A Table By the Window Page 15

  “That’s putting it mildly,” Loretta said after a sip of her own tea. “He would charge a fortune.”

  “Even if he’s not using the building?”

  “It’s not hurting him, sitting there idle,” Stanley said.

  “It’s hurting him if he isn’t collecting rent. Low rent is better than none.”

  “But high rent is better than low; that would be his way of thinking.”

  Loretta asked, “Why can’t you start fresh somewhere else, Carley?”

  “Because he already has equipment and furniture. And I’m assuming his place already meets building codes and zoning laws or he wouldn’t have been able to open up in the first place.”

  “Well, yes,” Stanley said. “I filed the papers for him. And I see your point.”

  “It can’t hurt to pay him a visit, Stanley,” Loretta said to her husband.

  “Very well. I’ll go sometime tomorrow.”

  ****

  “He doesn’t want to lease it,” Mr. Malone telephoned to say the following afternoon. “He said he’ll sell it to you, with all the equipment and furniture, for a hundred and ten thousand dollars.”

  Ouch! Carley thought. “If he wants to sell it, why hasn’t he listed it with a Realtor?”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t want to pay the fee, just figured someone like you would come along and offer one day.”

  “I can’t pay that, not with the operating expenses I’ve projected until the profits come in.”

  “I agree. He lent me a key. Shall I give it back?”

  Carley thought that one over. “How long can we keep it?”

  “As long as you need it,” Stanley replied. “The building’s not going anywhere.”

  ****

  Uncle Rory was off on a fishing trip with some of his Lion’s Club cronies, Aunt Helen said over the telephone, and would not be home until Saturday evening.

  “That’s all right, my things are coming Saturday anyway. But I’d like to ask him to look over Emmit White’s place with me the first chance he has.”

  First, she respected her uncle’s life experience, and second, the thought of entering a building that had been empty for eight years was creepy.

  “How about after church Sunday?” Aunt Helen said with no trace of deviousness. “I’d like to see it myself.”

  “I’ll meet you at the Old Grist Mill for lunch first,” Carley said. “My treat.”

  ****

  The truck from Van Dyke Freight Company backed into the driveway a few minutes after 11:00 Saturday morning. Carley had been up since 7:00, pushing the pieces of donated furniture that she would not need into the back room. Two men in blue uniform shirts carried in her furniture, including Grandmother’s belongings that had now come full circle. Afterward, Carley gave each a ten-dollar tip.

  The fading sound of the truck’s engine came through the open windows as Carley stripped tape from the box containing her computer. An hour later, she was at her desk in the space once occupied by Grandmother’s piano, plugging the computer cord into her telephone jack.

  Houston, we have control, she thought as the Internet screen popped up on her monitor.

  ****

  The dining room at the Old Grist Mill was spacious and the decor decidedly rustic, with wide-planked floors and split-log walls decorated with old advertising signs. Punched-tin light fixtures illuminated red-checked tablecloths. Only half the tables were occupied, but Aunt Helen had said there would be people waiting in the lobby once the Methodists and Baptists let out.

  As if on cue, the Kemps, members of First Methodist, showed up. Conner was home from Birmingham University for the summer, working weekdays in the pro shop at Canebrake Golf Club in Hattiesburg. He was a handsome boy, not as tall as Patrick, nor as blonde as his mother.

  The waitress and busboy pushed another table over. When Carley asked that the Kemps be included on her ticket, Sherry protested. “No indeed, we’re not going to let you—”

  “Hush, Sherry, this girl’s loaded,” Blake said before ordering rib eye with two extra sides and encouraging his sons to do likewise. After the drinks were brought out he leaned his elbows on the table and said, “So Carley, I hear you’re wanting to buy Emmit White’s old hamburger joint.”

  Carley swallowed an ice cube, Sherry nudged her husband, and Aunt Helen rubbed the space between her eyes.

  “Where did you hear that?” Carley asked when she could speak.

  “Even Emmit gets his hair cut.”

