“I do, Sherrie. It’s going to be perfect.”
“Wonderful. I’ll get the lease all typed up and then you can pick up your key.”
Chapter 5
Cap
“The supply truck is here. I’m going to run and open the back door; you got the front?” I asked Stacy.
“Yeah, boss, I got it. It’s not too busy now, but man it’s been crazy this week,” Stacy said.
“I know. Word spreads fast around here, and people are loving Frankie’s food. Having him come to work here was a great decision. I’ll be back up here to check on you in a bit.” I went through the kitchen to open the back door and let the delivery driver in. I’d hoped Frankie would make it back before the delivery. I knew he wanted to be here, and I didn’t want to check off his order and miss something. I decided I should call him, but before I could, he and Ripley rushed in.
“Sorry, I thought we would beat him here, but it took us longer than I expected,” he said. He came over and took the delivery sheet from me. “I’ll check them off.”
“Did you find a place?”
“I did, it’s a couple blocks from here. It’s small, but it’s only me, so it’s perfect.”
“Now we have to go get your things, Frankie,” Ripley said. “I figure Reed and I’ll go with you, and we can close out the condo and get it on the market. Then we can all drive back. This is the perfect time of year to do this at the ranch because things are slow. I figure it shouldn’t take us more than two weeks, tops.”
Frankie and I both froze. “I can’t be gone for two weeks, Ripley. We just ordered all these supplies,” Frankie said.
“And Frankie’s pastries are really popular, we want to play on that, not disappoint people by not having them for two weeks right off the bat.”
“Exactly,” Frankie said. “I’ll come up and get my stuff and rent a moving truck.”
“That’s crazy. You can’t do that. First of all, how will you get your car here if you’re driving a moving truck? And next, you can’t drive a truck. Driving my Jeep freaked you out because it was so big. I’ll hire movers for you to get your stuff here.”
“That’s ridiculous, you’re not paying for movers twice. I’ll figure something out.”
I tried to say something, but they were on a roll—no listening, only talking.
“Let me see what Reed says,” Ripley said grabbing his phone and texting.
There was finally a break. “Hey, guys, I could come and drive the truck.”
They both stopped and looked at me. “Hold on,” Ripley said and started texting.
“You don’t have to do that,” Frankie insisted. “I’ll figure something out.”
“But you don’t have to figure anything out. We can fly up and drive back the next day. Annie can stay overnight with my mom.”
Ripley glanced up at me and started texting again.
“That wouldn’t be too much trouble?”
“Not at all. I haven’t been to Dallas in ages.”
“Reed says that’s a great idea. He and I can go up now and get everything ready for y’all to load.”
“Oh, okay”—I rolled my eyes—”since Reed says it’s a good idea, then we should do that.”
Luckily Tony was feeling better and wanted extra hours, so coverage for the shop was no problem. My mom was going to take Annie for the weekend, and we reserved a rental truck and our plane tickets. We were all set to go. Frankie told me no less than four times that if I needed to change my mind he would figure something out. But I had no intention of not going.
Annie had become his taste tester and number one fan. I picked her up from school and brought her back to the shop. As soon as she got situated with her tablet or her drawing pad, he would start slipping her bite-sized treats to taste. He’d asked me if it was okay on Monday, but he still pretended to slip them to her, and I pretended not to know. I hated that she spent so much time here, but right now, she needed the consistency of being where I was. If she went too long without seeing me, she got anxious. I knew that was a result of having been passed around so much in her very young life.
Thursday was a hell of a day. One of the, if it can go wrong it will go wrong kind of days. The supply company messed up my order, and I didn’t have lids for the medium cups. Then I had to explain to a very upset Mrs. Rosenberry that we didn’t have enough scones for her entire ladies auxiliary meeting, and that any orders of that size would need to be placed ahead of time. The toilet in the men’s room backed up, and that was a mess. By the time I picked up Annie, I was pretty much out of patience. I got her a scone and a cup of hot chocolate, but I had no sooner placed the food in front of her then there was a pop and the sound of steam and Stacy calling for me.
“Cap, something’s wrong with the milk frother.”
“Of course there is,” I grumbled as I went over to check it out.
“Uncle Cap,” Annie called.
“In a minute, Annie.”
“Uncle Cap,” she said more insistently.
“Not now, Annie. Give me just a minute,” I said, glancing over to make sure there wasn’t anything really wrong. She sat there, arms across her chest glaring at me, but she was fine.
“I need Annie,” Frankie said, poking his head in from the kitchen. “Annie, can you come help me?”
She hopped down from the table and went into the kitchen. Good, whatever Frankie was up to was bound to keep Annie busy for a few minutes, anyway. After looking at the machine and not seeing how to fix it, I got on the phone with the technical service rep. About an hour later, I pressed the button, and the machine came on and operated exactly the way it was supposed to. I glanced over at Annie’s booth, and her books and tablet were still exactly where she’d left them. I glanced at the clock and it was almost 4:00 p.m. Frankie was usually gone by now since he came in so early.
I went to the kitchen to check and see if things were okay, but as soon as I pushed open the door, I heard giggling. I stopped and watched, wanting to see what had her so delighted.
“Okay,” Frankie said. “How are we doing this?” He gestured dramatically at the cupcake in front of her. “Should there be sprinkles? I say yes to sprinkles. What do you say?”
“Yes, to sprinkles!” she shouted. “All the sprinkles.”
Then she turned the shaker upside down and shook it, hard, covering the cupcake in rainbow sprinkles. I thought that would be it, but he quickly removed that cupcake and slid another one in front of her.
“So, what about this one?” Again a dramatic motion, that reminded me of a game show host. “Sprinkles or no sprinkles? I vote yes, what say you, madam?”
She pretended to think about it, and then yelled, “Sprinkles!” She grabbed the shaker and covering the cupcake.
“Okay,” he said removing that one. “No more sprinkles.”
I expected her to complain since she was obviously having fun, but she didn’t, instead she looked even more excited than before. “You know what that means, don’t you?” He stepped back and put his hands on his hips looking at her and waiting for an answer.