places that would love to have us. Ballard, Wallingford, Fremont. We have other options.”
“Wyn, we’re up to our ass in debt already. We can’t just pick up and start over. We’d never see daylight again. I never should have let you sink your money into it, too. I should have seen the writing on the wall and just sold out to the Great Northwest Bread Company last year.”
“There has to be something we can—”
“Wyn. You’re not listening to me. I’ve been doing this for almost ten years. I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of scratching out a living, worrying about when the ovens are going to go, what taxes are going to be next year if they pass that new assessment for small-business licenses. We can’t even afford a new toilet. Life doesn’t have to be that hard. There are other things I can do. And Lloyd’s been bugging me about moving over to Whidbey…. He’s tired of commuting.”
I look out the front door. Across the street, where the vegetable market used to be, to the new, gleaming-white gallery with its huge windows.
“He can’t do anything till our lease is up. Why don’t we check with Gene and Myra. And those new guys, the ones who own the card store.”
“Allen and Rob? They’re probably not affected at all. They just moved in last summer, so their lease is probably safe for at least two years.”
“Let’s at least see what they know. And meanwhile, I’m going to call Mendina.”
While I’m phoning the good doctor, Ellen goes next door to talk to Myra, then down to the end of the building to talk to Gene, whose photography studio is the largest rental space in the building.
“Any luck?” she asks me when she comes back.
“His receptionist sounds like that Lily Tomlin character, the telephone operator.”
“Ernestine?”
“Right. ‘The doctor is with a patient at the moment. May I tell him about what you are inquiring?’”
“About what you are inquiring?”
“I guess somebody told her never to use a preposition to end a sentence with. Anyway, I left a message for him to call here. I didn’t say what it was about, but I’m sure he’ll figure it out. What did Myra and Gene say?”
“Myra got a letter in December. Her lease is up in April. She hasn’t decided what to do yet, she said she wanted to get together with us and talk about it. Gene’s lease is up at the end of the year, but he said he’ll probably just pay the increase. Business is good and he doesn’t feel like moving.”
“Must be nice.”
When she folds her arms and slumps lower in the chair, I get the oppressive sense that it’s already a done deal in her mind.
I give Mendina three days. When he hasn’t returned my call by Friday morning, I call again. I get Ernestine again. Dr. Mendina is with a patient. Again. I leave a message again. I try calling on Saturday, thinking maybe he’s there doing paperwork or something. All I get is voice mail.
By the following Tuesday I’m pissed. Ernestine answers and we go through the whole routine again, but this time, when she asks if she can take a message, I say, “How many do I have to leave before he calls me back?”
“I’m sorry, but Dr. Mendina is very busy—”
“I’m very busy, too. I’m also one of his tenants, and I need to speak to him. I’ll hold.”
“I’m sorry, but it isn’t possible for you to hold. He’s doing a root canal and he won’t be available to take calls for at least an hour.”
“Then tell me when he does take calls.”
“Dr. Mendina does not take calls. I give him messages and then he returns calls.”
“Well, he’s not returning mine.”
“I’m very sorry, but all I can do is give him the message.”
At this point I’m wishing Dr. Mendina’s hands were in my mouth right now so I could bite him, but I just say, “Then please give him the message that it’s urgent that Wynter Morrison or Ellen Liederman speak with him as soon as possible.”
I take the coffee cup Ellen’s holding out to me. “I think Ernestine is a ’droid. She has certain programmed responses, and beyond those she does not venture.”
“I think it’s obvious that he doesn’t have any desire to speak to us.”
I sip my espresso and watch somebody’s silky-haired golden retriever slurping up water from our dog bowl by the front door. He may not have any desire to, but he is, by god, going to.
After closing on Sunday I meet Ellen at the bakery. It’s one of those afternoons where the last thing you want to do is go out—dark, windy, cold, the rain coming in staccato bursts like machine-gun fire. When I get there Ellen has the space heater on and the teakettle boiling. While I’m hanging up my coat, she fixes a plate of cookies from the day-olds—oatmeal with walnuts and dried cherries, peanut butter with chocolate chips, snickerdoodles dusted with cinnamon.
When Myra taps on the door, I let her in and pull down all the shades in front. It still amazes me that people who’ve lived in this neighborhood for years, and know our hours as well as we do, can walk past at any time, day or night, and, if they see anyone inside, they’ll try to come in. Or they’ll stand there banging on the door till we come to open it and then say, “Oh, are you not open?”
“Thanks for coming,” Ellen says.
“No problem. I was giving my Aunt Lou a root job anyway.” She hangs up her dripping coat and rubs her hands together in front of the heater.
We pull out our chairs and sit down, and before anybody says anything, we all fix ourselves a cup of tea.
“Well…,” says Ellen around a bite of oatmeal cookie. She looks at Myra. “Have you had any more thoughts about what you’re going to do?”
