Page 17 of The Fix-Up

—LIBERTY B., AGE 6

“The guy at the counter wants oatmeal.” Iris, one of my two employees, gestured over her shoulder.

“Do we even have oatmeal?” I turned away from the oven where I’d just pulled out two dozen blueberry sour cream muffins. The smell wrapped around me and I smiled. Props to the baker; they looked amazing.

“I don’t know. No one’s ever asked for it before.” She tucked a lock of blonde hair streaked with hot pink behind her ear. “Unless it was in cookie form.”

I wiped my hands on my apron. It was bright yellow with Sit-n-Eat written boldly across the front and a tiny muffin dotting the i. I’d gotten them last month after deciding we needed to jazz things up around this place. “Get him oatmeal then.”

“Oh, Jorge,” Iris said in a sing-song voice. “You got some oatmeal laying around?”

Jorge Benitez was my other employee, and he manned the kitchen. He grumbled something aboutboring gringosand started rustling around on a shelf. Ten seconds later, he slapped a box of instant oatmeal packets on the counter. “Found it.”

“Thank you, sunshine.” Iris blew Jorge a kiss just to annoy him. As was her way.

He shot her the least sunshine-y look ever, playing along. Iris laughed; Jorge grinned.

“He want eggs or anything else?” Jorge asked.

Iris pulled down a bowl and dumped the contents of the packet in. “He says he just wants oatmeal. Plain.”

I made a face. “Who likes plain oatmeal? It’s like eating mushy cornflakes.”

“Obviously no one told him that.”

Curious, I peeked over the top of the swinging door separating the dining area from the kitchen. “Who is it?”

“All the way at the end, dark hair, glasses, big shoulders, square jaw.” After mixing in a cup of water, she stuck the bowl in the microwave. “Very big hands. You see him?”

Normally, I would have commenced with objectifying the man right along with her (don’t judge, I have to have my fun where I can get it), but I was too busy gawking. There, scrolling through his phone like he didn’t have a problem in the world, was Gilbert Dalton.

A streak of something hot shot through me. Clearly annoyance.

“He’s not all that,” I muttered.

“Seriously?” Iris gave a low chuckle. “He has hot accountant/history professor/but knows his way around a toolbox energy.”

“Is that even a thing?”

Iris arched an eyebrow. “It’s totally a thing.” She peeked over the door at Gilbert and fanned her face with a hand. “It’s definitely my thing.”

“Whatever would your boyfriend say?”

“Have you met Aidan? He’s got accountant/history professor/but knows his way around a toolbox in training energy.”

I laughed. She was not wrong.

With a wink, she pushed open the door with her hip. “Told you I had a type.”

When I’d moved to Two Harts, Iris had been a sullen, sarcastic seventeen-year-old with a potty mouth and aspirations of becoming a card-carrying member of the Emo Girls Club. She’d sported dyed-black hair, black lipstick, alt rock t-shirts, and Dr. Martens. She was also Mae’s little sister, so practically family. It was strange how two people could be so alike and so very different all at the same time.

Neither sister was one you wanted to get in a verbal battle with. Unless you enjoyed getting cut into teeny-tiny pieces by the perfect blend of word choice and attitude. Then go for it; it’s your funeral.

Iris had started working at the café over a year ago when I’d finally convinced Ollie we should open for breakfast. The Sit-n-Eat was a town staple, having been around for decades. And for decades, it had only been open four hours a day, five days a week, to serve lunch. Lunch was whatever Ollie said was for lunch that day. No substitutions. If a patron disagreed, it was no skin off Ollie’s back. He wouldn’t argue; he would ignore you.

The first time I suggested opening for breakfast, he didn’t talk to me for three days straight. Don’t get me wrong. I talked to him. Constantly. Wore him down finally. And now, despite Ollie’s less than compromising attitude, the café was always busy when it was open.

A bell dinged behind me, pulling me from yet another woolgathering session. I bet I had enough wool at this point tomake blankets for half of the state of Texas. A bowl of oatmeal appeared in the pass-thru window. “Order up,” Jorge yelled.

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