  There was no point to being evasive. “I can’t buy it. I hope he’ll change his mind about renting it, if it’s worth renting.”

  “We’re going to check the place out after we leave here,” Uncle Rory said.

  The brothers exchanged looks.

  “Mind if we tag along?” Patrick asked.

  Conner lowered his voice. “They say Old Man White sealed the bodies up in the wall.”

  “That’s why he let the place sit locked up for so long,” Patrick said. “They needed time to decompose.”

  “Boys…” Aunt Helen and Sherry warned in unison.

  Patrick glanced at the nearest table, where a family of five were involved in their own conversation. “But you gotta wonder. Tammy Giles said he bought two big sacks of quicklime that summer she worked at Green Thumb.”

  “Emmit’s wife grows a garden.” Uncle Rory dumped a packet of Splenda into his tea. “Lots of folks around here buy quicklime.”

  “It neutralizes soil that’s too acidic,” Blake explained to Carley.

  “And it helps dead things decompose quicker,” said an unrepentant Conner.

  “There aren’t any bodies there,” Aunt Helen said firmly. “Now, how about finding a more pleasant subject?”

  Carley waited until conversation turned to baseball and leaned closer to Sherry, on her left. “What bodies?”

  Sherry murmured behind a cupped hand, “Several years ago, Emmit went to the lumber mill where his son-in-law worked and threatened to kill him for cheating on his daughter. Soon afterward, he disappeared with the girlfriend, leaving not only Emmit’s daughter but a seven-year-old son. Nobody’s heard from either one since. This being a small town, there are about a dozen theories.”

  As it turned out, everyone wanted to see the old café.

  “Whew!” Conner wrinkled his nose, stepping over a pile of rags. “This place is a sauna.”

  “Spider webs,” Sherry said. “I hope you like to dust, Carley.”

  Carley ran a finger along the chair railing. “I thought I did.”

  The building, though narrow, was roomier than it appeared from the outside. There was space for about a dozen small square tables, and four booths lined the south wall. The counter boasted a cash register, but the coating of dust would have to be removed before Carley could tell if it still worked. In the kitchen, stainless pots and pans were stacked on metal shelves. The ice maker, freezer, and walk-in cooler were shut off and their doors were propped open. The kitchen led to a small office with a gray metal desk and filing cabinet, and to a storage room with a door that accessed the gravel service lane running behind the shops.

  After a while Patrick and Conner, tired of tapping on walls, left to walk home and watch baseball.

  “It’s structurally sound.” Uncle Rory crouched to press a wall beneath the sink. “No sign of termites. But it needs an exterminator for the other critters.”

  Carley wheeled around from inspecting the grease-grimed grill. “What critters?”

  Blake’s foot shot ahead to stomp on the terra-cotta tile. He looked at the underside of his foot and grinned. “Just the usual eight-legged critters. Probably some with four too.”

  That was discouraging. As were the mildewed plastic brew baskets of both six-gallon iced tea machines.

  “Hot water and bleach will clean those up.” Sherry said.

  “But are you sure you want to do this?” asked Aunt Helen.

  Carley looked around, catching a vision of what it could be. Bathrooms
scrubbed, the grout between the tiles bleached, the broken mirror in the men’s room replaced, potpourri beside the sinks in both. The tables and curved-back chairs given fresh coats of varnish. The peeling wallpaper with multicolored-balloons stripped away, so that the walls could be painted a warm olive or teal green.

  Carley’s Café on a sign over the door.

  “Carley?”

  She blinked at her aunt. “Sorry. And yes, I’m sure. If the price is right.”

  Chapter 14

  Carley was waiting outside Emmit White’s garage Monday morning at 7:45.

  “You’re too early, but you might as well drive it around to the dock and come wait inside,” Emmit said peevishly. “Leave your key in the ignition.”

  That was what Carley was hoping for. Once inside, she approached the counter. “May I ask your advice, Mr. White?”

  “I already told you, the Ford’s a good buy.”

  “This isn’t about the car. This is the final day Petal High will accept applications for a certain teaching position. Do you think I should apply?”

