Chapter Two
Miz Ada Lou, I want you to meet Carla Wilson, the new owner of the Tumbleweed,” Scarlett said as they approached the table. Then Scarlett hurried off to the back to pick up an order.
Ada Lou drew down her well-plucked eyebrows and stared at my face for a few seconds, then scanned me all the way to my toes.
“You don’t look like you have enough money to buy a setting hen, much less enough to shovel out for this place.
How old are you, anyway? I’d say mid-twenties, but your skin might have held up better than mine and you’re in your forties. ”
“I’m thirty years old, and I won the place in a poker game up in Tucson yesterday.”
Ada Lou pushed the red streak back behind her ear and grinned.
“That’s good enough for Larry. That sorry sucker was only interested in what was left in the safe every Monday afternoon.
That’s the only day he showed up here. If he used the deed to this place in a poker game, that means he’s probably gone through everything that Matilda worked so hard to build up. ”
“Who is Matilda?” I asked as I cleaned off a nearby table. The food had given me enough energy to keep my eyes open, but I would have loved to curl up in a corner and sleep until sometime the next day.
“She was Larry’s great-aunt. Since he was the only living relative she had, she left the Tumbleweed to him in hopes that it would give him some purpose in life—he never could hold his liquor, and he wasn’t any good at poker,” Miz Ada Lou answered.
“Order up!” Rosalie called from the service window.
“He walked away with a pretty good amount in Tucson,” I said. “He had a half-decent poker face—but then again, he might have been slack-jawed from all the Knob Creek whiskey he kept drinking.”
“You are right,” Ada Lou said with a nod. “Reading him was like trying to figure out what a chicken was thinking. The only thing that lit up his eyes was a woman in a short skirt, or money.”
I didn’t say that I had read him very well and that was the reason I owned the place. I also didn’t say that I was trying to figure out whether I was experiencing a waking nightmare.
“Nice to meet you, Miz Ada Lou.” I picked up a bar rag and went back to my job. “I better get busy busing these tables, or Rosalie won’t cook for me again.”
“An owner that works like Matilda did,” Ada Lou said with another nod. “You might find a home here.”
Maybe for six months, but not a single day longer than that.
I’m a gambler, not a waitress or even a busboy—or is it busperson these days?
I loaded dirty dishes and glasses into a bin and wondered where Larry was today.
Had he already gambled away everything he had won, including my last five hundred dollars, with that final hand?
Or had he turned it into enough to get into a high-stakes game in Vegas?
“Well?” Miz Ada Lou barked.
“What?” I asked.
“Are you going to sell this place or gamble away every dime like Larry did? Gambling is an addiction and will ruin your life.” Her voice had an edge to it.
“That’s getting really personal, and I only just met you,” I shot back as Scarlett brought her order and set it on the table.
“Decisions can be made in a second, and it’s a long drive from Tucson to here. You’ve had a lot of time to think.”
“Yes, I did, but I’ve only been here an hour. We never know what the future might hold. When I sat down at that poker table last night, my plan was to be checked into a hotel in Vegas by tonight, and look where I am.”
Ada Lou took a sip of her coffee. “If anyone would have told me that I’d be living in an RV park in the middle of nowhere when I retired, I would have thought they had lost all their marbles, but here I am. Fate throws us some curveballs, doesn’t it?”
So does Lady Luck.
“Yes, ma’am, it does. Enjoy your brunch.”
Her whisper traveled across the room as I headed for the kitchen: “She won’t be around long.”
“At least she’s willing to help while she’s here. Larry never lifted a finger except to carry out the money Rosie and I made all week,” Scarlett said. “Maybe you can work some of your magic on her like you did on me.”
“Might be a waste of time,” Ada Lou said. “But since she’s helping y’all, I’ll think about it.”
“What else have you got to do?” Scarlett pressed.
“It takes time and patience for miracles or magic to get a hold on a person. You know that, so don’t expect anything in a hurry,” she said.
With a bin of dirty dishes in my hands, I changed my course and walked across the dining room to the window.
I set the bin on a nearby table, picked up the For Sale sign, and tossed it into the trash can.
Selling the place wasn’t an option right then—not when there was less money in my pocket than the nickels, dimes, and quarters I’d won from Frank when I was just a kid.
