I had just slipped the phone back into my apron when the door opened, the little bell chiming the arrival of Kit and Max.
“Hey, big sis.” Kit leaned over the counter and kissed me on both cheeks. “We’re starving.”
Max smiled from behind her.
I waved my arm, Vanna-style, at the empty front booths. We were in our lull between lunch and dinner. “You must be. It’s late—you haven’t eaten at all?”
Charlie, through the window, snorted. “Tell her to get her order in in the next five minutes or Sam will make her breakfast.”
Sam was one of our part-timers. He was a decent line cook, but no one could top Charlie behind the grill.
“Pancakes, please,” Kit called from across the room, settling into one of the booths across from the counter. “With extra blueberries. And hash browns, extra crispy!”
I brought over two waters and handed Max a menu. He had sat beside Kit, instead of across.
“Could I just have a salad?”
“Are you sure?” I glanced at him worriedly.
Kit tore the paper wrapper off a straw and stuck it in her water glass. “He doesn’t eat any animal products. Not even honey.”
“Let me see what Charlie can do.”
Charlie grilled a mountain of vegetables, which he served with rice and black beans left over from last night’s burrito special, but not before raising his eyebrows, his way of saying Let me guess, next you are going to expect me to cook tofu? I shrugged and nodded my head in affirmation. He made Kit’s pancakes “nana-style,” which meant they were stacked tall, cut into perfect wedges, and topped with butter and maple syrup, so that the butter and syrup had a chance to melt down the layers before they reached the table. It was something the regulars knew to ask for.
Once I had them fed and watered, I slipped into the booth, sighing, my back and feet grateful for the relief.
Max had taken off his sweater. He was wearing an old V-neck T-shirt, the neck stretched, revealing a black and white tattoo of a woman on his chest. She looked vaguely familiar. “Did you both sleep all right?” I asked, sipping the diet soda that fueled most of my days.
“Yes, thank you,” said Max.
“So, we are going to sell, right? Did Mr. Hickey say what the place was worth?” Kit asked as she forked a wedge of pancake into her mouth.
I looked around my shoulder to make sure the dining room was still empty. “Slow down, Kit. Mrs. Johnson hasn’t been in the grave for a week yet. These things take time.”
Kit glanced at Max. “How much time?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. The estate has to go through probate. I’m sure they want to make sure that no one wants to contest the will. There are back taxes that need to be paid. Mr. Hickey just said a real estate developer claimed to have come to an agreement with Peggy about the property, but they haven’t shown him any documentation. It’s not like we have a formal offer.” I took a long sip of the soda, looking out the window, and thought about the sculptures I had found. There were more of them in the woods, I was sure of it. I wanted a chance to discover what else Peggy Johnson had left behind. “And besides, we need to be thoughtful about who we sell the land to, when we do.”
“But we’re going to sell the land to the highest bidder, right?” Kit took the saltshaker out of its metal holder and started furiously salting her hash browns.
“Kit, we can’t make a decision that will affect the whole town just because someone is offering a lot of money—”
“God forbid something changes around here,” Kit said under her breath. She stopped salting. “When you say a lot, exactly what are we talking about?”
I leaned my head back onto the booth. “Do you want to let me in on what’s going on?”
Kit glanced over at Max. “We need the money.”
“I picked up on that. Don’t you have money left over from the house?” I turned my attention from Kit to Max’s tattoos. The face of the woman on his chest rose and fell as he ate his breakfast.
“I invested it.”
I took a deep breath. It wasn’t just that we had sold the house. We had to get rid of all of Dad’s Chuck Berry memorabilia. And Mom’s collection of antique spinning wheels. All the spare diner parts that Dad had acquired while he worked on the renovation. And I had to find a new home for the small herd of dairy goats I had raised, a hobby I had kept up since the year I won a blue ribbon in 4-H. If we had sold our childhood home so Kit could “invest” in fire-eating classes, I was going to batter and deep-fry her.
“In what?” I tried to keep my tone light, and failed.
Kit winced. “Jesus, Nora. Could you at least hear me out before you decide it’s a bad idea?”
“Kitten,” Max said, reaching for her arm.
Kit brushed his hand away. “No, I told you she’d be like this.”
“Like what?” I crossed my arms.
“Like this,” she said, folding her arms to match mine, staring me down. “I don’t want to talk to you about it if you’re going to be all judgy.”
I unfolded my arms. “I’m not being like anything.” I closed my eyes and took a long sip of the soda, trying to channel my mom’s calm demeanor. “Kit, it was your money, you had every right to do whatever you wanted with it,” I said.
Kit snorted. To anyone else it would have sounded like I was telling the truth, but Kit knew me better than anyone else.
“Tell her, please,” Max said gently. Kit looked up at Max. She took a deep breath. “We’re making a movie. A feature.”
Max smiled. “It’s really good. Your sister is an amazing screenwriter. And director.”
Kit sat up straight, beaming. “And Max is an incredible cinematographer. And animator! I can’t wait for you to see his work.” Kit grabbed his arm. “Did you bring copies of the shorts?”
“They’re on my hard drive.”
