“Nope, I just like Daisy. I think she’s sad too. You could be sad together.”
That time, I full-on laughed. “That’s not quite how you want to pick a girlfriend, squirt. And anyway, Daisy and I are just friends.”
“Daddy said you went on a date the other night though.”
“That’s what he was hoping when he tricked me. But Daisy said we should be friends, so that’s all we are.”
“Well, that sucks too.”
I humphed a laugh. “You know what doesn’t suck?”
Her head rolled my way so she could see me. “What?”
“Pancakes.”
Her face lit up. “Bettie’s?”
“Special this week is cinnamon roll pancakes.”
She hopped off the couch and ran for the entry. “With cream cheese frosting! Let’s go!”
Smiling after her, I picked myself up and headed for my work boots, which hadn’t seen much work lately.
I’d been right—we’d been shut down and handed a laundry list of things to address, everything from underpinning and foundation fixes to electrical and plumbing calls that were unnecessary by most any inspector’s standards, things I’d never been called on before. Nothing dangerous was on that list, just a million little things that would take us a week to address and required resubmitting our plans to the city, which was its own time suck.
It wasn’t long until I was heading for town, Sophie in the back seat singing along to the radio. I was thankful it kept her occupied, using the time to get myself right after the conversation with her. We rarely spoke of Julie and Mandy, almost never addressing of how I felt about them. There had been no point in veiling it for her, which was why I figured she came to me so often. I was the only adult in the house who wouldn’t bullshit her in an effort to protect her, shelter her. I figured there was a way to talk to her about all of it in a way that was appropriate for her age, so I did my best, which I was sure wasn’t good enough. But I tried.
A song came on the radio from those years when we were teenagers, when our only troubles were figuring out how to sneak out for a party and finding a place to hook up where we wouldn’t get caught. Cole and Julie were always around me and Mandy, the four of us spending so much time together, we were family long before we were ever officially family. Julie even came to Mandy’s funeral, and for that one endless day, the three of us mourned that time in our lives, the people we were. The hopes and dreams that we’d held, long slipped through our fingers.
As Sophie had so eloquently said, it sucked. And the pain of that made it near impossible to ever risk heartache again.
Maybe she was right. Maybe we were cursed like Daisy’s family was rumored to be.
The idea of it was a comfort, in its way. Rather it be a thing that had rules than just shitty, awful luck.
Main Street was busy that Saturday morning, but I was able to find a spot near Bettie’s Biscuits. The old diner had been around since the fifties when Bettie founded it with her husband. The sign featured a pinup girl rumored to be Bettie in her youth, wearing a tiny waitress dress, the tray in her hand stacked with biscuits, which were her specialty. Once, in the eighties, a pack of women from Coleburn’s church tried to have the sign removed for being too sexual in nature, but in the end, nobody was going to strip Bettie of the symbol of her youthful figure. Cold dead hands—that was what it would take. Nobody’d questioned her since, lest they lose favor at Lindenbach’s favorite breakfast joint.
As we walked up to the door, I noted the dwindled numbers of homeless on the street. A few still sat or slept under eaves, unwilling to comply to the rules of the tent shelter or untrusting of the operation, I wasn’t sure. But we’d at least made some headway in doing just what Doug and the rest of them wanted—relocating the homeless to a place where nobody had to see them. And yet, they protested, working to stop us at every turn.
I couldn’t make it make sense.
Aggie, one of the waitresses, waved at us when we entered, inviting us to pick a seat. So we ventured over to a booth near the window overlooking Main Street. My brothers were all busy with projects today, running errands and getting themselves caught up for the upcoming week. We were finishing several contracts at once, including the Blum’s barn, and since we didn’t have much to do with the shelter site temporarily shut down, I’d offered to keep an eye on Sophie, grateful for the company.
As much as I reveled in being alone, I did not at all enjoy being alone with nothing to do.
“So,” I started, sitting back in the booth, “wanna work in the wood shop when we get home?”
“Can I use the table saw?”
“Absolutely not.”
She made a dismissive noise, but said. “I’m not a baby, you know.”
“You say that a lot.”
“Well, it’s true.”
“Your father would murder me if you got your hand chopped off on my watch. So quit asking, for my sake.”
“Fine,” she said with a sigh as Bettie sauntered up, smiling.
The ninety-year-old woman was sprightly for her age and had enough attitude to power a city block. Her silvery-white hair curled and waved, cut to her chin, framing her smiling face. Her lips were a deep red, her eyes bright and blue behind chunky hot-pink glasses. Her black tee, which read Back in my day … in the same shade as her glasses, was tucked into high-waisted wide leg pants, and the tips of her Converse poked out of the hem.
“Would you look at that,” she said. “Keaton and Sophie, out on the town.”
Sophie beamed. “Can I pick a song on the—”
“Jukebox? You bet, kiddo.” She reached into her pocket and dropped a few clinking quarters into Sophie’s waiting hand.
Sophie took off running for the old jukebox, the records the same as they had been since Bettie opened her doors.
Bettie shook her head, amused. “Cinnamon roll pancakes?” she guessed.
I nodded. “And a chocolate malt.”
“Breakfast of champions. And for you?”
“Biscuits and gravy.”
“Coffee?”
“Always.”
The bell over the door chimed, and the world slowed down for the time it took Daisy Blum to walk in, smiling. I didn’t know why it happened like this, but seeing her did something funny to time, stretching it out, and all I could see was her. The little wisps of hair at the nape of her neck, exposed by a high ponytail. The rosy smile on her lips as Aggie greeted her, her eyes forward, not having seen me. The shell of her ear, the shape of her jaw, the whole of her capturing my attention and keeping it without a clue it was happening. But it always did.
I must have looked as much of a fool as I felt, because Bettie smiled with knowing and slid in across from me.
“Heard you and Daisy went on a date the other day.”
“Oh, did you?” I asked with a brow jacked. In my periphery, I watched Daisy approach the counter.
“Course I did. I hear everything.”
“Hate to disappoint you, but Daisy and I are just friends.”
“Sure you are,” she said a certain kind of way that indicated she knew I was full of shit.
“We are. Can’t be anything more than that.”
“And why’s that?”