It's Not About You (4 page)

"Lemme guess. Burt?"

"Oh George," I said and sat back, my hands on the table. "You have no idea. Well you might cause Kyle was in the middle of it. The bastard said he wanted an easy divorce, right? With Tanae coming close to eighteen, there wouldn't be a need for child support or custody. So there wasn't anymore need for him to have control. I was making the mortgage payments—made them all on my own these past five years. Made the bills. Kyle's moving in helped there in the end. So Burt didn't have any claims, so he tried to take the house."
 

George blinked a few times and put his hand to his chest. "What? Kyle didn't tell us this."
 

"Bastard decided if he couldn't control custody, or he couldn't control with money, then he would control what I did by insisting the house be sold and split down the middle. Took a chunk of my savings for the lawyer to prove to the judge that my 401K bought that house, my original good credit bought that house, and I had made the lion-share of the house payments." I pointed to the table with my index finger for emphasis. "So after three months, they awarded me full ownership. Of course, it took another grand just to get his name off the title."
 

"Holy shit. And he didn't pay for any of it?"
 

"Nope. So I'm down to very little and with Tanae's college tuition," I said and then sighed.
 

"Burt's not helping you with that?"
 

"Hell no. He doesn't believe in helping financially with education. He got through college on student loans, so he thinks she should too."
 

George's jaw dropped. "What a prick."
 

"I don't want her burdened with student loans. That's one of Burt's problems now. He's been paying on his own loans for over thirty years."
 

"That bastard is such a…" George laughed. "Bastard."
 

I sipped more mocha. "Oh…mmmm."
 

George was quiet for a few minutes and I looked at him. "What?"
 

"Grace…I have an idea. It's crazy…but it's something I think Brad will agree on."
 

"Oh God…when you get that twitch going with your eyebrow it worries me."
 

But George wasn't paying any attention to me as he put his hands flat on the table. "I need a manager. Here at this location. We have three shops now, you know. Brad's always at the Decatur location, and I move between this one and the Norcross location. If we had someone managing this one—" he held out his hands. "It would help."
 

I stared at him. Was this real? Or was there a camera somewhere and I was getting punked cause that shit's not funny.
 

"Grace?"

"George…are you sure? I mean…friends working for friends? That just seems like a recipe for bad things."
 

"P'sh. Grace, I know what your work ethic is. I know you. I know what you've gone through. My ex adores you, and I trust Kyle's opinion on a lot of things. I'll train you myself. It's not a lot of money—but as manager it's a living wage. Not sure how much it'll help with Tanae's school?"
 

"Anything would help. She actually stayed at the school over the summer and worked there to save money for this quarter. All I need to do is make tuition payments."
 

"Well then," he said and held out his hand. "Welcome to
Trade In Beans
Miss Murphy."
 

A week later…

"That'll be $4.73," I told the last person in line, took her card, ran it, handed it back, gave her the receipt and watched as she pushed two dollars in the tip jar. Once the line was clear I went back to my tablet and inventory.
 

George hadn't been kidding when he said he needed a manager. Apparently after opening their third location, the idea of managing anything turned to vapor. As a freelancer I'd always taken care of my own books, logging receipts, expenditures, keeping up with inventory, what comes in, what goes out…
 

When I started at
Trade In Beans
—there wasn't any of that shit being done.
 

Oy.
 

"All three stores run off magic!" I told Kyle after the first two days of orientation. I'd come home to find he'd cooked one of the meals we learned that week at school. I was
sooo
hungry I poured the wine, grabbed the plates, set the table and dug in before I said a single word.
 

"Brad has mentioned several times how much help they need. They love the money—"
 

"Yeah. But the way they're handling all three stores?" I said around a mouthful of food before I downed it all with a nice swallow of wine. "I'm serious. It's Hogwarts."
 

It took a good four days for me to get the process straight, and to do just a bit of retraining of the six employees plus the rotating seven. The store ran on eight hour shifts, with three to five people in the morning between 5:00am and 1:00pm, then a three person crew from 1:00pm to 9:00pm, then just 2 until closing at 11:00pm. The fun thing was each employee knew their schedule and their co-worker's schedules and worked out each week on Sunday afternoon—because some were in college with classes, some were in high school and some had second jobs.
 

My new best friend was a young twenty-something named Flower. If she had a last name, I didn't look on her application to check and didn't care. Flower had bright red bottle-dyed hair, freckles and a seriously stunning smile. She was also a whiz at keeping six orders straight at one time. Flower had been a barista for over a year and after she helped me get the ground rules down, I asked George if I could make her assistant manager.
 

Once that was passed, she and I worked out our own schedules between the two of us. She had classes and gave me her schedule and times. It all seemed to work.
 

And once I had the workings down, straightened the books, had an accurate accounting of what we had vs what we needed, installed a better POS (Point Of Sale) system—it was time for me to learn how to make coffee.
 

I'll have to admit—that was the scariest part of all. I could cook a mean lamb chop or slow bake a tender brisket, but coffee I'd always left up to my one-cup coffee maker.
 

And after a day at it—I gave them all ten bucks out of my own pocket. This was work!
 

I knew after that second day that sticking to the register was a better idea—especially after I soaked my shirt in steamed milk.
 

