It Started with a Dog, page 4
Edgar said he could take a little time, that he’d check in with him after the New Year, but they’d need an answer then.
Jonah’s hesitation was complicated and began with his parents. By Christmas, his dad had completed his treatments, but he’d not yet returned to full-time work. He didn’t look so great, to be honest. But it was more than that. When Jonah had taken over, he’d discovered that the Star was lagging in more ways than one behind the latest coffeehouse trends. He’d tried to explain it to his parents and aunt and uncle, but they didn’t seem to get that for some coffee aficionados, there was a distinct difference between a coffee shop and a coffeehouse.
“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard!” Jonah’s mother had scoffed, and the two sets of parents had laughed.
“Well, Mom, some people think a coffeehouse or a coffee bar is where you get artisan coffees, and a coffee shop is where you get drip coffee and a piece of pie.”
“So? What’s wrong with that?”
“That’s my point. There is nothing wrong with it, but some people would rather get their joe in a coffeehouse.”
His parents and aunt and uncle had just looked at one another, probably marveling at the dumb kid they’d raised. Sometimes, getting them to listen felt a little like flipping tractor tires—they seemed to think that the more things changed, the more things ought to stay the same inside the Lucky Star. Just like the good ol’ days.
That was the crux of the problem—the Star had remained exactly the same for seventy years because the regulars liked it that way. And so did the owners. But many of the regulars were dying or had been pushed out of central Austin by rising costs, and the new people moving in were not coming into the shop to take their place. The new people were young and hip and biked to work and took spin classes and cared about the environment and marched for social causes on weekends. They were used to technological conveniences, they didn’t eat a lot of pie and cake because of the carbs, they refused food that wasn’t free of GMOs, and why would they ever stop in at the Lucky Star for a cup of coffee when they could order ahead to a ubiquitous Starbucks?
Jonah had optimistically believed they could reinvent themselves and remain an Austin institution. That all it took was some understanding of their market. He’d tried different things, like improving the Wi-Fi. He’d tried to get the word out using social media—he and Amy had opened accounts and she tried to keep up with them, but it was hard to do on top of her job. They advertised fun pastries, like their twist on Taco Tuesday—taco-shaped fried pies. Nothing worked. The verdict rolled in every month when he did the books—he had not saved the Lucky Star. Not even close.
Jonah did not see a way out. After the holidays, it was his intention to recommend to the family that they sell. The land they were sitting on was so valuable that they could all live comfortably for the rest of their lives. Why worry about the shop when they didn’t have to?
When Allen asked him how it was going, Jonah thought of the holiday, of the good time he was having, and of the great job offer he’d just gotten, and how he’d really just rather have more wine and forget about it. Unfortunately, he couldn’t forget about it.
He said, “You know Billie Salazar? She owns that vintage clothing store up the block from the Star?”
Allen and Andy nodded in unison.
“She said the new building they are finishing up across the street from our place is a Deja Brew flagship store.”
Allen and Andy dropped their jaws at the same moment.
“I know, right?” Jonah didn’t have to tell them what that meant—the New Age coffeehouse, a Starbucks on steroids, was relatively new in Austin. They had every coffee gadget one could imagine, and even a couple he couldn’t imagine any use for. Even their seating was trendy—instead of the usual setup of bistro tables and chairs, they had egg-shaped basket seating suspended from the ceiling.
They had an actual lending library at each of their stores. They featured the work of local artists on their walls and functioned like a local art gallery. They had garden seating at all locations, strung with lights, dotted with flowers and small Zen garden fountains, and on weekends, they featured local musicians. Their coffee was fair trade, and Jonah couldn’t even think about their pastries—all locally sourced ingredients, no GMOs, gluten free, and keto friendly.
“If a Deja Brew is going in across the street, we’re sunk. No way we can compete with that.”
“We need an order-ahead app,” Andy suggested.
