Chapter 2
Miss Busy Body . . .
I closed our glass-front refrigerated display case that housed an assortment of our meats.
We had meats such as rib eye, brisket, ground beef packs, New York strips, and sausage links in vacuum-sealed cuts labeled with processing dates.
I found myself organizing it a few times a day.
I liked the refrigerator well organized.
Customers tended to pick over packages, then put them back where they didn’t belong.
That shit vexed the hell out of me. My brother, Vince, screamed on them, but I didn’t have the time to change people that didn’t, in the grand scale of life, matter to me.
Besides, I found a small peace when I organized things.
Dawson Premium Cuts Butcher Shop was a family business that spanned generations within the Dawson’s family. It was the perfect complement to our cattle ranch. Our shop was at the front of our land.
Our land totaled ninety acres. The land was broken up into pasture, woods, hayfield, our housing, barn, and shop area.
We had a very nice-sized fishpond as well.
Plasters was what the townies called a hidden gem in Georgia.
With a population just under three thousand, it was a place with one large school building that looked like a college campus, but it was our elementary, middle, and high school.
Everyone came to Friday night football, whether you had a kid that played or not.
It was a town of generational families where everyone knew everyone in some way. Families were connected a lot of times by marriage. There was a lot of military connected to this town, whether it was active, veteran, or fallen soldiers.
“Vic, Beverly is supposed to be in here to pick up that order for Rosebuds in a few. Is it ready?” my mother, Victoria, asked from behind the counter after her customer left.
I stepped behind the counter to get to the walk-in cooler. My mom handed me the order inventory list so that I could check it. I was sure that it was correct, but for her benefit, I would check it again. She had been a worrywart all my life for the most part. “It’s all here, Ma.”
We supplied all of the beef supply for the diner and the bed-and-breakfast. Mrs. Cook’s diner was the only restaurant we had here, technically.
We just got a McDonald’s a few years ago.
You would think that it was a five-star restaurant because of how busy it stayed.
It was a little hangout spot next to the ice cream shop.
“I wonder what gossip Mrs. Cook gonna come in here with today? You know that lady knows everybody business but her own. Can tell you that Suzanna is smoking that good stuff, but won’t tell you that her son, Kevin, is the one selling it to ’em,” my mama said smugly.
At seventy-four, Victoria Michelle Dawson was still a firecracker.
I wished she would sit her little ass down somewhere.
Her husband, my father, fussed at her every day about working.
Hell, at seventy-six, Carl Anthony Dawson was no better.
The only reason he wasn’t here today was because he was in the pasture.
Between the military and farm life, it acted as a youth potion.
Vince sucked his teeth. “Ma, really? You gossip just as much as that lady. When she comes in here, you be right there listening.”
“Of course I do! Let me tell you something that I’ve learned in my seventy-four years of life.
When you mind your business, everyone will tell you their business.
Who am I not to listen to them? I have always had a listening ear.
Oh, and I don’t gossip. I research and report when necessary.
” The conviction in her words made me chuckle.
I shook my head. “Ma, you’re too much. Research and report, huh?”
“Yep! It’s what y’all call recon,” she said. Her cheeks were high.
The dinging of the alarm to let us know that someone pulled into the parking lot caused us all to look at the camera monitors behind the counter.
Mrs. Cook. I never understood why she didn’t send one of her male employees to pick this shit up.
I didn’t expect any of her badass sons to do it, but that truly was another subject.
I started to pull her order from the cooler so that I could box it up.
“Hey, Dawsons! How are y’all today?” Mrs. Cook asked as soon as she came through the door.
She had a very lively personality that often overshadowed everyone—not in the flattering way either.
She was a woman that wanted to be the center of attention, and when she wasn’t, she had an attitude.
I believed that was where her sons got it from.
My mother put on her wide smile. “Hey, Beverly! How’s business going at the bed-and-breakfast?”
They didn’t get much business because the town didn’t get many visitors.
