Small-Town Fireman. Allie Pleiter

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      Rosa raised one eyebrow while Grandpa merely growled. Evidently today’s therapy session had been particularly prickly. Karla escaped to the kitchen, where she slid her handbag and a box of Danish from the shop onto the counter. Mom’s tired eyes matched Rosa’s as she looked up from the sink. Her parents, who lived twenty minutes west of Gordon Falls, were staying with Grandpa off and on until he could safely be on his own. The doctors thought that would be two more weeks. Grandpa thought it should be two more hours—hence Mom’s weary expression.

      “Everyone having fun today?” Karla teased.

      “Oh, loads.” With her father trying to keep regular hours at his shelving business during the day, Karla knew her mother’s days with Grandpa could get long indeed. Mom nodded toward the living room, whispering, “Rosa is a saint. I’d have throttled him by now. If your father hadn’t left an hour ago, I think they would have come to blows.”

      She knew the feeling. Kennedys—and those who married them—were doers. Action people, thinkers and planners. Grandpa’s extended convalescence was taking its toll on everyone. Somehow, for reasons that weren’t too hard to guess, all this was opening up an old Kennedy family wound. Karla’s father, Kurt, had declined to take what Grandpa saw as his place behind the counter at Karl’s. Dad’s choice not to follow in his father’s footsteps had always been a wedge between them. Karla’s stepping in to run Karl’s Koffee, even as reluctantly as she had, just seemed to drive that wedge an inch or two deeper. Add a painful surgery, long hours of fidgety Kennedys sitting around hospitals and living rooms, and combustion was unavoidable. Karla didn’t opt to live in the apartment above the shop rather than here at Grandpa’s house for no good reason—she’d leave that volatile situation to her parents, thank you very much.

      “Your books came.” Mom gestured toward the kitchen table. “Weighed a ton. I thought online classes didn’t need all those textbooks.” Karla had enrolled in an online restaurant management certificate program even before Karl’s fall. Now she was doubly glad to have the business-related work keeping both her future plans in motion and her mind occupied while all the way out here in Gordon Falls.

      Karla began opening the box. “I got a few extra books from the entrepreneurship program. Business stuff.” Pulling off the packing tape, she removed the filling to see Restaurant Ownership, The Chef’s Guide to Marketing, and Culinary Management alongside the two workbooks needed from her online courses. The used texts had clearly seen wear and tear, but they were half the price of the new ones. Plus, if she was fortunate, they came with highlights and notes from their previous student owners.

      “Ambitious,” Mom remarked from over Karla’s shoulder. She lowered her voice. “Karl could probably tell you half of what’s in those books.” She winked. “Or so he’d boast.”

      “Aren’t we done yet, Rosa? My hip is yelling at me.” Grandpa’s groaning echoed into the kitchen from the living room.

      “A saint, I tell you.” Mom was laughing, but probably only because she was picking up her car keys. “I’m off to the grocery store. Do you need anything?”

      Oh, there was a long list of what Karla needed, but Halverson’s wasn’t likely to carry any of it. “No, I’m going to place an order with the restaurant supply place this afternoon after I talk to Grandpa about something.”

      Mom raised a curious eyebrow. “You can tell me about it later, okay?” She ducked her head into the living room. “Karl, be nice to Rosa. She’s here to help.”

      Karla heard her grandfather grumble something about the nature of helpfulness, punctuated by a yelp that generally signaled his descent into the recliner chair. His therapist walked into the kitchen, returning the blue cardboard folder that held the papers showing Grandpa’s daily exercises to its spot on the counter. He was supposed to do exercises twice a day when Rosa wasn’t here, but often refused. “Two more weeks.” She sighed. “Remind him he can go out and about after two weeks but no driving for another month.”

      “We’ll see about that!” Grandpa yelled from the living room. “Morehouse is a tyrant, I tell you.”

      Karla offered Rosa a shrug. “Dr. Morehouse is on your side, Grandpa,” she called into the other room. “Try to remember that.”

      “See if you can get him to keep his feet elevated with ice on that hip for twenty minutes twice this afternoon. After those exercise he claims he does, but doesn’t.” She looked at Karla. “I told your mom just what I told him—he’s doing better than expected. He’ll make a full recovery if we can just keep him from overdoing it.”

      Grandpa was the king of “overdoing it.”

      “I’ll do my best. You take care. Want a Danish?”

      Rosa sighed, took a Danish and headed out the door.

      The minute the door closed, Grandpa was making noises in the living room. “Can we go out to lunch today? I won’t tell a soul.”

      “Everyone will see you and rat you out.” Karl Kennedy could no more walk down the streets of Gordon Falls unrecognized than Karla could whip up a soufflé over a candlestick. The man’s coffee shop was the unofficial town hall. It was part of the charm—and the pain—of being here: everyone knew Karl, and everyone knew she was Karl’s granddaughter. She was starting to really miss Chicago’s anonymity.

      “No one will tell on me. Call Vi. She’ll come spring me.” Violet Sharpton had come to visit Grandpa multiple times in the hospital and stopped by every other day. While she was as feisty as Grandpa, Vi wasn’t a likely conspirator for anything that would endanger his recovery.

      “Dad would have my hide,” she replied as she walked into the living room with a cheese Danish on a napkin. “You know that. And Mrs. Sharpton wants you to get better, so I doubt she’ll help you cheat. We’ll order out from Dellio’s, how about that? Besides, I struck a deal at the coffee shop today and I want to tell you about it.”

      That got Grandpa’s attention. “What kind of deal? You bringing in some other fancy machine no one knows how to work?”

      It was true; no one else seemed to be able or willing to work the cappuccino machine. One high school student managed a brave attempt, but it ended in an incident so awful the entire shop staff had made a pact never to tell Karl how hazelnut syrup got into the heating vents. The other waitress, Emily, had nearly refused to touch the machine.

      Karla sat down on an ottoman opposite her grandfather. “We’re going to supply breakfast to Dylan McDonald’s charter fishing customers once or twice a week. I worked out a package deal for the next month.” She laid out the terms of the agreement as Grandpa ate the Danish. “We shook on it, but I told him it wasn’t official until I got the okay from you.”

      “We’re catering to McDonald’s fishing boat?”

      Grandpa’s idea of catering would come something closer to a thermos of coffee and a box of doughnuts. “No, they’ll place their espresso drink orders with Dylan as they pull into the dock and then I’ll have it all set on a table when they walk in. Dylan will pay up front eight dollars a head. I figure some of them might end up staying and ordering a full breakfast if things go well.” She smiled. “Everybody wins.”

      Grandpa grinned. “Well, look at you striking deals and making partners. Kennedys can do, I tell you.” It was the unofficial Kennedy Family Motto. The old man СКАЧАТЬ