Chapter 18 – Kira
KIRA
“ W hat happened?” Toby asks as we intercept each other on Agnes’s front walk the following Friday afternoon.
I look down at the creamy sugar splatters all down my front. “Milkshake mixer got away from me.”
“Are you sure?” He raises a manicured eyebrow. “Because that looks more like -”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I whirl away from him and start making the trek up the steps.
“So I take it Donna’s Diner is another place that won’t be making your resume?”
I shake my head over my shoulder at him.
After blowing up the oven at Maggie’s, misplacing Ms. O’Donnells haggis—and sending it home with the town’s only vegan —and accidentally stocking yeast infection cream with the toothpaste at the pharmacy, I’ve checked just about every business in this town off the list.
“At this point, I don’t think I’m fit to run a lemonade stand at the end of Agnes’s driveway,” I sulk, as we push through the front door.
After I’ve changed into my favorite t-shirt, I flop on my bed.
“Maybe I should go crawling back to mom and dad.”
Toby shoots up from his reclined position on my bed. “Kira Elaine Lockwood! I’m gay as they come but don’t think I won’t put you over my knee for talking like that! How would you ever smile again?”
“I’d find a way. You know me and how I roll with things,” I remind him.
“We’ll figure out a way,” he assures me, patting my head. “In the meantime, there’s not much left we can do about it tonight. This town shuts it’s lights off early.”
“Except for the Crafty Coyote,” I hold up a finger, lazily amending his statement.
“The Crafty Coyote! Yes! Go there!” I hear Agnes’s scratchy voice rip down the hallway from her room.
“I already go there a lot!” I holler back towards her, indicating that I can only go hang out in a bar so much.
“Because it’s fun!” She argues. “It’s Friday night, you should go!”
“I’m really not up for it, Ag,” I call back again. “I really want to lay low for the night.”
“Then go lay low with that thirst trap of a mechanic!”
“He’s got some kind of poker night going on!”
“What?!” She screeches back in horror.
I sit up, starting to feel my eyebrows stitch together in curiosity. “Agnes, why do I get the feeling you’re trying to get rid of me?” Something else occurs to me. “Like every Friday and the occasional Saturday?”
“Hogwash!” She yells, poo-poo-ing my theory. “I’m just trying to make sure you young pups get your kicks while you can!”
Before I can come up with a rebuttal, there’s a slight knock at the front door and I hear a familiar voice call up the stairs.
“Gramma?”
“Hattie!” Toby and I both cheerfully hop off my bed like excited kids .
“Hattie,” Agnes, echoes in a put-off tone.
I’m about to ask her why she’s being so crotchety when a heavenly smell wafts up the stairs.
Deciding that getting in on whatever kind of pizza Hattie is toting is more important that seeing what’s up Agnes’s ass, I barrel down the stairs and find Hattie in a pair of yoga pants, a slouchy t-shirt and her gorgeous cinnamon-sugar colored hair piled on top of her head.
As suspected, she’s accessorizing with a pizza box that says she’s ready for a night on the couch. That sounds amazing.
“I don’t suppose you brought enough to share?” I ask, as Toby brings up my rear.
“Is Hendrix with you?” He peers over my shoulder and past Hattie, brows hopefully raised.
Hattie’s mouth opens as she looks between all of us. “Uh…actually I’ve had a hell of a week and really wanted to veg out with some movies?”
“Great idea! Kick it on over to Hattie’s!” Agnes bellows down the stairs, still not actually in sight.
“Gramma!” Hattie calls up after her. “Half my furniture hasn’t been delivered yet! Let’s hang here!”
“No! I’ve got plans!”
“Doing what?” Hattie challenges, leaning back against the door, her arms crossed, holding the pizza level against her. Silence follows her question for a few beats before Agnes finally responds.
“I’m…preparing for a colonoscopy.”
Hattie huffs, with an eyeroll, clearly having enough as she pushes off the door. “You don’t believe in those, and tomorrow’s Saturday! Now, you wouldn’t let me move in here with you?—”
“You won’t make me any great-grandbabies if you’re living with me!” Agnes interjects but Hattie is undeterred.
“The least you can do is hang out with me for a night!”
“I’ll hang out with you,” I raise my hand, volunteering as tribute.
“Thank you.” Hattie gives me a soft look, and there’s a rap on the side door near the kitchen. Hattie’s eyes narrow skeptically as she heads in that direction, and I hear Agnes mutter “Dammit,” upstairs.
I follow Hattie through the house as she sets the pizza down on the kitchen table and finds the side door off the kitchen. I’m on her heels when she whips it open to reveal two elderly gentleman that look like they teleported from the roaring twenties.
