by Jeff Shelby
“They look like they're going to fight.”
“Then we should go,” Emily said. “We aren't armed.”
I handed her the keys. “Go wait in the car. I'll be there in a minute.”
She sucked in a breath. “What? No! Don't go in there!”
I walked toward the door. “Just go get in the car.”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” she said, frowning. But she didn’t try to stop me and instead sprinted for the car. Self-preservation was in full-on operational mode.
I opened the door to the restaurant and their voices spilled out like they were being amplified by a megaphone.
“I don't care what you say!” Bjorn screamed. “You are a liar!”
“You are a bigger liar!” the other man screamed back. “And a terrible cook!”
Bjorn’s expression darkened. “Then you learned from the worst!”
“Yes!” the other man thundered. And then he frowned. “No! That doesn't even make sense!”
“Get out of my restaurant!” Bjorn made a waving motion at the door, but he still hadn’t noticed me.
“With pleasure!” the man said, turning in my direction.
“And don't ever come back, Arnold!” Bjorn hollered. “Not ever! I will have you thrown out!”
“Then you have nothing to worry about!” the man yelled back. “Because you couldn't pay me to come in this dump ever again!”
“GET OUT!”
“WITH PLEASURE!”
The man stormed past me, shoved the door open so hard that it banged against the wall and ricocheted back into place with a thud.
Bjorn's face was bright red, his hands balled into fists. His body looked like it was vibrating. The buck mounted on the wall stared stoically at us, as if watching two men yell at each other was a normal occurrence at Big Mama’s.
“Are you...are you alright, Bjorn?” I asked. “I heard the screaming and—”
“I am fine!” he screamed.
I took a step back, lifting my hands in a defensive gesture.
The movement snapped him out of whatever angry trance he'd been in and he blinked several times, almost as if he needed to physically clear the rage from his eyes. He took a deep breath. “I am sorry. I didn't mean to yell.” Another deep breath, air in through the nose, out through the mouth. “But I am fine.”
“I'm sorry I interrupted,” I told him. “But I heard the yelling and I was worried.”
“Do not be sorry,” he said. “It is probably for the best.” His face darkened again. “I might've killed him if you hadn't come in.”
“I gathered that.” I tried to inject some lightness in my tone and my expression, because those were some serious words. And I didn’t know Bjorn well enough to determine if he was just being dramatic or if he really would have killed the man.
“He is...he is trying to destroy me!” he said, his voice rising again. “And I will not have it!”
“Destroy you?” I furrowed my brow. “How?”
“He wants this place closed!” he said, beginning to shake again. “He...he is a traitor!”
“A traitor?” I didn’t mean to keep repeating part of his statements and rephrase them as questions, but I genuinely was not following.
Bjorn was making a concerted effort to get himself under control. He’d taken more deep breaths and closed his eyes. I was waiting for him to drop to the floor in some meditative position. Instead, he ran a hand over his face and shook his head, staring at the ground. “I...I cannot explain right now.”
I swallowed my disappointment. I’d just walked in on two men at each other’s throats. One was still rattled enough that, minutes after the encounter, was still struggling to regain his composure. He’d hurled accusations around—both to the man himself and to me—that were provocative enough to make me want more details but vague enough that I still have no clue what had just transpired.
I glanced at Bjorn. He was still doing the breathing thing, his nostrils flaring as he pulled in oxygen. His skin was flushed red and the hand he brought to his forehead to wipe away beads of sweat was still shaking.
I wisely decided that it might not be the best time to press for details.
“You don't have to explain,” I said. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
He stared past me out the window. “I have things to do. But I am okay. Thank you for your concern.”
I smiled. “Any time.”
He pivoted on his heel, away from me and muttered under his breath, “I will deal with that traitor.”
Before I could say anything else, he turned and stalked into the kitchen.
FOURTEEN
“So, wait,” Will said, reaching for the bowl of pasta. “Can you describe the guy again?”
We were at dinner and Emily had relayed our afternoon experience to the rest of the family, complete with details on the creepy guy on the corner and the yelling inside Big Mama's. Will, for whatever reason, had taken a strong interest in the argument.
“The other yelling guy?” I asked, spinning the last noodle on my plate onto my fork. I hadn’t wanted to turn on the oven so we’d opted for an easy dinner of fettuccine alfredo and a salad. “Kinda short. Blond hair. Looks sort of like a bodybuilder. Big shoulders and arms.”
Will nodded and set the bowl back down. “Oh yeah. Pretty sure that's Arnold.”
“Who is Arnold?” Grace asked. She and Sophie had spent the better part of the afternoon filling up water balloons and chucking them at each other, and her hair was still damp. “And what kind of name is that? Arnold is a weird name.”
“Names can't be weird,” Emily said. She was eating and drinking gingerly, as if her nails were still wet and she didn’t want to smudge them. “Names are just names. There’s nothing weird about them.”
“The weirdest name I've ever heard is Kanye,” Sophie offered. Her hair was still wet, too. “I think he made that up.”
