Plot Boiler

by Ali Brandon

It was a couple of minutes before ten when Darla deemed the shop ready and headed for the front. She could see through the door’s mottled glass window a shadowy figure waiting on the stoop, disproving Robert’s prediction regarding the lack of early shoppers. Stifling another yawn, she unhooked the chain and turned the dead bolt.

  “George,” she exclaimed as she opened the door and saw the self-proclaimed King of Coffee—unshaven and looking unsettled—standing on the stoop.

  He wandered into the bookstore wearing the same blue Perky’s shirt he’d had on the day before, outlines of yesterday’s sweat stains showing beneath the arms. He squinted at Darla for a moment, as if not certain who she was, and then said, “I needed a cuppa coffee, so I figured I could get one here.”

  “Of course!”

  She knew without asking that he’d obviously not been able to face going back into his own shop alone, not even for a simple cup of coffee. From his puzzled expression, it seemed he still struggled to accept the fact of Livvy’s death. While coffee wouldn’t restore his world to what it had been a day ago, perhaps it would help clear his head enough that he could begin considering the steps to take next.

  But Darla hesitated. When it came to literal steps, he looked more than a little unsteady on his feet. No way was she going to risk the stairs with him just to get him his coffee. Gesturing him instead to the bistro table near the dumbwaiter, she said, “Let’s sit over here, and I’ll send up an order.”

  Once she had him settled in a chair, she handed him the short list of their coffee offerings. George gave it an indifferent look and said, “Dark roast, two creams, no sugar.”

  “Got it.”

  She scribbled his order on the order pad and hit the “Call” button. George watched wordlessly as the dumbwaiter doors opened a few moments later, and Darla put his order on the vintage Blue Willow plate sitting there for that purpose. Then, as she punched the button again to send the dumbwaiter upstairs again, he grunted.

  “Pretty clever,” he admitted. Then, clearing his throat, he added, “I wanted to, uh, thank you and your friend for staying with me yesterday while . . . well, you know. It helped, having someone there.”

  “We were happy to do it. The whole neighborhood is so sorry for your loss. And I’m sorry that I didn’t get a chance to know Livvy better.” Then, choosing her words carefully, she added, “About the . . . situation the other day with the Kona Blue Party. Why don’t we forget that happened?”

  George gave a vague wave of one beefy hand. “Yeah, sure. Thanks. Like I said, that was all Livvy.”

  He dropped his gaze back down to the coffee menu. Wanting to fill the suddenly uncomfortable silence, Darla said, “I should mention that Livvy ordered an expensive herbal reference book before she . . . well, before. It’s already paid for and should be here in the next few days, but if you want we can try to find another buyer for it.”

  “Nah, that’s okay,” was the morose response. “If she bought it, I should keep it.”

  “Sure. I’ll let you know when it comes in.” Then, trying to keep the conversational ball rolling, she asked, “So, was Livvy a coffee connoisseur before the two of you opened Perky’s?”

  George shrugged. “Nah, nothing like that. She used to be a ballet dancer. She was with one of those—whaddaya call ’em—companies.”

  Livvy had been a ballerina?

  Darla nodded to herself. It made sense; her sylphlike movements, even the bunned hair and leggings. She could readily picture Livvy practicing at a barre, could see her pirouetting across a stage.

  “So what happened?” she ventured aloud.

  “She quit because she couldn’t do it no more, not professionally. She was tired all the time, started waking up stiff. When it turned into pain, she went to the doc and found out she had RA.”

  “Were you two already married then?”

  George shook his head. “Nah, but that was around the time I met her. She was outta a job, and at loose ends, you know what I mean? Anyhows, I had some money back then, so we hooked up. You didn’t think she married me for my looks, didya?”

  Darla frowned a little. Surely something was missing from the man’s account. She had a hard time picturing two such different people simply “hooking up,” as George had put it. Maybe Livvy had found him amusing, or—though Darla shuddered to even think it!—maybe the man was exceptional in the bedroom. But now didn’t seem the time to give George the third degree.