Myra takes a tiny bite of snickerdoodle, edging a stray crumb from the corner of her mouth. She makes rapid little chewing motions and then swallows, all the while looking thoughtfully at the ceiling.
“You know, I think I’m just going to pack it in,” she says finally. “I talked to my lawyer, and he says there’s not much I can do. Bottom line is, Mendina owns the building. He said what I should’ve done was sign a new lease with Nate before he sold, and then it gets automatically assigned to the new owner…And he can’t, you know, kick you out or raise your rent or anything.”
“Well, that’s good to know. Now that it’s too late.” I set down my tea. “I wonder why Nate didn’t think of that.”
Ellen rests her chin in her cupped palm. “Maybe he d
id. Maybe that was part of the deal with Mendina. Or maybe he was just so distracted…I mean, he said Libby was sick. He probably just wanted to sell off everything and get her out of here.”
“I’ve been talking to my cousin about us buying a shop up in La Conner,” Myra says. “I wouldn’t make as much money, but it’s cheaper to live up there, and probably cheaper to run a business, too.” She breaks the rest of the cookie into small pieces. “What about you girls?”
Ellen sighs. “I feel like if we could just talk to him…maybe we could persuade him to go about this a little differently. I mean, he’s starting off by creating a lot of bad feelings.”
“I’ve read about things like this happening when neighborhoods change.” I look at Myra. “Sometimes all it takes is the tenants standing together. And people in the neighborhood can make an impact, too, if they show a lot of support for existing businesses. Of course, it’s easier not to fight. It takes time and effort away from all our shops. But if everyone just caves in to people like Harvey, then…well, there goes the neighborhood.”
Her face gets mottled with red, which I assume means she’s blushing.
“It never stops, either.” Ellen takes the handoff. “They find out one person can be bulldozed, then nobody’s safe. I think we should point that out to Gene. We all need to support each other—”
When she pauses for breath, Myra shakes her head sadly. “I just can’t, you guys. I can’t take the chance of being out of here with no place to go. I’m a single mom, and I don’t get child support. And if I’m gonna move to La Conner before April, I gotta get on it—”
I pretend that I haven’t heard her. “And the guys at the card shop don’t care because it doesn’t affect them. Yet. But what’s going to happen to them when their lease is up? They get replaced by a Hallmark store, that’s what. And the same thing can happen up in La Conner, Myra. Then where do you go?”
“Hopefully, by that time, I’ll be dead.” She tries to laugh.
“What about your kid?” Ellen says. “How’s he going to like leaving all his friends and moving up there?”
“He’s not. Obviously.” She fidgets with the pieces of cookie, reducing them to little piles of crumbs. “But he’ll get over it. We all have to do things we don’t want to do.” Abruptly she scoots back her chair and gets up. “I’m sorry, you guys. I gotta go pick up my kid.” She reaches for her still-wet coat. “Thanks for the tea.” Then she’s out the door.
I give Ellen a disgusted look. “The tag-team strategy meeting falls flat.”
Ellen laughs, laying her head down on her folded arms.
“What’s so damn funny?”
“You.” She sits up and gives my shoulder a squeeze. “You do a great guilt trip. I’m going to see about making you an honorary Jewish mother.”
On Monday afternoon as soon as I wake up, I dress and tiptoe out of the house, leaving Tyler snoring like the Texas chainsaw massacre. It’s amazing the sounds that come out of that delicate-looking little body. The wind is sharp and cold, cutting through my jeans, but at least it’s not raining.
At the bakery the Mazurkoids are happily cutting and wrapping and labeling to the tunes of Van Morrison, and Ellen and I sit down with the telephone at a table in the empty café.
I take the first turn.
I try to make my voice as blandly pleasant as Ernestine’s, but it’s difficult. We go through the routine. She takes the message. I hand the phone to Ellen and she calls. After we’ve taken a couple of turns apiece, Ernestine says, “Miss Liederman—”
“It’s Morrison,” I tell her politely. “Ms. Liederman is my partner.”
“Miss Morrison, I can’t take any more messages from you.”
“That’s fine, we’ll just keep calling back. In fact, maybe we’ll get a few of our employees to call, too. Would that tie up your lines?”
“What is it you want?” It finally sounds as if there’s a crack in Miss Ernestine’s composure.
“The same thing we always wanted. To speak with Dr. Mendina.”
“But I’ve explained that he’s not available. I will give him your message, but he cannot come to the phone right now.”
“That’s fine,” I say. “But since he never returns our calls, we’ll just keep calling till he can come to the phone. ’Bye now—”
“Wait!” She’s breathing heavily. “I’ll see if I can get him. Please hold.”
After an amazingly brief interlude, a male voice says, “Yes?” with just a trace of irritation.
“Dr. Mendina, I presume?” The humor is lost on him.
“Yes. What can I do for you?”
