Chapter 19 – Kira
KIRA
“ S o you’re telling me,” Maggie garbles around a mouthful of buttermilk biscuit, “that you didn’t wait for the butter to soften all the way before you mixed it in?”
I cringe. “I didn’t…. I was kind of antsy and impatient, not to mention trying to keep moving so I wouldn’t fall asleep. But that was the only thing I defied you on, I swear. I didn’t think it would make that much of difference.”
“Mmmm..mo,” she shakes her head still moaning with her mouth full. “The temperatutre and consistency of the butter can make all the difference. But in this case, for the better,” she points a knowing finger at me as Toby agrees.
“It’s like a warm and fluffy orgasm in my mouth.”
“Don’t ever say that again,” I admonish him and even Agnes gives him a sideways glare, grimacing.
“You know what these would go amazing with?” Hattie pipes up from across the kitchen island where we’re all standing around. “Maxine’s Salted Caramel Maple Syrup.”
Eyes light up all around the kitchen. “Oh my god, yes!” Toby agrees and I moan at the idea myself. Maxine’s Mercantile has an amazing collection of syrups, honeys, jams, and spices as well as lots of handmade crafts.
“Do you have any, gramma?” Hattie asks, eyebrows raised in hope.
“Dammit, no,” she plants a hand on her hip. “Kira, go get some,” she orders.
“I’d love to, but you know she’s closed. Besides, I don’t want to miss the next movie.”
“Invite Maxine over then,” Toby suggests.
“Yeah, tell her the cover charge for movie night is a bottle of her syrup,” I nod with a smirk.
“And have Jeanine bring over a bottle of rosé from her vineyard,” Hattie adds.
“Yeah, have a festival right here in Agnes’s house,” I joke.
“We never have those, there’s no point.” Agnes scoops up another biscuit and her whiskey flask and sashays back to the livingroom. “Putting on Deadpool in two minutes!” She hollers over her shoulder.
“Why don’t you guys have festivals?” I ask Hattie as we slowly stroll towards the living room. “Don’t little towns do that?”
“Yeah, I’ve always wanted to go to one like in Hope Floats or Sweet Home Alabama,” Toby sighs dreamily.
“What kind of Hallmark town do you think Coyote Creek is?” She raises an eyebrow.
“I bet more people would visit if you offered things like that though.”
I’m only partly paying attention to the next movie as the idea of the town residents gathering in the street won’t leave my mind.
I can’t get the images of a closed off main street, relaxed smiles, and people enjoying good food and drinks.
Going to the Crafty Coyote is fun, but a special event where the town comes together to celebrate being a community – okay, maybe Hattie’s onto something and my sappy idea of towns like this.
But I think of all the stiff-ass parties my mother had to host as part of her wifely duties. I learned a thing or two, sure… but co uld I pull that off? In a place like this where no one has crystal stemware rammed up their asses? Maybe…
“Can I ask you something?” I ask Hattie, as we maneuver our small but awkward load up the stairs. I don’t know her well, but I feel like since we hung out tonight, not to mention the teamwork we’re currently engaged in merits me taking another step towards a new friendship.
“You’ve been looking after my gramma when she wouldn’t let me, you can ask whatever you want,” she huffs, blowing a stray hair out of her face.
“Speaking of that,” I raise an awkward shoulder as we turn a corner. “Are you sure it’s okay that I’m staying here with her? I don’t want to horn in on anyone’s family.”
Hattie’s face turns from hard concentration to soft compassion.
“Listen Kira… Gramma’s well…a stubborn weirdo,” she jostles said grandmother to demonstrate.
Agnes just lets out a snort, blissfully unaware of Hattie’s hands under her arms. “As I’m sure you noticed,” she finishes.
“She’s a spunky little pistol but she loves love, and is hell bent on seeing everyone she knows paired off.
Especially those of us that are of this certain ‘ripe’ age as she calls it.
” She takes another backward step up the stairs.
“She refused to believe that anyone can be happy without a mate, and so when I told her I didn’t think the dating life was for me, at least not right now, she insisted she wouldn’t -”
“Enable you by letting you live with your elderly grandmother?” I finish for her.
“More like she didn’t want to twat-block me,” she corrects.
I nod as I carry Agnes’s legs up another couple of steps. “If she’s such an advocate for young love, I’m surprised she moved me in here, then.”