“Can I help you two?” Hattie looks quizzically at them.
My gaze falls on the one with the fedora and cigar.
“Do I know you?” I squint my eyes and hold up a hesitant finger in his direction.
He takes the cigar out of his mouth. and is about to answer when Agnes takes another year off my life - and Hattie’s - by startling the hell out of us.
“It’s Naked Ned,” Agnes says plainly, and Hattie and I shriek before turning to find her standing only feet behind us with a hand on her hip.
“Is that a zoot suit?” I ask.
“What of it?” She asks, looking very put out.
“Gramma, there are two men at your door, and you’re dressed like a pimp,” Hattie points out. “Start explaining.”
“I run a speakeasy themed gambling ring.” She shrugs and both mine and Hattie’s jaws drop to the linoleum.
“What? You said that was a joke!” I accuse, referring to the first day we had breakfast in the diner.
“I said I run it out of my basement. It’s actually out of my garage. Gotcha,” she reveals without even cracking a smile. “Boys, tonight’s cancelled. Apparently that dumbass mechanic is having a poker night, so head on over there,” she commands, pointing in the opposite direction.
Not bitter at all.
“You know, you really didn’t need to send your friends away, Ag,” I admonish my roommate from the recliner.
“You think I could just go about my business with you whippersnappers cramping my style? Funk dat,” she shuts down.
“Why, Gramma?” Hattie asks from around a bite of cheese and pepperoni.
“Why not?” Agnes counters from the end of the couch with her legs slung over the arm. She’s still in her pinstripe pimp suit and dangling a piece of extra cheese over her face. “This town in boring, and people want to have a good time.”
“This town is peaceful.” I’ve been here for roughly a month and it’s been a welcome respite from the uptight world of chaos I came from. But I suppose people that lived here a long time crave to be shaken up once in a while.
“Shhh!” Toby shushes as he leans forward, chewing on a piece of cheesy bread. “I’m into the movie. What is this anyway? It’s got a young, hot John Wick.”
“Speed.” Agnes answers, just as there’s a knock on the door for the third time tonight. “Answer that for me, slave.”
I hop up off the couch and dust my hands of any pizza crumbs, and whip the door open to find none other than Maggie.
“Oh!” I greet, definitely caught by surprise.
“Hi Kira,” she flashes me a warm smile and I notice she has a fairly weighed-down tote on her arm.
“Hi, are you here to…gamble and imbibe?” I ask, tilting my head uncomfortably. She doesn’t appear to be wearing any flapper or gangster gear.
“Actually…” she looks sheepish but I step aside to let her in. “The biscuits you made on the day you worked for me, well… they were really a big hit. And I haven’t been able to recreate them.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, totally confused. “You’re the one who showed me how to make them.”
“I know, but you must’ve done something different.”
“Well I blew up one of your ovens, but somehow I don’t think that had anything to do with the biscuits coming out well.”
Her face lights up. “I’m getting a new oven!” She announces. “That thing was so old, and the insurance money is not only paying for an updated one, but I also get to slap some new paint on the walls! So I also came to thank you!”
“Oh…I sputter, feeling my circuits shorting because this is seriously screwed. “Anytime?” I offer with a high shrug.
“Oh Kira, it turned out to be a godsend. And if you can just show me what you did with the biscuits, business will be beautiful! I brought all the ingredients,” she tells me, giving the bag on her shoulder a jiggle.
“If we can get those biscuits the way you made them, I bet I could afford to hire you back!”
“Right this way…” I usher her to the kitchen.
West
“A bowl of chips? Seriously that’s all you fucking have?” Hunt gripes, as he emerges down the stairs that lead to my apartment. “You realize this is poker, not a tea party, right?”
“Oh sorry, dick. I forgot you like a nice spread with charcuterie and assorted cheeses.”
“You know, I thought you were walking funny. That silver spoon you were born with is still in your ass.”
He squints at me before I turn to Ryan who has just finished locking up one of the tool chests. “Ryan! Go grab a couple pizzas and a case of beer and we’ll deal you in.”
“What kind of pizzas?”
“Everything but mushrooms.” Hunt turns to his brother.
“Extra mushrooms, got it!” Ryan turns to head out the side door as Hunt flips him off.
“Aww, Hunty doesn’t want to eat his vegetables?” I jab.
“What the fuck are we doing down here anyway?” he asks, crossing his arms. “Your shitty apartment is upstairs.”
“Need you to help me with the table.” I unlock one of the larger storage closets in the garage.
“We might as well just hold it down here, it’s no worse than your shit hole,” he jerks his chin in the direction of my stairs. “I’m afraid of what I might find up there.”
“What the fuck is your problem with my pad?” I glint at him.