I can always buy or make a new sign, and I need these women to trust me if we’re going to work together until I can unload this place.
Rosalie didn’t even look up when the swinging doors squeaked. She just kept peeling potatoes. “Rinse the dirty dishes and then load the dishwasher. We’ll probably run it three times before the lunch run begins.”
“Do you and Scarlett live in that town up north that you mentioned?”
“No, we live in the trailer out back of the Tumbleweed,” she answered without glancing at me.
“Larry didn’t stay here very often, but when he did”—she nodded toward a door to the right of the sinks—“he slept in the storage room on a futon.” She finally looked up at me.
“The trailer has three bedrooms. Larry cleaned everything out of Matilda’s old room, so you can use it.
We share one bathroom and the living area. ”
“Is there a bed?”
“Nothing fancy. Just a regular-sized one, same as me and Scarlett have.”
“That will do just fine.” King-sized beds with soft sheets and big pillows were my favorite, but hey, when the sun came up that morning, I was planning to sleep in my car or on top of a table in an empty building.
Suddenly, I had a job, a roof over my head, and all the good food I could put away.
Maybe Lady Luck had felt sorry for me and thrown me a bone or two.
“That sounds great. What time do we close?”
“We get a breakfast rush when the first bus comes through from the west. Most of the folks on that one are coming from Vegas, where they’ve gone to gamble.” She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and muttered something.
Tears formed in my eyes at the thought of all the poker tables I had sat at in that city. It would be months before I could go back. Maybe even a whole year.
“Usually, both buses have gone on their way by two o’clock. We lock the door, clean up the place, and go out to the trailer until five o’clock the next morning, when it starts all over again.”
“Do you ever get bored?” I finished loading the dishwasher.
Is this my life until I can sell this place?
You have no right to bitch, the voice in my head argued. Your choices brought you here, and now you have to pay the piper.
“Would you please show me how to start this thing?” I asked with a sigh. “I’m a fast learner and promise I won’t ask again.”
She crossed the room, turned a knob, and then pushed it in. “That’s all there is to it. And to answer your question: No, I do not get bored. I’m just thankful to be alive and have a job.”
That seemed like a strange answer, but if that was the way she felt, then I wasn’t going to pressure her to say more.
I carried an empty bin back out to the dining area, where Scarlett was sitting at Ada Lou’s table.
They were deep in conversation, so low I couldn’t understand a word they were saying.
It felt like those first days when I’d attended public school after Frank remarried.
The popular girls had all huddled up and whispered.
I had held my head high and ignored them, but it stung when they rolled their eyes and giggled.
That was their choice. Mine was taking all their boyfriends’ money so they couldn’t go out with them over the weekend.
Rosalie had told me to help Scarlett, not to do the work while she visited with a customer. I owned the place and she was the help, so why was she having a mean-girl conversation with Ada Lou while I dealt with dirty dishes and nasty, cold leftovers?
Get off your high horse. Earlier today, you were flat broke.
I started to argue with the voice in my head. Then I remembered that if I’d listened to what it had to say before I checked into that seedy little motel in Tucson, I wouldn’t be at this place anyway.
“Nice meeting you, Clara,” Ada Lou said as she stood up and left a couple of dollars on the table for a tip.
“My pleasure—but it’s Carla,” I said, raising my voice.
“For my age, getting it close is good enough.” She winked and went out the door.
A few seconds later, the sound of a motorcycle engine revving up filled the whole place. Expecting to see a biker, I looked out the window, and there was Ada Lou, sitting astride a big Harley with a helmet covering her gray hair. She threw up her hand and waved when she caught my eye.
“Surprised?” Scarlett asked.
“Yep.”
“I was, too, the first time she rode up to the café on that thing. She has a pickup truck and brings it down here to fill up with gas when she goes to El Paso for supplies about once a month. But if the weather is nice, she rides the cycle,” Scarlett explained.
I covered a yawn with my hand. Three o’clock couldn’t come fast enough. “She looked like an old biker chick on that thing.”
“She really is an old hippie. She even went to Woodstock back in the day. I’ve been to her trailer many times.”
“For what?” I asked.
“To watch movies, play board games, and just to visit. She should have been a therapist.”
“What kind of movies and board games?” Something about an old hippie woman who rode a Harley piqued my interest.