And suddenly there it was, McCoy's Bakery, a one-story brick building sandwiched between greasy car parts and clean sheets. There was something unsettling about the weird juxtaposition. It was like bad geometry, lines that didn't match. Was the universe trying to tell me something, like this was probably a bad idea?
“Do what needs doin',” I said, repeating one of Thom's frequent admonitions under my breath.
As I reached for the door handle, I pulled when I should have pushed. That was my last warning, apparently. I pushed and entered.
Several customers were being helped one at a time by the sole employee, who was calling numbers on those little machine-dispensed slips of paper. I reached for my number and pulled the paper from the red plastic spool.
I was number forty-nine. The glowing number counter on the wall said forty-five.
Since I wasn't there to buy bread, I wasn't sure I needed a number, but I decided to wait my turn. That way I would have the employee's full attention and would not annoy, too much, whoever had the next number.
As I watched the tall, red-haired kid behind the counter slowly assist each customer, I was reminded of a bakery joke my uncle used to tell:
An alien lands on Earth, walks into a bakery, and asks the owner, “Excuse me, earthling. What are these miniature wheels for?”
“Oh, they're not wheels,” the baker responds. “They're bagels.”
Confused, the alien purchases one and takes a bite. The alien's eyes grow wide. “Wow!” he says to the baker. “These would go great with cream cheese and lox!”
Uncle Murray was a card. But it was an ace. Thinking of Officer McCoy made me miss my own support circle, of which Murray was a big part, especially after my folks died.
“Number forty-nine? Forty-nine?”
“Here!” I made my way to the display case filled with pastries and rolls.
“How can I help you?”
“Brenda's not in today, is she?”
“Negative. She's dealing with some personal stuff.”
“May I speak with a manager?”
“We don't have one, really. I mean, you may have heard what happened?”
“Yes, I'm sorry.”
“Yeah, so it's just me and Eric today, and he's back there baking right now.”
“You gonna order?” someone behind me asked.
“Give me a bagel with schmear,” I said.
“With what?”
“Cream cheese.”
“What kind of bagel?”
“Raisin.”
“We only have plain and onion.”
Of course you do.
“Plain,” I said.
“How is Brenda taking all this?” I asked.
“Bad,” he said as he sliced the bagel.
“Understandable. It happened during a delivery?”
“Yeah.”
“At a deli, I heard.”
“Yeah.”
“Who do you think is responsible?”
The kid finished spreading a thin, gentile layer of cream cheese and started wrapping the bagel in tinfoilânot wax paper. “I don't know,” he said.
“What does Brenda think?”
“That'll be a dollar fifty,” he said.
I gave him a credit card to buy some time. I heard a groan from the small group behind me.
“I don't know what she thinks,” the boy said as he waited for the receipt to print. “All I know is I went looking for the meat cleaver yesterday to divvy the dough and it was gone. I mentioned it to her, and she said not to worry about it.”
“Really? Where do you think it went?”
He put the receipt on the counter with a pen. He was looking at me a little funny.
“I think she took it for protection,” he said. “I think she's nervous.”
“Lady, you're gonna need protection if you don't sign the goddamn bill!” someone shouted.
So much for kind and patient Nashvillians. I signed.
“Say, do I know you?” the kid asked suddenly.
“No,” I replied.
“Yes,” he disagreed. “I saw you on TV this morning.”
“That isn't exactly knowingâ”
“You were on the news.”
“Hey, you watch TV?” I said. “I was under the impression kids watched everything on their cell phones.”
“It was on in the back room,” he said. “Yeah, you were on with Candy Sommerton.”
“No,” I said. Truth was, I was
on
Candy Sommerton. I turned to find myself blocked in by five cross-looking patrons. I started to push my way through.
“Yes,” the boy said. “You were on the sidewalk. She was yelling at you!”
“That was some other deli owner,” I said, then swore. I was nearly at the door, but I had forgotten my bagel. It wasn't that I needed it or even wanted it; I had to have it. Just to make a statement that no mob was going to push me around. I started digging my way back. Old Man Number Fifty was asking to be served
now.
He scowled at me as I thrust an arm in front of him to grab the paper bag. I glowered right back.
You don't mess with a New Yorker. And that's what I was, wherever I happened to be living.
As I walked back toward Murray's, I stopped at a convenience store and bought myself a fresh pack of Natural American Spirits. I tore the cellophane off, pulled one out, and lit a match.
Glowering? Walking the streets? Smoking? Was I secretly despising the transplant I'd become? Was I trying to destroy myself in an unhealthy, angry blast of blaming it on the dead deliveryman? And then the dreadful thought occurred to me.
I really miss who I used to be.
Maybe it was the stress talking, but I had to fight tears as I ignored the disapproving faces and waving hands of everyone who caught a cloud of my smoke.
Chapter 6
Okay, I was officially having an identity crisis.
There was no denying it. I was the one who stood out down here. The one who didn't have a Southern accent. The one person who'd been to the Met and Carnegie Hall but not to the Grand Ole Opry. I was allowed to live here, to give orders to Thom, because my father and uncle were on the inside.
I looked down at the clutter on my office desk, specifically at the crinkled color photo I'd found stuffed in the back of my top desk drawer when I first arrived. It was of my uncle Murray, comfortable in his element, with a guitar in his hands, a smoke dangling from his lips, and another behind his ear, and he was staring right at the camera, at the picture taker. The flashbulb reflected off the sweaty sheen on his forehead and the lenses of his glasses. A couple of girls were glancing sidelong, curious but otherwise disinterested in the wannabe songster sitting at a table in the apparently sleazy nightclub.
