By My Side

by Grant C. Holland

  By My Side

  Catlett’s Cove - Book 2

  Grant C. Holland

  Contents

  Copyright

  1. Yale

  2. Derek

  3. Derek

  4. Yale

  5. Derek

  6. Yale

  7. Yale

  8. Derek

  9. Yale

  10. Derek

  11. Yale

  12. Derek

  13. Yale

  14. Derek

  15. Yale

  16. Yale

  17. Derek

  18. Yale

  19. Derek

  20. Yale

  21. Yale

  22. Derek

  23. Derek

  24. Yale

  25. Derek

  Epilogue - Yale

  Also by Grant C. Holland

  The Practice: Catlett’s Cove Book 1

  Pet Shop Charlie: Eagle’s Glen Book 1

  The Flawless Mr. Faraday: Eagle’s Glen Book 2

  Yukon Sam: Eagle’s Glen Book 3

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017 by Grant C. Holland

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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  1

  Yale

  Yale Preston scooped the six quarters from the table and sighed. It wasn’t what he expected as a tip on a $10.50 check. Still, it was better than the single dollar bill that some customers left regardless of the size of their check.

  The customer in question, a man dressed in a dark, charcoal suit, turned back just as he approached the door and stared directly at Yale. “Don’t like it?” he asked. “Next time serve the food hot, or, better yet, get a real job.”

  Yale tried not to scowl as he walked past Jess at the cash register. Her Point Diner was the last real, classic diner left in town. With the tilted giant coffee cup on the roof line, the Point Diner was the second most photographed subject in Catlett’s Cove for tourist brochures. First, of course, was the cove itself, an inlet off Summers Lake, with the picturesque boat docks and old woolen mill long since converted to apartments and condominiums.

  Jess grabbed Yale’s elbow as he passed by and said, “Don’t let him get to you. We serve everyone, angels and devils alike.” She looked into Yale’s weary eyes. “You can go home. We’re not busy this afternoon, and you’ve been here since 5:00 a.m. I can cover the tables we do get. Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?”

  Yale figured that the dark circles under his eyes must have been obvious. He was functioning on just three hours of sleep after a quick job to fix Mrs. Ellis’ plumbing under the sink in the kitchen turned into a minor nightmare and kept him from getting home until after midnight.

  Unfortunately, his rent was due in two days, and he was still running a little short. He tried to smile back at Jess, and he really was happy to be the recipient of her efforts to be kind, but he needed any extra tips. He said, “I’ll leave at three to make sure I cover any of the last bit of the lunch rush. Then you’ll only have an hour to cover before Vicky gets here.”

  Yale stepped into the kitchen to count the tips for the day so far. He was running very close to what he needed. It was a sunny day outside, so there was a chance a few more customers would stop in to deliver the extra cash. If the money didn’t come from the diner, Yale still had the odd job from Mrs. Benton before he headed home for the night.

  Baker, the head cook at the diner for as long as almost anyone could remember, was a huge burly man with a barrel chest. He said, “Hey, Yale, have you been out fishing in the lake any time recently? Did you corral those buddies of yours and reel in a few dinners?”

  Yale shrugged. “Don’t have enough time, Baker. Yeah, that would be fun, and the ironic thing, if we did catch a nice batch of fish, I wouldn’t be shelling out as much cash to the grocery store. It’s all just time, though. Nobody has enough of it. You know how it goes.”

  Baker nodded. “Yeah, I know how it goes. I’ve still got my truck up on blocks in the garage. It’s been there for two months waiting for me to have some spare time.”

  Yale picked up a dish cloth and wiped at the prep counter. He said, “Must be nice having a garage.” Yale started to say more, but he realized being tired was making him whine and sound ungrateful.

  His trailer home was a dump, and it was getting worse, but at least it was a roof over his head. Yale thought if Mr. V, the trailer court owner, kept raising rent by twenty-five dollars a month, he would be forced to live in a real apartment because it was cheaper.

  Baker interrupted his thoughts. “Why don’t you move out of the trailer dump, buddy? Maybe you could look for a roommate, or find an attic room in one of those old houses close to downtown. It would be better than living out there with that scam artist running the show.”

  Yale shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I just kind of like the independence of my own place.”

  The truth was Yale was very stubborn. He didn’t like feeling like anyone was taking pity on him or offering him charity. He was a grown man, and a smart man, despite what so many people said, and he was figuring out his own way.

  It was probably true that Mr. V. was a lousy landlord. There were stories around town that he bribed members of the town council to look the other way when he violated local rental and safety codes. Yale figured that his luck would change soon just as quickly as it had gone the other way.

  Baker said, “You know, Yale. Why don’t you come out and have dinner with me and the Mrs. sometime soon. Maybe she has a few pick-up jobs that could help out…just for now, and it would be nice getting to know you a little better.”

  Yale smiled and said, “Yeah, why don’t we do that…sometime.”

