It Started with a Dog, page 7
Marty laughed.
“Aren’t they the best?” Aunt Belinda walked out from behind the coffee bar and gave Jonah a hug. Truck tried to shove his enormous body in between them. “For heaven’s sake, Truck!” Belinda said, and kneed his panting, slobbering snout out of the way. “He’s not going to let you leave again, Joe.” She bent over to give proper attention to Truck. “How is my grandbaby? And the new house? Tell us everything.”
“Lena is very cute. And your house is big and roomy. I think you will like it. Naomi has already started painting the walls.”
“She is just the best. One of these days, that will be you, Joe.”
“I’ll be Naomi?”
“I mean you’ll find someone special to marry.”
“Belinda,” Uncle Marty said, sounding disgusted. “Don’t say that. Jonah marches to his own drummer.”
“What?” Jonah turned to his uncle, unsure what to make of that comment.
“Happy New Year, Joe.”
Jonah’s dad had appeared. He was wearing a gray sweater that made him look even gaunter than usual. He had a highball glass in his hand with an amber-colored liquid over ice.
“Happy New Year, Dad.”
His father looked as if he meant to hug him, but Truck began wagging his tail so hard that his dad could see what was coming and changed course.
“So!” Jonah glanced at his watch then looked around the room. It looked a bit on the side of ransacked. “Doors open at six in the morning. Are we ready for that?”
“Yep,” Amy said, sailing by with an armful of ketchup bottles, his mother right behind her.
“Does everyone remember we have a new contest for January?” Jonah pointed to an enormous crossword puzzle that was attached to the wall near the front door. The thing was four by four and featured a crossword puzzle from the archives of the New Yorker.
Everyone paused what they were doing to look with varying expressions of understanding at the giant puzzle. None of them looked very positive. This had been Jonah’s idea—solve a clue, get a free coffee. It had seemed like such a great idea at the time, but now it seemed dumb. The printing had been expensive in logistics and cost, and then the rules for the contest had sparked an argument between the six of them that had ended when Jonah shouted that nothing could ever be accomplished by committee.
Amy had decided to make the puzzle her mission. She’d written instructions that were tacked next to the puzzle. “Contestants” were allowed to solve only one word, and there was one drink per correct answer. If a word was solved by a table, say, only one free coffee would be doled out. Jonah said that seemed a little cheap. Amy asked if he was ready to give all of Austin free coffee. Jonah said they were already losing money on the deal, what was a little more?
“Everyone is on board with this, right?” Jonah asked. “Point to it. Get people to play.”
“I know the answer to 1-across,” his mother said. “It’s ICON.”
“I think it’s IDOL,” Belinda said.
Jonah shifted his gaze to the windows and happened to notice that someone had left the lights on in the building across the street. He walked to the window to have a look. Since he’d been out of town, the signage had started to go up. Giant gold letters merrily spelled D-E-J-A. A steaming cup of coffee was positioned next to the A. The letters were affixed over the entry, but not centered, because of course they would need to add B-R-E-W. Billie was right—that monstrosity was a Deja Brew Coffeehouse.
Through the windows, even at this distance, he could see that many of the iconic egg baskets had been installed. The coffee bar on the first floor was so shiny, he wondered how people could sit in there without sunglasses. The coffee apparatus was all chrome and futuristic. Was that necessary to sell coffee?
He looked to his right, at the giant crossword puzzle. It looked ridiculous in comparison.
Amy was putting markers in a box beneath the instructions.
“I looked it up,” he heard Belinda say. “It’s IDOL.”
Jonah turned around. “You looked it up where?”
“Google. You type in the clue and it pops up.”
Amy paused. “You mean people can google the answer and get a free coffee?”
“Yep,” Belinda said.
“Great,” Amy muttered, and looked accusingly at Jonah.
“How was I supposed to know? Okay, everyone, listen up,” Jonah said. “We need to talk.” All heads turned toward him. Except for Truck. Truck was licking something on the table. Jonah made a mental note to get some sanitizer and clean that up.
