A Table By the Window (19 page)

She smiled at the waiter. “I guess I'm having the pepper steak.”

****

Later that afternoon she ran into Loretta Malone outside the bank, and learned that Chief Dale Parker was dating an accountant/former beauty queen who lived in Pascagoula. Loretta scolded lightly, “See? You should have moved back earlier.”

“I'm not a police groupie,” Carley said back just as lightly, in spite of the twinge of disappointment as she headed home.

The living room was her classroom of choice for studying the restaurant business, for she could close up the rest of the house and allow the attic fan to pull a minor gale through the screened windows. Locals complained about the heat, but she was not inconvenienced by it enough to get estimates on central air conditioning. Perhaps later, when there were not so many other things to do. Besides, the windows brought in soothing sounds of crickets trilling and tree frogs chorusing and people chatting on porches, as well as the aromas of green pine needles and jasmine.

At the east end of Third Street, Harold Cooper, manager of the Dollar General store, had a blue Ford Contour GL, loaded, with 57,000 miles on the odometer and a
For Sale—$3,800
sign in the window. Uncle Rory advised that it was a good deal but recommended she have it checked out mechanically.

“Be my guest,” Mr. Cooper said, handing Carley the keys.

Emmit's Texaco and Garage dominated the corner of Main and Highway 42, just past the flashing light and across Main from the Tallulah Fire Department. A young man with grease-stained fingers and coveralls wrote out a work order and directed Carley to a waiting area with a dozen chairs, coffeepot and soda machine, television bolted to the wall, and the not-unpleasant smell of tires from a display rack.

She recognized Mr. White by the
Emmit
on the badge affixed to his blue chambray shirt. He was reed thin, as if working burned up all his food fuel, and had the hunched bearing—chin thrust forward, peripheral vision alert—of a woman intent upon being first to a sale table.

But however greedy, he was shrewd enough to do honest work, Uncle Rory had said. He might own the only garage in town, but most Tallulah residents would drive or tow their cars to Hattiesburg before allowing themselves to be cheated.

Carley devoted her attention to
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting Your Own Restaurant
while she waited. The temptation was strong to walk up to the counter and ask about the abandoned café, but she felt instinctively it was not a good plan to show her hand too early to a person with a reputation for greediness.

“Miss Reed?” he said finally.

Carley crossed the room, leaving the book in her seat.

“The GL needs the tires balanced, but it's a good car. Regular oil changes, never been wrecked.”

“That's good to hear. Can I get the tires done now?”

He shook his head. “Not until it's your name on the registration.”

It seemed a silly rule. She could understand it if she was getting a paint job or altering the car's appearance, but she did not think there were many vandals who went around fixing other people's cars.

The GL became hers three days later. Stanley Malone notarized the transaction, and she registered and paid the sales tax at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Hattiesburg on Monday and shopped online for car insurance in the library that afternoon. Her telephone was installed, so she would no longer have to use the library computer once her belongings arrived on Saturday. Still, it was always a pleasure to chat with Mr. Juban, even though she had to dodge questions about plot twists in
Thompson's Crossing
.

On Tuesday, her cousin Sherry followed her up to Jackson to turn in the rental Volkswagen. Carley treated her to lunch in Nora's Tea Room, a converted Victorian house.

“This is wonderful,” Sherry sighed after a bite of chicken mushroom crepe. “I wish Tallulah had a place like this.”

Carley stared at her. “Did you get that from your mother?”

“Well…no.” Sherry's lenses magnified the confusion in her aquamarine eyes. “You bought it.”

“Not the
crepe,
” Carley laughed. She remembered, then, her promise not to put any bugs in Blake's ears. She had no way of knowing how much information wives shared with their husbands, even wives who did not want their husbands to start new businesses. Carefully and evasively she said, “I just remember telling Aunt Helen that Tallulah needed a quaint little café. Let's save room for dessert. The praline pie sounds heavenly.”

When Sherry dropped her off at the house that afternoon, Carley telephoned Stanley Malone's office and asked to pay for an hour of his time.