They needed a whole lot more than a single app. “There isn’t any money for that sort of thing. The bottom line is that there is just too much competition for the millennials—every gym and bank has a coffee shop now, and all of them are cooler than the Star.” Jonah paused and looked at his plate. “I think we ought to talk about selling. The land is worth so much, we’d all be set for life.”
“Sell it?” Andy seemed dumbstruck.
“Think about it. Your parents are moving to Chicago to be near you. Dad’s been sick. Mom can’t keep making pies all her life.”
The brothers looked at each other, then at Jonah. “What did Mom and Dad say?” Allen asked.
“I haven’t told them. I wanted to talk to you first.”
“Your parents aren’t going to sell, Joe,” Allen said. “It’s in their blood. Not to mention they associate Jolie with the Star.”
Jonah was on the verge of saying that Jolie had been dead for more than twenty years, but his phone buzzed. “Sorry,” he said, and pulled it out of his pocket as the waiter picked up their plates. It was a text from Harper.
Sorry to be a pain . . .
“I can’t imagine selling it,” Andy said. “That seems too drastic.”
But you got what looks like a very important message from someone in your contacts named . . . Boobs?
“Oh hell,” Jonah muttered.
“What?” Andy asked.
Jonah showed his cousins the text.
Allen stared at the screen. “Boobs? You put a woman in your phone as Boobs?”
“No, she did.” It had been a private joke that he couldn’t remember anymore.
“Where is this Boobs? Why haven’t we ever met her?” Andy wanted to know.
“Because she was no one to me and it was a long time ago. I met her at a party. She was a little drunk, unnaturally endowed, and proud of it. We hung out that night and I told her I’d help her move, and she put her number in my phone like that.”
“Why are you always helping people move, man?” Allen asked.
Jonah ignored him and typed a response to Harper. Well, this is totally embarrassing. What is the message?
A picture of the text in question popped up: a string of purple eggplants and a Hope to see you in the new year tag. Unbelievable. Jonah hadn’t talked to or seen Tamara in a couple of years, and honestly, he’d never done anything but help her move. Well, and help her get her car fixed. And find her cat a new home because the new place wouldn’t take cats. Now he remembered—their very brief acquaintance had been a lot.
Heartwarming. In my defense, she is just an acquaintance, he texted. But the moment he sent it, he knew that made him sound like a jerk. I mean, she entered her contact info into my phone. She thought it was funny.
And now he sounded defensive.
And I thought it wasn’t any big deal because . . . What was he doing? He backed up, deleting that. He sighed and texted, Curious—how deep is the hole I’m digging here?
The balloon with the three dots popped up at the bottom of the screen. I’m going to say about a foot so far. I’m actually more concerned with this. She inserted a smiley face emoji and then forwarded a picture of him from last Halloween that she’d obviously taken off his photo roll. He and Amy had gone to work as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, complete with crowns and sashes. Only he was the duchess and Amy was the duke, and his enormous dog, Truck, wore a plume like a horse.
I’m pretty sure this must be you because that dog is your lock screen. I’ve grown very fond of your dog, by the way. I like looking at him when I pick up your phone. It makes me happy. I love him.
That picture of Truck made him happy, too. That’s Truck. And there’s an explanation for this photo, too.
She responded with a few laughing emojis. Pretty self-explanatory! Anyway, sorry to disrupt your Christmas Eve. I just thought you’d want to know that Boobs misses you and thought maybe you’d want to let her know that you don’t have your phone right now. I figured if I said it, she’d think she was getting the old heave-ho.
A likelier guess was that Tamara had texted him by mistake. Appreciate it.
Once again, Merry Christmas. She sent a GIF of dancing Santas.
Yes, he liked this girl.
“Hello?” Allen said, leaning across the table.
“Yep, sorry,” Jonah said, and slipped the phone into his pocket. “Okay, the Star.” He took a long drink of his wine and tried to explain to his cousins that the family was facing a seismic change whether they liked it or not.