“Is this a team meeting? Because I have to pick my brother up,” Amy said, looking at her watch.
“Yes, this is a team meeting. Look. We have to get real about our situation, guys. We have to do something to pull in business or Deja Brew over there is going to eat our lunch.”
“What are you talking about?” his dad scoffed. “They’re a coffee shop. We’re more than just coffee.”
Marty lifted his glass for a toast to his brother. Jonah’s dad tapped his against Marty’s.
“First, they are a coffeehouse. We talked about this. And second, are we really more than just coffee? Because the name of the family business is the Lucky Star Coffee Shop. We have to be smart about how we put ourselves out there. We need to be competitive.”
Five sets of eyes stared at him like he was speaking Greek. Except Truck, who always stared at him adoringly, no matter what. “You look so serious, Joe,” his mother said. “Have a margarita.”
“We don’t have any money,” he said to them. “We’re not bringing in any money, either, as you all know. We are losing business because we’re not hip, we’re not fun, and now we have Deja Brew going in across the street, and they are fun, and Starbucks a few blocks down, and they are fast. Do you see what I mean?”
“No,” Uncle Marty said, his brow furrowed with confusion.
Why was this so hard? Jonah resisted the urge to scrub his face with his fingers. “C’mere,” he said, motioning for them all to join him at the window. There was a scrape of wooden chair legs on tile floor, a bit of muttering that he thought came from his father, and then they joined him at the window. Truck pushed in between Jonah and his mother and began to lick the glass.
“See that?” Jonah pointed to the building across the street. To the baskets, the shiny coffee machine. “The seating is cool and probably a lot more comfortable than wooden chairs. See the bookshelves? I hear there’s an actual lending library. Honor system, but still. Notice this is a two-level store? Two separate coffee bars and fair trade coffee.”
“Oh my God,” Amy whispered. “They’re going to destroy us.”
“No, they’re not,” Marty scoffed. “No artsy-fartsy coffee shop is going to hurt us.”
“Coffeehouse. And I think it could, Marty. We have to come up with something to get people in the door. Once they’re in, maybe they’ll stay for the food and the old-town feel. But chances are really good that they are going to walk past us and go across the street.”
They all stood silently for a moment, staring across the street, no sound but Truck’s sudden chewing of his back leg.
“And?” his mother asked.
“And . . .” Jonah looked across the street. “We could take what I think would be an insane amount of money developers would offer us for this land and move on with our lives.”
The room fell silent. No one spoke until Jonah’s father sank into a chair and said, “What in the hell are you talking about? We’re not selling.”
He sounded angry.
“Our parents opened this shop. Marty and I have spent our lives here. You think it’s that easy just to walk away and watch some asshole tear it down?”
“No, of course not,” Jonah said. “But do you want to hold on to a business that’s going to drive you into the ground?”
“Hey, that’s not going to happen,” Marty said.
Jonah tried to change course. “Then we have to come up with a way of having your Average Joe turn away from that door and into this one if we’re going to have a fighting chance.”
Marty looked at the crossword puzzle. “Well . . . I know you were pretty proud of that, Joe, but I don’t think that’s going to do it.”
“Yeah.” Jonah sighed. “Me either.”
“We could update the menu,” Amy said.
“Oh, sure,” Jonah’s mother said with a roll of her eyes. “Burt will be okay with that.”
Burt, their cook, could be a little rough around the edges. He’d been a homeless Iraq War veteran when Jonah had hired him. Honestly, Burt wasn’t his first choice, but the Star couldn’t afford anyone else. Burt had turned out to be a godsend. He’d never missed a shift. He’d saved his money and Jonah had helped him get into a small trailer at Community First! Village east of Austin. Burt had made many strides . . . just not in the area of social graces.
“I have a better idea,” his mother said. “What if we offered a slice of pie with each cup of coffee?”
