Page 21 of Old-Fashioned

That sounded damn good too, which was why I said, “What the hell? Make it two, but I want curly fries instead.”

“You got it,” Gladys said with a smile and then walked off.

“Can you cook?” she asked.

I nodded, “Yeah, my mother taught us how to. She told us that she wouldn’t raise boys to become men who couldn’t take care of themselves, and their families should they have them.”

“Smart wisdom,” Birdie chuckled.

“Who taught you?” I asked her.

Gladys sat our shakes down and then walked off, and the look that came over Birdie’s face was one I’d never seen before. It was almost a look of… reservation… sorrow… happiness?

“Do you want the short version? Or the long version?” She asked me with a look, I could very well read. A sad smile marred her face.

I checked my watch, “Well, the diner doesn’t close until ten tonight. And I’ve got all the time in the world. Long version.”

We both took sips of our shakes and then… she did.

“Growing up, my mother wasn’t a good person. There were days that if I didn’t eat at school, I didn’t eat at all. Until one day, my neighbor saw me walking home in the pouring rain. It was fifty-eight degrees, and I hadn’t had time the night before to wash my pants, so I had on shorts and a T-shirt. Anyway, some kids at school had been picking on me for having less than them. One of them ripped my backpack. My neighbor saw it, and the next morning she had a note and a brand-new backpack sitting on my front porch for me.”

Just then Gladys sat our plates down, but neither one of us made a move to touch them.

“I picked her a bouquet of wildflowers the next afternoon and gave them to her. Then a couple of months later, we had a bad snowstorm. The school was closed. I spent a whole week at her house. She made me anything I wanted to eat. And on the fourth day, she made homemade bread with honey and oat clusters on the top. I asked her to teach me how to cook. And she did.”

“I got a couple of questions for you. That okay?”

She nodded, moved her plate to the side, and rested her forearms on top of the table, “Go ahead.”

“Where’s your mother?” I asked.

She scrunched her nose up, “No clue. The moment I turned eighteen, I moved out and found a small studio apartment. It wasn’t big enough for anything but a mattress, a small stool, a tiny bathroom, and a galley kitchen, but I had food on the table.”

“You’re dad?”

She shook her head at that, “Found out when I was about nine years old. He’s in prison for sex trafficking and exploiting minors and a slew of other charges. He can rot in there for those reasons alone.”

“I don’t blame your way of thinking. Not one bit.” It wasn’t the time to tell her about my own record, not even Isla my manager knew about it.

“And your neighbor, how is she?”

That was what brought out that sorrow on her face again, “She passed away from cancer six months ago. I miss her every day.”

I nodded, “I can see that. I’m glad you had her. So, any idea where all the kids are that were mean to you?”

She looked at me, curiously, but I had a method to my madness, and I was glad when she shook her head, “No clue. I didn’t look for them. Didn’t really care to. Why?”

“Because I find myself wanting to hunt them down and give them a taste of their own medicine.”

“What? Like toilet papering their houses. Throwing bologna onto their cars? Sticking broken forks in their yards?” Her eyes were shining when she finished.

I winked at her, “More or less.”

She giggled. And fuck, but that was adorable as hell.

Once I stopped thinking that, I asked, “So, I know you had a Colorado driver’s license when you applied at the bar. What made you come out here?”

She smiled then, “My neighbor. She really was my guardian angel, in more ways than one. She would tell me stories about her travels. And she told me about a quaint little town in North Carolina called Holly Springs. A gazebo that sat on the corner of Birch and Moss. And there a man who looked too good for his own good stole a kiss from her. That man in the bar? The one that ordered a Screaming Mimi?” She lifted her brows then.

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