by Tracey Quinn
One of the other customer favorites is the Salad Pizza that he makes on a whole wheat crust. He puts mozzarella, Swiss cheese or pepper jack on the crust, sprinkles on some Parmesan and, bakes it at 450 degrees for about 10 to 15 minutes till the cheese melts and the crust looks sort of brown around the edges.. Meanwhile he makes just a simple salad of mixed salad greens, cherry tomato halves, thinly sliced red onions and sweet peppers, which he tosses in the customer's choice of salad dressings, usually Italian or ranch. He told me that he's trying to keep our customers healthy so they'll live longer and keep coming back. Sounds like a good plan to me. As I may have mentioned, I have this mortgage to pay.
“By the way,” Mark asked, “who was purple hair girl anyhow?”
“She's Molly Payton's niece and she's going to be running the yarn shop for the next two months while Molly's on vacation,” I said as I started putting tape on Olivia's poster so I could display it in the front window.
“That's good,” Mark said. “I won't be likely to run into her unless the yarn shop catches fire. Maybe not even then. There must be do-it-yourself videos online that tell a person how to put out fires. By the way, I assume you were jealous?”
“Absolutely insanely jealous, or at least I would have been if the look on your face hadn't been so funny.”
“Hey, I couldn't help it. So what's the poster for?”
I held it up and showed it to him. “Olivia Quinlan has added a day spa to her beauty parlor and she's going to have a grand opening celebration in a couple of weeks. I really should go. Care to join me?”
“Can't be done,” he said. “I have allergies.”
“Allergies to beauty parlors?”
“Exactly. I haven't been able to go in one in 39 years. It's a terrible curse.”
“You do recall that you're only 38 year old,” I said.
“It was a pre-natal visit. I'm pretty sure I broke out in hives. Maybe bunions. Something bad,” Mark replied. “By the way, I never heard you mention Olivia Quinlan before. Is she a special friend or something?”
“Lord, no,” I said. “Olivia isn't anyone's friend. I'm just pleasant to her because she's a customer. Incidentally, my rent check is in the drawer.”
“Ah, four days early,” he said. “The Mortgage Department of the Federal Credit Union and I cordially thank you.”
There was a knock at the door and I heard the voice of my ditzy teenage waitress Charlene. “Miss O'Shea? I have a question for you. Can I come in or are you and Mr. Adams doing something personal?”
“Tell her yes, and then let's do something personal,” Mark suggested.
I sighed. “Come in, Charlene. What's your question?”
“Well, you know Georgine who lives across the street from Jolene at the trailer park?” she asked.
“Georgine?” Mark queried.
“You may not know her on account of you spending so much time at the firehouse and Georgine's house never catching on fire,” Charlene replied.
“That would explain it.”
“Well, you're still kinda new in town. I'm sure her house will catch on fire eventually. You'd like her, too. She's a nice lady. Her mother named her after George Hamilton. I think I learned in history that he was one of the old presidents early on or something. Anyhow Georgine said she was changing the curtain on the window over the kitchen sink one evening last week and Bigfoot came right up to her window and looked in.”
“Bigfoot?” I asked. “How does she know what Bigfoot looks like?”
“She went to the library and looked it up on the internet. Miss Devlin the librarian told her that you can't believe everything you see on the internet and she said that the picture was just a line drawing, not a photograph, but Georgine said no one could draw a picture of something they had never seen before so it had to be real.”
“Does Georgine drink alcohol, Charlene?” asked Mark.
“Not at all,” she replied. “She lost her dad from his drinking alcohol. She won't touch the stuff.”
I tried to get Mark's attention and give him the Don't Ask look, but it was too late.
“That's too bad,” he said. “Drunk driving, I suppose?”
“Oh no,” Charlene said. “He had a few beers over at Sammy's Lounge one night and then he went into Hotter's and had a big bowl of chili. He felt bad so he took a lot of baking soda and his stomach exploded. No one had ever seen anything like it. It was totally gruesome. The way they described it was ---”
“Say, Charlene, what is it you wanted to ask me?” I interjected.
