Last Chance Knit & Stitch (16 page)

“What’s this?” Simon asked, holding up the sandwich.

“Ham and American cheese with no mustard, only mayo, and no lettuce but only tomatoes. By the way, your hometown is quite a lively place.”

“Lively? You’re kidding, right? They roll up the sidewalks at night.”

“That may be, but during the daytime there is much excitement. There was a catfight at the café between a woman named Flo and another one named Ricki. I am not absolutely sure, but I think Ricki had been working at the café until she got a job at the yarn shop. But then her job at the yarn shop disappeared because Molly, the very nice proprietor, lost her job at the garage and had to fire Ricki from the shop. So Ricki wanted her old job back, and the owner of the café was happy to give it back to her, but the new waitress, Flo, was making it hard for him to do that.”

Angel unwrapped his sandwich and took a bite.

“Molly lost her job at the Grease Pit?”

“You know Molly?” Angel spoke with a partially
full mouth. For a gay guy, he really needed better table manners.

“Yes,” Simon answered. “Molly is Coach’s daughter.”

Angel frowned. “Ah, the famous football coach. The man you admire so much. Football is very big in this town.”

“Yes. But she lost her job?”

“That I heard straight from her mouth when I stopped by the yarn shop this morning. I also heard from your aunt Millie, who I ran into at the Cut ’n Curl when I was moving my things in, that your uncle Ryan is trying to steal a car that belongs to Molly and her boyfriend, Les, who used to work for your father.”

“Les isn’t Molly’s boyfriend.”

“No? Everyone says he is.”

“She told me he’s not.”

Angel studied him for a very long, pregnant moment during which Simon knew that his assistant was adding things up and coming to conclusions that might be embarrassing. Angel had a knack for reading his most intimate feelings that was often quite useful and sometimes downright annoying.

Angel swallowed another bite of his sandwich. “Well, according to the ladies at the Cut ’n Curl, Molly is as good as engaged to this man. But maybe they don’t know the whole story, because Les is the one who took Molly’s job at the Grease Pit. So perhaps this love affair between Molly and Les has hit a bump in the road.”

Simon studied his assistant. “How do you do this?”

“What?”

“Walk into a place, a party, a gathering, and learn everything there is to know in the space of an hour?”

“I spent more than an hour this morning talking to people. I mean you sent me to Lovett’s Hardware five times. And Ruby’s son knows everything that goes on here. By the way, he is very grateful to you for delivering his baby. He told me that, if it weren’t for the fact that the baby has been named after his late uncle Pete, they might have given him the middle name Simon. But Peter Simon sounded too biblical. Ruby plans to invite you and Molly to dinner. I gather the both of you delivered this baby. She is very cute, the owner of the yarn shop.”

Simon’s head was spinning, but he should have known that Angel would fit right in with the notorious gossipers of Last Chance.

“Molly doesn’t own the shop,” he said, forcing his correction into Angel’s stream of information.

“Oh, yes, I forgot. She is just filling in for her mother. But according to Dash Randall, who I met at the hardware store, Molly has great skill in restoring classic cars. Have you seen his Eldorado?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Well, it is magnificent.” Angel paused for breath and then continued. “And, as I said before, your aunt Millie says that your uncle Ryan has taken possession of a car that Molly was in the process of restoring. And Millie’s friend Thelma told me that Molly wanted to hire her husband, Eugene, who is your lawyer, but she could not because Eugene is already working for you. So Molly has many problems, it would seem.”

“Wait a second, are you talking about the Shelby?”

“What is a Shelby?”

Simon rolled his eyes. “A very valuable automobile. My father gave Molly space at the dealership to restore
this car. She made a point of telling me about it on the day of my father’s wake. She wanted to make sure I didn’t get any ideas about trying to take it from her, just because it was there at the dealership.”

“Well, apparently your uncle Ryan is trying to take it away. I heard that this car might be worth one hundred thousand dollars. Is this true?”

“It may be worth more than that.”

“Wow. No wonder your uncle wants the car.”

“Well, it’s not his to take.” Simon turned away and looked out at the traffic passing on Palmetto Avenue as he tried to tighten his internal tourniquet. No matter how hard he tried to hold it back, anger bled through him.

