Kat had been confused. After all, how would a New York law firm even know about Doughy Pop’s, let alone want to buy it? And she also felt insulted. $40,000? They wanted to buy an entire diner for the price of a car?
She had immediately dismissed the letter as some kind of odd hoax.
But then the bank had called a week later, asking what Kat intended to do about their diner.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well, the lease is up,” Mr. Rilkes, their personal business banker for over a decade, said matter-of-factly.
“We don’t have a lease,” Kat said slowly, as if speaking to someone who was hard of hearing. “We own Doughy Pop’s.”
“I know, dear,” Mr. Rilkes said, using the same tone of voice. “But what about the land it sits on?”
Doughy Pop’s sat on what used to be a vacant lot. Over the years, it had grown a charming little array of old knick knacks out in front with a little pathway up to the diner door made up of tiles from old soda pop bottles.
“We own that land, Mr. Rilkes,” Kat said. “We own everything Doughy Pop’s sits on.”
There was a pause. Kat felt her heart thumping. She could tell the other shoe was about to drop.
“No, you don’t,” Mr. Rilkes said softly.
He then explained how several years before he had become Doughy’s personal business banker, the previous banker had failed to explain the new lease contract for the diner.
Doughy had wanted to buy the land for a long time and had finally saved enough money to do so. He had put his trust in his then banker to put the proceedings through. Except there had been a failure of communication and instead, the banker had handed him a lease giving him unlimited usage of the land until if and when the owners of the land decided to sell.
Doughy, usually quite meticulous about business matters, had signed without reading the fine print. Unlimited usage sounds very much like unlimited ownership.
Kat wondered how he could’ve made such a huge mistake. But then it hit her. A little over a decade ago was right around the time she and her family had first taken up residence at Doughy’s.
It had been a huge adjustment for everyone involved and no doubt Uncle Do had been a little frazzled. He might not have been in his right mind when he had signed the contract. He had assumed his banker had done his job.
Kat gripped the phone tightly.
“Someone’s buying the land?” she asked in a tight voice.
“Not just your land but nearly everything around Peytonville,” Mr. Rilkes said. “There’s talk of it being turned into a planned community. You know, condos and apartments.”
“But they can’t do that!” Kat protested. Fear gripped her. Not only could she potentially lose Doughy Pop’s, she would lose her home, her town!
“Oh they can,” Mr. Rilkes confirmed sadly. “You know how the town has been lately. Business has been declining rapidly for most everyone. More families are moving away. It might be a mercy for the town to be bought out.”
But she could hear the note of heartbreak in Mr. Rilkes voice. He had been born and raised in Peytonville and then had moved to Chicago for college. But he had returned almost immediately to his hometown, missing the trees and the clean, sweet air.
“Then what do I do?” Kat asked in defeat.
Mr. Rilkes’ sigh crackled across the phone line. “Try to get them to raise up their offer for as high as you can and then take the money and go,” he advised.
Kat shook her head. Go where?
But Mr. Rilkes had been right. Offers began cropping up overnight throughout the town for their buildings and businesses. Some gave in and took the money and left. But many didn’t. Many were proud of their small town and wanted to stick it out. They believed if just given the right opportunity, they could turn Peytonville around.
So many came to Kat for small loans to keep their businesses afloat while they tried to ward off the big city buyers. Banks wouldn’t give them any money when they could see the looming shadows of their new owners coming in. And they knew Kat had some money after Uncle Doughy’s death.
And Kat, who loved the town as much as her family, could turn away no one. So the small fortune Doughy had amassed for them slowly dwindled over the two years as they worked to keep the town afloat.
Malcolm refused to think more about college when their livelihood was on the line. It broke Kat’s heart to see Malcolm push back his education even further but she was secretly grateful to have his support.
And then Dillon relapsed.
It was as if the universe wanted to see just how sturdy Kat’s back really was. Would one more crisis finally break it?