Chapter 19
Eva
My sisters leave the next day after helping me with a renovation timeline and a business plan. Esther’s friends are all very smart and connected, so she hooked me up with a financial planner and all sorts of strategy resources.
They’ve also left me with three plants, one goat, and a refrigerator full of labeled containers. Apparently Eden doesn’t trust me to feed myself.
The house feels too quiet after Eliza’s truck disappears down the road.
I text Asher a photo of Pepper investigating her new pen:
Your turn to meet her when you get back.
He responds with what is likely his first ever use of an emoji: a giant, yellow thumbs down.
The coaster from Tiddy’s is still sitting on my kitchen counter where Asher left it. I feel the overwhelming urge to start something I can finish quickly, so I pull up photos I took of the bar’s exterior and start jotting down ideas to pitch the bar as an institution.
Tiddy’s Bar is dated, under-promoted, and completely invisible online. No Instagram, no Facebook, not even a Google Business listing. For someone like me, that’s not a problem. That’s an opportunity.
I still haven’t been inside, so I check the lock on Pepper’s hastily built pen and head to town to see if I’m really as good at this as I’m hoping.
The interior of Tiddy’s is exactly what I expected: wood paneling, neon beer signs, a jukebox that probably hasn’t been updated since the Clinton administration.
A few apparent regulars nurse drinks at the bar.
Behind the counter, wiping down glasses with the energy of a man who has been doing this exact task for forty years, is the owner.
He’s sixty-something, barrel-chested, with a gray mustache that would make a walrus jealous. He looks up when I enter, and his expression flickers through several emotions—recognition, curiosity, wariness.
“You’re the Pierce girl,” he says, and I like the sound of that.
“Eva Storm. But yes, I inherited Pierce Acres.” I slide onto a barstool and offer my most winning smile. “You must be Mr. Tiddy.”
Something twitches in his mustache. “Just Tiddy. Everyone calls me Tiddy.”
“Right. Of course. Tiddy.” I pull out my phone. “So, I heard you might be looking for some marketing help? I had some ideas—”
“Hold on.” He sets down the glass he’s polishing. “Who told you I needed help?”
“Asher Thorne? He was in here last week, said you mentioned wanting to get more people through the door.”
Tiddy grunts. I pull up my notes. Time to be professional.
“Anyway, I took a look at your current presence, and I think there’s huge potential here.
Fork Lick is becoming an agritourism destination, right?
The Bedd farm festivals, the local food scene.
But tourists don’t know about Tiddy’s because you’re not showing up in any searches. ”
“Been here forty years without showing up in searches.”
This was not the reception I was expecting from someone who allegedly asked for my help.
“Right, but the market is changing. People plan trips online now. They look for ‘authentic local bars’ and ‘hidden gems.’ You could be that for them.” I’m warming up now, hitting my stride.
“I was thinking about your brand identity, and I came up with a slogan that really captures the vibe.”
I turn my phone toward him, showing the mockup I whipped up. It’s the bar’s exterior with text overlaid in a rustic font:
Ain’t Your Average Tiddy Bar
I beam at him, waiting for the appreciation. The laugh. The “that’s clever, city girl.”
Instead, Tiddy’s face goes completely still.
Then red. A deep, mottled crimson that starts at his collar and works its way up to his receding hairline.
“What,” he says, his voice dangerously quiet, “is that supposed to mean?”
The first flicker of doubt hits me. “It’s… it’s a play on words? Because the name is Tiddy, and there’s the, um, the other meaning, so—”
“The other meaning.”
“You know.” I’m floundering now, the confidence draining out of me like syrup from a cracked pitcher. “Like… the slang? For—”
“I know what the slang is.” Tiddy’s hands are flat on the bar now, and he’s leaning toward me with an expression that makes me want to disappear into my barstool.
“This bar is named after my grandmother, Rose Tiddy, who opened this establishment in 1962 and ran it until she passed in 1998. My father was Tiddy. My uncles are all Tiddy, too.”
Oh no.
Oh no no no.
“I didn’t—” I start.
“And you want to put her name on a sign that makes it sound like some kind of…” He can’t even finish the sentence. “In sixty years of this bar existing, nobody has ever… My grandmother—”
The door opens behind me, and I hear boots on the wooden floor, followed by the clank of a dolly coming in.
“Got your eggs and the milk, Tiddy. Molly says she’ll have the chicken order ready by—” Alex Bedd stops mid-sentence, clearly reading the tension in the room. “Everything okay?”