Angel continued on. “Everyone in town thinks that he can take the car. Everyone is talking about it. They are also saying that you rented this space even though Molly wanted it.”

“Whose side are you on?” Simon asked, his voice small and cramped.

“I am not on any side. I am just reporting what I hear. This is a very interesting town, Simon.”

“Well, don’t believe everything. There’s a gossip on every street corner.” He threw his half-eaten sandwich into the trash bin. He had suddenly lost his appetite. “You stay here. I’ve got something I need to do.” He headed toward the door.

“Simon, the only thing you need to do is finish the painting.”

“Not before I have a chat with Uncle Ryan about a car.”

For a small-town banker, Uncle Ryan sure did have one heck of a fancy office, complete with cherry paneling
and a desk as big as an aircraft carrier. Simon took a seat in the burgundy leather chair in front of the massive and surprisingly uncluttered desk. He felt diminished, as if the desk had been put up on a platform and the legs of the chairs shortened just a bit.

“So you’re finally showing some interest in your father’s affairs. It’s about damn time.” Ryan steepled his fingers and leaned back in his swivel chair. He looked satisfied, as if he thought he’d won a round in a game of high-stakes poker.

Simon drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing his emotions to still. In the walk from the Coca-Cola building, he’d let his anger overwhelm him. Now he needed to gain some control.

For all his efforts to stay calm, Simon still wanted to rage at the man. He didn’t quite understand why the whole Shelby situation had angered him so deeply. But it had.

“I came here to tell you to give Molly Canaday her car.”

“Why should I do that? She owes the dealership rent on the space she was using.”

“You know good and well that Daddy wasn’t charging her rent for that space.”

“Well, speaking as his banker, he should have been.”

“You can’t change the rules on Molly like that. It’s not fair, and it’s not legal. She didn’t sign a lease or anything. You don’t have a leg to stand on. And you’re just using your position and your wealth to bully her. It’s not right.”

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law. If she wants the Shelby back, let her get a lawyer and fight for it.”

“She can’t afford a lawyer.”

Ryan shrugged. “Well, that’s her tough luck, because I believe I already have a buyer for the Shelby, and you’ll be
pleased with the amount. Even unrestored and in pieces, the buyer is willing to pay a hundred grand for it. That will clear a lot of your father’s debt.”

“That’s bull. You can’t sell it without a title, and the title isn’t in the dealership’s name. Ryan, don’t be a jerk. Give her back the car.”

Ryan leaned forward. “Why do you care?”

“Because it was my father’s business, and Daddy was trying to help Molly. He wouldn’t be happy with this situation. Who are you to come in and make her life miserable?”

“I’m your daddy’s banker.”

This back-and-forth made Simon antsy and uncomfortable. He wasn’t going to win this argument. Shooting verbal missiles at Ryan and ducking when he fired back would never solve Molly’s problem. He’d learned a long time ago that arguments settled nothing. It was a man’s actions that made the difference. So he stood up and stalked to the door.

But he couldn’t resist one last barb. He was so furious that the words escaped him even though he knew they would do him no earthly good. “You’re an asshole, you know that, Uncle Ryan? You’ve always been an asshole.”

Ryan stood up and looked down his long, frugal nose. “And you are a no-account loser. Sort of like your daddy was. It’s a damn shame my sister married your father. He was beneath her. And like him, you’ll never amount to anything. You’re almost forty and look at you—you dress like a queer, you’ve got hair like a hippie, and you’re just scraping by. It was no loss when you left this town, and no one will care when you leave it again.”

Simon stood there staring at his uncle. This was
nothing less than what Mother had said on the night Simon had told his parents that he was giving up medicine in order to pursue his dream of becoming an artist. And Daddy, who used to argue with Mother from sunup to sundown, had stood there and let her say it. The last thing Daddy wanted was a son who wanted to paint for a living.

So there wasn’t much new in Ryan’s cruel words. And still, after all these years, Simon wished he could spring across the room and pop his uncle right in that long nose of his. But letting anger escalate to violence had horrible consequences, and it wouldn’t get Molly her car. The braver man walks away. The wiser man finds an alternative.

“Give the car back to Molly,” Simon said, forcing his voice to go low and almost soft.