  “Why are you askin’ me?” he asked, staring across at her as if she were insane.

  “Because from what I’ve learned about you, you had a similar decision. The owner of the Chevrolet dealership in Tylertown wanted to promote you to manager of the repairs department, but you had this dream of owning your own garage here in Tallulah.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What does a schoolteacher know about runnin’ a business?”

  “What did you know?” Carley asked.

  “More than a schoolteacher knows, young lady.”

  “But I’m studying, every spare minute. And I’m a hard worker. I believe I can turn that empty building into a successful café, if you’ll lease it to me.”

  “Nope.” He opened a stapler by its hinges, filled it. “You got my price.”

  “I can’t afford to buy it. Not until I’ve saved up enough profit.”

  “Profit!” Snapping the stapler closed, he said, “If you know that much about me, you know my son mismanaged that place and blew my whole operating account in the Biloxi casinos. I had to pay back wages and back taxes out of my own pocket. I ain’t gonna be landlord to another failed business and give folk somethin’ to laugh up their sleeves at again.”

  No wonder he was so bitter, Carley thought. This, and a daughter abandoned by her husband. “I didn’t know about your son,” Carley said. Stanley Malone was the source of her information, and he was not inclined to gossip. “Honest.”

  “Well, now you do.”

  “I’m sorry he hurt you. I know how you feel.”

  He snorted. “You can’t know how I feel!”

  “Yes, I can. Because my mother robbed me.”

  Suspicion narrowed the hazel eyes again. “What are you talkin’ about?”

  Carley had not expected the conversation to branch off in this direction. Too late to ponder if she should be so transparent. “There are givers and takers in this world, Mr. White. My mother was a taker, like your son. She robbed me of my childhood. But I’m determined to have a good life anyway. And I can do that teaching school, if I have to.”

  “Well good. Then you don’t need my building.”

  “No, I don’t. But the café has become my dream, Mr. White. Have you forgotten what it’s like to have a great big dream?”

  He stared at her for a while longer, then cleared his throat. “I’ll rent you the place for a thousand a month. Not a penny less.”

  “I can only offer four hundred. I asked around, and that’s about the norm for small businesses here.”

  “You’re talkin’ crazy. The shops don’t have kitchen equipment. And it just needs cleanin’.”

  “It’s not going to be a hamburger joint. It needs total refurbishing.”

  “Refurbishing!” he snorted. “Seven hundred.”

  Ordering her voice to stay steady in spite of knees turning to Jell-O, Carley said, “I’ll make you proud of that place, Mr. White. But I can’t go higher than five hundred.”

  This time his eyes widened, plowing deep furrows into his forehead. “She wants it for five hundred,” he muttered to empty air.

  Carley took a breath. “But I would have to ask for a five-year lease for that same price.”

  Emmit White snapped a work order into a clipboard and slapped it upon the counter. And just in case that was not enough drama, he slapped a pen beside it. “Here, fill out the top for the repair.”

  “But—”

  “We don’t have nothin’ else to talk about. And you’re keeping me from my work!”

  The fury in his expression brought warning needle-prickles to Carley’s sinuses.

  Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, Carley willed on her way to a chair. It simply was not meant to be. As soon as the car was ready, she would collect her résumé from the house and drive over to Petal. And if she did not get that teaching job, she would make other plans. She did not have to scramble, thanks to Grandmother.

  But she could not squelch the disappointment rising up from the pit of her stomach. Her eyes teared, blurring the print on the work order. Dabbing them with her fingertips, she hoped Mr. White would not notice, and that no one else would enter until she regained her composure.

  When she could no longer breathe through her nose, she grabbed her purse from the chair beside her. But not fast enough. She could not hold back a sniffle.

  Oh no…

  Carley sent a worried glance toward the counter, where Mr. White studied her with arms folded. She lowered her eyes, took out a tissue, and blew her nose.

  “Come on now, miss. No call to be doing that,” he said in a worried tone.

