Chapter One
Five Years Later
Taking off my apron, I hang it on the peg and turn around just in time to see Hank pat Lucy’s ass. A smile crosses my face as she turns around and shoots him a wink, wiggling her butt just a bit. They will be celebrating their thirtieth anniversary next weekend, but they still act as if they’re newlyweds. If I ever get over everything that has happened in my past, I hope to have the kind of relationship they do.
“I’m heading out,” I say, my smile still firmly in place while punching my time card. “Call me if Myra doesn’t show up again.”
“Got big plans for the night?” Hank asks, completely ignoring the last thing I said. “Maybe a date with that asswipe that was sitting in your section earlier.”
Over the last five years, Hank has kept a close eye on every man that has even looked in my direction. Other than his son, whom is secretly gay but totally hot, he calls every single one of them asswipe, douche weasel, or dickwad. There isn’t a man in all of Macon, Missouri, that he thinks is good enough for me, and I love him for it.
“No plans,” I answer with a shake of my head. “I’m gonna stop by the Piggly Wiggly and do my shopping then head home and veg out in front of the TV.”
“You’re young, Gypsy.” Lucy clucks her tongue as she places a line of hamburger patties on the fryer. “You need to be out and having some fun.”
“I have lots of fun,” I reply honestly.
I do, tons of it. Granted, the things I do would put most twenty-three year olds into a coma. Every Sunday night, I’m at Lucy and Hank’s house playing rummy and eating Lucy’s homemade chicken and dumplings with cornbread. Every Tuesday, Diane, my landlady and Hank’s older sister, and I watch NCIS together and swoon over the silver haired fox, Mark Harmon. At least one night a week, Jarrod, Hank and Lucy’s son, and I laugh ourselves silly over a bottle or two of wine.
“You’d have more fun if you met a guy,” she says, sliding buns in the toaster. “Winter’s coming up soon; you’d be warmer if you had someone to cuddle up with.”
“Jarrod would do a fine job of keeping Gypsy warm if he’d ever pull his finger out of his ass and get around to asking her out,” Hank says with an unhappy grunt. “It would be nice to have some grandbabies running around the house before I’m too old to chase after them.”
“Hmmm,” Lucy mumbles, making me wonder if she knows her son’s secret. “Anyway, you should be out meeting people, at least making some friends your own age.”
Even though Jarrod works at his dad’s side five days a week, Hank seems to be oblivious to his son’s sexual preference. Now, Jarrod is a manly man. He hunts, fishes, and all that other crap guys do. But all you have to do is watch his eyes when a sexy man walks into the restaurant to know that he has no interest in women.
We carry on back and forth for a minute or two more before the new waitress calls out another order. After a quick kiss on Hank’s whisker covered cheek and a hug for Lucy, I leave them to their work and head out to the same rusted out piece of shit I was driving when I left Cedar Springs. From there, I head straight to the grocery store and rush in to get my shopping done as quickly as possible.
It only takes a few minutes to get what I need before I’m standing in line behind two women with full buggies. Looking over the trashy magazines, I wait for my turn at the register. When I finally get up here, I see Ann is the one checking me out. She’s a sweet girl, but one that has absolutely no gaydar. She spends all her time chasing after Jarrod, even though he has made it plain as day he is not interested.
“Hey, Ann.” I smile in greeting, then start pulling my items out of the buggy. “I didn’t know you were working here.”
“About two weeks ago.” Running my milk over the scanner, she smiles back at me. “It’s not hard, but the pay sucks.”
“Yeah,” I reply, not quite sure what else to say.
“I was hoping you would come in today so we could talk,” she says, grabbing a jar of peanut butter and tossing it in a bag. “Stephan’s throwing a barn party tonight. You should come and bring Jarrod with you.”
This chick never gives up, but when I think about the way Jarrod’s ass looks in jeans I can understand why. He has an ass that could grace the pages of Playgirl. Still, when a guy says no, a chick has to move the hell on.
“He left for Paducah; he’s visiting an old friend from college,” I reply, not telling her the old friend is a guy or that the two of them are sharing a bed and have been for over a year. “He won’t be back until Sunday night.”