“Let's go back to the original question,” Jake said, reaching for the salad bowl. He’d gotten home from work only fifteen minutes earlier and was still dressed in dress pants and a dark gray polo. “Who is Arnold?”
“Arnold owns the other taco shop,” Will informed us. He slurped a noodle, and a dollop of extra sauce landed above his upper lip. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. “It's over in South Moose River.”
“There's no such thing as South Moose River,” Emily said with disdain.
Will poured himself another glass of water. “There's a group of businesses that are trying to compete with the businesses on Main Street. Sort of over by the music store. It's at the south end of town and they are calling it South Moose River.” He shook his head at his older sister. “For someone who spends so much time on her phone, it's amazing how little you know.”
“It's amazing how annoying you are.”
“Stop,” I said, taking the salad from Jake. “Okay. South Moose River. Another taco shop. How do you know all of this?”
“It's on the community message board,” he explained. “For the town of Moose River. People post things all day long. It's hilarious. Sometimes there's good information about events and things going on or people starting a new business. But other times, people just post about how they're mad there aren't enough parking spaces at the post office, or how somebody's dog pooped in their yard. It's hilarious.”
“And you're a member of this message board?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. Anyone who lives here can be a member. There's some decent stuff sometimes. I always post when there's gonna be bad weather because you'd be really shocked at how many people don't have weather apps and they get on the board to find out what the weather's gonna be.” He smiled. “It's also funny to see people fighting about dog poop.”
“How did I not know this?” I asked.
Will looked at me. “What? About the message boards?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That my son is doing things on the Internet that I know nothing about.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What other sites have you been visiting?”
He rolled his eyes. “Seriously? I like weather and news and gaming. So unless there’s a news site you don’t want me going to, I think we’re cool.” He paused, and then added, “You can check my search history if you want.”
I frowned. Will was brilliant with computers, and I had no doubt that if I looked, his search history would only show me what he wanted me to see. But I also knew that, despite his penchant for annoying his sisters and butting into other people’s business, he was relatively harmless.
“That sounds exactly like Moose River,” Jake said. He’d scraped his plate clean and was staring at the bowl as if contemplating seconds. Or thirds; I didn’t know if he’d already reloaded his plate once. “North Moose River, anyway.”
I pointed my fork at Will. “Wait. Rewind.”
He made a face. “About what? The sites I visit? I already told you, I—”
“No. Arnold. Tell me more about him.”
“Oh yeah, right,” he said. A look of relief might have crossed his face and I immediately made a mental note to pay more attention to his screen time. “Arnold Eck. He owns the new taco shop. Tiny Papa's Tacos.”
Jake chuckled. “Tiny Papa's?”
“Yeah, that's right.”
“I wonder if he knows that's the opposite of Big Mama's,” Sophie observed. She was dragging her fork through the noodles, making some sort of design that resembled string art.
“It is!” Grace said, coming to the same conclusion. “That's really weird!”
“And probably illegal,” Emily said. “I mean, you can't just name your business that is the same as another business the opposite because that could cause a problem for the first business. It's illegal.”
Will's face screwed up with distaste. “What are you even talking about? It's not illegal. You don't think someone can call their own business whatever they want? What do they teach you in your school?”
Will was always needling Emily and her decision to go to public school.
“It has to be illegal,” she said, squirming in her chair and thankfully not taking the bait. “Because people might get them confused or something. Right, Mom?”
“Oh my god,” Will said, rolling his eyes. “You are such an—”
“Stop,” I said, again. I was beginning to sound like a traffic cop. “But, no. I'm pretty sure it's not illegal. As long as it's not the same or someone else doesn't own the name, he can call it whatever he wants.”
“That's not fair,” Emily said. Fairness was important to her. Not as important as her cell phone or Andy, but it definitely made it to the top five, especially if the lack of fairness involved her. “It's like he's ripping off Big Mama's.”
“That's exactly what he's doing,” Will said, laughing.
“No, that should be illegal.”
I could see how she was working it all through her head. The fairness connection had kicked in. She was thinking that the new taco shop might put the old taco shop out of business by attracting more customers or new customers, and then she'd be out of a job and she'd never be able to get a job again and the world would turn into a fiery inferno. Which would definitely be unfair.
“It's not illegal,” I said again. “But who is this Arnold?”
Will drained his glass of water. “Arnold Eck. I told you. He's been posting on the message board about deals and stuff that they are offering. And all these different kinds of tacos that he's making. I don't like tacos, so I don't really pay attention to that stuff, but he posts nearly every day about something. New business owners in town are encouraged to post things so people know about them.” He set his glass down. “Oh, and I'm pretty sure he said something or someone else did that he used to work at Big Mama's.”
At the very least, I was getting a better handle on why he and Bjorn might've been arguing. I could see why Bjorn might feel threatened by a new business in town. And after the stress he'd experienced with Ted's poisoning, he was no doubt on edge.
“Did you know him, Emily?” Jake asked.