Tiddy straightens, his jaw set. “Fine. Just having a conversation about marketing with Ms. Storm here.”
Alex’s eyes dart to me, then to my phone still displaying the horrible, horrible slogan. I watch him read it. His eyebrows climb toward his hairline. He winces with his entire body. “I see,” he says carefully.
“She thought it was clever.” Tiddy spits the word as if its spoiled milk.
“I’m so sorry.” Thoughts tumble out of me. “I didn’t know… I should have asked… I just assumed—”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Tiddy’s voice has gone from angry to something worse: tired. Disappointed. “You city folks come in here with your phones and your hashtags and your big ideas, and you don’t bother to learn anything about the place first. You just assume you know better.”
My face burns. My eyes burn. Everything is burning, and I want to sink through the floor and never resurface. “I didn’t mean any disrespect to your grandmother,” I manage. “Truly. I made a mistake.”
“Mm.” Tiddy picks up his rag and starts wiping the bar again, deliberately not looking at me. “Maybe stick to sheep videos.”
The dismissal is clear. I gather what’s left of my dignity—it fits in a very small container—and slide off the barstool.
Alex is still standing by the kitchen entrance, crate of eggs and milk by his side, looking like he wishes he’d arrived five minutes later. Our eyes meet, and I see sympathy there, but also something else.
He’s going to tell Molly. Who will tell Gran. Who will tell Lia. Who will probably tell Asher, because bad news travels through Fork Lick faster than Baabara escapes her pen. By tonight, everyone will know that Eva Storm tried to turn a dead woman’s legacy into a boob joke.
“I really am sorry,” I say to the owner’s back.
He doesn’t respond.
I push through the door and out into the afternoon sun, which feels obscenely cheerful given that I’ve just committed social suicide in my new hometown.
The drive to Pierce Acres feels endless in my humiliation. By the time I get home, I’ve relived the conversation approximately seventy-three times, each replay worse than the last. What was I thinking?
I wasn’t thinking. I saw an opportunity to be useful, to prove myself, and I charged in without doing any research. Without asking questions. Without listening.
I collapse onto my porch steps and bury my face in my hands. Maybe Tiddy’s right. Maybe I should stick to sheep videos. Maybe I don’t know this place at all.
I end up at Lionel’s office on Monday morning, ostensibly to sign some insurance paperwork, but mostly because sitting alone at Pierce Acres makes me feel like I’m waiting for something. At least here I’m taking action.
Lionel’s office hasn’t changed since my first visit. I’m not sure why I thought he might tidy up the stacks of yellowed paperwork heaped on the floor. He waves me into the chair across from his desk and starts shuffling through a drawer.
“Insurance forms, insurance forms…” he mutters to himself, pushing aside folders that look like they haven’t been touched since the Reagan administration.
“I had them right here. Unless Baabara got to them. She ransacked the place after Eugene passed, rest his soul. Ate half my filing system before Ethan came to collect her.”
I smile despite myself. “Baabara has a taste for paperwork?”
“Baabara has a taste for mayhem.” Lionel produces a slim folder and slides it across the desk. “Here we are. Sign where I’ve marked, and we’ll have the Pierce Acres estate done and dusted.”
I flip through the pages, initialing where indicated, but my mind keeps drifting. To Asher. To my sisters. To the photo of June at the Sap Festival, still propped on my kitchen windowsill. “Lionel,” I hear myself say. “Can I ask you something?”
He looks up, owl-eyed behind his glasses. “Of course.”
“My father…” The word feels strange in my mouth. “Did you ever meet him?”
Lionel goes very still.
“I know he inherited the property before me,” I continue. “And I know he never did anything with it. But I don’t know… I don’t know anything about him, really. What he was like. Why he never came home.”
Lionel removes his glasses and polishes them slowly with his tie.
“I knew him once,” he says. “He grew up here, but… he left.” Lionel replaces his glasses and regards me with sympathy.
“Drove up from the city one weekend about fifteen years ago. Called ahead, very professional. Said he wanted to see the property… understand what he was working with.”
“And?”
“He walked the land for hours. Asked me detailed questions about the value. Seemed genuinely interested.” Lionel pauses. “He reminded me of June, actually. Same energy. Same way of looking at things, like he could see what they might become, not just what they were.”
My throat tightens. “What happened?”