A Table By the Window (20 page)

Blake's foot shot ahead to stomp on the terra-cotta tile. He looked at the underside of his foot and grinned. “Just the usual eight-legged critters. Probably some with four too.”

That was discouraging. As were the mildewed plastic brew baskets of both six-gallon iced tea machines.

“Hot water and bleach will clean those up.” Sherry said.

“But are you sure you want to do this?” asked Aunt Helen.

Carley looked around, catching a vision of what it could be. Bathrooms scrubbed, the grout between the tiles bleached, the broken mirror in the men's room replaced, potpourri beside the sinks in both. The tables and curved-back chairs given fresh coats of varnish. The peeling wallpaper with multicolored-balloons stripped away, so that the walls could be painted a warm olive or teal green.

Carley's Café
on a sign over the door.

“Carley?”

She blinked at her aunt. “Sorry. And yes, I'm sure. If the price is right.”

Carley was waiting outside Emmit White's garage Monday morning at 7:45.

“You're too early, but you might as well drive it around to the dock and come wait inside,” Emmit said peevishly. “Leave your key in the ignition.”

That was what Carley was hoping for. Once inside, she approached the counter. “May I ask your advice, Mr. White?”

“I already told you, the Ford's a good buy.”

“This isn't about the car. This is the final day Petal High will accept applications for a certain teaching position. Do you think I should apply?”

“Why are you askin' me?” he asked, staring across at her as if she were insane.

“Because from what I've learned about you, you had a similar decision. The owner of the Chevrolet dealership in Tylertown wanted to promote you to manager of the repairs department, but you had this dream of owning your own garage here in Tallulah.”

His eyes narrowed. “What does a schoolteacher know about runnin' a business?”

“What did
you
know?” Carley asked.

“More than a schoolteacher knows, young lady.”

“But I'm studying, every spare minute. And I'm a hard worker. I believe I can turn that empty building into a successful café, if you'll lease it to me.”

“Nope.” He opened a stapler by its hinges, filled it. “You got my price.”

“I can't afford to buy it. Not until I've saved up enough profit.”

“Profit!” Snapping the stapler closed, he said, “If you know that much about me, you know my son mismanaged that place and blew my whole operating account in the Biloxi casinos. I had to pay back wages and back taxes out of my own pocket. I ain't gonna be landlord to another failed business and give folk somethin' to laugh up their sleeves at again.”

No wonder he was so bitter, Carley thought. This, and a daughter abandoned by her husband. “I didn't know about your son,” Carley said. Stanley Malone was the source of her information, and he was not inclined to gossip. “Honest.”

“Well, now you do.”

“I'm sorry he hurt you. I know how you feel.”

He snorted. “You can't know how I feel!”

“Yes, I can. Because my mother robbed me.”

Suspicion narrowed the hazel eyes again. “What are you talkin' about?”

Carley had not expected the conversation to branch off in this direction. Too late to ponder if she should be so transparent. “There are givers and takers in this world, Mr. White. My mother was a taker, like your son. She robbed me of my childhood. But I'm determined to have a good life anyway. And I can do that teaching school, if I have to.”

“Well good. Then you don't need my building.”

“No, I don't. But the café has become my dream, Mr. White. Have you forgotten what it's like to have a great big dream?”

He stared at her for a while longer, then cleared his throat. “I'll rent you the place for a thousand a month. Not a penny less.”

“I can only offer four hundred. I asked around, and that's about the norm for small businesses here.”

“You're talkin' crazy. The shops don't have kitchen equipment. And it just needs cleanin'.”

“It's not going to be a hamburger joint. It needs total refurbishing.”

“Refurbishing!” he snorted. “Seven hundred.”

Ordering her voice to stay steady in spite of knees turning to Jell-O, Carley said, “I'll make you proud of that place, Mr. White. But I can't go higher than five hundred.”

This time his eyes widened, plowing deep furrows into his forehead. “She wants it for five hundred,” he muttered to empty air.

Carley took a breath. “But I would have to ask for a five-year lease for that same price.”

Emmit White snapped a work order into a clipboard and slapped it upon the counter. And just in case that was not enough drama, he slapped a pen beside it. “Here, fill out the top for the repair.”

“But—”

“We don't have nothin' else to talk about. And you're keeping me from my work!”

The fury in his expression brought warning needle-prickles to Carley's sinuses.

Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry,
Carley willed on her way to a chair. It simply was not meant to be. As soon as the car was ready, she would collect her résumé from the house and drive over to Petal. And if she did not get that teaching job, she would make other plans. She did not have to scramble, thanks to Grandmother.

