Well Read, Then Dead(2)
“I have a new client from San Carlos Island coming to the Emporium in a few minutes. Got to run. Money to be made.” And she hustled away with an evil backward glance clearly meant to tell Jocelyn the dispute would be settled another day.
Relieved as I was that the meeting ended without fisticuffs, I took pity on Jocelyn, whose frustration was evident in her grim expression, so I offered her a cup of tea.
She accepted with a stiff nod. “Make it green, decaffeinated.”
A tinny thump followed by the jangle of metal on metal signaled that we had customers hitching up to one of the bicycle racks on either side of the double doors. Bridgy tucked a golden tendril behind her ear and, menus in hand, walked to the front of the café to greet the two helmeted, backpack-toting cyclists tugging the screen door handle. An energizing morning breeze was drifting in from the Gulf of Mexico. Still, it was barely the beginning of November, so we’d probably need to turn on the AC before noon.
Bridgy seated the cyclists at Agatha Christie. They looked at the tabletop with the Christie quotes, stories and photos protected by layers of heavy-duty lamination. The bearded cyclist, wearing a shirt in the red and blue stripes of the Barcelona soccer team, with Lionel Messi’s name in shiny gold letters across the back, asked, “Who else you got?” They picked up their gear and moved to Robert Frost. Bridgy pointed out the specials board and left them with their menus. The chubby blond wearing a faded black tee shirt said, “Hey, look at all the bookshelves. Like a bookstore.”
Exactly. The Read ’Em and Eat Café and Book Corner. Breakfast. Lunch. And all you can read. Anything from Wuthering Heights to the newest graphic novel by Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman was readily available on natural rattan shelves lining two walls. The subdued color of the bookcases complemented the glossy white and yellow café décor. All of our gleaming white tables were decorated with pictures of famous writers along with snippets of their work, melding the café and the book corner perfectly.
Three years ago Bridgy caught her ex-husband—the Bonehead—fulfilling his Mrs. Robinson fantasy with a Botox babe from his mother’s mahjong group, and the very next day my bosses Gordon and Nina Howard announced that they were moving Howard Accounting from Manhattan to Connecticut. We were barely twenty-five and life had dealt us death blows. Ever since ninth grade, whenever the sky fell in on one of us, we had a sleepover, cried it out, talked it out and put it behind us. “It” being anything from Bridgy’s squad losing the soccer championship to a team from Staten Island to that creep Marjory Haskins stealing my worthless boyfriend in tenth grade. Over the years we’d graduated from cola and chips to mojitos and whole grain crackers, likely served with gorgonzola cheese or hummus. It may have been mojito courage, but during the Bonehead sleepover we made a pact to head south and follow our dreams. It turned out that Bridgy’s dream was to own a breakfast/lunch café while my dream was to own a bookstore. Can you say fusion?
We loved putting together book-related events, such as the Potluck Book Club, which focused on cookbooks and foodie novels like Julie and Julia. The tea and mystery afternoons featuring novels by twentieth-century greats like Josephine Tey and Dorothy L. Sayers were a major hit. We were constantly experimenting with various combinations of food and books. Our clientele, comprised of both year-round residents and returning snowbirds who came south every autumn, increased month by month.
As I served Jocelyn’s tea, she barely grunted her thanks, so I was grateful Lionel Messi waved me over and ordered Miss Marple Scones with strawberry jam and two Robert Frost Apple and Blueberry Tartlets. I finger-tapped the table beside the copies of Frost’s fruit poems and went to get their food. I was behind the counter, putting jam in a dark green leaf-shaped bowl, when their conversation got animated.
“It’s an omen, bro.” The blond was rubbing his hands together, his voice tingling with anticipation. He bent over the tabletop, reading. “‘I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.’ That’s us, dude. How many wreckers do you know? We’re gonna be the big dawgs, oh yeah.” He slammed his fist on the table.