“This is Wyn Mor—”
“I know who you are, Ms. Morrison, and I have to say it’s incredibly rude of you to interrupt my practice with these ceaseless, badgering calls, and I—”
“Excuse me, but I think it’s incredibly rude of you not to return our calls. It’s not as if we’re selling magazine subscriptions. We want to discuss our lease.”
“If you’d left a message, I would have called you back.”
“When? I’ve left at least six messages, not counting today’s.”
“Really? That’s odd. I don’t recall seeing any of them.”
“Well, then you might want to consider getting a new receptionist.”
“I do apologize for the oversight. Now tell me what you’d like to discuss.”
“We’d like to discuss the twenty percent rent increase.”
“That isn’t open for discussion.”
“We would like you to understand that by raising the rent that much, you are, in effect, putting us out of business.”
“I’m very sorry. However, the fact remains that increases are necessary in order to repair and restore the building.”
“Don’t you think twenty percent is a bit excessive?”
“I do not.”
“It seems to me that it would be smarter for you to make a bit less money and keep long-term tenants in the place, rather than having a pretty building with a bunch of vacant spaces.”
“I can assure you, Ms. Morrison, the spaces will not be vacant for long. If you choose to leave, that is.”
“We don’t choose to leave; you’re kicking us out.”
“I most certainly am not. Did I not send you a lease? All you have to do is sign it and you will be my valued tenants once more.”
“Yes, well, the fact is, we can’t afford it.”
“Have you thought about increasing your prices? Rent is a cost of doing business, you know.”
Condescending bastard. “Whatever your delusions—excuse me, I mean illusions—about this neighborhood, the people who live here are not going to pay three-fifty for a bran muffin.”
“That’s where I believe you’re being very shortsighted. People—particularly the type of people who are moving to Queen Anne in droves—will pay whatever it costs. Particularly if you serve it up to them in beautiful surroundings. Now, I’ve seen the Queen Street Bakery, and frankly it could use some renovations. Get rid of those junky tables and chairs, get some Euro-style furniture, some French or Italian café tables, some nice, comfortable chairs. Upgrade your physical plant, go all stainless steel and glass, brighten the place up. Make it more sleek, contemporary—”
I laugh in spite of myself. “All that stuff costs money. Are you buying?”
“Ms. Morrison—”
“Besides that, the bakery is a fixture on the hill. People love it the way it is. They don’t want some Euro-style coffeehouse. There are plenty of those around. The bakery has the character of the neighborhood—”
“And the character of the neighborhood is rapidly changing. I’m not changing it; it’s been under way for some time. If I hadn’t bought the building, somebody else would have, and you’d be facing exactly the same situation. So I’d appreciate it if you’d quit trying to cast me as the villain in this drama. The bottom line is, you can either sign the lease, change with the times, and become successful, or you can resist
change, close your business, and find a job.”
“You have no idea what you’re really doing here—”
“Miss Morrison, you are really very much out of step with current trends. And I really need to get back to my patient. I’ll wait to hear from you.”
I hang up the phone and look at Ellen. She doesn’t say a word, just looks right back at me. It’s so quiet we can hear Myra’s tape player next door. She must be alone, because most of her clients are middle-aged and older and they’re not generally into Jimi Hendrix.
Finally Ellen slaps her palms on her thighs. “Well,” she says, “I think I’ll go home and have hazelnut pound cake with chocolate ganache for dinner.”
twenty-three
It’s six A.M. on March 1, and we’re all waiting for Ellen, who’s been in the bathroom for the last twenty minutes trying to stop crying. She came out a few minutes ago, then as soon as she saw all of us, she turned around without a word and went back in the bathroom. There’s a deathly hush hanging over the place, and I find that I’m impatient. It’s like those dreams about falling off a cliff, where you just keep falling and never get to the bottom.
The Queen Street Bakery doesn’t have a lot of staff meetings. Ellen says the last one she can recall was when she and Diane bought the bakery from Patty Turnbull, who decided it would be less stressful to work as a paramedic.
So everyone knows something big is up, and most of them probably figure the news isn’t good. Tyler, of course, already knows, so she’s busy acting self-important and milking it for all the drama it’s worth. She’s sitting at a table with Misha and Jen. Rose is perched on the stool at the register and Susan, Barb, and Kristen are sipping lattes at another table. I’m leaning against the counter.
Finally Ellen appears, face splotched and puffy, eyes red. Her brave smile keeps twisting involuntarily. She walks over and stands next to me, resting her elbows on the counter. I notice that her hands are shaking.
“I want—” Her voice cracks and she clears her throat. “I want to thank you all for coming in so early this morning. I’m afraid the news I have to share with you is not good. I’ll be brief. Our building has been sold. The new owner has decided to restore the place to its original glory, and in order to do this, he’s planning to raise everyone’s rent when their lease comes up for renewal. Ours is up May first.”
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