A Table By the Window Read online

  “So, how come your date’s making you get the tickets?”

  “I’m by myself.”

  He glanced off to his left, so automatically Carley did too. A young woman in black dress and silvery fringed shawl stood studying a poster. Lowering his voice, leaning close enough to give Carley a whiff of mint mouthwash, he said, “I happen to have the best view from a hot tub in North Beach. Do you like sushi?”

  “I’ve never met her,” Carley said before stepping out to move to the back of the line. Her ticket was in the nosebleed section, which was not such a terrible thing because, in spite of her healthy bank account, she felt a little guilty for spending so much on her meal.

  Back in her apartment building she left the elevator to find a semi-flat postal package outside her door with the Hudsons’ return address. She smiled and opened it inside the living room. Along with a birthday card with Uncle Rory’s signature and Aunt Helen’s penned, Dearest Carley, may this year be a great adventure for you, was a handcrafted backpack of royal blue bandanna cloth. She hugged the bag to herself and went into the kitchen, where the answering machine blinked with two waiting messages. Sherry’s voice first, wishing her the happiest of days, the second from Aunt Helen, hoping she was out having a good time. Carley played them again. She had not even realized they knew her birth date. She did not know theirs, a mistake she intended to correct tomorrow.

  A tear rolled down her cheek, and she wiped it with the edge of her hand. She lay staring at her dark bedroom ceiling a half hour later and asked herself, Can you do another year of this?

  Her job was not what she had expected. However friendly and helpful her co-workers were, most were married or engaged, so their social lives revolved in those directions. Contact during work hours was limited, as she spent most of her day poring over copy in her cubicle.

  You can look for another job. The Terrises would understand, especially if she gave notice. Not every position was suited to every temperament. She was more of a people person than she had realized. Grown-up people. And she particularly missed the friendly association with the clientele of Grandma’s Attic.

  She mulled over that thought, reminded herself that had been a temporary position, no longer available even if she were to return to Tallulah. But there were other jobs, if not in the small town, in nearby Hattiesburg.

  Or she could look into opening that café.

  A shiver ran through her as she realized that notion had never been far from the back of her mind.

  There were other things she missed about Tallulah. Sharing a dinner table with family. Returning neighbors’ waves while leaving for work. Hearing owls at night. The aromas of pine trees and chimneys and sweet olive blossoms. Having people greet her by name at the bank, the grocery store, the library. Feeling connected to her grandmother as she pottered about the house.

  What’s stopping you from having that again? Even asking herself that question brought an ache to her chest. She wanted to go back. And there was no reason why she could not.

  She would be charged a penalty for taking the house off the market, but living mortgage free would more than make up for that. The furniture in storage would need to be shipped across country again, along with her computer and pieces of apartment furniture worth salvaging, but again, one month’s rent that she did not have to pay here would probably cover that cost.

  Still, she waited three days before taking any action. She wanted to be certain hormones or loneliness were not goading her into making a decision she would regret.

  ****

  “When do you leave?” Mrs. Kordalewski asked three weeks later, when Carley went next door to break the news. Plugged into the television, Shimon nodded from his lounge chair and turned back to a boxing match between Sylvester Stallone and a muscular black man with a Mohawk haircut.

  “Next Friday,” Carley said.

  “But what will we do without our dear friend?”

  “You’ll do fine. I met the new tenants down in the office. They’re an older couple, the Solareks.”

  Mrs. Kordalewski’s spindly fingers probed the hollow of her neck. “I knew a Solarek family back in Krakow, when I was a girl. Nice people. The boys threw rocks at some bullies one time, and made them go away. Perhaps they are related?”

  “Wouldn’t that be something?” Carley said.

  Chapter 13

  Midmorning on the last day in May, Carley turned off the ignition of a rented Volkswagen in the driveway of 5172 Third Street and smiled.

  This was the right thing to do.