“You're not in trouble, are you?” Loretta joked.

“I may be getting into some,” Carley replied. “I'd like his advice on starting a business.”

“Interesting. How about two o'clock Thursday? And don't worry about the fee. If you go into business, you'll need Stanley at some point anyway.”

****

And so on the twenty-sixth of June, Carley sat again in Mr. Malone's office. She asked Loretta to stay and give her perspective as well. After spelling out her plan, she asked, cautiously, “What do you think?”

Stanley pressed steepled fingers to his chin. At length he said, “I think that's an idea waiting to happen.”

Loretta nodded. “I agree. Someone's going to do it sooner or later. Stanley and I've discussed how the dining establishments here haven't kept pace with the shops. We lose a lot of business to Hattiesburg.”

“But you don't want to go barging into something you might regret later,” Stanley cautioned. “You need to see if it's financially feasible. We need to draw up a business plan.”

“I've done that.” Carley reached for the briefcase at her feet.

Husband and wife looked at each other.

“I've been studying,” Carley explained, handing a manila folder across the desk. “I ordered a restaurant accounting software program online. And Aunt Helen gave me some information about the local laws for small businesses.”

The attorney balanced his reading glasses on his nose and scanned the pages. “I'm impressed. It's all here. Projected sales, projected food and labor costs, projected profitability….”

“But it's based entirely on my
not
having to borrow money. And the only way I can see to do it is to rent that building Mr. White owns.”

Stanley looked doubtful. “Emmit White is a stingy old cuss.”

“That's putting it mildly,” Loretta said after a sip of her own tea. “He would charge a fortune.”

“Even if he's not using the building?”

“It's not hurting him, sitting there idle,” Stanley said.

“It's hurting him if he isn't collecting rent. Low rent is better than none.”

“But high rent is better than low; that would be his way of thinking.”

Loretta asked, “Why can't you start fresh somewhere else, Carley?”

“Because he already has equipment and furniture. And I'm assuming his place already meets building codes and zoning laws or he wouldn't have been able to open up in the first place.”

“Well, yes,” Stanley said. “I filed the papers for him. And I see your point.”

“It can't hurt to pay him a visit, Stanley,” Loretta said to her husband.

“Very well. I'll go sometime tomorrow.”

****

“He doesn't want to lease it,” Mr. Malone telephoned to say the following afternoon. “He said he'll sell it to you, with all the equipment and furniture, for a hundred and ten thousand dollars.”

Ouch!
Carley thought. “If he wants to sell it, why hasn't he listed it with a Realtor?”

“I'm sure he doesn't want to pay the fee, just figured someone like you would come along and offer one day.”

“I can't pay that, not with the operating expenses I've projected until the profits come in.”

“I agree. He lent me a key. Shall I give it back?”

Carley thought that one over. “How long can we keep it?”

“As long as you need it,” Stanley replied. “The building's not going anywhere.”

****

Uncle Rory was off on a fishing trip with some of his Lion's Club cronies, Aunt Helen said over the telephone, and would not be home until Saturday evening.

“That's all right, my things are coming Saturday anyway. But I'd like to ask him to look over Emmit White's place with me the first chance he has.”

First, she respected her uncle's life experience, and second, the thought of entering a building that had been empty for eight years was creepy.

“How about after church Sunday?” Aunt Helen said with no trace of deviousness. “I'd like to see it myself.”

“I'll meet you at the Old Grist Mill for lunch first,” Carley said. “My treat.”

****

The truck from Van Dyke Freight Company backed into the driveway a few minutes after 11:00 Saturday morning. Carley had been up since 7:00, pushing the pieces of donated furniture that she would not need into the back room. Two men in blue uniform shirts carried in her furniture, including Grandmother's belongings that had now come full circle. Afterward, Carley gave each a ten-dollar tip.

The fading sound of the truck's engine came through the open windows as Carley stripped tape from the box containing her computer. An hour later, she was at her desk in the space once occupied by Grandmother's piano, plugging the computer cord into her telephone jack.