“Oh, well.” She grumbles, pouting out her bottom lip. “You should still come. Stephan would like to see you.”
For a second or two, I think about Lucy urging me to make some friends my own age. I consider going just to please her, but I quickly shake the thought away. I’m just not into the stuff other people my age are into, especially not something called a barn party, whatever in the hell that is. Hanging out with a bunch of drunk rednecks doesn’t appeal to me at all.
“You know, he still talks about you all time,” Ann says with a wink. “I think you should give him another chance. He’s not all bad.”
Stephan is her brother, her very handsome brother, and he’s not bad at all. He is also the only guy I’ve went out on a date with since moving to Macon. We only went out twice, and neither time was bad. He was nice enough, sweet even. He didn’t get too handsy, and he actually took me to a place that didn’t have laminated menus. The only problem was he wanted more than I was willing to give. Not just sex but a relationship. In reality, I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready for either of those things.
“I can’t tonight,” I reply with a slight shrug of my shoulders. “I have to open at the diner tomorrow, so I gotta get my butt in bed early tonight.”
“It’s Friday night and you should be having fun,” she says with a shake of her head. “You’re too young to be wasting your time in front of the television.”
Her words mirror Lucy’s, but I don’t give in. “Maybe another time.”
We talk a bit more as she checks me out, then I walk to my car and load it up. A minute or two later, I’m heading home. I’m only a few blocks away when I see black smoke billowing into the air and the sound of sirens hit my ears. When I pull onto my street, I see fire trucks sitting in front of the flower shop I’ve called home since moving to town. My heart skips a beat as I pull my car over to the side of the road. I quickly cut the engine and climb out, never taking my eyes off the flames shooting from the shop’s roof.
I moved into an apartment the day I came to Macon, the same day I got the job at Hank and Lucy’s diner. There are actually two tiny apartments over the flower shop. Diane owns the shop and has lived in one of the apartments since her husband died nearly eleven years ago. Lucky for me, the same woman that quit the restaurant had moved out of the other apartment a week before I showed up in town. Not only did I get her job, I got her apartment and the furniture she left behind, too.
The apartment is tiny, just one open room with a bathroom and a small closet. There is a built-in kitchenette with a dorm fridge and a two-burner stove. A futon functions as both a couch and a bed, and my coffee table doubles as my dining room table. I could lie on the futon, grab a soda from the fridge, and watch TV all at the same time. Still, it is the perfect home for me. Well, it was until now.
I’m still staring at the flames when Lucy rushes over and grabs my hand. “Thank the Lord you weren’t in there.”
“I was at the store,” I mumble, still in shock. “Is Diane all right?”
“Yeah, she’s fine. She and Hank are talking to one of the firemen now,” she says, giving my hand a tight squeeze. “I was so worried we weren’t gonna be able to get everyone out of the diner quick enough.”
My head jerks to the left, to where the diner sits not twenty feet from the flower shop. Only two dumpsters separate the two buildings, and they didn’t do much to block the fire from spreading. Unlike the shop, the diner doesn’t have any flames coming from its roof, but there is plenty of damage to the side of the building. Not to mention all the windows are shattered and the shingles on the roof look scorched.
I look back at Lucy and see tears pooling in her gentle blue eyes, knowing she sees the same thing in mine. “What in the world happened?”
“I don’t really know much,” she says with a frantic shake of her head. “Hank and I were running the grill when Diane came running through the back door screaming that her shop was on fire.”
“No one was hurt?” I ask, trying to comprehend how my life went from heaven to hell in the space of an hour.
She shakes her head again, letting go of my hand to wipe the tears from her cheeks. “No, we all got out in time.”
We both stay quiet after that, just staring as the firemen do their jobs. I try to keep my nerves in check as I watch my home go up in flames. Everything I own is in my little apartment, including the nearly two-thousand dollars I have been able to save. Instead of putting it in the bank, I stuck it in my panty drawer, just like my mom used to do. At this moment, I’ve never felt more stupid. If it had been in the bank, I would at least have the money to get myself a hotel room for a few days.
