A Table By the Window

by Lawana Blackwell

  He nodded as if anticipating that argument. “And that’s why I’m here. To ask you not to make up your mind until you’ve had a chance to try out some vegan dishes.”

  “But you just said there are no restaurants.”

  “At my house.” The sandy eyebrows raised hopefully. “Saturday evening?”

  Say no, she thought. His offer to cook sample dishes was essentially a pick-up line. He had either grown weary of the Pascagoula girlfriend or she had dumped him.

  Her less cynical side reminded her of the sack lunch at his table in Corner Diner.

  He’s not making up the vegetarianism.

  Or perhaps it was her more cynical side, reminding her that a local hero who dated beauty queens would not be inventing excuses to date her.

  Both sides caved at the hopefulness in his blue eyes. She got to her feet. “All right. I’ll get a pen and—”

  “Why don’t I just come for you?” he said, rising as well. “I could bring the patrol car. You’ve probably never ridden in one.”

  “No, thank you,” Carley said. And he was wrong. She had ridden in three over the course of her childhood. And given the memories associated with those rides, she could not share Micah’s sentiment that they were “cool.”

  ****

  Tables and chairs needed to be scrubbed clean in preparation for varnishing, so Carley went to the café Wednesday morning while most of Tallulah was still in bed. At noon, Aunt Helen brought lunch over from the diner.

  “Oh, just in time,” Carley said, raising a Styrofoam lid. Green liquid sloshed on her navy T-shirt already damp with furniture soap—but she was more interested in the contents of the container than her appearance.

  “Mustard greens?” She asked. They could not be turnips because of the absence of small chunks of root. She was learning.

  “Collards,” her aunt replied.

  There was also roast chicken and O’Brien potatoes. Carley pulled two dry chairs up to a table. “As long as they’re greens. I’ve been craving them all morning. They must be addictive.”

  Aunt Helen smiled. “You’re turning into a true Southerner, Carley. Next, you’ll be craving corn bread and pot likker.”

  “Come again?”

  “It’s country slang. Corn bread soaked in the ‘gravy’ from field peas. Rory loves it, but I never developed a taste for it. Would you be a lamb and run to the Coke machine next door? I didn’t have an extra hand for drinks.”

  “If you like, but I have lemonade and cups in the ice chest.”

  “Even better.”

  While they ate, Carley updated her aunt on the café’s progress. “The Underwoods are coming this afternoon to talk with me about the sign.”

  “Very good.” Aunt Helen had been the first to recommend Clifford and Vera Underwood. They had designed and carved the sign for Déjà Vu Antiques as well as for many of Tallulah’s businesses, including the Old Grist Mill.

  But it was a Steve Underwood who showed up at 1:30. About six feet tall, he appeared to be in his early thirties, with short ink-black hair, a faintly bronze complexion, dark brows and lashes, and a square jaw. As he shook Carley’s hand, he said, “I help my folks with their business during the summer months.”

  “What do you do the rest of the year, Mr. Underwood?” Carley asked.

  “Teach history at USM.”

  “Oh…should I have said ‘Doctor’?”

  “How about just ‘Steve’?”

  “All right.” Carley offered him the chair Aunt Helen had vacated. Another Southern gentleman, he waited until she sat first. “Are you familiar with the poem Annabel Lee?”

  He shook his head. “I avoid poetry at all costs. But it’s by Poe, right?”

  “Yes. And that’s to be the name of the place. I was wondering if we could incorporate that into the sign somehow.”

  “I’m sure we can. Have you a copy here?”

  “No, I don’t. I should have thought of that.”

  “That’s all right. I can look it up online. But do you happen to have it memorized?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “How does it go?”

  Carley began quoting, a little self-consciously. It helped that he did not stare at her, but made little scribbles in a spiral notebook.

  I was a child and she was a child, in this kingdom by the sea….

  “I’m impressed,” he said when she had quoted all forty-one lines.

  “Thank you. I was an English Lit major.”

  “Oh.” He scribbled some more, a little dent of concentration between his dark brows. “Sorry about what I said about poetry.”

  Carley smiled, even though he was not looking up at her. Leaning forward on folded arms, she said, “That’s all right. I’m not married to it. May I see what you’re drawing?”

  “One…second.” He made a couple more marks, then turned the notebook and passed it to her. A sketch of a woman took up the page, looking off to the right with waist-length hair and the hem of her long skirt rippling as if in a stout breeze. Annabel Lee Café was penned in classic flowing letters.

  “This is perfect,” Carley said as shivers ran down her arms.

  “The only drawback to showing her whole body like that is that we won’t be able to show her facial expression with any fine detail.”

  “But you captured the longing and waiting, just by her posture. I would have thought you were an art professor, if you hadn’t said history.”

  He smiled. “Thank you. Drawing has been a hobby since I was a boy. But my mom’s the real artist in the family. She’ll do the etching on your sign.”

  “I can’t wait to see it.”

  “Well, you won’t have to wait long. Two weeks, at the most. And…we have to ask for a fifty-percent deposit.”

  “Of course.” She took checkbook and pen from her purse. “Do you enjoy working with your parents?”

  “I do. They’re great people.”