Three
On Christmas morning, Harper was startled awake by a foghorn ring tone. “What the hell?” Oh, right. She had someone else’s phone. She kept forgetting.
She groped around for it on the bed. When she located it, she could see that it was a video text and tapped the screen. Four people popped into view who looked to be about seventy or so and wearing Santa hats and reindeer antlers. “Merry Christmas, Joe! And Andy and Allen!” they said in an attempt at unison, but one of the men switched the names around. “And Naomi and Lena!” They were laughing and immediately burst into a rendition of the old familiar “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”
Her mother’s cat, Mr. Snuggles, crawled onto half of her face. He began to purr and stretched his claws into her scalp, and that was the reason Harper was a dog person. “Okay, all right.” She pushed him off and he gave her a perturbed meow, then lifted his tail and presented his butt to her. “You are so obnoxious,” she said to Mr. Snuggles, and put him on the floor. “You should be like this guy,” she said, and showed the picture of Truck to the cat.
He pranced out of the room.
Harper glanced at the clock on the bedside table of her old room at home. Seven o’clock—too damn early for anyone to text singing videos.
She closed her eyes, determined to get a few more minutes. But the phone pinged again. And kept pinging. Halfway through her second cup of coffee, Harper figured out that the woman who kept texting was Jonah’s mother. She’d texted fuzzy pictures of a Christmas tree. And then a fuzzier picture of a pile of presents. She’d texted a picture of a Christmas sweater, her eyes peeking up over the top of it as she held it up. See what you’re missing?
Harper saw what she was missing, all right. It looked like a lot of fun and a lot of libations would be drunk. But it was still too early to get that party started.
Harper turned off the phone and went back to sleep.
Later, when she was dressed and ready for the day, she walked through a very quiet house on her way to the kitchen. Her father and his mother, Mimi, were seated in the area off the kitchen. He insisted on calling it a den. Harper’s mother insisted on calling it a keeping room.
Dad and Mimi were reading. Her mother was in the kitchen, bent over, looking for something in the fridge.
“Merry Christmas,” Harper said.
“Oh, Merry Christmas, lovely!” her mother chirped. “You’re just in time. I was about to start heating the food I picked up from Whole Foods.”
This was how Harper’s small family celebrated the holidays. Which was to say, not at all. There were no sweaters and piles of gifts. There wasn’t even a tree. Her parents weren’t religious or secular or, really, anything that she knew of. But in a bow to the nation’s obsession with Christmas, Harper’s mother generally picked something up at Whole Foods that had to be heated, and they would sit at the kitchen bar, and they would discuss which movie to watch later, until one of her parents would remark that, really, they’d rather read, and then they would opt for that, and Harper would scroll through Instagram and dream of fabulous trips and count the hours until the holiday was over.
It was no secret that Dr. Edward and Mrs. Marlena Thompson had been surprised by a pregnancy at the age of forty. They were quite open about the fact that they’d never wanted kids. “But we are so happy we have you,” one of them would invariably add. The two of them had never managed to get into the child-rearing mindset. Instead, they’d cheerfully allowed Harper to exist in their sphere. She’d had a good childhood, and she had no complaints—but now that she was an adult, they seemed even less inclined to put on any act of parenting.
Harper’s mother had bought ham, mashed cauliflower, green beans, and wine. For dessert, a towering chocolate cake from their favorite bakery. There were only a few gifts. Harper had something for each of them: a new e-reader for her mother. A box of fancy cigars for her father. A wine club membership for Mimi—she lived in a senior village and liked to entertain. In return, her parents had handed her an envelope stuffed with money and a thin gold chain from Tiffany’s. Mimi had given her a pair of sweatpants.
By seven that evening, Harper’s father was snoring in the easy chair in the TV room, and her mother and Mimi were reading. Her father was awakened by a call on the landline at eight. Harper was in the kitchen when he finally stumbled in and handed her the phone. “Hello?”