But she could not squelch the disappointment rising up from the pit of her stomach. Her eyes teared, blurring the print on the work order. Dabbing them with her fingertips, she hoped Mr. White would not notice, and that no one else would enter until she regained her composure.

When she could no longer breathe through her nose, she grabbed her purse from the chair beside her. But not fast enough. She could not hold back a sniffle.

Oh no…

Carley sent a worried glance toward the counter, where Mr. White studied her with arms folded. She lowered her eyes, took out a tissue, and blew her nose.

“Come on now, miss. No call to be doing that,” he said in a worried tone.

She placed clipboard and pen in the empty chair. No way could she manage to walk up to the counter. Eyes averted, she mumbled, “Sorry.
Sniff
. I'm going to have to come back later. Sorry.”

“Wait,” he said when she reached the door.

She stopped without turning, tried to speak, but all that came out was a tight, “Hmm?”

“Look, I'm sorry for yellin' at you.”

“It's all right.”

“Come on, turn around and talk to me.”

Carley turned.

He beckoned her close and propped his folded arms on the counter. “It's just that that building's a sore spot. My wife wanted to give Randy a chance to make something of himself after he kept gettin' fired from other jobs, but I warned her against it. If you think you can make a go of it…”

Carley waited.

He blew out his hollow cheeks. “You can have it for five hundred.”

“Really?”

His frown hinted at self-disgust for caving in. “Under one condition, missy. You name it after my wife. She's had to put up with a lot. It would make her feel good.”

“Thank you!” Carley gushed. “I mean, I'm sorry about your son, but thank you so much! You won't regret it!”

He was trying hard not to grin. “Oh well…”

The relief flooding through Carley froze, though she tried to keep her smile from faltering. Having her name over the door meant more to her than she had realized. But she had no choice. “And um…what is her name?”

“Annabel.”

Annabel's Café
.

Carley tried to imagine it on the sign.
It's…different. Count your blessings. You got the place, and for a good price
.

“Her mother named her after some poem or another she read in school,” Emmit went on.

“Annabel Lee?” Carley said cautiously.

“Well, yeah. That's her name.”

Annabel Lee
. A tragic poem, but with some beautiful lines by Edgar Allen Poe.

A teenage boy walked in, asking about having a flat tire fixed on his father's truck. Carley returned to the chair in a creative daze.

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with not other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

She drew up another mental picture of the sign.
Annabel Lee Café
. It would be the better side of different. It would be unique.

****

“You're kidding!” Stanley said.

“What made him change his mind?” Loretta asked.

Carley took a breath, then told them.

“You women,” Stanley said, shaking his head. “You don't play fair.”

“I didn't intend to cry. I wasn't trying to manipulate him.”

Loretta patted her shoulder. “Never be ashamed of a few honest tears. These men think with their heads too much. Sometimes you have to aim for the heart.”

But there was no more time to bask in victory. There was a lease to draw up, forms to fill out. The IRS for starters. No aiming for the heart there.

****

Burt Lockwood from Pest Begone Exterminators said the building would need to be left alone for a week after his initial spraying and laying out of traps on July 3, and that he would need to come back after the cleaning and painting to begin preventative maintenance.

The Fourth of July celebration began with a pancake breakfast sponsored by the fire department at the elementary school cafeteria. Main Street was barricaded for the 10:00 parade, with beauty pageant winners and runners-up waving from the backs of convertibles, the Tallulah High School marching band and drill team, tractors pulling homemade floats advertising local businesses, and decorated pickup trucks bearing people of all ages who threw candy from the beds.

Afterward, cloggers in red gingham shirts square danced to the fiddles and guitars and banjo of
The Okatoma River Gang
. Tallulah Middle School cheerleaders sold lemonade and soft drinks. Blake and Uncle Rory worked the Lion's Club booth taking orders for care packages to be sent to Mississippi military serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tallulah Pentecostal sold barbecue plates to pay for a church bus; Mount Olive Church sold cups of homemade ice cream to benefit a youth choir trip; and businesses gave away such things as American flag pins, balloons, paper fans, and potholders. Mayor Dwight Coates' speech was titled “Carrying Liberty's Torch.” Shops were closed, but at two in the afternoon an auctioneer for the senior citizen center auctioned off quilts. All were purchased, some by out-of-towners who came for that express reason, according to Mrs. Templeton.

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.