November Rains (A Year in Paradise Book 11)

by Hildred Billings

  Since Christina was the messenger in this grand endeavor, she was elected to stand on the sidewalk in her apron and a platter of samples in her hand. Elaine fussed with the balloons on the front stoop – right next to the handicap compliant ramp, thank you – and kept an eye on the biggest advertisement she had at her disposal.

  The mayor’s daughter!

  Sure enough, people recognized her and stopped to ask what she was doing. After the third group of old ladies passed, Christina turned to Elaine and asked, “How long do I gotta stay out here?”

  Her question was answered when the first drizzle of the day arrived. After two big rain droplets landed on her face, Christina high-tailed it into the teashop saying nope, nope, nope. Luckily for Elaine, she had purchased a sturdy, weather-resistant A-frame board and placed it out on the street. No samples, though.

  Christina dried off behind the counter. Elaine rearranged the canisters of clean forks and spoons. She rechecked the small display of loose leaf teas available for smelling and perusing. The broom came out and swept around the front door again. Only then did she look out and realize that people had congregated around her sidewalk sign.

  “First ten patrons get a free cookie with purchase of tea or coffee!” Elaine called out the door. “Still time to claim your free cookie!”

  That had been written on the sign, of course, but again, people didn’t read. They merely stood around and speculated.

  At least that got a few people inside. A middle-aged man stood back and whistled at the lofted ceilings and ample lighting coming through the windows. Raindrops may splatter on the glass, but that didn’t stop the place from being a veritable solarium.

  Elaine withheld all excitement that she finally had her first customers. The man and his wife were there with their son and one of his “friends,” who suspiciously looked much friendlier-than-friends. They sat at the best table by the front window, ordered tea and coffee, and whistled at the generous helping of coffees to land on their tables. I’ll talk to Christina about her serving finesse later. The girl may not be wanting to work, but Elaine had a feeling Karen Rath would want to know if her daughter wasn’t pulling her own at her job.

  “Peanut butter for you,” Elaine said with a large smile. “Chocolate chip – heated up – and two oatmeal raisins. Now, those oatmeal raisins taste absolutely divine with the Earl Grey. Which one of you had that, again?”

  The young man’s friend had ordered a chai latte that he said was “pretty enough to put in a picture.” That was Elaine’s cue to remind everyone that they would receive a 10% off coupon toward future visits if they took a picture and posted to social media while in the café.

  Slowly, but a little surely, more people filtered in through the day. Around lunchtime, half the café was filled with curious customers who said they hadn’t thought about a good cup of tea since… well, ever. One of them was actually British.

  The cookies were a huge hit, of course, but Elaine had hit it out of the park with her cheddar biscuits and the marionberry pie she solicited from another bakery. The two dollar markup per slice hadn’t been a deal breaker, since half the pie was gone by two in the afternoon. When asked if she would provide “real” lunch options in the future, she said she was thinking of offering savory pies and hot sandwiches.

  “Oh, like at the deli?” A young woman out with her girlfriend asked. The pair of them were so gay that Elaine couldn’t help but grin more than usual. They acted like an old married couple! How long have they been together? Are they married? I bet they grew up together. Before Elaine could run away with her fantasy scenario, though, the woman continued, “They have pretty good deli sandwiches down at Frankie’s place. You know, across from Heaven’s?”

  “Heaven and Frankie” sounded like the recasted version of “Grace and Frankie.” “That so? I haven’t been by yet. I admit, a lot of my diet is pretty vegetarian these days.”

  “Oh, yeah, you’re not gonna find much vegetarian down at Frankie’s,” the other woman ,with a huskier voice and broader frame, said. “You’re new in town, right? Here’s a conundrum for you. What happens when you throw a bunch of vegetarian-lite hippie lesbians into small town Oregon? You get a bunch of businesses that try to appeal to them and all the red-meat-eating small towners. Seriously, my parents have never understood how you can go a single day without eating meat. My mom alone is convinced you will keel over and die after a week of no meat.”