  He knew that Baker’s offer was a thinly disguised effort at charity. He was in his early 60s at least, and there was little he would have in common with twenty-four-year-old Yale for dinner conversation.

  Yale finished up wiping down the prep space and then walked past Baker to check out the cooler in the back. Baker said, “I think everything is in shape back there. Why don’t you just slow down and have a seat?”

  Yale called from the back, “‘Cause then I would fall asleep.” He looked at the bins of lettuce for salads and sliced potatoes for fries. It did look like everything was in shape and ready to go.

  Baker kept a clean kitchen, and most of the customers knew that he did. It was one of the reasons they kept coming back over and over. There were rumors about the lax standards at some of the newer places in town.

  Yale returned to the front counter. Jess had her elbow on the cash register staring off into space. She jumped slightly and said, “Oh, just daydreaming, Yale. It’s only a few years before I’m thinking of selling this place and retiring. I was just imagining myself on a beach in Mexico.”

  Yale said, “Aww, that would be nice. Maybe you could find a hot retired bachelor, too, Jess.”

  She blushed slightly and said, “That wouldn’t be just nice. That would be a miracle.”

  “Would you happen to have any extra days you could add me on in the work schedule the next couple of weeks, Jess? I’ve got some free time.”

  She looked directly at him and then slowly shook her head no. Jess self-consciously reached one hand up behind
her head and checked to make sure her hair was still up in place. She said, “I’m sorry, Yale. I really don’t. Business is a little slow at the moment, and the schedule is filled. I guess you can ask Vicky if she wants to take a night off and use some of her vacation time, but other than that, no, I’m sorry.”

  Yale was tired of having to piece together part-time work and odd jobs. It had been two years already since the plant closed down and the corporation moved the jobs out of the country. The plant was three miles outside of town, and Catlett’s Cove was working with the county to try and figure out if they could lure a new company or figure out some other way to use the old buildings for public benefit.

  Yale tried applying for new jobs, but Catlett’s Cove’s tourism-based economy was loaded with part-time work instead of good quality full-time jobs particularly for a college dropout like Yale. He felt a horrible catch-22. He didn’t have enough money to go back to school, but he needed the degree to make more money. Yale said, “That’s okay, Jess. I might ask Vicky, but she needs the extra tips, too.”

  Jess’ heart ached to see a young man like Yale down on his luck. She did her best to offer him extra work when possible, but she knew that he needed a much better job than waiting tables in a diner. He was a good man, one of the best that she knew, but the economy wasn’t cooperating. She said, “Why don’t you box up those two pieces of pie left in the case. It’s my treat. Save one for your buddy Derek the next time you see him, and tell him that we miss his handsome face here in the diner.”

  Yale laughed and said, “Yeah, I’d better eat my slice first. If Derek knows I have two, he’ll try and mooch half of my piece, too. He has a serious sweet tooth.”

  Yale looked at the clock again. It was 2:15, and he really wanted at least two more customers before he left for the Bentons.

  Mrs. Benton, the wife of Doc Benton, the town veterinarian who recently retired, called and said she had a couple of things she needed done at their house. They involved getting up on a ladder, and she didn’t think Doc Benton should be doing that at his age.

  Yale hoped that the work would take at least a solid two hours up until dinner time, but the last time he went to the Bentons, he was finished in just fifteen minutes. He couldn’t charge them much for a job like that.

  He did really enjoy going over to the Bentons’ house. Mrs. Benton was one of the sweetest older women that he knew. She always had cookies and usually lemonade. It was like she walked out of a 60s TV show. She wouldn’t let him leave immediately when he had a job finished. She insisted that he sit down for at least fifteen minutes and catch her up on his life.

  When Yale was a little boy, the Bentons occasionally babysat for him and his older brother Roy. Yale remembered the first time that Mrs. Benton took them both down to the basement and the pool table and told them they could play. She said that normally Doc Benton wouldn’t let any children near his pool table, but they both knew that the Preston boys would be responsible.

  He was surprised that Mrs. Benton knew how to shoot pool. She even taught them a few tricks. Sometimes Yale wished that he was a little boy again, but then he remembered how he was taunted at school and how so many people thought he was dumb, and he changed his mind. Even with the lousy, ugly trailer, being an adult was better. Being on his own and in charge of what he wanted to do was better. It was just hard sometimes.

  Jess said, “This is Tuesday. Are you going to hang out with Derek tonight like usual, Yale?”

  Fixated on his worries about the rent payment, Yale nearly forgot that it was Tuesday. The very best thing about Tuesdays was getting to hang out with Derek.

  Yale first met Derek Bradshaw in junior high. Derek was already brainy and geeky and had four projects he was working on all at the same time. When they met, Derek was trying his hand writing poetry. He even sent some things to magazines. Now he was a published author, and that fact always left Yale awestruck.