“What the hell?” It was Olivia, from next door. “Why aren’t you answering the phone number you gave me? I had to call your parents’ house phone and then I had to talk to your dad, Harper.”
“Oh, right,” Harper said. “I had to silence it, because the guy’s mom was blowing up his phone.”
“His mother? Not Boobs? I’m coming over. I mean, if that’s okay.”
“Get over here,” Harper said.
Harper loved Olivia like a sister. And Olivia could definitely annoy her like a sister. When Harper was six, she had moved with her parents into this neighborhood. It had been maybe a day before Olivia was on the doorstep demanding to know how old she was. Harper had been a little intimidated—Olivia had the warm glow of olive skin and sleek dark hair. She was beautiful, and she’d grown into what the magazines confirmed was a perfect figure. Harper’s hair was the color stuck somewhere between blond and brunette, and she was two inches taller than all the other girls. When they were teens, Olivia was always the one in a string bikini at the neighborhood pool, and Harper the one in the modestly cut one-piece.
Every time Harper saw Olivia, she was reminded that she had lived in the shadow of a truly beautiful friend all her life. Boys who showed any interest in her usually wanted to meet Olivia. Men fell over themselves trying to open doors for Olivia, then forgot Harper was there and would let the door slam in her face.
Olivia could be completely natural with men, whereas Harper was a little stiff and took a while to warm up. Olivia had brothers and therefore rode a skateboard and played video games. That Harper never played a Mario Brothers video game or a game console, or tried to skateboard, was the most scandalous thing of all to Olivia.
Now, Olivia loved to travel and shop and flirt. She worked as a journalist, and she saved her money to buy outfits to wear on her many dates. She was secretly planning her wedding even though she had no candidates. It annoyed her to no end that Harper didn’t spend all her money on outfits and seemed to want to work instead.
Olivia turned up on Christmas night at the kitchen door like she had done their entire childhood. She was wearing a Santa T-shirt, and her dark hair was piled on top of her head. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Thompson!” Olivia said to Harper’s dad. “Merry Christmas, Mommy!” she said to Harper’s mother. “Merry Christmas, Mimi,” she said to Harper’s grandmother.
“Now, you’re the girl who is friends with Harper,” Mimi said, as if she’d seen Olivia only once.
Olivia was not offended. “Don’t you remember, Mimi? You’ve met me, like, five thousand times.”
“You know, I think I have,” Mimi agreed, finally realizing the grown woman before her was Olivia, and earned herself a kiss on the cheek from Olivia for it.
They went to the living room so as not to disturb the readers. “Don’t look at me,” Olivia said to Harper, even though Harper wasn’t looking at her. “I ate a house today.” She fell onto the couch and kicked off her shoes. “How long are you in town?”
“Until New Year’s Day.” Harper settled onto the couch beside Olivia, her legs tucked under her.
“That is not enough time. I never get to see you anymore.”
“That’s not true. You were in Austin last month.”
“And you worked the whole time.” Olivia rubbed her eyes and yawned.
Her complaint about Harper was getting old. Harper worked too much, she never wanted to do anything fun. But to Olivia, doing something fun meant hitting the clubs and being universally admired while Harper nursed a drink. Not fun.
“Okay, I can’t stand it another minute. Let’s see this phone guy and his mom.”
Harper pulled out the phone. “First, you have to see this dog.”
Unfortunately, Truck was covered up by several more text messages from Jonah’s mother. Harper swiped open the phone to a barrage of them, including pictures of a cooked turkey, a table full of plates scraped clean, and a cobbler that made Harper’s mouth water. Your favorite!
“It’s weird,” Harper said as they scrolled through the texts. “I know this guy got a sweater for Christmas and his favorite is peach cobbler and his family is all jolly and happy and I’ve never even met him.”
“Can we finally see what he looks like?” Olivia was impatient.
“Girls?” Harper’s mother popped her head into her room. “Don’t stay up too late.”