“Oh, right. It's just that this Bigfoot keeps coming around and looking in Georgine's window. She got a picture of it and she wonders if she could sell it to some newspaper. I mean it comes around in the evening and the pictures are kind of blurry, but it's definitely Bigfoot because he's got long straggly hair and his face is hairy and and there's some kind of foot prints on the trash can under her window.”
“Has anyone new moved into the trailer park that might have a big dog or something like that?” I asked.
“Oh, you think a dog could chase the Bigfoot away? That's a great idea, Miss O'Shea!”
“Actually I meant-”
“I don't think any of her neighbors have a dog, though. I guess that's why Bigfoot has been hanging around. Georgine said the guys who live next door had a cat, but they don't have it anymore on account of the cat's name was Shooter and one night the two guys were drinking beer and watching TV when the cat jumped up on the window sill. The window was open and the first guy didn't want the cat to get out so he yelled at the cat, 'Shooter!' The other guy misunderstood him so he took out his gun and shot the cat. As far as I know they haven't got another one yet.”
“Probably for the best, I'd say. Uh, Charlene,” I asked, “does Georgine still do her housework in the nude?”
“Yes, she always does; she doesn't want to get her clothes dirty when she cleans the house. I guess a lot of people do that. Oh, gosh, I bet I know what you're thinking! You don't suppose it's that Erotic Bigfoot that they wrote about in the newspaper at the supermarket, do you? Excuse me, Miss O'Shea, I'd better call Georgine!”
“Try to remember that I need you to start waiting tables at two which is about five minutes from now,” I reminded her as she headed for the door.
“Hmm,” said Mark. “What's Georgine's address? I probably should check this out. The poor girl might be in danger.”
“I'll look that up for you right away,” I replied. “By the way, the poor girl is 67 years old.”
“On second thought she'll probably be okay on her own,” he said. “While you finish up here do you want me to stop by the house and pick up your beach towel and string bikini?”
“I brought my swim stuff with me. I bought a new tankini. They were on sale at the mall over in Pumpkin City.”
“What's a tankini?”
“It's a swim suit that comes in two pieces and you can mix and match to make it any way you want,” I explained. “ I picked out a tank top and matching swim shorts. They're really comfortable. You must have seen a tankini before.”
“Only once that I recall. It was when I was at a gravel beach in Albania. I think I saw a nun wearing one. She wore shapeless black shoes with it. That gravel is hard to walk on. I'm not being judgmental but it does seem self-centered for you to deny me the opportunity to ogle you in a string bikini just for the sake of your comfort.”
“Maybe Georgine, the naked photographer, has one.”
“We'll never know,” he said.
Chapter 2
As I walked into the diner at 5:30 the next morning Kitty Benson came up to me and said, “Cooter is sitting on the back step waiting for us to open. He's all depressed. Jolene canceled their date last night because she's so mad at Olivia. I hope he doesn't have change for the jukebox this time.”
Kitty waitresses at the diner for the morning shift from 6 am till 2 pm. She is a sweet girl who has a five year old son. Her ex, Lloyd Duval, was an abusive husband a
nd is still in prison for manslaughter. He killed a man in a bar fight and tried to convince the police that Kitty had done it. Not only is Kitty just 5'2” and slender, but she was actually in the hospital giving birth to his son at the time. Nobody said Lloyd was very smart. He gladly signed over his parental rights to Kitty for their son, but she's still hoping he won't come back to East Spoon Creek City when he's released in a couple of years. She doubts that prison has changed him for the better.
Cooter James is a nice guy but he's sort of a goof-ball. He does a lot of odd-jobs around town and messes up most of them, but he tries. A lot of folks don't like Cooter James because of the trouble he accidentally causes, especially James Cooter, the manager of the Farnsworth Bank and Trust, who often has to deal with angry people who have mistaken him for Cooter James. In spite of all the mishaps Cooter gets into, Jolene still loves him and they've been dating for two years. Every time they have a disagreement Cooter sits in the Breezy Spoon shoving quarters in the jukebox and playing “Goodnight Irene” over and over. I rue the day that I decided not to have the jukebox taken out when I was remodeling the place. Each booth has a selector box on the wall at the end of the table and customers can pick songs and put their quarters in without having to get up to do it. That seemed really nifty and a nice way to bring in extra revenue, but I'm pretty sure the money I spent on headache remedies is more than the jukebox is bringing in.