The silence is broken when Hank comes over and places a kiss on my cheek then pulls Lucy into his arms. “The chief said they should have the fire contained within an hour or two as long as the wind doesn’t shift.”
“What in the world happened?” Lucy parrots my earlier question. “How did the fire get started?”
The question has no more than left her lips when Diane walks over and says, “It was all my fault.”
Tears are streaming down her face as she comes to stand next to me. I look at her face and notice that she looks as if she has aged a dozen years since I saw her last night. I guess losing everything you own can do that to a person. I definitely feel a dozen or so years older than I did just an hour ago.
“I was making up a wreath for the Bradshaw funeral when the phone rang. It was one of those uppity ladies from the country club over in Watson County. She wanted to discuss ordering flowers for her daughter’s wedding next month. We got to talking about colors and designs, and I lost track of time,” she explains before giving us the information we need. “I left the hot-glue gun on. It was sitting right beside some dried baby’s breath. The heat from the gun caused the baby’s breath to catch fire.”
“Now, Diane,” Hank groans with a shake of his head. “That isn’t what the fire chief said and you know it.”
Diane narrows her eyes at her brother. “He said the fire started in the work room, on or near the counter. The only thing on that counter was the fixings for that wreath and my hot-glue gun, so he may not have used those exact words but we both know that is what he was saying. I started the fire with my own negligence.”
I can just picture it, just as she says. That room is small with a counter running along one wall and a glass refrigerator case on the other. There are shelves above the counter filled with dry flowers and vines that are used when making wreaths and such. If the fire started in there, it would have been out of control as soon as the flames hit the shelves.
Blinking away the image in my head, I walk over to Diane and wrap an arm around her shoulder. “This wasn’t your fault. It was just an accident.”
Closing in on sixty-five, she appears as fragile as a newborn right now. “I’ve lost everything. I don’t even have a home anymore.”
“You know there’s always room at my house for you, sis,” Hank says, and Diane agrees with a quick nod. “There’s space for both of you.”
It’s at that moment it all hits me. Not that it hadn’t already, but this time it comes at me full force. I have no home, no clothes, no money, other than what tip money that wasn’t spent at the grocery store. Until the diner is fixed up, I don’t have a job either. I have nothing, even less than I had the day I drove into Macon.
Even though I should be focused on Diane, I can’t stop myself from asking, “How long will the diner be shut down?”
“Not long,” Hanks says, pasting on a fake smile. “There’s a little smoke and water damage inside, but most of the damage is on the exterior. I’m not an expert, but I figure if we get the right men on the job, we could open back up in a month or two.”
My stomach flips, nearly forcing up the burger I ate for lunch. What in the hell am I going to do for a month or two without a paycheck? I could stay at Hank and Lucy’s for a few days, but not that long. I’ll have to find a place of my own, but how am I going to do that without any money or a job?
“The flower shop is gutted. It’s gonna have to be rebuilt from the ground up,” Diane whispers as she looks up at me with tears in my eyes. “It’s not gonna be a quick fix. It could take months and months.”
“Neither one of you need to worry about a thing right now,” Lucy states, leaning into Hank’s side. “We got a bedroom for both of you.”
Hank and Lucy live in a three-bedroom ranch style house, but both of the extra bedrooms is filled with crap they’ve collected over the years. The bed in one is not even visible through all the shit that they’ve piled in there. The rest of the house is nearly as bad, full of every gadget or knickknack Lucy sees on QVC that catches her fancy. The place is not messy; it’s just filled to the brim with stuff.
“I’ll camp out on your couch for a couple of nights, just until I can find a place,” I state, wondering how the hell I’m going to make that happen.
“You could stay with Jarrod until we get the diner open again,” Lucy says with a reassuring smile.
My heart lightens but it falls again when I see the glint in Hank’s eyes. Lucy may have an inkling about their son’s sexual preference, but Hank doesn’t. If I moved in with Jarrod, he’d expect us to be married and popping out babies by the end of the year.
“I’ll think of something,” I say, hoping like hell my words are true.