  “I’m sure she found you attractive in many ways,” was Darla’s tactful response.

  The sound of the dumbwaiter returning gave her an excuse to change the subject. “Here comes your coffee. I hope you’ll find it up to your standards,” she told him as she opened the doors and removed the steaming cup.

  George took a perfunctory sip and then nodded.

  “Not bad, for rookies. Anyhows, Livvy was doing okay for the most part, but every so often she’d have one of them flare-ups. That’s when she needed me. She didn’t like all them high-powered meds the doc gave her. She made up—whatcha call ’em?—these herbal tincture things, rubbed that herbal stuff on her joints. The problem was, no matter how much stuff she drank and rubbed on herself, she still couldn’t do what she loved best.”

  George paused and tugged up one shirtsleeve, displaying high on his beefy left arm the tattoo of a stylized ballerina in midpirouette. Despite its simple lines, the image had an energy and grace that gave the inked image life. Below the figure was a tangle of flowered vines. Above the figure were curly letters spelling out the name Livvy.

  “I did this for her, so she knew I always thought of her as my little ballerina. I always had a thing for them ballet girls.”

  Letting the sleeve fall back into place, he pulled a handkerchief from his pants pocket and honked loudly into it.

  Darla felt hard-pressed not to do the same. Despite all the bluster, it was obvious that George had truly loved his wife. Discreetly wiping away a tear of her own, she asked, “Do you have any idea yet what you want to do as far as a service?”

  He nodded.

  “Yeah, she had it all written out, ’cause she figured she might go before me. Yeah, yeah, I know,” he added with a deprecating pat of his belly, “I’m not exactly the poster child for healthy living. But according to the doc, she has—had—a good chance of checking out early, you know what I mean?”

  He honked again and stuffed the hankie back into his trouser pocket. “She said she didn’t wanna be buried . . . said that wasn’t green enough for her,” he clarified with a snort that momentarily made him sound like the old George again. “So I’ll arrange one of them memorial things for her, and then I’ll go scatter her ashes around town like she wanted.”

  Darla raised a brow, picturing George in his Perky’s shirt scattering cremains throughout the city. All she said was, “Let me know where and when for the memorial, and I’ll be there.” Then, as the bells on the front door jingled, indicating an incoming customer, she rose and added, “The coffee’s on me, George. Feel free to sit here as long as you like.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s kinda hard to get comfortable when you got someone staring at you.”

  He nodded in the direction of the bookshelves behind Darla. She turned to see that, unknown to her, Hamlet had decided to join them. He perched in a gap between books that normally held a blue, fat-bellied vintage vase but now also displayed an oversized black feline. He sat stiffly upright, tail wrapped around his paws, and his cold green gaze fixed firmly on George.

  “Hamlet, it’s rude to stare,” she mildly rebuked him, even as she recalled that the cat had reason to distrust the coffee maven. On the bright side, at least Hamlet was confining his contempt to his patented glare of evil and wasn’t batting things around with his paws again.

  George shrugged. “Eh, I’d better go. Thanks for the cuppa. Maybe I’ll come by again tomorrow.”

  “Sur
e, stop by whenever you want.”

  Not that she particularly looked forward to his morose company again, but it seemed like a kind offer to make. She could afford the daily cost of a cup of coffee while he worked to get back on his emotional, and professional, feet again.

  While George saw himself out, Darla checked in with the newcomers, a young mom and her two grade-school-aged girls. “We’ll look at books in a minute,” the woman assured her. “What the kids really came for was to see that big black cat again, the one you had at the block party yesterday.”

  “His name is Hamlet,” the older of the two girls piped up, “and he’s a YouTube star.”

  “That he is,” Darla agreed with a smile. “But he’s pretty tuckered out from all the excitement yesterday. Let’s see if he’s up to meeting his public.”

  With their mom trailing behind, she walked the girls back over to the shelf where Hamlet had been scoping out George. With his nemesis gone, Hamlet had settled himself neatly in front of the books, paws tucked to his chest and tail lightly waving. He squinted at the girls as they approached, then gave the briefest purr of approval as they kept a respectful distance and merely oohed and aahed at him.