“People are health conscious now,” Jonah said.
“Not to mention, that’s a lot of pies,” Amy added. “You know what we need to do? We need to find out what they’re doing.” She looked at Jonah. “We need to go to a Deja Brew and spy on them.”
Jonah smiled lopsidedly. “I think we can just walk in and look around.”
“I mean we need to hang out like we are supposed to be there and figure out how to one-up them.” Amy yanked her phone out of her back pocket and started scrolling. “I can’t go tomorrow. My brother’s band is playing—hey!” She looked up from her phone, her blue eyes bright with her idea. “What if—”
“Nope. Not your brother’s band,” Jonah said, cutting her off before she could suggest they play here.
“But they—”
“Are heavy metal. We are not a heavy metal establishment.”
She huffed. “Fine.” She looked at her phone. “Let’s go spying day after tomorrow.”
That was when he was meeting Harper. “I have plans. How about Friday?”
“What plans?” Amy asked without looking up from her phone.
“Just plans.”
Amy looked up. He intentionally avoided her gaze by petting Truck. “Why are your plans a secret?” Amy demanded as Truck melted down onto the floor, all four legs in the air, a not-so-subtle invitation for a belly rub. “Do you have a date?”
Jonah’s hesitation proved fatal.
“You have a date?” Amy shouted.
“Is that really necessary?” Jonah asked. Good God, he was thirty-four years old. “Why are you acting like I’ve never had a date before?”
“Because you haven’t,” Belinda said.
“What are you talking about? I’ve had plenty of dates.”
“Not recently,” his mother said. “Belinda and I were talking about it just the other day.”
“You were talking about my lack of dates?” Jonah didn’t know how insulted he ought to be. “All right, before you start analyzing me, maybe I haven’t dated in a while, but that’s because I’ve been trying to pull our collective bacon out of the fire. But I date. I had a girlfriend for two years, remember?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Amy said, waving her hand as if Megan had been a childhood friend instead of the woman he’d dated until a couple of years ago. “Who’s your date?”
He glared at her, hoping she would get the message. “No one you know.”
“Then where did you meet her?” Mom asked.
“Did you meet her here?” Uncle Marty asked. “Or on the plane? I bet he met her on the plane or in the airport. I read that’s one of the number one places to meet singles because you can always pick them out—”
“Okay.” Jonah threw up both hands. Truck leapt to attention, his tail hitting the window so hard that Jonah feared it would shatter. “That’s enough of the third degree if you don’t mind. I met someone, I have a date, it is no big deal, and don’t you think we have much bigger fish to fry?” He gestured to Deja Brew across the street. He did not miss, nor did he appreciate, how all the women in this room were smiling at him. Like he was the last kid to get a date to the prom.
“And with that, I am taking my dog and going home. I have the morning shift. Come on, Truck.”
“You should get a trim of that mop before your date,” his mother advised. “You’re looking a little scruffy.”
“Oh my God,” Jonah muttered to himself as he walked to the door. “Good night, everyone! Start thinking of what we can do to get some traffic in this joint!”
“Good night, Romeo!” Amy called after him, and all of them laughed at his departing back.
He put the dog in his truck, then climbed into the driver’s seat. He stared blankly out the windshield a moment and marveled at how quickly his life had morphed into one that was not his own. They’d be all over him this week with their questions, and not one of them would think of what they could do to drive traffic into the Star.
He pulled out his phone. Hey. I must have had a great time tonight because I’m still thinking about it.
A moment later, his phone pinged. Me too. Looking forward to that run around the lake. I think. You might smoke me.
He smiled. Only if he was a fool. Doubt it. And besides, Truck is never in a hurry. He likes to chase dicks. “Holy shit,” Jonah muttered when he saw what he’d typed, and quickly tried to amend it.
DICKS!
“Noo,” he moaned. He typed D U C K S. Truck chases CUCKS. He dropped his phone in his lap like it was a burning coal. “Stop it,” he said to the phone.