“Poor Cooter,” I said. “Olivia Quinlan's behavior is almost as hard on him as it is on Jolene. It's a lot of work for her to have to walk six blocks each way everyday just to get a kale salad. I've told Olivia that she could stop by in the morning when she drives to the bank and we could have it ready for her. She could just keep it in the fridge till lunch.”
“Oh, she would never do anything that thoughtful,” Kitty replied. “She just enjoys being waited on and bossing people around.”
I remembered that Kitty works part time at the beauty parlor on the weekends. “Jolene was in here yesterday and she seemed madder than usual at Olivia. She said Olivia had gone too far this time. Do you know what's going on between them?”
“Oh, Olivia has definitely gone too far!” Kitty said, shaking her head. “I don't know if she ever told you this, but Jolene has been trying to buy the beauty parlor. She made a deal with Olivia, and for the past five years Jolene has been paying her an extra $300 per month besides her booth rent. The idea is that when she has the $20,000 for the down payment Olivia will sell her the place.”
“Well, my math isn't great, but $300 a month is $3600 a year, multiplied times five years that's almost $20,000, isn't it? So what's the problem? It sounds like Jolene's almost ready to buy the place and get Olivia out of her hair, no pun intended.”
“That's what you'd think, but Olivia just told her yesterday that since she turned the place into a spa as well as a beauty parlor that it's a much more valuable property now, so she wants a down payment of $40,000 before she'll sell. Jolene got mad and said she wants her money back, but Olivia said that according to their contract it's not refundable and if Jolene doesn't keep paying she'll lose everything she's paid in.”
“Not refundable? That's just crazy! Doesn't Jolene have the original contract?”
“She has a copy of the original and the copy says the money is being held in an escrow account at the bank and that it will be totally refundable if the deal doesn't go through. Olivia claims that since it's a photocopy that Jolene must have changed the wording and made a fake copy. I think Olivia planned to cheat her out of her money all along.”
“Good Lord, I can't believe it,” I said. “But, come to think of it, you're probably right. Why else would she spend all that money to remodel the place and turn it into a spa? Jolene should sue her!”
“That's what I told her, but she's afraid that if she does she'll get fired and she won't be able to afford the lawyer. Besides, she figures Olivia spent the money already so she won't be able to get it back anyway.”
“That's ridiculous. She can't let Olivia get away with that. I'll tell her to take the contracts over to Ham Hamsky and he can see if there's any way she can get out of this mess.”
Hamilton Hamsky is the better of the two lawyers in town, and one of my old high school classmates. When I moved back to East Spoon Creek City I rented a room from his mother for a little while. She was a very nice lady if you didn't care about privacy; she would let herself in my room, check my mail, go through my underwear drawer and if I stayed in the bathroom for more than five minutes I'd hear her voice from outside the door saying, “Are you having problems with your colon, dear? I have an extra enema bag.” She would even leave little notes for me letting my know that “Ham-Ham” was free if I wanted to go on a date with him. I was pretty happy when I found Mark's place, as you can imagine.
Hamilton (who hates to be called Ham-Ham) is much more normal than his mother and doesn't need her help with matchmaking. Ever since his wife died he's been seeing Letty Anderson from the dry good store. Letty's a friend too, and helped me when I was remodeling the Breezy Spoon. I'm good at cooking and flying a helicopter, but when it comes to interior decorating, not so much. Without Letty's help the diner probably would have ended up looking like an army barracks.
“I hope he can help her. Olivia is so mean,” Kitty sighed.
“Have you had any run-ins with her?” I asked.