“You have to watch them. They’re breathtaking.” Kit reached her arms across the table and made little grippy motions with her hands. I reluctantly put my arms on the table. She grabbed my hands and squeezed.
“Nora, we have this incredible opportunity. One of the organizers of Premiere Festival saw a short we made, and after reading our script, she invited us to show the feature at next year’s festival, as a part of their Celebration of Indies theme.”
“It’s huge,” Max said.
“It’s huge,” Kit agreed. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Producers come to the festival. Distributors. Not to mention all the A-list actors and, like, every entertainment reporter in the world. It could be our big break.” Kit bounced on the Naugahyde seat, not able to contain her energy. “But we ran into a little trouble while we were shooting.”
“Our camera and computer were stolen,” Max said.
“We need funds to get new equipment,” Kit said, pushing past the theft.
“And lights,” said Max.
“And there is postproduction—”
“And travel expenses—”
“We’ve already maxed out our credit cards.” Kit looked a little sheepish. She squeezed my hand again. “And we sort of got behind in our rent and have been living in the Vanagon.”
I pulled my hands back. “You’re homeless?”
The bell above the door tinkled. Fern walked in, singing an old Billie Holiday song.
“I wouldn’t describe us as homeless, exactly,” Kit said before pushing Max out of the booth. “We’re just temporarily without an address. Like gypsies.” She sprang up and wrapped her arms around Fern. “Third Degree Fern!” she squealed.
“I know it’s not my place . . . but maybe you could just call the developer guy? See what he has to say?” Max gave me a sheepish grin. “I’m sorry. I’m not into crossing the family line, but this is an amazing opportunity. The festival scout was super encouraging. And your sister is brilliant
.” Max studied the swirly pattern of the Formica table. “Also . . . would it be okay if we stayed another night? Or two? It’s really great to have access to a shower.”
I looked from him to my little sister. Kit had sat Fern down on one of the stools at the counter and was pinning her hair in a complicated up-do with glittery hair clips. “I’ll pick up some soy milk on my way home.”
* * *
A man wearing a smart, navy blue suit sat in the corner booth, and by his tasseled loafers alone I knew he must be the representative from HG, the corporation that wanted to build a superstore in Guthrie. His classic men’s haircut somehow looked extra polished, like it had been styled in a salon and not in a barbershop. I watched him from behind the register. I thought I might catch him wiping off the seat or something—he looked so out of place on the Naugahyde bench, his suit sleeves pressing against the tin rim of the table. Instead, he looked thoughtfully at the menu, waited patiently, and smiled at Fern when she asked if she could take his order.
Our meeting was scheduled for 3:00 P.M. I had offered to meet him someplace neutral, but he had insisted on coming to us. It was 1:30. He must have needed lunch.
“He’s kind of cute,” Fern said to me as she leaned over to hang her order in the kitchen window. “If you don’t mind those ears.”
Charlie poked his head out the kitchen window to check him out. “He looks ex-pen-sive,” Charlie said, doing his best Nina Garcia. Charlie, Fern, and I were faithful Project Runway fans. We got together every week and critiqued the designs while eating nachos and drinking Fern’s famous margaritas.
I peeked over at the HG rep. The sun was pouring through the window beside him, lighting him from behind, making his protruding ears glow pink. “I don’t know. Those are perfectly nice-looking ears.”
“See if you can sit next to him during your meeting. He smells really good.”
I elbowed Fern in the ribs. “And I smell like ketchup and Windex. No, thank you.” Someone had neglected to screw on the top of a squeeze bottle, and ketchup had spilled on me and on the stack of lunch menus. I had spent all of my free time that morning trying to clean them. “Besides, he’s here looking for land, not a date.”
“You never know,” Fern said, grabbing two plates of grilled cheese and fries for a table in the back. “I’ve met men under stranger circumstances.”
Charlie snorted loudly enough for us to hear him in the dining room. Fern had met men under every circumstance. At the grocery store. While bowling. At the redemption center. At the sheepdog-herding trials. While getting her eyebrows waxed. There was something about Fern that was magical. She was like Kit in that way.
The man looked over at me and smiled briefly before returning his attention to his neatly folded copy of the Coventry County Record.
Kit and Max tumbled in like bear cubs shortly before three and covered the counter with their tossed-off jackets and backpacks. Kit walked behind the counter, poured herself and Max cups of coffee, and helped herself to the last couple of cider donuts in the glass-lidded cake stand that sat on the counter.
“We made the cutest little stop-motion animation today,” Kit said, her mouth full of donut. Max pulled out a small, red video camera and flipped open the screen.
“I thought you said you needed a camera?” I said, pointing to the screen, where a wedge of cheese was dancing the tango with a stack of green grapes.
“This is basically a toy,” Max said, shrugging. “We use it to film a location we want to remember—”
“Or to do a spur-of-the-moment interview.” Kit took the camera out of Max’s hands, pushed a couple of buttons, and aimed the lens at me. “So tell me, Nora Huckleberry, what do you think the role of the American diner is in society today?” Kit said in a stentorian voice. “Community gathering place or—”
I held up a menu to cover my face and stepped out of Kit’s frame. “No comment.”