  That thought was reinforced when she let herself into the living room. The empty space she had left now boasted a brown corduroy sofa and two mismatched upholstered chairs, table with lamp, coffee table, and braided rug. In her bedroom were a double mattress and box spring on a bed frame with two pillows and bedding, as well as a dresser and mirror. One yellow and one blue towel hung in the bathroom, a half dozen washcloths of assorted colors were folded in the cabinet.

  In the kitchen, a vase of fragrant white gardenias sat in the middle of a slightly battered oval maple table surrounded by four chairs—two maple and two folding metal. There were assorted dishes, pots, and utensils in the cabinets, and faded towels in a drawer. In the refrigerator—plugged in and humming—were two casseroles with warming-up instructions from Gayle and Sherry, and a pot of soup from Uncle Rory.

  “Everyone cleaned out storage sheds and attics,” Aunt Helen explained when she dropped by on her lunch break. “We made it into a party. When your things come, you can give what you can’t use to the Salvation Army.”

  Kay Chapman stopped by that afternoon. Carley wrote the agency a check for three percent of the home’s appraised price.

  “I feel terrible about this,” Kay said, closing her briefcase.

  Carley, her stomach pleasantly digesting Gayle’s chicken-and-rice casserole, shook her head. “That was the best twenty-four hundred dollars I’ve ever spent.”

  ****

  “I know I dropped a couple of pennies down here yesterday,” Carley said on the sixth of June, fingers probing the bottom of her purse. She did not want to hand checkout clerk Anna Erwin another crisp twenty dollar bill from the airport ATM, not for a grocery total of twenty dollars and four cents.

  “Don’t worry about it, honey.” The cashier scooped up pennies from the Shoal’s Chewing Tobacco can on the side of the register.

  “Hi, Carleyreed,” Neal said. “Where did you go?”

  “Hi, Neal.” Carley smiled and hooked the two bags over her arm. “I’ve been away in California for four months.”

  “Oh. I found a kitty in the parking lot. She was so hungry she drank a whole can of milk. Dad says I can’t give her a name until we’re sure nobody lost her. Did you lose a kitty?”

  “No, I sure didn’t.”

  “Okay. Well, bye.”

  Carley’s smile lasted all the way home. Tallulah in June was a feast for the senses. She almost wondered if it was against the law not to cultivate a flower garden, for all the geraniums and roses, impatiens and periwinkles, lilies and gladiolus, petunias and begonias sprouting from lawns. The air was heady with scents of magnolias and gardenia and jasmine.

  And fresh-cut grass. Patrick, who earned pocket money with his lawn mower, had been by that morning.

  And there were the vegetable patches. A family of five would not be able to consume all the tomatoes and cucumbers that had magically appeared upon her porch during the past week.

  “What do you do with white squash?” she asked Mrs. Templeton at the roadside mailboxes. A bag with a half dozen of the vegetables that looked like flying saucers had turned up just that morning.

  “I slice ’em crossways and batter fry ’em,” her neighbor said.

  “Batter fry?” Carley said, disappointed.

  “Or you put ’em on a neighbor’s porch.”

  Carley assumed she was hinting. “Sure, I’ll bring them over.”

  “No, dearie.” The woman gave her a knowing
little smile. “I had my turn. Now it’s yours.”

  Gayle Payne was glad to get them. Carley invited Ruby Moore over for pasta salad and rosemary chicken that evening.

  “Petal High School’s taking applications through this month for an English Lit teacher,” her neighbor said.

  “Petal?”

  “About twenty-two miles east. The principal’s my ex-husband’s cousin, so let me know if you decide to apply, and I’ll put in a good word for you.”

  Tactfully Carley said, “Would that really be a good plan?”

  Ruby laughed. “Don and I get along fine now. It’s just that while we were married he got along fine with other people too, if you catch my drift.”

  After Ruby walked back across the street, Carley wrestled with the idea of returning to teaching. Security and benefits, versus the idea growing in her mind like the begonias in the Paynes’ yard. Like the grime on the window of Emmit White’s empty café.

  Fear, she recognized. She was not ready to go back into the classroom, and so fear would be the only reason to apply. Take the safe route, and then she could look back in her old age and wonder what might have happened if she had followed a dream.