“I don't remember a weird, muscly guy,” she said. She was examining her nails, turning her hand from side to side. “Or anyone named Arnold.”
“He doesn't seem that weird, to be honest,” Will said. “I mean, there are a ton of weird people on that board, but he seems kinda sane. There's this one lady who freaks out about people who drive past her house because she's afraid they might hit her cat so she wants the police to come hang out and look for speeders and to put a stop sign up in front of her house. In the middle of the street.”
“She shouldn't let her cat be outside,” Sophie said. “It could get hurt. By the speeding car or other things.”
“Yeah,” Grace said. “Like a rabid turtle or something.”
“Turtles don’t get rabies,” Will told her. And then he looked at me. “Do they?”
I had absolutely no idea if rabies was transmissible to turtles.
“Fine, then. A snake. A snake could hurt a cat.”
“Except we don’t have any poisonous snakes in this part of Minnesota,” Will informed her. “And no constrictors, either.”
Grace frowned. “What’s a constrictor?”
“You know,” Sophie said, her eyes growing wide. “The kind of snakes that squeeze you until your eyes pop out of your head.”
Grace’s own eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her head.
“Let’s forget about rabid turtles and squeezing snakes and get back to Arnold being sane,” I said. “Did he say he used to work at Big Mama's?”
Will shrugged. “I can't remember. Either he said it or someone else did. But if he used to work at another taco shop and got an idea for opening his own, Big Mama's is probably the only other place he could've worked in Moose River, right?”
I nodded. “Probably so.”
“You should go try it,” he said. “See if it's any good.”
“No!” Emily screeched. “You can't go give him money.”
“Well, technically, Mom wouldn't be giving him money if she bought something. She'd be buying—”
“Shut up,” she said. “Mom, you can't go there. That's not fair to Big Mama's.”
“Fair?” Will was irritated, but also happy to see he'd riled up his sister. “What does fair have to do with it? It's business.”
“I'm not talking to you,” she growled, before turning back to me. “Mom, but do you know what I'm saying? I work there. If you go to this other weirdo's restaurant, it's pretty much like you want me to lose my job.”
Grace elbowed Sophie. “Let's go upstairs. Everyone's gonna start yelling in a minute.”
Sophie wadded up her napkin. “Okay.”
They both scrambled out of their chairs and after depositing their dishes in the kitchen, hustled up the stairs.
“How would you lose your job?” Will asked, still staring at her as if she'd lost her mind. He did that frequently.
“Because if people start going over to Tiny Papa's and ignoring Big Mama's, then Bjorn will make less money, which means he'll have less money to pay me and I'll be out on the street.”
Will dissolved into laughter, unable to even deal with his sister's anxiety.
“You're done,” I said to Will. “You're excused.”
He was still laughing as he headed for his room.
“You will not be out on the street,” I told her once her brother was out of earshot. “Even if you were to lose your job for any reason, you would still have...a home.”
“But I'd be on the street looking for another job,” she said, her eyes wide. “Unemployment is bad in this country. And people from other countries are trying to steal my job!”
“Your job?” I asked. “Literally, your job at Big Mama’s? There have been immigrants who have come in and tried to take your job?”
“Well, no, but that’s what everyone says…”
“I think we need to see which news channels she's been watching,” Jake said
, balling up his napkin and setting it on his plate. “And then eliminate them from the cable package.”
“No one is trying to steal your job,” I assured her. “And I promise you that any money we might spend in another eating establishment will not be enough to ensure the downfall of Big Mama's.”
She folded her arms across her chest. Carefully, of course. “You can't go over there.”
“And you can't tell me what to do,” I said, reminding her that I was still the parent.
She pushed back from the table with a flourish, popping to her feet. “Fine! I'll just lose my job and forget college and become a hobo then! Since you don't care about me!” She stomped to her room and slammed the door behind her.
“You're the one who really likes the family dinners, right?” Jake asked. “Having us all around the table at the same time? It’s you, right?”
“I wonder if there is some sort of name infringement,” I said, ignoring him and gathering the plates still remaining on the table.
“The only word that's similar is tacos,” he said. “No one can trademark that.”
“I guess. But it could explain all the yelling.”
“Or they could just be laying the groundwork for a taco war.”
“That sounds like a reality TV series.”
Jake smiled. “I'd watch it.”
I set the plates by the sink and fished out the dish soap from underneath the counter. I turned the tap on, letting the temperature warm up before positioning the stopper.
“They were really going at it,” I told him as I watched the sink fill with bubbles. “I mean, I thought they were going to punch one another until Arnold left.”
“Good thing he left then,” he said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But a new taco shop really could have an effect on Bjorn.”
“I know,” Jake said, nodding. He grabbed a towel off the oven door and stood beside me, ready for drying duty. “He's having a rough week.”
I nodded. He really was. I didn't know him well at all, but Bjorn had been nice enough to Emily and she said he'd been a good boss. She enjoyed working there. Those things alone made me feel badly for him, that he was getting hit with an avalanche of adversity.
