A Table By the Window

by Lawana Blackwell

  Carley, Aunt Helen, and Sherry watched most of the goings-on from folding chairs set up outside Auld Lang Syne. Several people stopped by for a chat, and when introduced to Carley, expressed interest in the café.

  It was most encouraging—but surprising—this early in the plans.

  “Small towns,” Sherry reminded her. “You can’t even keep secrets from yourself.”

  Carley spotted Emmit White briefly through the sea of bodies. She excused herself and found him at the booth where a male medical technician was checking blood cholesterol. Emmit was accompanied by two women; one with white hair combed into a knot and carrying a straw purse large enough to hold a watermelon, and the other wore tight pink shorts, a white tank top, and baseball cap over her long dark hair. Carley recognized her from the near-confrontation by the library telephone back in January.

  Still a little leery of the younger woman, Carley addressed the older—which was what had propelled her over. “Hi…you must be Annabel.”

  The woman gave her a pleasant, blank smile. Emmit nodded at Carley and leaned closer to his wife. “That’s the lady who’s renting the café. Miss Reed.”

  “Please call me Carley.”

  She held out her hand and the woman hesitated, then laid a soft hand into it.

  “This is my daughter, Mona Bryant,” Emmit said, not smiling but not unpleasant.

  Mona detached her attention from the bandstand in the center of the street to give Carley a bored “Hi.”

  “Hi.” Carley released Annabel’s hand slowly, for fear it would simply drop to the woman’s side—which it did.

  ****

  Clouds rolled in from the west, along with distant rumbles of thunder, as family groups were already heading over to Lockwood Park with lawn chairs and ice chests for the Lion’s Club fireworks display. “Oh well, there’s always next year.” Uncle Rory said.

  They were closer to Fifth Street than Third. Aunt Helen said, “Come on home with us, Carley.”

  “Thanks, but I think I can beat the rain.” Carley said. “I’ll see you all later.”

  She smiled at herself. She had almost said ya’ll.

  Dale Parker and Marti Jenkins were loading two sawhorse barricades from the Third Street intersection into the bed of a Tallulah Public Works truck. Sherry had introduced Carley to the female deputy at the ice cream booth a couple of hours ago.

  “Better hurry!” Dale called to Carley.

  She waved and continued on, the first sprinkles pelting her bare arms. She had only seen Dale twice since returning to Tallulah. Once he had waved from behind the wheel of the patrol car. The second time it was she who drove past as he chatted with a woman outside Town Hall. She wondered about the Pascagoula girlfriend. For all her sentiment about not wishing to date any Don Juan, she was a little disappointed that he had not at least asked her out once. Not that she would have accepted, but it would have been nice to have been asked.

  She used the remainder of the weekend and following week to experiment with menu items. Aunt Helen accompanied her to the Mennonite bakery near Columbia, where Carley sampled bread slices—three-seed barley, Italian herb, twelve-grain, oat bran, buttery white, tomato basil, raisin. The owners agreed to a substantial discount if she purchased in bulk. Perhaps later, when she owned the building free and clear, she would buy a commercial mixer and oven. Dana Bell of Fresh Pickin’s agreed to the same discount on produce that she gave Corner Diner, the Old Grist Mill, and the two fast-food places.

  Carley chopped, sautéed, and processed in her home kitchen for two days. Aunt Helen and Uncle Rory, the Kemps and her neighbors were her first guinea pigs. They ate all the samples and declared them outstanding.

  But then, they were biased, and most did not fit the profile of the clientele she was aiming for. She asked the nineteen women who quilted Fridays at the senior citizen center to allow her to bring refreshments.

  They were more objective.

  “This is very good, dearie,” Mrs. Templeton said of the pesto pasta salad. “But there’s a mite too much salt.”

  Carley tasted it and realized that a heavy hand with the Parmesan cheese was the problem. Which was a better problem to have, for cheese was more expensive than salt.

  She was surprised by the tepid reviews of the roasted turkey and cranberry sauce sandwich, one of her favorites.