When I glanced over at the corner table, it was empty. I untied my apron, folded it carefully so the loose change wouldn’t spill out onto the floor, and stuffed it beside the register. “Are you ready for this meeting? Just remember, we aren’t making a decision today, we are just on a fact-finding mission.”
“Dollar amounts are facts,” Kit said, raising her coffee cup up to Max. They clinked drinks.
“Kitty,” I warned. Kit tended to be an act-first, apologize-later kind of person. I needed to keep her in check. “And keep that thing turned off,” I said, pointing to the camera. “We don’t want to freak him out.”
Fern came out from the kitchen with her hair down, her handbag slung over her shoulder. “All right, sisters. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I walked out from behind the counter and looked into the empty dining room. “Has Liz come in yet?” Liz was my night waitress.
“Not yet. She called—something about the starter in her car? She said she can catch a ride from her husband, but she’ll be a bit late.”
I looked at the clock over the counter. It was the original, an electric number with an advertisement for Dr Pepper in the center. It was time for our meeting. “You can’t stay till she gets here, can you?”
“Sorry, sweetie, but I have to pick up the kids. Charlie can—”
Fern was interrupted by the sound of a man clearing his throat. “Mrs. LaPlante?”
I turned to face him and smiled. “Hi, yes, sorry—it’s Ms. Ms. Huckleberry. If you don’t mind.” I hadn’t gotten around to changing my name back since the divorce. It wasn’t the LaPlante that bothered me, it was the title. Every time I heard Mrs. it made me feel a tiny bit like a failure.
“Ms. Huckleberry.”
The man held out his hand to me and I shook it. He had a practiced grip—not too firm to seem aggressive, but not limp, either. He leaned toward me a fraction of an inch as he shook my hand, and I could smell the cologne he was wearing. Fern was right, he did smell good. Like leather and peat fire and top-shelf whiskey. It was what I imagined a tavern in Ireland would smell like. I had always wanted to see the Cliffs of Moher.
“Elliot Danforth. Great to meet you. And is this Katherine?” He smiled over at my sister.
Kit swiveled on her stool and slid off. “Kit Huckleberry. Excellent to meet you.” The thousand thin silver bracelets she wore on both arms clinked as she shook his hand.
He held up a briefcase and pointed it toward an empty booth. Kit and I slid in, leaving Max at the counter. “Shall we get started?”
Elliot Danforth went into his pitch—about what benefits HG would bring to the town of Guthrie—the jobs, the tax revenue, the spending dollars of shoppers from neighboring towns. Kit peppered him with questions, trying to steer him in the direction of time frame, but he wouldn’t take the bait.
“Of course, we hope to make this a satisfying offer for you both, Ms. Huckleberry,” he said, his voice trailing off.
“Sounds great. Where do we sign?” Kit asked.
“Kit, he hasn’t even made the offer,” I said, annoyed that she was acting so impulsively, which is to say, acting exactly like herself. “Maybe it won’t be to our liking,” I said slowly, giving Kit a hard look.
“First things first,” Elliot said, smiling warmly, like he knew we were in his pocket. “We’ve already had the land surveyed. There are some zoning issues, but that is not unusual. I plan to approach the zoning board at the next town meeting. Do you usually attend?”
I nodded. “We close for dinner on town meeting day every month so the whole staff can attend.”
A flash of surprise crossed Elliot’s face before he returned to his pitch. “We are looking at several other properties in the neighboring communities.” He looked at me then, his expression neutral. “But I think Guthrie and HG could form an excellent partnership.”
Elliot reached into his suit jacket pocket and retrieved an envelope. He took out a folded piece of paper and slid it across the ta
ble. “This was the offer we made to Ms. Johnson.”
The bell over the door rang, and an older couple walked in. They waved at us as they took a couple of seats at the counter. Charlie sighed loudly as he wrapped one of the deep-pocketed waitress aprons around his waist and pulled out an order pad and a pen.
Beside me Kit made a small gasping sound. “It’s to my liking,” she whispered as she held it open for me to see.
It was a lot of money. Potentially a life-changing amount of money, depending on what kind of life you wanted. It was certainly enough to pay off Peggy’s debts and to give both Kit and me a new start in life. I thought about how nice it would feel to have some money in the bank for when the next inevitable diner emergency came up. Charlie had just mentioned that the convection oven was acting up again. And a few of the tiles around the men’s bathroom sink had come loose and revealed signs of a leaky pipe. It was only a matter of time before the whole floor would need to be redone.
The phone rang, interrupting my thoughts. Charlie handed the couple two menus and grabbed the receiver.
“I know you will want to talk it over. It’s a big decision.”
“Is this an offer for the whole property, or just the farmland?” I hadn’t had the chance to walk deeper into the woods, beyond the Moxie horse, to see if there were any more treasures hiding in the forest.
“That’s for the entire property. I can have the surveyor send you over a copy of his notes.”
I wondered if the surveyor had come across the horse sculpture. What would a stranger have thought of it?
The Late Bloomers' Club Page 4