  In junior high, Yale was big and surprisingly muscular for his age, but he had trouble in school. His ADHD made it hard for him to concentrate and the difficulty concentrating made Yale feel stupid, but he was good in gym class. He could run faster, climb the rope faster, and lift heavier weights than almost any other boy in his class.

  He bonded with Derek when they recognized how they could help each other out. Yale helped Derek avoid humiliation at the hands of sadistic gym teachers, and Derek helped Yale with his homework.

  When they were sophomores in high school, one night after going to a movie together, they were telling each other secret confessions when Derek blurted out, “I hope it’s okay with you, Yale, but I like boys.”

  Yale tilted his head to the right and said, “Of course you do, you’re hanging out with me.”

  Derek leaned forward and said, “No, I’m not into girls. I’m really more into boys.”

  After Yale nodded and said, “Yeah, I think I am, too,” they became even closer friends. When the Purple Pack, the group of gay friends they fell in with later in high school, hung out together, Derek and Yale always had their own partnership, too. If someone wanted one of them at a party, it was a requirement to invite the other.

  Derek was always so successful at everything he did. No one who knew him was surprised that he was a successful writer. Yale loved basking in the glow from Derek’s successes and providing any kind of help that he could.

  Yale said to Jess, “Yep, it’s Tuesday. I’ll see him after dinner.”

  “How is he doing?” asked Jess.

  Yale said, “He’s working too much as usual. He was already so busy with his writing, and he’s making good money with it, but then he took over the bookstore when his uncle died. Now it feels like Tuesday night is about the only time that I get to see him.”

  Jess shook her head. “You tell Derek that I think he’s too young to be letting work and worries like that eat up all of his time. The same goes for you, too, Yale. You need to get out and have fun and go on adventures while your body is still completely up for it. One day you’ll get out of bed and everything will ache, and you won’t want to do things like that anymore.”

  Yale smiled and said, “Well, as long as Derek is along, I’m up for any kind of adventure. He’s good at convincing me. I’ve done some things with Derek that I could never imagine doing. He’s hard to turn down when he comes up with an idea.”

  2

  Derek

  With a sigh of relief, Derek turned the sign on the door of the Undercover bookstore in downtown Catlett’s Cove from open to closed. The final customer left without purchasing anything. Undercover drew a steady stream of customers throughout the day, but the actual sales were few and far between.

  Derek turned the lights off in the front of the store and settled at a round table in the back with his laptop computer. He deliberately turned off the wi-fi connection to avoid as many distractions as possible. Derek needed to write 5,000 new words by the end of the night. If it all flowed easily, he could be finished in less than three hours.

  He had two projects to choose from. Either one was acceptable. Derek just needed to move one of the books forward. He had a contract with a traditional publishing house for a suspense thriller. It was the third book in a series about small-town detective Houston Brant. The first two books received solid positive reviews and they sold in respectable numbers. Unfortunately, Derek’s heart wasn’t in the project. Consequently, it was lagging behind.

  The other project would be a self-published romance. Derek was building an audience in that area, too, and each book sold better than the last. Derek knew he could crank out the words for his romance quickly and easily, so he decided to start with the thriller instead while he was still alert and thinking clearly.

  The words just weren’t coming easily. Derek looked up and saw three books with their spines sticking too far out of the shelves. He stood up and straightened them. Then he paced back and forth across the floor.

  Derek sat again and tried to force himself to write about a devastating
explosion kicking off the new Houston Brant novel. Then he found himself drumming his fingers on the table and looking toward the front of the store. One of the fluorescent light fixtures was flickering.

  Derek felt a little bit nauseous, too. He thought that maybe it was because he skipped lunch, but then he realized it was really the bookstore itself. The store was having difficulty turning a profit since Derek took it over, and he was too busy with his writing to do much about it.

  The store was important in Derek’s family. It was opened and then operated for twenty years by his Uncle Don. Derek knew that letting it fail would carry consequences that rippled in many directions like dropping a pebble into a pond. His family, the Bradshaws, didn’t fail. They always figured out how to succeed. Derek was determined not to be the first individual to break the family legacy.

  He knew that a bookstore that traded primarily in paper books was an anachronism in a world awash in technology and e-books. However, Derek learned from professional connections that there were ways to make an independent bookstore succeed in a community like Catlett’s Cove.

  The consistent stream of customers through the front door told Derek that visibility was not a big problem. Unfortunately, most of the customers didn’t buy anything. During warm months, a significant portion of them were tourists looking for a restroom and sometimes a place to just sit and gather strength for further explorations in town. If those customers bought anything, it was usually just a local map of the Summers Lake area.

  Others who stopped in were local residents who had been coming to Undercover for years. They appreciated gossiping with Derek’s Uncle Don, and they expected Derek to continue the tradition. He tried to carry on interesting conversations, but he didn’t have a lot of his own information to share. He was a good listener, though, and he learned a lot about his fellow residents of Catlett’s Cove.