  “What Ariana is trying to say,” her girlfriend continued, “is that you definitely have to know your audience in this town.”

  Elaine took that to heart. “So I could carve myself a nice little niche here if I offered more vegetarian food?”

  “Throw in a couple vegan things and you’ll make it on a list in Portland.”

  Oooh, now there was a thought! Making a list in Portland was as good as making it on a list in New York! Maybe better!

  “Thanks.” The door opened, admitting two new customers. “I’ll keep that in mind. Enjoy, ladies.”

  She was keen to greet the young men who had entered. Mostly because one was not a person she had expected.

  Oh, no, she didn’t recognize him, but Elaine’s interest was always piqued when she crossed paths with someone wearing the same kind of dreads she used to sport long before she decided to chop off most of her hair and straighten what was left. I always did look best with an asymmetrical bob. Ask my mom. She’s the one who suggested it! Her mother, the former Nigerian catalog model, knew her best hairstyles for each unique face. It had become one of her part-time jobs when she retired from modeling to move to America.

  Elaine had embraced small town life with a positive attitude that said that, while she was aware of the most well-meaning people staring at her for a little longer than was ever comfortable, she wouldn’t take it personally. She had made the final move to Paradise Valley when she looked up some articles and visited enough times to realize she would not be the only black woman in town. A small comfort when people still openly stared at her and bent over backward to be polite.

  Well! It was better than the alternative!

  Elaine was halfway to the young gentlemen when Christina popped out from behind the counter and asked one of them, “Ugh, why do you have to be here? Mom said you wouldn’t be back in town until Thanksgiving.”

  Both men laughed, the white one putting his arm around Christina and giving her a half-hearted noogie. Elaine chose that moment to finish her approach and welcome him to her shop. “You know these customers, Christina?”

  “Customers!” she bleated. “My brother doesn’t count as a customer.”

  “So what am I, chopped liver?” the other man asked, pulling his backpack off his shoulders with a smile as big as the sign above him spelling out the word TEA.

  “Besides,” Christina’s brother continued, “who says I’m not a customer? I see there’s a new café in town, and I wanna go check it out. Bonus points if my sister is wearing the apron.”

  “Christina,” Elaine said to her only employee, “how about you go grab those cookies for table five and I’ll seat these fine young gentlemen.”

  “They may be young, but they ain’t gentlemen,” Christina muttered on her way to the kitchen.

  “Hi.” Her brother held a hand out to Elaine. “Xander Rath. If you couldn’t guess, I’m the mayor’s son, but don’t hold that against me. I know how she can be with handing out permits.”

  His friend continued to laugh as he held out his hand as well. “Dominic. Nice to meet you. My sister runs the deli up the street.”

  Second time I’ve heard about this deli today. Elaine turned around to show them to an available table along the wall. She gave them two menus and asked them to mind the large plant hanging above – she really needed to clip back the tendrils that had grown at a breakneck pace since the pot’s installation.

  “Now, I know it seems like you want to impress me because my mom pulls strings in this town,” Xander said, thumb already jerking toward Dom
inic, “but this is the guy who can put your business on the map. He knows every business in town. Have the best cookies in town, and he’ll be in here three days a week studying for his finals. Hey, you could take sizable business away from Heaven’s.”

  Dominic laughed. “More like the library! I can barely concentrate in there. Sooo many kids this time of year. Nowhere else for them to go when it’s raining,” he then explained to Elaine. “Sis is always kicking me out of the deli during the lunch rush. She tells me I either need to put on a hairnet and get in the kitchen or go to the library.”

  Elaine had no idea what to say, other than, “Your sister sounds like a really hard worker.”

  “You have noooo idea. But, hey, it helps her pay my tuition, so I ain’t complaining! You got cookies, right? I thought I saw something about cookies out on the signboard.”

  “He’ll take one of each, by the way,” Xander said. “My treat.”

  “Must be nice being the mayor’s son, huh?” Dominic chided. “Affording cookies left and right.”

