Chapter Five
M ama met me at the door, stood up on her tiptoes to give me a quick hug, grabbed my hand, and dragged me back to the kitchen. “I’ve got some really exciting news to tell you about—or maybe I should say that Annie and I together have an idea to share with you.”
You asked for something exciting, and here it is, the voice in my head whispered.
Annie waved from the yellow-topped chrome table set that had been in the house for as long as I could remember. “Lasagna was the special today at the restaurant, so I brought leftovers for supper. Sit down and have some while Sarah and I tell you about our idea for the future.”
Mama placed a plate of food and a glass of sweet tea in front of me. “Neither of us want to retire altogether, but we want to be able to set our own hours. We thought about putting together a food truck of some kind.”
“Maybe a sandwich one that only sets up three days a week,” Annie said. “But that would still require a definite schedule.”
“If it’s finances—” I started.
“But we decided against the food wagon and decided to go with a catering service, and we want you to be our manager. We need someone who understands finances and taxes and all that stuff,” Mama blurted out.
My first thought was to shake my head and remind them that I had a job, but something deep inside reminded me that only minutes before, I had wished for something to excite me. “Did y’all just hash this out this afternoon?”
“We’ve been talking on the phone since Sunday,” Annie said. “Madge has a buyer for her café, and if the new owners don’t kick all the employees out and bring in their own staff, Sarah might be able to work until she retires. The same guy that bought Madge’s place came by mine and offered me a lot of money for my business. At first I said no way, but he gave me a week to think about it. Seems that his two granddaughters have been to a fancy cooking school back east. He lives in San Antonio, and if he has a café for each of them, they will live closer to him.” She paused long enough to take a drink of tea and then went on. “Annie’s has been in my family for generations, and I thought I couldn’t possibly sell it. But then I got to thinking about the long hours I’m putting in and how tired I am at the end of the workday. I called Sarah and asked what she was going to do if the new owners wanted to make changes in both the menu and the staff.”
“We started kicking around ideas for alternatives and came up with this one,” Mama said. “I can use the money Aunt Gracie left me to have one of those metal buildings built on my property to use as a warehouse.”
“And we’d like to put a commercial kitchen in one end,” Annie added. “Can’t you just see a wedding or any other event where real food is served? But you don’t have to buy into the business, Lila. I’ll have more than enough to build the warehouse with what I get from selling my café.”
I put a forkful of lasagna in my mouth and held up a finger. I had less than a minute to think about how I was going to either back away or make these two women happy. I had always known I wanted to be an accountant, so this was the biggest decision I would ever have to make. So far.
The lasagna was wonderful, better than the hamburgers Jasper and I had had at Annie’s Café. There was no doubt their catering business would take off like a Texas wildfire, and they would make a lot of money. I chewed slowly and then took a drink of tea. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until it came out in a whoosh. Aunt Gracie always said that when opportunity knocked to invite it in and feed it chocolate cake. Well, here was my chance to break out of the rut I’d been living in, so why was I hesitating?
You asked—no, you kind of begged—for excitement, and now it’s right in front of you, Aunt Gracie’s voice whispered in my head.
“But . . . ,” I barely whispered back.
Never sit on a fence. It will make your butt flat, she said. Either you are in or out.
“I’m in,” I finally said. In addition to the joy of doing something new, I would be helping my mother and Annie out. “Let’s each put in one third of what it costs to start up the business. That way we are all full partners. I’m not much of a cook, but I can help with organizing, hiring help, and the paperwork for each job. I’m sure this project is going to require all of our time from the beginning, so I’ll give my two-week notice tomorrow.”
“Are you absolutely sure about this?” Mama asked. “Don’t you want to think about it a few days?”
I shook my head. “Nope, I do not. Y’all’s excitement has flowed over to me. Annie, when is your last day at the café?”
“I’ll tell the buyer that I’m willing to sell to him, and I guess I’d need to give two weeks’ notice, too.”
“I’ll let Madge know in the morning, myself.” Mama’s voice sounded like a little kid’s who had found a brand-new bicycle under the Christmas tree.
My mind went into overdrive. “We can get a lot done in those two weeks. We’ll get Aunt Gracie’s lawyer to draw up papers for the business, get bank accounts started, and maybe even get in touch with a contractor for the building.”