  You can do this, she told herself.

  But what if she failed, lost all her money?

  You’d still have a house, still be out of debt.

  That is, if she determined not to borrow a dime and set aside a buffer amount to live on for six months if the place was not successful.

  That meant doing her homework.

  When Tallulah library shelves could produce only two books on starting a small business, she drove to Hattiesburg Saturday morning. It was a fairly large city positioned at the fork of the Leaf and Bouie Rivers, boasting two hospitals, a university, and two Super Wal-Marts. Inside Books-A-Million she saw a display of Bertram Norris’s latest bestseller, Thompson’s Crossing. Carley made a mental note to ask the clerk when it was due to come out in paperback, but then impulsively put a copy in her hand basket. She could afford it, she told herself.

  She purchased four other books, two specifically on running small cafés. In the parking lot she caught a whiff of food being prepared and noticed the Closed sign being flipped to Open in the window of China Garden Restaurant. She usually avoided Chinese restaurants; not even the most delicious meal was worth the migraine triggered by the MSG many added to their dishes. But then, a second sign hanging in the window caught her eye—No MSG. She put her bag into the Volkswagen, saving Thompson’s Crossing to skim, including the final chapter, at her table. She needed to concentrate on learning the restaurant business, and what Mr. Juban did not know would not hurt him. Besides, he would be thrilled to have another copy donated to the library.

  The waiter was a young Asian man, probably a graduate student. “You read Mister Norris,” he said, handing her a menu.

  Carley touched the book jacket. “I’ve read a couple, but just bought this one. Do you?”

  He shook his head and pointed to a dozen or so 8X10 frames, arranged in two rows upon the opposite wall. “We have his picture with my father.”

  There were no other customers yet, so Carley pushed out her chair. The matted photographs were of local and national celebrities: Johnny L. DuPree, first African-American mayor of Hattiesburg; Brett Favre, Green Bay Packer’s quarterback and USM grad; a humorist named Jerry Clower. All smiled while standing beside an elderly Asian man. Even without Bertram Norris’s autograph, Carley would have recognized the author from the photograph on the book jacket. He was tall, with goatee and dark hair combed back from high forehead. An arm was casually loped about the shoulders of the Asian man. The best pepper steak in the South, was penned beneath his autograph.

  She smiled at the waiter. “I guess I’m having the pepper steak.”

  ****

  Later that afternoon she ran into Loretta Malone outside the bank, and learned that Chief Dale Parker was dating an accountant/former beauty queen who lived in Pascagoula. Loretta scolded lightly, “See? You should have moved back earlier.”

  “I’m not a police groupie,” Carley said back just as lightly, in spite of the twinge of disappointment as she headed home.

  The living room was her classroom of choice for studying the restaurant business, for she could close up the rest of the house and allow the attic fan to pull a minor gale through the screened windows. Locals complained about the heat, but she was not inconvenienced by it enough to get estimates on central air conditioning. Perhaps later, when there were not so many other things to do. Besides, the windows brought in soothing sounds of crickets trilling and tree frogs chorusing and people chatting on porches, as well as the aromas of green pine needles and jasmine.

  At the east end of Third Street, Harold Cooper, manager of the Dollar General store, had a blue Ford Contour GL, loaded, with 57,000 miles on the odometer and a For Sale—$3,800 sign in the window. Uncle Rory advised that it was a good deal but recommended she have it checked out mechanically.

  “Be my guest,” Mr. Cooper said, handing Carley the keys.

  Emmit’s Texaco and Garage dominated the corner of Main and Highway 42, just past the flashing light and across Main from the Tallulah Fire Department. A young man with grease-stained fingers and coveralls wrote out a work order and directed Carley to a waiting area with a dozen chairs, coffeepot and soda machine, television bolted to the wall, and the not-unpleasant smell of tires from a display rack.