“Well for one thing, you were in a jam, with nowhere to go,” Hattie explains as we finally reach the summit of the stairwell, and she blows out an exhausted breath as we amble more briskly down the hall. “And for another, you had already bagged West - her words, not mine.”
I nod thoughtfully as we gently swing Agnes onto her pink and white polka dot comforter and Hattie positions a pillow under her head.
“So what’s your secret?” Hattie steers us back to the original subject.
“It’s just you and me, and Rip Van Winkle here.
” She gestures to her sleeping, twenties era pimp grandmother as I cover her with a blanket.
“I will not live in a winnebago!” Agnes groggily announces, with her boney hand punched in the air.
After our crossfit-worthy workout of dragging an old biddy up the stairs, Hattie and I decide we’ve earned another beer, opting to sit at the kitchen table this time so as not to wake the snoring Toby on the couch.
There’s no way in hell we were going to attempt schlepping his stocky six-foot frame up those stairs.
“Do you think I’m a useless leach that’s barged into a town that I don’t belong in?” I pick at the label on my bottle.
“Honey, no…” she reaches forward to place a hand on my shoulder. “Why would you think that?”
“Because look how long I’ve been here and I haven’t made any kind of contribution.”
She patiently indulges me telling her about my interest in doing something with my life besides being a pretentious trophy wife. Something that would actually be putting something good out into the world - or at least my immediate community - but also something I’d enjoy the hell out of.
“If anything, I’ve just created destruction for the nice people of this town to deal with. ”
Hattie’s shoulders slump with annoyance. “Again with the bakery?”
“Don’t forget Mr. Layton’s apple cart,” I hold up a finger.
“That wasn’t you,” her eyebrows pin together. “That was Mayor Wineberger on his motor scooter, everyone knows that.”
“But what everyone doesn’t know is that it was after he visited the coffee stand the one and only morning I worked there,” I rest my chin in my hand, mumbling into it.
Her eyes go wide. “Oh my God, did you serve him caffeine on accident?”
“No, Brenda served it to him. But only after I rearranged her coffee grounds in alphabetical order without asking her.”
“Oh…” Hattie’s face falls. “That makes sense. Brenda knows better than to serve that old guy caffeine, it gives him a wicked case of the zoomies.”
I nod along with her in silence before she suddenly raises her head.
“Hey… so you were just trying to be helpful…”
“Yeah, I mean, she knows her macchiatos like nobody’s business but her little hut was kind of a clusterfuck.”
She swiftly points her finger at me. “You have organizational skills. That could come in handy in this town.
“Yeah… and I know a pretty building when I see one,” I mumble disparagingly. “Otherwise, I only know how to break shit, make messes, and apparently bake a decent biscuit!”
“But you have really good ideas!” Hattie swipes the beer I was tipping to my lips and sets it down before grabbing my hands and leveling me with her pretty hazel eyes.
“The last idea I had was to turn on Maggie’s fourth oven.”
“Oh,” Hattie scrunches her face and bites the corner of her lip. “No! The last idea you had was this town having a festival!”
“What? That wasn’t an idea. It was just an imaginative thought that popped in my head.” My elbows slide out sideways as I lower my head in my hands.
“Okay, let’s get some more pizza in you, and maybe some water, there, slugger.” Hattie hops off her chair and heads to the counter where the remains of the pizza lay in their box.
“I’m not drunk,” I mutter. “I’m just trying to get there. And all I said was this town should have a festival, not that I should throw one.”
“But it was still an idea,” she counters as she pops the pizza slice in the microwave. “And you had it, so maybe you should carry it out.”
“Peh!” I scoff.
“Seriously,” she encourages. “You can carry out an idea. And that could be your great contribution to this place, since you’re so worried about it. Where do you think you should start?”
“I don’t know,” I throw my arms up. “Who the hell in this town would even want to have one?”
“And that, my girl, is where you start,” she says smartly as she sits down and places the pizza in front of me.
“Now what else should you do?” She reaches for a notepad that’s laying on the far side of the table.
She jumps a little, her eyebrows shooting up before she makes disgusted sound, tearing the first page off, and the doodle of a smiley-faced penis with stick arms and legs flutters off to the side.
She detaches the pen and looks at me expectantly.
“Ooh! I know! You’ll probably need a permit.
” She bends her head to scribble it down.
“I think you’re my new best friend,” I mumble affectionately around a hot, cheesy glob before gulping it down. “Don’t tell Toby.”