  “It’s very good, but just doesn’t go with summer,” said Polly Dearman, retired librarian, prompting nods of agreement. Carley made a mental note to reserve it for November and December, if at all.

  The soups—creamed broccoli, tomato basil, minestrone, potato cheese—were big hits. In fact, she judged the experiment a success, for every pint of soup, every sandwich square disappeared. Even the turkey and cranberry.

  She saved herself the trouble of conducting test trials of the three desserts she planned to offer. Anyone who did not like at least one of the selections of Italian creme cake, chocolate mousse, or strawberry cheesecake would be just too hard to please.

  Chapter 15

  Early Monday, husband and wife team Billy and Leigh Ann Moore, who cleaned the Old Grist Mill, the courthouse, post office, library, and a couple of other businesses, arrived with rags, buckets, industrial-sized bottles of cleanser, and a CD player. Carley, hoping that her help could shorten the job to two days instead of the three predicted, volunteered for chores out of direct range of the old-time country-western music. She was out on the sidewalk washing the front windows when a man wearing a suit stopped to ask if she had hired a painter.

  “Stand by your man…” floated from inside.

  “Not yet.” Carley dropped the squeegee into the bucket and wiped her right hand on her 49ers jersey shirt. “I’m Carley Reed.”

  “Averil Stillman,” he said as they shook hands.

  “Oh.” Her mind went blank but for a certain poster. “I’m uh—sorry.”

  “Thank you,” he said with a gracious little nod. He was thickset, about forty, with ebony skin and hair cut so close to the scalp that Carley had first thought him to be bald.

  “I have a couple of people coming by tomorrow to give estimates,” she said. Not only for painting, but also to strip the balloon-patterned wallpaper.

  “May my brother come by as well?”

  “Is he a painter?” Carley asked, then realized how foolish a question it was. The tragedy of the death of the man’s wife was a distracting presence.

  Mr. Stillman did not seem to notice or, if he did, was kind enough to ignore her rattled state. “He’s a good painter. Winn Stillman’s his name. And he can give you plenty of references.”

  “Sure. Just have him come by today to set up a time, or call me this evening. Do you have paper and a pen?”

  His smile revealed beautiful white teeth as he took a small spiral notebook from his coat pocket. “A preacher always has paper and a pen.”

  Winn Stillman came over at two, in paint-stained but clean and pressed khaki shirt and slacks. He introduced his son John, home for the summer from teaching art at Piney Woods School near Jackson. The Moores were considerate enough to turn off the music box while Carley explained to the Stillmans her ideas for color.

  “I’d like the walls to be medium olive green,” she said, showing them paint cards from Lowes in Hattiesburg. For wainscoting and trim work, she had chosen caramel brown, an earthy dark red called Pepper Spice, and parchment white.

  “I’ll want to add crown molding later, if I see that I can afford it,” she said.

  “Annabel Lee…” John Stillman mused aloud, studying the south wall.

  “What are you thinking?” Carley asked.

  He waved his right hand across, as if his fingertips could brush against the space where wall met ceiling. “What if, instead of crown molding, we painted about eight inches of that parchment color, then stenciled some of the poem’s lines in red script with brown shadowing? It would add to your theme while saving you a lot of money.”

  “I love it,” Carley said when the pict
ure was clear in her mind. But she had to give the other painters their turns, so she said she would contact the two later.

  “By the way,” she asked Winn back on the sidewalk. “Your brother…?”

  “Averil,” Winn supplied.

  “Yes, Averil.” Carley’s hesitation had come from wondering if she had the right to ask, rather than having forgotten the name. “The baby girl…”

  “Samantha. She’s fine. Seven years old, and going into the second grade.”

  “Uncle Averil finally married again last year,” John said. “Rita’s a sweet lady, good to Samantha.”

  “I’m so glad,” Carley said. “I hope you don’t mind my asking.”