  It must be nice, being able to say that, she thought with a little stab of envy. “My aunt Helen says your father also builds furniture for Pine Woodworks.”

  Steve nodded. “He always has several pieces on consignment.”

  “I plan to take a look once the painters start. I’ll be needing a deacon’s bench for a little waiting area beside the counter.”

  “Will you be using these?” he asked, twisting to run a hand along the curved back of his chair.

  “After I’ve cleaned and varnished them.”

  “Then I wouldn’t recommend pine. Dad can make you an oak one that’ll blend with the style.”

  That sounded wonderful. And expensive. “How much would it cost?”

  He smiled again. “I let my dad do his own pricing. Furniture’s kind of his sideline. But everyone says he’s reasonable. Just call out to the house when you’re ready, just to make sure he’s in his workshop.”

  About an hour after Steve left, Carley heard tapping and turned toward the half-glass entrance door. A figure stared back at her, leaning close to the window with hands cupped at the sides of his face—her face, Carley realized, beckoning.

  The knob turned and a girl entered with tentative steps. She was big-boned and overdeveloped for her age, which looked to be sixteen or seventeen. Charcoal liner circled green eyes, and four dime-sized hoops dangled from each earlobe. Blonde hair streaked with unnatural orange sprouted from her head in spikes, as if she had been electrocuted. A red tank top revealed a long pale scar on her right forearm; low-cut faded jeans revealed a pierced navel.

  “Yes?” Carley said, hoping this girl was not seeking a job. She had read the booklets put out by the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, and was aware that she must tread lightly. In theory she did not believe in judging a book by its cover. But her conservative customers surely would. Besides, she had to question the common sense of a person of any age who would look for a job dressed in such a manner.

  The girl cleared her throat. “I hear you’re gonna open a restaurant here?”

  �
��Well, a café,” Carley said with a polite smile.

  “Oh. I need a job now.”

  “Sorry. I won’t be hiring for another couple of weeks.”

  “I can help you clean those chairs, paint the walls…. Whatever you need doin’. I’m a hard worker.”

  “The painters are already lined up. And I’m afraid I don’t need any other help right now.”

  The disappointment in the green eyes moved Carley to ask, “What’s your name?”

  “Brooke Kimball.”

  “Why don’t you try Hattiesburg?”

  The girl shoved both hands into her pockets, a feat Carley would not have thought possible.

  “I don’t have a car. Just my bike.”

  She was standing there, still hoping against hope, and Carley had to remind herself that she could not afford to allow compassion to get in the way of good business sense.

  Her conscience prodded, But what if someone had judged you, during your black fingernail phase?

  And Carley answered back, My shoplifting, black fingernail phase?

  Conscience won out in the end, if only by not allowing her to crush the girl’s hopes completely. And there was the EEOC to consider. “Look, I don’t have any applications printed yet, but you’re welcome to drop off a résumé any time.”

  “A résumé…” she said with a resigned nod. “Okay. Well, thanks.”

  Chapter 16

  Thursday morning Carley spread out pages of the Hattiesburg American collected from neighbors and family, propped open the café’s front door with a gallon bottle of pine cleanser, and lifted the lid of a quart-sized can of varnish. Should have bought a footstool, she thought, four chairs later, when shifting her weight did not lessen the impact of ceramic tiles upon her knees.

  “Anybody home?”

  Carley looked toward the door, where a uniformed Dale Parker was entering. The older man who had shared his table at Corner Diner came in behind him, identically clad.

  “Good morning,” Carley said, smiling up at the two. Her knees creaked as she rocked back to sit on her ankles.

  Dale shook his head. “Guess you never heard that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

  “I wish you’d send him over here,” Carley said.

  Both men chuckled, and Dale introduced Deputy Garland Smith. He had dark brown hair, graying at the temples, a salt-and-pepper mustache, and dark eyes as round as buttons.

  “Don’t get up,” the deputy said as Carley started to balance her paintbrush onto the rim of the varnish can. He stepped past Dale and leaned down to shake her hand. “I hear this fellow’s tryin’ to talk you into serving granola and tofu.”

  “Tofu.” Dale grimaced. “No way. Well, we’d better go save the town from bad guys. We just saw your door open and thought we’d check on you.”

  Other people also saw the open door as an invitation, and she was delighted to have them do so, for the job quickly became monotonous. Uncle Rory brought over a Coke after picking up a prescription in the drugstore. Gayle Payne and her children, buying earplugs on their way to the pool at Lockwood Park, stopped in for a quick hello. A brown, black, and white multi-breed dog nosed his way in, but was either too shy or too put off by the smell of varnish to visit. He answered Carley’s beckoning by wagging his tail and then turning and trotting out.

  Which was a good thing, Carley realized, as he took one last look at her through the window. Dog hairs and wet varnish did not mix. She was having enough trouble picking out the occasional bristle from her paintbrush.

  You don’t have to be so cheap about everything, she scolded herself.

  Brooke Kimball stepped through the open doorway. Instead of the cropped tank top, today she wore a tight yellow shirt long enough to cover her pierced navel. Not that people would notice, Carley thought, for their retinas would be burning from the sentiment expressed in hot pink letters across the front: Objects Under This Shirt Are Larger Than They Appear.

