“Hey, Connor. Working hard today?” Cassidy drops her dishes in a big brown plastic tub and circles the counter, picking up a pitcher of tea on her way.
“Always,” I answer. She refills my cup and I thank her.
“Want to hear some good gossip?” She pushes her bangs from her eyes and laughs softly. “Not that you’d be interested in gossip, but it’s not the bad kind.”
I lean back in my seat and cross my arms, my interest piqued. “I suppose so.”
She sets her elbows on the counter and leans forward. “I got a new neighbor yesterday,” she says, voice lowered. “Ginger went to Europe to sow some oats, and rented out her place. A girl, probably around our age, arrived in a car, but the car left. It left her there. Isn’t that odd?”
“So she doesn’t have a car?”
“No. She arrived in a new town, without a way to get around. I took a pie to her, just to be neighborly, and you know I make one heck of a peach berry pie.”
My stomach grumbles when she mentions her pie. “Uh huh,” I say, and nod Cassidy on.
“This girl was…cold, I guess. That’s the best word I can think of. She wasn’t friendly to Brooklyn.” She gestures with her palms up, showing her consternation. “I mean, who isn’t friendly to Brooklyn?”
I don’t think it’s a question that needs an answer, so I lift my shoulders and let them drop.
“She wasn’t interested in chatting, and getting her name out of her was like pulling teeth. The whole experience struck me as odd.” Cassidy pulls her bottom lip into her mouth and chews on it. “You know—”
“Order up,” yells someone from the kitchen. He has already disappeared from the window, so I can’t see if it was Mutt or Grizzly. Nice names, I know, but the cooks nicknamed themselves.
Cassidy spins around, spies my sandwich, and grabs it. She sets it in front of me, along with a bottle of ketchup. “I’ll let you eat. Just keep an eye out for the new girl in town. I think she’s nice under that layer of spikes, but,” Cassidy pauses, her eyebrows pulled together, “I guess you don’t always know when someone is batshit. And maybe the people who seem like they could be, aren’t.” She throws her hands up and laughs at herself. “I don’t know anymore. I have mom brain.”
“You must,” Mary says, passing through as fast as her considerable, sixty-three-year-old body will carry her. “Table twelve has been out of tea for about five minutes.”
“Crap!” Cassidy grabs the half-full pitcher and hurries away.
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