  She placed clipboard and pen in the empty chair. No way could she manage to walk up to the counter. Eyes averted, she mumbled, “Sorry. Sniff. I’m going to have to come back later. Sorry.”

  “Wait,” he said when she reached the door.

  She stopped without turning, tried to speak, but all that came out was a tight, “Hmm?”

  “Look, I’m sorry for yellin’ at you.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Come on, turn around and talk to me.”

  Carley turned.

  He beckoned her close and propped his folded arms on the counter. “It’s just that that building’s a sore spot. My wife wanted to give Randy a chance to make something of himself after he kept gettin’ fired from other jobs, but I warned her against it. If you think you can make a go of it…”

  Carley waited.

  He blew out his hollow cheeks. “You can have it for five hundred.”

  “Really?”

  His frown hinted at self-disgust for caving in. “Under one condition, missy. You name it after my wife. She’s had to put up with a lot. It would make her feel good.”

  “Thank you!” Carley gushed. “I mean, I’m sorry about your son, but thank you so much! You won’t regret it!”

  He was trying hard not to grin. “Oh well…”

  The relief flooding through Carley froze, though she tried to keep her smile from faltering. Having her name over the door meant more to her than she had realized. But she had no choice. “And um…what is her name?”

  “Annabel.”

  Annabel’s Café.

  Carley tried to imagine it on the sign. It’s…different. Count your blessings. You got the place, and for a good price.

  “Her mother named her after some poem or another she read in school,” Emmit went on.

  “Annabel Lee?” Carley said cautiously.

  “Well, yeah. That’s her name.”

  Annabel Lee. A tragic poem, but with some beautiful lines by Edgar Allen Poe.

  A teenage boy walked in, asking about having a flat tire fixed on his father’s truck. Carley returned to the chair in a creative daze.

  It was many and many a year ago,

  In a kingdom by the sea,

  That a maiden there lived whom you may know

  By the name of Annabel Lee;
<
br />   And this maiden she lived with not other thought

  Than to love and be loved by me.

  She drew up another mental picture of the sign. Annabel Lee Café. It would be the better side of different. It would be unique.

  ****

  “You’re kidding!” Stanley said.

  “What made him change his mind?” Loretta asked.

  Carley took a breath, then told them.

  “You women,” Stanley said, shaking his head. “You don’t play fair.”

  “I didn’t intend to cry. I wasn’t trying to manipulate him.”

  Loretta patted her shoulder. “Never be ashamed of a few honest tears. These men think with their heads too much. Sometimes you have to aim for the heart.”

  But there was no more time to bask in victory. There was a lease to draw up, forms to fill out. The IRS for starters. No aiming for the heart there.

  ****

  Burt Lockwood from Pest Begone Exterminators said the building would need to be left alone for a week after his initial spraying and laying out of traps on July 3, and that he would need to come back after the cleaning and painting to begin preventative maintenance.

  The Fourth of July celebration began with a pancake breakfast sponsored by the fire department at the elementary school cafeteria. Main Street was barricaded for the 10:00 parade, with beauty pageant winners and runners-up waving from the backs of convertibles, the Tallulah High School marching band and drill team, tractors pulling homemade floats advertising local businesses, and decorated pickup trucks bearing people of all ages who threw candy from the beds.

  Afterward, cloggers in red gingham shirts square danced to the fiddles and guitars and banjo of The Okatoma River Gang. Tallulah Middle School cheerleaders sold lemonade and soft drinks. Blake and Uncle Rory worked the Lion’s Club booth taking orders for care packages to be sent to Mississippi military serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tallulah Pentecostal sold barbecue plates to pay for a church bus; Mount Olive Church sold cups of homemade ice cream to benefit a youth choir trip; and businesses gave away such things as American flag pins, balloons, paper fans, and potholders. Mayor Dwight Coates’ speech was titled “Carrying Liberty’s Torch.” Shops were closed, but at two in the afternoon an auctioneer for the senior citizen center auctioned off quilts. All were purchased, some by out-of-towners who came for that express reason, according to Mrs. Templeton.