A string of laughing emojis popped up. Stop while you’re ahead.
Am I ahead? Really not sure at the moment.
You’re ahead, trust me. Winky face. See you Thursday at the lake.
He sent back a thumbs-up, because he didn’t trust himself.
Six
Kendal, Soren’s assistant, was sitting at reception and opening Soren’s mail when Harper arrived at work the next day. He was a tall, slender man with brown skin, meticulously groomed, not a hair out of place, his goatee neatly trimmed, and his clothing ironed to perfection. He was the exact opposite of Soren. One other thing about Kendal—he did not like Harper.
Maybe because she had mistaken him for a receptionist on his first day of work and asked him to fax something for her. In her defense, he was sitting at the receptionist desk, and they didn’t have a receptionist, and no one had told her otherwise.
Kendal was the office administrator. Or the administrative officer. His exact job was still unknown to her.
“Happy New Year,” Harper said.
“Happy New Year to you.” He flicked his gaze over her.
“Did you have a good holiday?”
“The best.”
Kendal was as efficient with his words as he was with his duties. He did not offer any explanation of “the best,” and honestly, if it didn’t entail skydiving over the Arctic and then surviving alone on berries for a week, it had probably been about the same as hers. She looked in the direction of the closed door to the interior office. “Is he in there?”
“Yep. It’s yoga time.” Kendal scanned the contents of an envelope, put the letter aside, and glanced up at the wall clock. “He should be hitting Shavasana about now. Help yourself to some coffee.”
Harper winced a little. “No thanks.” Soren liked his coffee strong enough that she was surprised it didn’t melt spoons. She took a seat and began to scroll through her phone.
“Anything exciting happen while you were away?” Kendal asked.
Harper glanced at the string of text messages between her and Jonah. Yes, something exciting had happened while she was away, but she was keeping it to herself for now. She had this weird idea that somewhere Kendal had a little notebook to write down all the details about her. He’d done absolutely nothing to give her that impression. And yet she had the distinct feeling they were competing for . . . something. To be determined. “Not much.”
A gong sounded from inside Soren’s office. That was followed by the opening of the door, and her forty-year-old boss emerged wearing a Mexican poncho, skinny jeans, and some insanely expensive ostrich leather cowboy boots into which he had tucked his jeans. He had thinning wavy hair, which he wore to his shoulders, and a vague shadow where a beard would grow in during those months he was inclined to grow one. Harper had to hand it to him—Soren Wilder managed to be endlessly fascinating in a variety of ways.
His brown-eyed gaze moved over her, as if looking for damage from shipping. Finding none, he placed his hands together at heart center and bowed. “Harper, you’re looking well.”
“Thank you.” In stark contrast to his choice of work wear, she had on a black skirt and jacket, and a crisp white blouse. She could never be sure whom she was going to meet on any given day working for Soren, and since he often looked like he’d just driven in from the farm, she thought it best to balance him with regular, normal clothes.
“Coffee?” Soren offered.
“No thanks.”
“Bad choice. Kendal?”
Kendal was already there with a cup of coffee for Soren. So was he a receptionist or not?
“Thank you. See that, Harper? Here’s a young man who knows his job and knows how to do it well.”
Kendal made a flourish with his hand and bowed before returning to his desk.
“Come in,” Soren said, gesturing for her to follow.
The moment she stepped inside, she was hit with an overpowering scent of incense and sneezed. She couldn’t see where the incense was burning to perhaps avoid immediate proximity, because Soren had turned down the fluorescent lights and had turned up his mood lighting. Soft, velvety streams of lavender light drifted around the room and skimmed the ceiling, then melted down the walls and floors.
He walked over to a large cushion on the floor and sat carefully with his cup of coffee, crisscrossing his legs like a yogi. He gestured to the two floor pillows near him. “Care to participate in a circumstantial rejoinder of conversation?”