The $4.73 sell posted at nine-seventeen. It was time to start the nightly cleanup and my two closing employees, Sam and Debbie were already wiping down the empty tables, sweeping, mopping, refilling sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg and discussing what they'd be doing after work.
 

I was in the back, double checking my counts. Based off the week before's performance, the inventory, debits and credits, it looked like we had everything we needed.
 

"Hey Grace?" Sam stepped into the back as she untied her orange apron. "Is it okay if I clock out early? I'm opening up for Flower in the morning—she's got that doctor's appointment, remember? But she'll be in like half an hour later. My ride's here and I'd rather not make him wait."
 

"He being a bastard about it?" Yeah. I talked like that to everyone. The employees found it kinda fun. The manager had a potty mouth. I just kept myself and them from saying it to and around customers.
 

Sam was a cute girl, with one of those cool bobs that hung short at the back of her neck and then went long below her chin in the front. She was thin and all angles and I hoped she grew into herself before she hit twenty-five.
 

"Yeah…he hates waiting."
 

"You know, I can always take you home. You don't live that far from me and then he wouldn't have to wait."
 

"Oh no. No. Its okay. He wants to do it." She gave me a half smile and grabbed her time card.
 

"Oh…leave it. I'll clock you out."
 

"Thanks Grace!" She finished putting her stuff away, grabbed her coat and headed out the door.
 

I counted to five before Debbie came and said what she said every night. "I don't like her boyfriend. He's an asshole."

"Yeah well," I said as I nodded and put the books in the desk and locked the drawer. "We know that. But we can't actually do an intervention until she wants one."

Debbie Hollinger was a super model. Well…she looked like one. Brunette, all shapely curves and heavy lips. Deep brown eyes stared at me from impossibly pale skin. She was a freshman in college and was having a hard time balancing work with studying and boys. Her problem was boys. Lots of them. And they all liked to hang out at
Trade In Beans
. "Well, if she ever comes in here with bruises, I'm going to call the cops and report abuse."
 

"You and me, both," I said and smiled as she winked. We both heard the bell over the door jingle and she headed head back to the front.
 

Bruises and abuse. It wasn't the first time she'd declared that to me. She was looking out for her friend. But how could I tell her that abuse came in many forms, and sometimes the bruises were on the inside?

I was finishing up with the POS system when Debbie came to the door. "Hey, this guy wants to buy what's left over in the case. But he wants it at a discount."
 

"Really?" I logged and stood, brushing my apron off. "What's left?"

"Not much. Just a few scones, a brownie and one of those cheese cakes. I was taking them out for the donation box."
 

George and Bradford had an arrangement with Feed Atlanta Charities. Since it was bad business to sell stale, old goods, and it was wasteful to throw them out, we boxed them up and stuck them in the refrigerator for the next morning when someone from FAC picked them up.
 

I proceeded her back into the main room, ready to give the customer the spiel about paying for them at full price or they're donated—

—and came face to face with Pretty Eyes.
 

A full week in the shop and I hadn't seen him, though I had thought of him occasionally. But since he didn't seem to be a regular—which I thought he was seeing as how George knew his name—I'd sort of brushed him to the back of the deck.
 

I paused for a second, causing Debbie to plow into my back—spectacularly. I glanced behind me before I continued to the counter. "Well, hello."
 

Recognition caught him off guard. He narrowed his eyes at me for a long second before his very attractive mouth pulled to the side and he pointed at me. "You were in line that day."
 

"Yes. I'm the old lady in line ahead of you."
 

He was still half shaven, longish hair, and wearing a teeshirt, denim jacket and jeans. He looked…damn hot.
 

"I never called you an old lady. I believe I said, older women. And I was giving you a compliment."
 

I don't know if I was just not in the mood, or I was frustrated because I knew someone my age would never know what it was like to have something like him hammering me. "Let me give you some words of wisdom. Never refer to any woman, be they maiden, mother or crone, as an older woman."
 

His eyebrows arched high on his forehead and he slowly nodded. "Advice heard and accepted—" he looked at my name tag. "Grace."
 

Oh no. What was his name again? I knew George had told me, but I couldn't remember it.
 

Eh…what did it matter? I pointed to the box of treats on the counter and gave him the same details of our arrangement with FAC worked while Debbie made his coffee.
 

"So," he held out his hand with his card in it. "I could still buy them at full price."
 

"Yes." I took his card but didn't run it through. "Did you want them?"
 

"How much total?"
 

I glanced at the treats. Added it up in my head. "Twenty-six —" and then I looked at the coffee in Debbie's hand. "No make that thirty-one and some odd change."
 

He leaned his head back as his brows knitted over his dazzling eyes. "You figured that up in your head?"

"What? Older women can't add?"
 

"Okay." He leaned forward and braced himself against the counter with both hands and nodded to Debbie. "She totals all this up and if it's within five dollars, give or take, I buy all of it."
 

"And if it's not?"

He smiled. "I get it half price."
 

I smiled back at him. "We don't bet here, Mr—"
 

"Oliver. Michael Oliver."
 

"Mr. Oliver. So will the coffee be all?" I rang it up and then looked at him.