  “May I help you, Brooke?” Carley asked, stifling a sigh while an absurd thought flitted across her mind. This girl could be a spy for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, wired with a tape recorder.

  But how would she hide it?

  Blue rubber thongs flopped as the girl advanced. She dug into her back pocket. “You said I could bring this by.”

  “Your résumé?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She unfolded a sheet of notebook paper with ragged edges.

  Why am I not surprised? Carley thought.

  “Mr. Juban said the computer was bein’ worked on, so I couldn’t type it. I hope that’s okay.”

  “It’s fine. Just put it on that chair by the kitchen door.” She remembered her purse was hanging on the back of the chair, so she watched the girl walk over to it, marveling that anyone could be comfortable in jeans so tight.

  And the shirt!

  You would have loved to have had one like that when you were her age, Carley reminded herself. The writing would not have been true, in her case, but still, it would have attracted the attention she so desperately craved.

  Just as this girl was doing, she realized.

  “Thank you,” Carley said when Brooke returned. Another bristle was clinging to a wet chair leg. She picked it out with her fingernails while saying, “As I explained last week, I won’t be hiring for a while.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  But when Carley looked up after rubbing the stray bristle into a rag, the girl had made no move to leave.

  “I could help you do that.”

  “Thank you, but I’m doing fine.” Carley admired the girl’s tenacity. The expression on the young face was so familiar. Where had she seen it?

  She had not seen it, she realized, but felt it when she stood before Emmit White asking for a chance to prove herself. Again softening her tone, she explained. “I couldn’t allow you to help me without paying you. It would break the minimum wage law, and I would be fined and probably lose my business before it even opens. But I can’t pay you, because I haven’t received my tax ID number yet.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She nodded. “Thank you, Miss Reed.”

  For what? Giving you false hopes? “Take care, Brooke.”

  The girl returned less than twenty minutes later with a small paper bag. “Mr. Marshall says this is the best brush they have for varnish.”

  Carley blinked up at her. “Mr. Who?”

  “He owns the hardware store.”

  Which you would already know, if you’d bought your brush there instead of off the drugstore rack, Carley told herself. But she could not accept this favor, even if she repaid the girl, and even though she would end up going to the hardware store to buy the same brush herself. Accepting would only fuel the false hopes the girl already had.

  Carley rested the defective brush on the varnish can rim again. “I’m very impressed that you did that, Brooke. It shows real tenacity as well as creativity and will serve you well.”

  The girl brightened, but cautiously, as if not able to believe her ears. “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” Carley sighed, “But you’ll have to get your money back. I can’t accept that brush—even if I pay you back—because it makes you think you have a good chance of getting a job here. And I’m sorry to say it, but that’s probably not going to happen.”

  “Oh.” Brooke bit her lip. Even from the floor, Carley could see the sheen over the charcoal-rimmed green eyes before the girl turned away.

  Carley shifted her hips to the left, unfolded her legs, and got to her feet. “Just a minute, please,” she said, grimacing, shifting her weight back and forth as needles prickled her calves.

  Brooke returned from the doorway. “You all right?”

  She nodded, and when she could walk, pulled out two unvarnished chairs. “My legs fell asleep. Will you sit with me for a minute?”

  The girl waited until Carley was seated, to perch upon the edge of the second chair with shoulders slumped.

  How do I even be
gin? Carley thought. Not only could she see her own reflection from not too many years ago, in that jaded/naive, hard/tender, tough/fearful face, but she imagined her own mother was once like this Brooke Kimball. What would she say, were she able to go back in time and speak with her?

  “Do you know what I’m planning to open here?” Carley said.

  Brooke hesitated, obviously wondering if this was a trick question. “A café?”

  “Not only a café, but a serene little place where people can relax, visit with their friends, and soak up some atmosphere as well as good food. I’m not targeting teenagers as patrons, although anyone of any age who walks through the door is certainly welcome. My main focus is on older women, the shoppers you see on the sidewalks.”

  Carley watched the girl for any sign that she was going too fast. But Brooke seemed to be absorbing. At least her green eyes did not wear the glazed look of some of her former students.

  “Anyway,” Carley went on, “Older women are usually very conservative. And they’re more comfortable around young people who are dressed modestly.”

  “I have a dress,” Brooke said quickly. “And a denim skirt. You don’t have to let me wait tables. You can put me in the back, washing dishes.”

  “That’s not the point. Besides, we’ll have uniforms here.”

  Then, what was the point? She was rambling, unfocused, when the girl needed some concrete advice. Carley sighed again. “Brooke, how old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Has no one told you how to dress to apply for a job?”

  The girl stared back, chewing on her bottom lip. At length she shook her head.

  “Well, you know what I said about the customers who’ll be coming here? It pretty much applies to most business owners. If you dress like you’re…hanging out with friends, for something as important as job hunting, business people won’t take you seriously.”

  The green eyes narrowed thoughtfully. She looked down at her shirt, then glanced away.

  Carley’s heart went out to her. Against her better judgment she said, “Brooke, did you list any references on your résumé?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”