“Or at least think about the design,” Annie suggested.
“We should have a rough idea of what we’ll need before we decide on the size,” Mama added.
Change had always terrified me. Leaving for college was as tough on me as it was on Mama. Graduating and taking a job with the insurance company meant living in my own place, and that was an adjustment. Moving from that tiny apartment into Aunt Gracie’s big house was an even more giant step for me. But somehow, sitting there in Mama’s little kitchen, the decision I had made on the spur of the moment seemed right and didn’t send me running for the hills like finding a spider in the bathroom had done.
Mama and Annie were talking about what kind of commercial ovens they would need when I finally tuned back in to the conversation. A whole new vibe filled the house, and I could almost feel Aunt Gracie giving her blessing on the decision.
“Y’all do realize that it will most likely be fall before we’ll be up and running?” I asked. “You could begin to put jobs on the calendar, but this project is going to take most of the summer. I can put all three of us on a payroll. It will drain some of the inheritance, and we will most likely run in the red for a few months. But after that, we’ll probably be making money hand over fist when folks find out about the way y’all cook together.”
“I’ll have enough money to do me until we start getting some business,” Annie said.
“I’ve got plenty with what Aunt Gracie left me that I’m good through the summer,” Mama said.
“Okay, then ...” I took my dirty dishes to the sink and rinsed them. I liked to bake, but cooking was not anywhere on my love-to-do list. Since Mama collected cookbooks, I’d grown up thumbing through them—mostly the dessert pages. That caused a memory to pop into my head. “While you are making up the recipes you can offer for the service, organize them by category—meats, desserts, salads—and we might have a cookbook published later.”
“That’s a great idea,” Annie said with a wide smile.
The thrill of doing something new followed me out to my vehicle, and I wanted so badly to call someone to share the news of the new venture. But the few friends I had made at work had seemed to drift away after so many of us started working from home. Some of them were married and had started families. Others had moved on to new jobs in other parts of the country or world.
The excitement came to an abrupt halt when I got home, and doubts came crawling out of every nook and cranny in my head. I paced the living room floor for a while; then I wandered outside and saw Jasper sitting on his porch, trying to teach Sassy to fetch a pair of rolled-up socks. “She’s brought this thing back to me three times this evening. We’re getting some of her puppy energy run out before we go inside. Come sit on the porch with me.”
Glad to have someone to talk to, I hurried across the grassy lawn and plopped down in the second rocking chair. “You’ll have her bringing you a beer and opening it with her teeth by the time she’s a year old.”
“I hope so,” he grinned.
“You’ll never believe what I just did ...” I blurted out, then went on to tell him about the catering business. “Now I’m thinking I should have thought about it a day or two before jumping in with both feet.”
“Gracie would be proud,” he said.
His words put an unexplainable lump in my throat. “Why would you say that?”
“She was always proud of you for making something out of yourself, but for you to take life by the horns and do something that will be a help to your mama ...” He paused and smiled. “Honey, that means you and Sarah will be working together, and that would make the buttons pop off Gracie’s best Sunday blouse. One regret she had was that she was afraid to take risks.”
“Such as?” I asked.
He lowered his voice like he was telling me a secret. “Staying in that house, for one thing. She felt like since her grandparents built it, she couldn’t sell it or leave, and when she got old, she wished she would have gone out and seen the world.”
Sassy ran back to the porch and flopped down on her belly. Jasper picked her up and took a step toward the door. “Don’t look back with regrets, Lila.”
“But what if it’s the wrong decision?” I asked.
“Could be.” Jasper nodded. “But if you don’t do this, you’ll never know what it might have brought into your life. Good night, Lila. Sweet dreams.”
Just minutes after he closed the door, the crunch of tires on gravel and headlights lighting up the area got my attention, and I tiptoed to the edge of the fence. We had had teenagers coming out to steal strawberries before, and Aunt Gracie usually put them on the run by firing her shotgun into the air.
The lights went out. A vehicle door slammed, and a dark figure headed toward the canopy where strawberries were sold. I opened the gate and slammed it shut, hoping to scare whoever was out there.
“Lila?” a deep voice asked.
The beam from a flashlight practically blinded me when it hit me in the eyes. “Put that thing down, Connor. What are you doing out here after dark?” I spluttered. It took a couple of minutes for me to focus again after the light went out.
