Sweet Caroline(4)

Holding my laugh in, I point to his plate. “Your eggs are getting cold.”

Dupree jerks his napkin from under the silverware. “Has my wife been by here? Giving you nagging tips?”

The Christmas bells clang again as two men enter the Café and take a seat at the counter. “I’ll be around with more coffee.”

The Café routine goes on as morning sunlight gleams through the windows. Jones would’ve wanted it this way.

After the breakfast rush—and I use the term loosely—the dining room is bright but quiet. Mercy Bea leans against the counter, reading the Gazette, sipping iced tea from a mason jar. In the kitchen, Andy ups the music as he preps casseroles for lunch. Russell, the Café’s dishwasher and part-time cook, punches in and powers up the old dishwasher.

Snatching up another warm biscuit, I tuck away in the office to face the bills, sitting in the dilapidated desk chair and launching QuickBooks while I gaze around the long, narrow quarters. Jones was a pack rat. He saved old cookbooks, menus, place mats, and the odd broken oven knob. Once the Café is sold or handed over to the new owner, I’ll volunteer to help decipher this mess for cleanup.

Bending under the desk, I open the tiny safe and pull out last night’s deposit. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the bag was empty. Business is such that I only trek down to the bank once or twice a week. Every time I do, the bank manager, Mr. Mueller, gives me a look like, “Don’t be asking for a loan, Caroline.”

Don’t you worry, Mr. Mueller. When Kirk finally gets around to reading Jones’s will, I’ll be free . . .

My thoughts jump to my friend Hazel Palmer’s latest brief and cryptic e-mail: “I went way out on a limb this time for you, Caroline. Risking my rep. So, do you want the job or not? Yes or no.”

My friend, the sarcastic CFO. Did I ask her to climb out on a limb for me and dangle her reputation? No. It’s all about ego when one becomes senior management for a major European development corporation.

“Caroline?” A light knock echoes outside the office door.

“Hey, Mrs. Atwater.” I motion for my former math teacher turned domestic engineer to enter. It’s nice to see her. Even better, she’s not asking me for geometry solutions.

No, I do not know what percent of a rectangle’s area is increased if the length and width are doubled. How will this improve my life?

“Morning, Caroline.” She hands me a set of keys. “Jones’s carriage house is cleaned out, ready for new residents.” With a glint in her hazel eye, she settles in the chair on the other side of the desk. “I see Jones was a hoarder in the Café as much as his house.”

“He hated to throw stuff out.” I drop the keys in the top desk drawer, next to another odd key I found taped to the side of the file cabinet a week ago. “I’d clean out the office, but I’m waiting to see what the new owners will do. So, what’s the decluttered carriage house look like?”

“Walk across the parking lot and check it out. It’s quite lovely. Polished hardwood floors, open-beam ceiling, fresh paint. The kitchen is from the sixties, but, hey, avocado green is coming back.”

“If you’re a hippie.”

“Exactly.” Sitting back, she props her hands on her slightly round middle. A seventies-style red bandanna shoves her brown curls away from her forehead. “Any word from the lawyer?”

“Nothing new.” I tap the deposit amount into QuickBooks. If only I could add one more zero. “Just that he’s still busy with a big estate case. Do I pay you for cleaning or . . .”

“We’re square. The lawyer paid me when he hired me.” Mrs. Atwater hunches forward. “I’ve known you a long time, Caroline . . .”

She’s going to give me the speech. The one she gave her class every semester. I rock back in my chair, catching my foot around the desk leg as the seat lists to starboard. I’m determined to pay attention to her this time. For real. And believe her. A little.

“You’re one of the brightest, kindest women I’ve ever met. Even though you hated geometry.”

“Hated? No, Mrs. Atwater, really, I like—”

She laughs. “You’re not in tenth grade, Caroline. You can confess: you hated it.”

I wrinkle my face. “It’s just there were so many triangles, rectangles, and circles . . .”

“As I recall, you earned an A.”

“I cheated.”

“Ha. You didn’t. Which brings me to my point.”

How’d she work that one around?

“Look at you, Caroline, hanging around, making sure Jones’s old place stays afloat. You’re selfless. Even in high school, you carried a serious personal responsibility about you that your friends and classmates didn’t.”

“Being abandoned by a parent does that to a girl.” Reaching for a thin wire that was once a paper clip, I wish she’d focus her intense gaze elsewhere. “I always felt Daddy needed me, you know? If I left, what would he do?”

And what would I do so far from home? Morph into her?

“I understand. But your daddy is doing fine now. Isn’t he engaged? Your brother’s married.” My old teacher leans forward, placing her fingers on the edge of the desk, her expression almost a yearning. “Caroline, you have so much untapped potential. Don’t let your mama’s weirdness hold you back. I’ll tell you right now, I was disappointed when you turned down the Clemson scholarship.”