Despite terrible audience reviews and very little interest from the industry, at least Murray had spent his free time doing what he really wanted to. Just being himself before he had to get practical and earn money. And here I was, taking a hard look at myself, and all I could think of was that I really should get a frame for the photo, instead of having it pinned to a corkboard with a pushpin. Was that the extent of my desires?
And then there was Detective Grant Daniels. He'd given me all the love and attention one could hope for from a full-time detective. He just wasn't giving me what I really needed, what I really craved, what most divorced women in their thirties wanted: a second chance at an exciting life that was shared, not catch as catch can. I had spent my first marriage worrying about pleasing a man. Now I wanted someone to pay attention to me, to satisfy me emotionally.
Was
that
it? Was that my goal in life?
I didn't know.
Dammit, I didn't know!
The only thing that had satisfied me in the past couple of months was figuring out who killed a local slimeball and nearly getting myself offed in the process. Was it the thrill or a secret death wish that had made it so exciting?
I didn't know that, either. I wasn't sure I wanted to.
Saturdays at Murray's were always more interesting because most interesting people work during the weekdays, and it was usually lively and interesting when they came out of hiding on weekends. They truly appreciated the time off. I took some bites of bagel and sat back in my chair for one last moment of external peace before returning to the need to make a living.
After fixing my scarf around my fried-egg head, I opened my office door.
The dining room was moderately busy, and Dani and A.J. were picking up orders from under the heat lamp. I sensed animosity between the two servers.
“How we doing?” I asked.
“Stupidly,” said Dani.
I wasn't sure what she meant, exactly, but I went with it. “What do you mean?”
“I was talking to my coworker about kosher,” Dani said, taking pains to pronounce the word correctly. “I was sayin' how I agreed with y'all because I hated seein' animals killed for eatin'. She told me I was crazy.”
“Kosher animals are bled out,” A.J. said. “Slowly.”
“That's sort of a misconception,” I said. “They use a very sharp knife and the killing part happens quickly.”
Dani looked a little ill. I didn't feel so great myself; what I had just said made me think of the bread guy in his truck.
“Well, fast killin' or slow, I told her it's the food chain,” A.J. continued. “This snot nose never heard of that.”
“We don't need name-calling,” I said.
“It's okay,” Dani told me. “I called her something worse first.”
A.J. made a parting face, grabbed her order, and left. Dani took more time gathering her plates and balancing them. She seemed to have a knack for that, at least.
“I'm sorry,” she said as she worked, “but I just
hate
it when creatures suffer. I don't mean, like, snakes and flies and lobsters, but cute ones. It really does break my heart.”
The sadness in her voice, in her eyes, made me feel like I was watching a young girl say a permanent good-bye to her imaginary friends.
“You know,” I said, “maybe you should rethink the fact that you're working in a deli. We do slice and serve a lot of meat here.”
“I want to work here,” Dani said. “I'm here for a purpose.”
“You mean . . . what, exactly? Like God's purpose? Is it part of a plan?” I wondered if I should make sure all our meat cleavers were secure.
“I really have to serve these meals,” she said. “But I think maybe one reason I'm here is to make sure there's more tofu on the menu so we don't have to corn so much beef.”
“I see.” I did, too. “Tell you what. Do some brainstorming. Come up with a few vegan dishes for the deli.”
Dani's eyes lost their sadness as she turned to go. “For real?”
“As real as wheat gluten duck,” I replied.
“Thanks, Nash. You won't be sorry!”
“And don't forget open mic night!” Luke shouted from the kitchen. “We need that, too!”
I was heading toward the deli entrance to help Thom bus the tables when I noticed an out-of-place older woman across the street. You couldn't miss her. She was wearing a large black hat with a brim that covered half her face, sunglasses that covered most of the other half, and a tight, formfitting black dress, black tights, and black heels. At first I thought she was squinting to read our deli hours painted on the front door, but her phantom gaze seemed to fall directly on me as I moved throughout the deli. Trancelike, transfixed, as if she were a black widow spider, I opened the front door to see who it was. But when I stepped outside, a brief flare of sunlight on the glass speared my eyes; when it cleared, the woman had vanished.
“Somethin' wrong?”
It was Thom, at my ear.
“No,” I said. “I thought . . . I saw someone.”
“You thought you saw someone?”
“I thought I saw someone who was looking at me,” I said, making a hash of my attempt to clarify the situation. “Never mind.”
“Boss lady, I really think you need to take some time off. And I don't mean just a stroll down the block. I mean some
time.
”
“Yeah, maybe,” I agreed. “After the Best in Nashville thing.”
“You don't need to be there,” Thom said. “Brownnosing the committee isn't going to help. Everyone will be doing it.”
“I know. But I have to keep busy. Otherwise, my brain goes
bang,
back to the bread truck.”
Thom shook her head. “You gotta learn to think happy thoughts.”
“I'm a New York Jewish woman,” I said.
“So?”
“If you knew more of us, you'd understand what a challenge you just presented.”
Thom shook her head again.
“Tell you what, though,” I said. “I'm gonna take a drive. I'm not sure if I'll be back before closing. You got things?”
“A drive where?” she demanded.
“Just out,” I lied.
“You're lying.”
“I know,” I said.
The head shaking evolved into a shoulder-shrugging sigh. “Don't worry about anything here. I'll keep Goofus and Gallant from killing each other.”
I kissed Thom on the ear, embarrassing us both. I got my purse, made sure I had my keys, and headed for the door.
“Nash, wait!”
Dani came almost skipping from behind the counter. “I forgot to tell you something.”
“What?” My bowels tightened.
“I made a Facebook page for Murray's Deli last night!”
“Wonderful.”
“It is!” she said, wigwagging her cell phone. “We've got two hundred forty friends already! I just checked! That's two hundred twenty-one more than the I-Heart-Kosher page I started the day before.”
I smiled. That was just wonderful.
I was still smiling stupidly as I left.