  “We had such fun yesterday,” the woman declared while her daughters debated the merits of cats of different colors. “The girls tried most of the games and crafts, and I sampled all of the food. And we all thought the band was wonderful.”

  “So glad you liked them,” Darla said, trying not to show her surprise at the Screaming Babies’ apparently wide appeal. “They’re a local group, but on their way up, so we were lucky to get them.”

  “They’d be wonderful entertainment at my nephew’s Bar Mitzvah. Could you possibly give me their number?”

  Nodding, Darla herded the trio to the register, where she looked up Pinky’s contact information and wrote it on one of her store fliers. The woman tucked the page into her purse and then glanced at the tennis bracelet watch on her wrist.

  “Oops, gotta run. We’ll come back and look at books next week,” she said, grasping a girl’s arm in either hand and rushing them toward the door.

  “At least someone got a boost from your block party,” Jake said with a chuckle. She’d come down the stairs just in time to overhear the last exchange, and now she joined Darla at the register. “You never know, playing here might have been the Screaming Babies’ big break.”

  “Well, if it was, Pinky better give us a shout-out when he and the boys are up on stage collecting their Grammy,” Darla ruefully replied.

  Jake’s smile broadened. “Too bad they weren’t listed by name on the flier as entertainment. You could have saved a handful then sold them off for big bucks in another few years on one of those auction sites.” Then her smile faded. “So, I was looking over the railing and saw George leaving. How’s he holding up after yesterday?”

  “As well as can be expected, I guess.”

  Swiftly, Darla told her what she’d learned about Livvy’s past and what George had said about Livvy’s concern that she might die first. When she’d finished, Jake nodded.

  “The fact she had rheumatoid arthritis might shed some light on why she died.”

  “But I didn’t think RA could kill you.”

  “Not by itself, no—it’s a chronic illness, not terminal one,” Jake replied. “A cousin of mine has it, so I know a little about how it works. The problem is that sufferers are more prone to cardiovascular disease and serious infections . . . and that’s what can kill them. And then there are some scary possible side effects from the medication, like gastrointestinal bleeding.”

  “Right, but, remember, Livvy pretty much treated herself.”

  Jake shrugged. “Like I said, it’s just a possibility. No one will know anything for sure until the ME’s report comes back. And speaking of reports, I’d better get that paperwork of mine finished. See you later, kid.”

  With the PI gone, that left Darla and Robert alone in the store. The latter came clattering down the stairs, though perhaps a little more slowly than usual. “Hey, Ms. P., pretty great that Mr. King thinks we make good coffee. You know since he’s, like, the Coffee King and all.”

  “It is great, but how did you know he said that?”

  “I heard him.” He cocked his head, looking surprised. “Didn’t you know? If the doors to the dumbwaiter are open on one end, and someone’s talking next to it on the other end, you can hear everything they’re saying . . . like they’re, you know, standing right next to you.”

  “Good to know,” Darla replied, hoping she hadn’t had any confidential conversations there at the bistro table. She added, “Since things are pretty quiet for the moment, why don’t you go down to Doug’s and pick up some doughnuts for the coffee bar for this afternoon? Half order only, and tell Doug to put it on our account.”

  While Robert went on his doughnut run, Darla made a round of the shop, stopping to scritch Hamlet under the chin as she passed him by. Normally, she didn’t mind those occasional times when she had the place to herself. It gave her a chance to privately revel in being a business owner, to quietly savor the knowledge that she was her own boss . . . the captain of her own Darla ship. But today, she couldn’t help thinking what it must be like for George, alone in his coffee shop and apartment.

  She was still contemplating that a few minutes later when Robert returned from his errand empty-handed.

  “The doughnut place was closed,” he explained.

  Darla frowned. “That’s odd. Doug didn’t say anything last night about not opening today. You mean that even the girl who helps him part-time wasn’t there?”