  She recognized Mr. White by the Emmit on the badge affixed to his blue chambray shirt. He was reed thin, as if working burned up all his food fuel, and had the hunched bearing—chin thrust forward, peripheral vision alert—of a woman intent upon being first to a sale table.

  But however greedy, he was shrewd enough to do honest work, Uncle Rory had said. He might own the only garage in town, but most Tallulah residents would drive or tow their cars to Hattiesburg before allowing themselves to be cheated.

  Carley devoted her attention to The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting Your Own Restaurant while she waited. The temptation was strong to walk up to the counter and ask about the abandoned café, but she felt instinctively it was not a good plan to show her hand too early to a person with a reputation for greediness.

  “Miss Reed?” he said finally.

  Carley crossed the room, leaving the book in her seat.

  “The GL needs the tires balanced, but it’s a good car. Regular oil changes, never been wrecked.”

  “That’s good to hear. Can I get the tires done now?”

  He shook his head. “Not until it’s your name on the registration.”

  It seemed a silly rule. She could understand it if she was getting a paint job or altering the car’s appearance, but she did not think there were many vandals who went around fixing other people’s cars.

  The GL became hers three days later. Stanley Malone notarized the transaction, and she registered and paid the sales tax at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Hattiesburg on Monday and shopped online for car insurance in the library that afternoon. Her telephone was installed, so she would no longer have to use the library computer once her belongings arrived on Saturday. Still, it was always a pleasure to chat with Mr. Juban, even though she had to dodge questions about plot twists in Thompson’s Crossing.

  On Tuesday, her cousin Sherry followed her up to Jackson to turn in the rental Volkswagen. Carley treated her to lunch in Nora’s Tea Room, a converted Victorian house.

  “This is wonderful,” Sherry sighed after a bite of chicken mushroom crepe. “I wish Tallulah had a place like this.”

  Carley stared at her. “Did you get that from your mother?”

  “Well…no.” Sherry’s lenses magnified the confusion in her aquamarine eyes. “You bought it.”

  “Not the crepe,” Carley laughed. She remembered, then, her promise not to put any bugs in Blake’s ears. She had no way of knowing how much information wives shared with their husbands, even wives who did not want their husbands to start new businesses. Careful
ly and evasively she said, “I just remember telling Aunt Helen that Tallulah needed a quaint little café. Let’s save room for dessert. The praline pie sounds heavenly.”

  When Sherry dropped her off at the house that afternoon, Carley telephoned Stanley Malone’s office and asked to pay for an hour of his time.

  “You’re not in trouble, are you?” Loretta joked.

  “I may be getting into some,” Carley replied. “I’d like his advice on starting a business.”

  “Interesting. How about two o’clock Thursday? And don’t worry about the fee. If you go into business, you’ll need Stanley at some point anyway.”

  ****

  And so on the twenty-sixth of June, Carley sat again in Mr. Malone’s office. She asked Loretta to stay and give her perspective as well. After spelling out her plan, she asked, cautiously, “What do you think?”

  Stanley pressed steepled fingers to his chin. At length he said, “I think that’s an idea waiting to happen.”

  Loretta nodded. “I agree. Someone’s going to do it sooner or later. Stanley and I’ve discussed how the dining establishments here haven’t kept pace with the shops. We lose a lot of business to Hattiesburg.”

  “But you don’t want to go barging into something you might regret later,” Stanley cautioned. “You need to see if it’s financially feasible. We need to draw up a business plan.”

  “I’ve done that.” Carley reached for the briefcase at her feet.

  Husband and wife looked at each other.

  “I’ve been studying,” Carley explained, handing a manila folder across the desk. “I ordered a restaurant accounting software program online. And Aunt Helen gave me some information about the local laws for small businesses.”

  The attorney balanced his reading glasses on his nose and scanned the pages. “I’m impressed. It’s all here. Projected sales, projected food and labor costs, projected profitability….”

  “But it’s based entirely on my not having to borrow money. And the only way I can see to do it is to rent that building Mr. White owns.”

  Stanley looked doubtful. “Emmit White is a stingy old cuss.”