  Elaine told them they could come up to the counter whenever they were ready to order. When she turned around and beheld her half-full café on opening day, she had the fleeting thought that maybe, maybe, she hadn’t been crazy to set up shop in a tiny town out in the middle of Nowhere, Oregon.

  The proof, however, would be in the proverbial pudding that was seeing the bottom line after the first of the year. Until then, Elaine had to keep her focus and continue making the best cookies in Paradise Valley.

  Chapter 5

  ELAINE

  Once a month, Frankie locked up her deli after the lunch rush concluded, usually with clumps of crumbs on the tables and the tip jar overflowing with pennies. But, once a month, Frankie left that behind to put on her jacket and head down to the city hall, where the Paradise Valley Chamber of Commerce used a meeting room for their monthly deeds.

  Frankie had a love-hate relationship with the Chamber. She had been a member since the opening of her shop, and had religiously attended every meeting even when she had to drag herself out of the sickbed (assuming she wasn’t contagious, that is.) The Chamber played a pivotal role for the small businesses of Paradise Valley. Other people came and went, but as long as Frankie’s Deli was open, its namesake was at the monthly meetings, going over marketing opportunities, tourism factors, and new laws that may or may not affect the small business owners of the Paradise Valley-Roundabout city district. Frankie had been such a staple in the past few years that she was unanimously voted to the board – and she hadn’t signed up to run.

  Perhaps that was where the “hate” came in. Frankie didn’t have a leading bone in her body. She also resented how many business owners didn’t bother coming to the monthly meetings. She was lucky to see some of the same faces every other month! A lot of them can’t really afford to miss meetings, either. Small business taxes had been raised in the past election cycle, but Frankie was one of the only ones at the meeting putting together “Vote No!” materials. Everyone else expressed shocked the following year when their taxes suddenly went up. Duh, yeah, you weirdos. If the constituents are presented with “Raise taxes for the school!” they’re of course going to tax us without lookin at the fine print of how those funds are actually allocated… Surprise, surprise. The Paradise Valley-Roundabout School District still couldn’t afford new textbooks or basketball uniforms.

  Maybe that was part of the problem. Half of the Chamber’s members were also on the PTA, the Booster Club, and the Friends of the Library. In a small but active town like theirs, people put their hands into multiple pots and got quickly overwhelmed. The more kids they had, the worse it was.

  All that was to say Frankie was shocked to see two dozen people milling about the city hall rotunda when she arrived five minutes before showtime.

  “Whoa.” She sidled up behind Eugene, the owner of Real Value Hardware. Here’s a guy who doesn’t have to close up his shop to come to the meeting. He’s got one whole employee under his belt. Which also explained why Crafts & Things owner Joan Sheffield was not in attendance. Ever since she went on bedrest for her pregnancy, her partner Lorri had been splitting time between her full time job at Real Value and the craft shop. Apparently, people still needed to make money in that town. “Is this the highest turnout we’ve had since February?” People tended to skip the meeting right after New Year’s, but still held on to their small business resolutions in February. March was when they started dropping like flies again.

  Eugene shook his head. “End of the year, you know. Most people won’t be here in December and January, so this is their last meeting before Valentine’s Day.” That shake of the head turned into a hearty chuckle. “You know that already, though, right? You’re here every month without fail.”

  “Somebody has to be. Otherwise, this whole Chamber of Commerce thing would fall apart.”

  “Everybody’s got their thing. Some people care about the children, others get involved in local politics…” Eugene shot Frankie a sly grin. “Then there’s Frankie, who gets out her lasso once a month and rounds up the fillies to talk business for once.”

  “Those are really big words for the Head of the Board.”

  Oh, she wouldn’t let him forget that he was above her in the chain of command!

  “What can I say?” Eugene replied. “That’s what makes me so appreciative of people like you, Frank. You get the job done when I can’t. Why you won’t run for my position, I have no idea.”