They owned the property and land free and clear, so they weren’t hurting by the lack of business.
Plus, their diner was all the business that they needed.
The fact that it was the only restaurant here was not the main reason it stayed busy.
Trust me, people would rather cook at home than eat horrid food.
The food was out of this world. The Cooks could cook.
“Oh, we got a new guest just this morning. A pretty girl who checked in for a week.” Mrs. Cook walked over toward where I stood at the counter boxing her order. Whatever she had to say next was just for me. “She’s a veteran, Vic. I figured she was the way she acted. She acts like you do sometimes.”
Her words piqued my interest. That was an interesting statement. “How exactly do I act?”
She thought about it for a minute. “Um, like, not jumpy or anything. You move slow sometimes. I saw her when she was walking up to the building, and she stopped before she walked onto the porch. She looked around like something was wrong. When she finally did come inside, her pretty self wouldn’t put her bag down like most people do, and she stood like you do where you can see all the doors.
You think she been to war or something?”
My stare at her was blank. “I’m not sure. There are a lot of reasons that a person could have those mannerisms. It could come from other things. She could be a survivor of domestic violence.”
“Okay, she just acts like a person who has that PTSD thing like you do.” Mrs. Cook’s finger went to her chin, then her eyes widened. “How much you want to bet Verna sent her here? Come on now! A pretty girl like that just doesn’t stumble onto a town like Plasters.”
Vince laughed. “Mrs. Cook, you’ve said the girl was pretty about three times already. She must really be pretty.”
“You know if I keep saying it, I mean it. This town is small, so you probably gonna see her. Not sure what she here for. If Verna sent her, then you’re definitely gonna see her,” she said.
I told Vince to help me get her order out to her truck.
I was done with the conversation, and other customers had come into the shop.
Our shop was not that big, which was intentional.
It was meant for you to get what you needed and get the hell out.
A lot of our customers called in their orders, or they were made online.
Most knew that was my overall preference.
When people knew that my mother would be in the shop, which was Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, they came in to socialize with her talkative ass.
Vince and I helped Mrs. Cook to her truck, gave her well wishes, and sent her on her way. When we walked back into the shop, my mother had that look in her eyes. My brother and I glanced at each other. I waved her off before I spoke. “Ma, I’m not doing this with you. You don’t even know her.”
My mother was a hopeless romantic who saw my future wife in every beautiful, nice woman that she met. Her biggest desire was for me to get married and give her grandchildren. I wasn’t saying that it wasn’t something that I wanted for myself. I just knew that when I found it, I would know.
There She Goes . . .
A couple of hours passed since Mrs. Cook left.
We had steady business, which was common.
On top of Rosebuds, we supplied the beef for our local grocery store.
My family took great pride in the quality of beef that we produced.
Our Angus cross cattle had improved meat quality, added heat tolerance, increased growth rate, and improved fertility and hardiness.
Our beef was everything that you would want in life.
The shop was empty. I straightened the mess that had been made in the refrigerator for the fourth time today.
When the ding sounded to alert that someone had pulled into the parking lot, I looked to my brother, who was currently standing behind the counter.
His eyes locked onto the camera, then they squinted. “Who the fuck is that?”
His inquiry had my feet double-timing behind the counter.
His question was valid. Who the fuck is that?
Her brown skin was kissed by the sun. Her short blonde hair complemented her skin tone perfectly, which said a lot.
Blonde could be a tricky color on Black women.
Not because it was inappropriate or it didn’t look good, but because you had to know the shade that complemented your skin tone.
My brother and I watched her scan the parking lot.
She was dressed in a pair of khaki cargo shorts, a black T-shirt, and a pair of black sneakers.
She pulled a hat out of her cargo pocket, then placed it on her head.
The gravel under her feet could be heard from the camera as she walked toward the front door.
When she got to the door, she didn’t immediately pull it open to step inside.
Like I expected her to, without head movement, her eyes scanned the doorframe.