Houston, we have control,
she thought as the Internet screen popped up on her monitor.

****

The dining room at the Old Grist Mill was spacious and the decor decidedly rustic, with wide-planked floors and split-log walls decorated with old advertising signs. Punched-tin light fixtures illuminated red-checked tablecloths. Only half the tables were occupied, but Aunt Helen had said there would be people waiting in the lobby once the Methodists and Baptists let out.

As if on cue, the Kemps, members of First Methodist, showed up. Conner was home from Birmingham University for the summer, working weekdays in the pro shop at Canebrake Golf Club in Hattiesburg. He was a handsome boy, not as tall as Patrick, nor as blonde as his mother.

The waitress and busboy pushed another table over. When Carley asked that the Kemps be included on her ticket, Sherry protested. “No indeed, we're not going to let you—”

“Hush, Sherry, this girl's loaded,” Blake said before ordering rib eye with two extra sides and encouraging his sons to do likewise. After the drinks were brought out he leaned his elbows on the table and said, “So Carley, I hear you're wanting to buy Emmit White's old hamburger joint.”

Carley swallowed an ice cube, Sherry nudged her husband, and Aunt Helen rubbed the space between her eyes.

“Where did you hear that?” Carley asked when she could speak.

“Even Emmit gets his hair cut.”

There was no point to being evasive. “I can't buy it. I hope he'll change his mind about renting it, if it's worth renting.”

“We're going to check the place out after we leave here,” Uncle Rory said.

The brothers exchanged looks.

“Mind if we tag along?” Patrick asked.

Conner lowered his voice. “They say Old Man White sealed the bodies up in the wall.”

“That's why he let the place sit locked up for so long,” Patrick said. “They needed time to decompose.”

“Boys…” Aunt Helen and Sherry warned in unison.

Patrick glanced at the nearest table, where a family of five were involved in their own conversation. “But you gotta wonder. Tammy Giles said he bought two big sacks of quicklime that summer she worked at Green Thumb.”

“Emmit's wife grows a garden.” Uncle Rory dumped a packet of Splenda into his tea. “Lots of folks around here buy quicklime.”

“It neutralizes soil that's too acidic,” Blake explained to Carley.

“And it helps dead things decompose quicker,” said an unrepentant Conner.

“There aren't any bodies there,” Aunt Helen said firmly. “Now, how about finding a more pleasant subject?”

Carley waited until conversation turned to baseball and leaned closer to Sherry, on her left. “What bodies?”

Sherry murmured behind a cupped hand, “Several years ago, Emmit went to the lumber mill where his son-in-law worked and threatened to kill him for cheating on his daughter. Soon afterward, he disappeared with the girlfriend, leaving not only Emmit's daughter but a seven-year-old son. Nobody's heard from either one since. This being a small town, there are about a dozen theories.”

As it turned out, everyone wanted to see the old café.

“Whew!” Conner wrinkled his nose, stepping over a pile of rags. “This place is a sauna.”

“Spider webs,” Sherry said. “I hope you like to dust, Carley.”

Carley ran a finger along the chair railing. “I thought I did.”

The building, though narrow, was roomier than it appeared from the outside. There was space for about a dozen small square tables, and four booths lined the south wall. The counter boasted a cash register, but the coating of dust would have to be removed before Carley could tell if it still worked. In the kitchen, stainless pots and pans were stacked on metal shelves. The ice maker, freezer, and walk-in cooler were shut off and their doors were propped open. The kitchen led to a small office with a gray metal desk and filing cabinet, and to a storage room with a door that accessed the gravel service lane running behind the shops.

After a while Patrick and Conner, tired of tapping on walls, left to walk home and watch baseball.

“It's structurally sound.” Uncle Rory crouched to press a wall beneath the sink. “No sign of termites. But it needs an exterminator for the other critters.”

Carley wheeled around from inspecting the grease-grimed grill. “What critters?”