  Robert gave his head a vigorous shake. “Nope, no one. There wasn’t a sign or anything on the door, but I tried it, and it was locked. Maybe he’s, you know, sick.”

  Or maybe something has happened to Doug, as well.

  The unexpected thought flashed through her mind, giving her pause. Darla considered that notion for a moment and then deliberately dismissed it. One untimely death in the neighborhood was enough. Even so, she reached for her cell phone.

  “Maybe Livvy’s death shook him up enough so that he wasn’t up to opening. I’d better make sure he’s okay.”

  She pulled Doug’s number up in her contacts and dialed, only to get his voice mail. She hesitated and then hung up without leaving a message.

  “He probably just needed a vacation day,” she told Robert, though more to reassure herself than him. “Heck, we probably could use one, too. So let’s not worry about it. Go ahead and finish unboxing the stock from the beginning of the week.”

  As Robert left to attend to the stock, her phone gave a little buzz, indicating an incoming text message. Maybe Doug had seen her call and was checking back.

  But when she glanced at the message preview, she saw the sender was none other than Reese. Pulling up the full text, she read, Lunch on me at Thai place. 1 p.m. OK? Need to talk.

  ELEVEN

  Need to talk, my Brooklyn butt, she thought, momentarily channeling Penelope. He was a day too late for that! It would serve good old Fiorello right if she texted him back with a Sorry, got to work thru lunch, maybe another time.

  She stewed for a good five seconds. Then adult Darla shoved sixteen-year-old Darla back into her mental closet and typed back a noncommittal Fine, see you then. James would be arriving for his shift by that time, so Robert wouldn’t be alone.

  The rest of the morning went by surprisingly fast despite the fact that business was slow. Another little family group stopped in for a little Hamlet meet and greet—this time, a dad and his two sons—but at least the father actually purchased each boy a classic chapter book that he’d no doubt read himself as a kid. The monetary transaction earned them a follow-up appearance from Hamlet, who allowed both boys to give him a tentative pat.

  “You’re quite the salesman, Hammy,” Darla praised him, the compliment netting
her the feline version of a derisive snort as he gave a small hiss in return and abruptly stalked back to the bestseller table from where he’d come.

  Pinky paid a return visit, as well. To Darla’s shock, he arrived dressed all in white, wearing cargo pants and what she recognized as a guayabera, or a Mexican wedding shirt: short-sleeved cotton, with a straight hem across the bottom, and rows of tiny vertical pleats in front. It would have been a far more practical ensemble in yesterday’s heat than the all black he and his bandmates had worn at the block party, but Darla assumed they had a reputation to keep up, no matter how they suffered for it.

  Robert was restocking the bestseller table when his friend walked in. “Hey, dude! Great ironic look,” he said in approval. “And your sets yesterday . . . You guys really slayed.”

  Pinky ducked his head, seemingly embarrassed by what Darla assumed was high praise. “Yeah, well, it was kinda, you know, weird playing in the daytime, and for a bunch of normal people. But we sold, like, eleven CDs.”

  “You boys got lots of compliments,” Darla added. “I even had a woman come in today looking for your number so they could hire you for a Bar Mitzvah.”

  Pinky shot her a look of alarm, but whether it was because she’d referred to the band as “boys,” or because she’d suggested the Bar Mitzvah gig, she wasn’t sure. She unlocked the drawer beneath the counter and pulled out her checkbook. “Here’s the balance due,” she told him as she signed with a flourish, having added in the extra amount for the promised CD that he’d brought with him. “I’m sorry you had to wait for it until today. Things got a little . . . hectic after you finished playing.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that.” Pinky’s twin chin braids momentarily quivered, the motion drawing Hamlet’s attention from where he was sprawled on the counter. “Livvy, she was, like, okay.”

  Nodding, she handed him the check, though Darla wondered how the young goth musician knew the ballerina-turned-barista. “It was a shock, someone that young,” she agreed, even as it occurred to her that Pinky likely considered someone in her thirties old. “But, like they say, you never know when your time is up.”