  Winn smiled. “Of course not, Miss Reed. People here held our hands through that nightmare. We’ll never forget Gwen, but life has to go on.”

  ****

  An affable young man named Skeet Barnes, with mullet haircut—short sides, long back—came by at 9:30 Tuesday morning. His estimate was forty dollars lower than Winn Stillman’s, and he could start Thursday instead of the next Monday, but the way his eyes dipped several times during the course of their conversation made Carley uncomfortable.

  My face is up here! she wanted to tell him.

  “I’m just on my way to a job in Collins,” he said, penning digits along the bottom of his business card. “But here’s my cell phone number.”

  “Yes, thank you,” she said back, gritting her teeth when his eyes strayed again.

  As soon as he was gone, she tossed the yellow legal pad sheet with his estimate in one of the cleaners’ black trash bags. Leigh Ann Moore, wringing a sponge over a bucket, gave her a knowing wink and began singing,

  “Yore cheatin’ heart…will tell on you.”

  The third painter simply did not show.

  When Carley drove home for lunch, she telephoned Skeet Barnes’ house so that she could let him know her decision, hopefully on the answering machine. The answering machine obliged.

  “Thank you for coming by,” Carley said, “but I’ve hired another painter.”

  And then realizing that was not yet so, she dialed Mr. Stillman’s number and left a different message on still another answering machine.

  ****

  The place was sparkling, inside and out by five o’clock. Drained, Carley paid the Moores and drove home. The air had cooled to seventy degrees. Carley sat on her porch swing with feet propped on an overturned packing crate, eating cold spaghetti and marinara sauce from a Tupperware container. The shadow from the oak in the Paynes’ yard crept over Carley’s driveway. Crickets trilled and frogs sounded like rusty hinges, and from somewhere up the street came the choppy notes of piano practice. Presently Micah and Kimberly Payne drifted over to show her a jar containing a praying mantis they had caught in the yard.

  “What are you going to do with him?” Carley asked.

  “Mom says we have to let him go before bedtime,” Micah said, disappointed.

  “Or he’ll die,” Kimberly reminded him.

  Carley glanced toward the street, where an approaching automobile seemed to be slowing. Sure enough, a white patrol car pulled into her driveway.

  “Cool!” Micah exclaimed, but when the door opened, he crouched to ask Carley, “Did you do something bad?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The children hurried over to the steps. Rising, Carley caught sight of the sandy head of hair.

  “Good evenin’, Miss Reed,” Dale Parker said as he strode up the walk.

  Carley rose and joined the children. “Good evening.”

  “You’re the Payne kids, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Micah said.

  “Their names are Kimberly and Micah,” Carley said.

  Kimberly, dumbstruck, held out the jar.

  “Now, what have we here?” Chief Parker paused at the bottom of the steps to reach out for the jar and hold it out to the ebbing sunlight. “How did you catch him?”

  “With Daddy’s baseball hat,” she whispered, blushing under his smile.

  “Baseball cap,” her brother corrected.

  “Micah…Kimberly…” floated from next door.

  “Supper,” Micah said. “We’ve got to go.”

  Dale handed the boy the jar, and drawled, “Better not run with this. You don’t want to fall. And the bug would probably appreciate not having its brains rattled to death.”

  Micah grinned. “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s good to know there are still places where children can play outside in the evenings.” Carley said, stepping back to allow him on the porch, watching the children hurry past the front of her car.

  “Yes, it is. But I’ll bet they cleared it with their mother first. These days you have to be careful, no matter where you live.” He eyed the container of spaghetti in her hand. “I’m interrupting your supper.”

  “That’s okay. I’m finished.”

  “Looks like I should have come earlier and done you a favor.”

  “It’s not that bad. I made it myself two days ago.”

  He winced. “I’ll bet it tastes better than my foot tastes right now.”

  “Having never tasted your foot, I’ll take your word for it.”

  That made him smile. “Do you have a few minutes, Miss Reed?”

  “Certainly. Would you like to come inside?”