“Yep, just last Saturday I had six customers. Olivia came down, shampooed three of them, told me to finish up with the rinsing, styling, curling, drying and comb out, and then she took the whole payment plus the tip! I was so mad I was yelling at her after we closed. But she just grinned and said maybe she should let the City Council know that I was working out of the basement at my parents house and it's against the law because that area isn't zoned for business. I do some extra hair styling at home on the side because I'm trying to save up enough money to get a place of my own for me and my son. Olivia must have found out and now she's holding it over my head so she can take my money!”
“But half the people in this town do some kind of work from home. Day care, tutoring, internet selling, whatever. Don uses the barn behind the diner to repair motorcycles that he buys and sells for a profit. No one cares.”
“I know, but Olivia is spiteful and she's a hot number in the eyes of those old guys on the City Council. She may be in her fifties but she uses about an inch of makeup and wears clothes that look like they've been painted on her. She keeps herself in shape and I admit she's very attractive for her age. You know how she flirts with every guy in town; that's why all the women hate her!”
“I thought she was supposed to be 45,” I said.
“Nope,” said Kitty. “She's 58. I saw her driver's license when she had her purse open stealing my tips one day.”
“Really, something ought to be done about her. She's disgusting.”
Brendan unlocked the door and the breakfast crowd trickled in. Five minutes later I heard, “Irene, goodnight, Irene...” I looked over at the booth where Cooter was sitting. He had three rolls of quarters on the table and he was unwrapping one of them. For a brief moment I thought back fondly of the good old days in Afganistan. All they were doing was shooting at me over there.
After lunch I went into the office to grab some money out of petty cash to tip a delivery boy when my phone rang. I saw it as Charlene, and I was pretty sure of what she was calling about.
“You had better not be calling to say your can't come in, Charlene!” I said. “I don't have anyone to cover for you today!”
“Oh no, Miss O'Shea,” she answered. “I'll be there in a half hour, but first I need to ask you something private, like a favor.”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Well, Jimmy and I are going to try to get Jolene's real contract with Miss Quinlan while she's at the Spa Grand Opening next week and we wondered if you could keep her talking for about 15 minutes until we can find it.”
“Find it? I imagine it's in her apartment somewhere, bu
t you really can't do that, Charlene. I know how much you care about Jolene, but she wouldn't want you to end up getting arrested for breaking into Olivia's apartment. I'm going to call Ham Hamsky this afternoon and see what he can do to help her. You and Jimmy really need to stay out of it.”
“But we wouldn't break into the apartment, Miss O'Shea. We'd just use the key.”
“You have a key to Olivia's apartment? Tell me you didn't steal it.”
“Oh, no, I would never do a thing like that. Jolene has a key to Miss Quinlan's apartment because she brings up her lunch every day. Jolene was worried that she might lose it, so she had a copy made and gave it to me for safekeeping. I keep it in my junk drawer.” Lowering her voice to a whisper, she said, “It's really the top drawer in my dresser where I keep all my important stuff, but I labeled it 'Junk Drawer' so no one would know that.”
“I see. But if you got caught, Jolene could get in trouble for giving you the key. It could turn out to be a real mess. Why don't you wait until Hamilton talks to her first? I'll be able to let you know in a few days what he can do. You're a sweet girl and I think it's great that you want to do this for Jolene, but let's try the legal way first.”
“Okay, Miss O'Shea, if you think that's best, but please keep our plan in mind, just in case.”
“I'm sure I'll never forget it, Charlene.”
As I was leaving the office, Teela came into the diner. Teela is a petite but shapely woman who always wears lovely sarongs and who came with her husband from the islands. What islands? I hope someday to figure that out. Bildad, her large, surly, slightly scary hulk of a husband works for Sammy Brown at Sammy's Lounge and Gentlemen's Club. Sammy Brown is a descendant of one of the founders of East Spoon Creek City, along with Al Sholes, who owns Al's Emporium. Almost since the city began in the 1840's the descendants of the two founders have had an ongoing feud over who was the first to actually start the town. In spite of generations of animosity Sammy and Al bought the huge building that housed the ice rink together, had a wall built directly in the center front to back, and now their businesses share the place. Why would they share a building if they hate each other so much? Because it was cheap.