  Frankie knew why, although she didn’t say. I’m not the leading type. Besides, Frankie believed in keeping as many targets off her back as possible. She had already grown a thick skin being the first black woman to run a business in Paradise Valley since Simone Philips, who retired from her general goods position twenty years ago. If it’s not some of the more unpleasant locals making your life hell, it’s the weird-ass tourists. For some reason, the Portlanders vacationing in Paradise Valley were more shocked to see her there than in Portland. Don’t know why. Same percentage of black people either way!

  Although Frankie was the first in a long while, however, she was thankfully not the last. Not so long ago, Meadow Hobfield – who came, at most, to twenty-five percent of the Chamber of Commerce meetings – opened a floral shop on the edge of town. Last I heard, she was having problems with the IRS. Which explained why she was dating the resident CPA, who was a member but had never attended a meeting in her life. Ladies need to know who to make alliances with, I suppose. Hey, Frankie didn’t resent Meadow for falling in love with the blandest tax preparer in Oregon! Any mean thing I have to say is spawned from jealousy. Whatever. I admit it.

  “Hey.” That was how she greeted Meadow next to the meeting room, where she poured herself some complimentary coffee and stirred in a helping of cream. “How goes it?”

  Meadow glanced up from her coffee before giving it her undivided attention once more. “You mean besides being the slowest time of my year? Could be a lot worse, I guess. At least Hesper keeps me on top of my finances so I feel the heat a lot less than I did this time last year.”

  “Yeah, uh…” Frankie scratched her head. “How’s that going? With Hesper, I mean. Hey, do me a favor and nag her to come to the meeting for once, would you? I keep forgetting she’s a member until it’s time to collect her info for the mailer.”

  “I know when I’ve already lost a battle before I’ve fought it.” Meadow sipped her coffee. The face she made implied it was not up to her standards, but such was city hall coffee. “She’ll tell you that she sees no point in plotting anything with us because we are her clients, ha!”

  “That’s true. When you’re the only tax guru in a twenty-mile radius, the customers come straight to you. As long as you make your sign bold enough that the newbies know where to find you.”

  “Now you know the one thing I rag on her about! That sign is so gauche. Know what it needs?”

  “A flower?”

  “Now you’re talking. Speaking of, I dig the daisies
.”

  She pointed to Frankie’s hair, which she had been wearing in microbraids for the past sixteen months. Yes, I keep track. Kinda hard to forget when you started doing it when you have pictures from your cousin’s wedding and your hair is tragic as shit. Frankie had never been able to pull off an afro. Not like Meadow, who was hotter than a model stepping right off the pages of Vogue. Damnit, Hesper, you really don’t know how good your bland ass has it! No, Frankie didn’t have a legit thing for Meadow, but she was the first to admit she got a little jealous about more than one thing.

  The braids, though… they had been a good move. About once a week Frankie switched up any adornments, and this week she went with some tiny plastic daisy clips that created the illusion of a chain around her crown. It was the girliest she ever allowed herself to be. I may not be a proper stud, but I’m no femme, neither. Frankie worked with what she had.

  “Eugene and I have a theory that there are so many people here because they’re gonna bail on the next two meetings,” Frankie said. “What do you think?”

  Meadow turned her body toward the whole of the rotunda and leaned her thighs against the plastic table behind her. “You really wanna know what I think? I think we’re not alone anymore, that’s what.”

  Before Frankie could ask what she meant by that, Meadow gestured to the growing crowd by the Wall of Mayors. Right beneath the illustrious photograph of Karen Rath stood a small clump of people, some of them holding paper coffee cups, but most of them buttering up the newest addition to the Chamber of Commerce.

  Of course, as a board member, Frankie knew that they had a new member as of that week. I also rightfully assumed she would show up, thanks. Except “Elaine Hadley” was not a very descriptive name. Elaine Hadley could be anyone. Most likely a woman. Probably gay. If Frankie were a betting woman – and she wasn’t – she’d take the safe bet and say that Elaine Hadley was as white as the people now surrounding her. Hey, when “European descent” made up 90% of the population, it was the safe bet! The census didn’t lie!