“I forgot my favorite baseball hat,” he said. “I didn’t want a squirrel or a raccoon to carry it off. Got time to come on over and sit a spell?”
I swatted a mosquito the size of a Texas buzzard and shook my head. I held back a chuckle at that thought because Jasper had said the same thing many times. “No, thanks, but you are welcome to come in the house and have a beer or a glass of sweet tea.”
“That would be great.” He picked up his hat and took a step toward the gate. “Front door or back?”
“Back is quicker,” I said and waited for him. “Have you been in Aunt Gracie’s house?”
“Not since I was a little boy. She invited me and Jasper inside one day during the Christmas holiday to have a cup of hot chocolate and some cookies. Jasper had helped me build a snowman that day out there in the space between your house and his. We didn’t get snow down in these parts very often, so Mr. Frosty wasn’t very big,” he explained.
This time I didn’t hold back the giggle. “ Mr. Frosty sounds like something you get at the Dairy Queen.”
“Those are Blizzards, and I love them! Frosties come from Wendy’s,” he said. “But you are right. We’ll have to try them both and see which one is better.”
We walked up onto the porch together, and he opened the door for me. His mama had raised him right, or maybe it was the military that had trained him to be a gentleman. Since I’d been working from home for so long, I had forgotten that men could be so mannerly.
I stopped in the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Beer or tea?”
“Beer, please,” he said. “I have to quit caffeine early in the day, or I can’t sleep.”
I twisted the tops off two bottles and handed one to him. He took a long drink and sat down at the kitchen table.
He seemed to take in the whole room with one glance. “This kitchen looks the same as it did when I was a kid. Same wallpaper and table and chairs.”
“Yep,” I agreed as I looked at the tiny daisies on the yellow-striped wallpaper. “How does it make you feel?”
He raised one shoulder in half a shrug. “Hard to explain. Kind of cozy, and like I stepped back into time where things were simpler and more peaceful.”
Mama thought there were spirits in the house, and Connor called it cozy . What a contrast in opinions—but then, maybe he didn’t know anything about the secret that haunted some folks.
“How does it make you feel?” he asked.
“The same as you do.” I took a long drink of beer. “But folks talk about this house having some big secret. Do you know anything about that?”
“Sure. Grandpa says that this area is known for three things: Mr. George’s birthplace, strawberries, and some big secret concerning this house. ‘The three S’s,’ is what he calls them. I’ve listened to Strait’s songs my whole life, and I sure know a lot about strawberries, and I’m learning even more. But that last S ...” He paused and took a sip of beer. “Grandpa says that Gracie took it to her grave. No one knows if it was something to do with her folks or with her. Do you know what it is?”
“Nope, and probably never will.” I didn’t even speculate on whatever might have happened in the house. He thought it felt cozy, so maybe things couldn’t be that bad. “You’ve been here a few months, and you said there was some culture shock at first. What do you miss the most?”
“My friends,” he replied without hesitation. “How about you?”
“Most of my friends had already moved on with their lives. When we started working from home, we kind of lost track of each other. I’ve gotten over that issue. What I miss most is the little coffee shop across the street from my apartment building. They had the best orange-cranberry muffins, and I treated myself to one every Saturday morning.”
His green eyes locked with mine. “If I brought you a muffin on Saturday morning, would you be my friend?”
I blinked first and then noticed he was smiling. “Is that your best pickup line?”
“It’s not a line. I want a friend closer to my own age, and you want a muffin on Saturday. We can help each other out.” He turned up his beer and finished it. “You don’t have to decide tonight. Think about it until Friday—and then, if you agree, I will bring you a muffin bright and early on Saturday.”
“Orange-cranberry?” I asked.
He nodded and grinned like a little boy bringing a bouquet of wildflowers to a girl. “Yes, ma’am, fresh from the kitchen at Grandpa’s place.”
“Well, then,” I said, smiling. “Hello, my friend. I’ll have the coffee made and ready to wash down some muffins with you on Saturday morning. Between now and then, I will bring you lunch each day at noon.”
“I’ll be lookin’ forward to it,” he said.
He’s probably just wanting to be your friend so he can sweet-talk you into selling him this property, the pesky voice in my head said.
Maybe, but I’m sweet-talking him into bringing me a muffin. Or three, I countered.