  The alternative was to invite him to share the porch swing—and sitting so close would make her nervous. The sofa, pushed against the wall below the window, caused the open curtains to billow like sails instead of flapping like flags. “Please make yourself comfortable,” Carley said. “Would you care for a glass of tea?”

  “Just ice water, please.”

  Bending to her distorted reflection on the side of the toaster, Carley checked her teeth for stray bits of basil and fluffed her hair with her fingers. When she returned to the living room, he was flipping through pages of Managing for Results and set the book back on the coffee table.

  “Don’t get up,” Carley said as he started rising from the sofa.

  “Oh, but my momma would tan my hide if she heard I didn’t.” He stepped forward to take the glass and waited until she had settled into a chair before sitting again.

  “This hits the spot,” he said after three long gulps. “I carry bottles in a little Igloo in the patrol car but ran out today. I guess this heat is even harder for you, not being used to it. You sort of skipped over our springtime, didn’t you?”

  Carley wished she had changed from the jeans and jersey she had worn while cleaning, and she hoped her deodorant was still hanging in there. “It hasn’t been bad, so far.”

  “That’s the spirit,” he said. “A trooper.”

  Don’t blush, don’t blush, Carley thought as heat spread through her cheeks. Change the subject, change the subject!

  What subject?

  Lamely she asked, “Is your office in Town Hall?”

  “Nope, the backside of the courthouse building. You can see the bars in the windows from the parking lot. I wish we were in front so we’d have a better feel of what’s going on outside, but at least we’ve got ample space. You should come over and let us show you around sometime.”

  “Thank you, but I don’t think I’ll be doing that.”

  He looked both disappointed and amused. “Why is everyone so intimidated by a jail?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Carley said, much more comfortable with banter than personal observations. “I guess because it has a different connotation than, say, the mall.”

  His laugh dimpled his cheeks. “That’s not how the fifth graders feel on their annual ‘Don’t Let Peer Pressure Lead You Here’ field trip.”

  He downed the rest of the water. Setting the glass on the braided rug out of the way of his shoes, he rested his hands on his knees and said, “I should have called, Miss Reed, but when I saw you on the porch I thought I’d take a chance.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, I’d like to speak with y
ou about the café you’re opening.”

  Her pulse jumped. “According to Mr. Malone, we’ve filled out all the right forms.”

  “I’m sure you have. No, this is about the menu. I wonder if you’d consider including some vegetarian dishes.”

  “You’re vegetarian?”

  “Vegan, actually. I get tired of brown bagging it, and it would be nice to just be able to stop in somewhere and get a decent meal that I didn’t have to cook. Even in Hattiesburg and Jackson, the vegan options are limited. And you can get burnt out on salad bars.”

  “So you don’t eat eggs or dairy products either.”

  “Not since I was twenty.”

  “You’d find lots of places to eat in San Francisco.”

  “That’s what I hear,” he said with a wistful expression.

  “May I ask why you became vegetarian? Was it for religious reasons?”

  “Not at all. I’m agnostic.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I hope that doesn’t offend you.”

  “It doesn’t offend me.”

  “It was for my health,” he said. “I had started working out, lifting weights, but had no stamina because of asthma. So I started reading books on nutrition. I took the whole plunge—gave up sugar, white flour and white rice, food additives. My asthma not only got better, but my complexion cleared. And with the increased stamina, I lost sixty pounds.”

  She was trying to imagine the before picture when he read her thoughts and smiled. “No, I was never in the ‘in crowd’ at school.”

  “Neither was I,” Carley said. But she was not about to volunteer information about her bad teeth.

  And however badly she wished to accommodate any potential customer, she had to think of the business. She could not afford to cater to every whim. What if someone asked her to include kosher dishes? Atkins meals? Organic?

  Reluctantly, she shook her head. “I truly wish we could help you out, Chief Parker.”

  “Dale, please,” he said.

  “Dale. But what can you eat that would appeal to mainstream customers? Forgive my saying this, but they’re not going to want to order sprouts and berries.”