“When hell freezes over.”

Ricki hugged Muffin to her chest and walked down the sidewalk, trying as hard as she could to keep her head high and the tears from her eyes.

Deep within the rational folds of her mind, she knew that T-Bone couldn’t take her back as a waitress because then Floretta would be out of a job. And besides, Ricki didn’t really want that waitress job anymore. She was tired of being on her feet all day, and when she worked at the Knit & Stitch, she could have Muffin with her.

And that was important. Because even in the space of a few days, Muffin had become her best friend. She had fallen in love with that poor, pitiful dog. They were kind of alike. Someone had gotten tired of Muffin, just like Randy had gotten tired of her.

They had both been thrown away by someone they loved.

But she needed a job, even if it meant leaving Muffin at home. She couldn’t pay the rent on the apartment she leased from Dot Cox without a job. And owning a dog required additional expenses. She’d already had Charlene Polk give Muffin a complete checkup and all her shots and a bunch of lab work. Her free dog had cost her a hundred dollars that she’d put on her nearly maxed-out credit card.

She stalked into the garage area of Bill’s Grease Pit, where Bubba Lockheart was bent over the open hood of a car. “Where the hell is he, Bubba? I’m gonna kill him.”

“Who?” Bubba asked.

“Who do you think? I’m looking for Les.”

Bubba’s eyes widened as he took in her leopard-print Michael Kors knockoff dress, her little red strappy shoes, and Muffin’s matching leopard dog collar.

“What do you want Les for?” Bubba asked.

“It’s none of your business,” she replied.

“Hey, Ricki.” The voice came from under the car in the adjacent service bay. She bent over and found Les, looking all greasy and masculine, peering at her from the service pit from whence Bill’s place got its name.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

He dropped the tool he was holding and headed up the ladder at the end of the pit. A moment later he appeared around the end of the car, using a rag to wipe off his hands.

“What’s the problem?” he asked, cocking his head a little and giving her the same once-over inspection she’d just gotten from Bubba. His gaze unleashed a torrent of lust that was just wrong.

Leslie Hayes was a boy. And besides, he was Molly’s boy.

She stroked Muffin’s head and tried to calm herself and the dog. The dog was shivering real bad now. Muffin only did that when she was scared. And she only got scared when Ricki lost her cool. Like the other day when Jane went into labor.

She pulled her mind back to the issue at hand. And steeled her body against its suddenly raging hormones. She was too old to have hormones. She needed to get a grip.

“How could you take Molly’s job?” she asked.

“Because I needed a job. I mean, I didn’t know LeRoy was going to fire Molly when I took the job. But hell, Ricki, I need the work.”

“So do I, and now that Molly has lost her job, she has no choice but to work at the yarn shop. Which means she can’t afford to keep me on.”

“Oh. Well, that’s okay. T-Bone will take you back.”

“No, he won’t.”

“What?”

“If he took me back, then Flo would lose her job. He’s not going to take me back. And besides, I don’t want to go back. And Molly doesn’t want to work at the Knit & Stitch.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t want to be unemployed.”

“Leslie, you’re an idiot. Don’t you know that Molly loves you? How could you do this to her?”

“No, Ricki, she doesn’t love me. She’s made that abundantly clear.”

“Well, of course she has. You just took her job. That’s not a very good way to say I love you. I want my job at the Knit & Stitch back.”

“But you weren’t very good at your job at the yarn store. I mean, I heard that Molly was always running up there to get things untangled.”

She stood there holding a dog who was one second away from totally freaking out. She felt useless as she stared down Leslie Hayes, who had only pointed out the obvious: Ricki wasn’t good at anything. Once, when she was young, she’d been good at being pretty. But that didn’t cut it anymore. And more than anything, Ricki wanted to feel competent.

“I’m learning to knit, same as I learned how to wait tables. I’m not stupid.” Her words were like a declaration or something.

Les’s face turned kind of red underneath all that grease. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I liked my job.” Her lips started to quiver. Tears filled her eyes, and these were genuine tears, not the kind of tears she’d once used to keep Randy in line. “And Molly never once told me she was unhappy with me. Not once. She was teaching me.” The tears rolled down her face.