Small-Town Fireman

“Looking good there, Grandpa!” Karla called to her grandfather and his physical therapist when she came in the front door of his house an hour later.

“That’s what I told him,” Rosa, the therapist, said, frustration clipping the edge of her words. Her grandfather was impatient and used to activity; ensuring that he got his rest was no small feat. The only thing harder than getting him to take it easy was coaxing him to do the required exercises to heal his hip. That lion-tamer of a job required patience, diplomacy and a thick skin. Medical progress aside, it seemed to irk Grandpa that Karl’s Koffee was actually surviving without him behind the counter.

“We miss you at the shop,” Karla confessed, momentarily unsure if that would make it better or worse. “Everyone’s asking how you are.”

“How do they think I am?” Grandpa snorted. “I’m stuck using this stupid walker like some old coot.”

Karla detoured into the living room to kiss her grandfather’s cheek. “Yeah, but you’re my old coot. It won’t take long before you’ll be kicking me out of here and running Karl’s like always.” That was a bit of an overstatement. While everyone agreed her grandfather would be back at his namesake shop sometime in the future, only Karl believed he’d be “running it like always.” He’d needed to slow down even before the broken hip ground him to a halt.

Rosa raised one eyebrow while Grandpa merely growled. Evidently today’s therapy session had been particularly prickly. Karla escaped to the kitchen, where she slid her handbag and a box of Danish from the shop onto the counter. Mom’s tired eyes matched Rosa’s as she looked up from the sink. Her parents, who lived twenty minutes west of Gordon Falls, were staying with Grandpa off and on until he could safely be on his own. The doctors thought that would be two more weeks. Grandpa thought it should be two more hours—hence Mom’s weary expression.

“Everyone having fun today?” Karla teased.

“Oh, loads.” With her father trying to keep regular hours at his shelving business during the day, Karla knew her mother’s days with Grandpa could get long indeed. Mom nodded toward the living room, whispering, “Rosa is a saint. I’d have throttled him by now. If your father hadn’t left an hour ago, I think they would have come to blows.”

She knew the feeling. Kennedys—and those who married them—were doers. Action people, thinkers and planners. Grandpa’s extended convalescence was taking its toll on everyone. Somehow, for reasons that weren’t too hard to guess, all this was opening up an old Kennedy family wound. Karla’s father, Kurt, had declined to take what Grandpa saw as his place behind the counter at Karl’s. Dad’s choice not to follow in his father’s footsteps had always been a wedge between them. Karla’s stepping in to run Karl’s Koffee, even as reluctantly as she had, just seemed to drive that wedge an inch or two deeper. Add a painful surgery, long hours of fidgety Kennedys sitting around hospitals and living rooms, and combustion was unavoidable. Karla didn’t opt to live in the apartment above the shop rather than here at Grandpa’s house for no good reason—she’d leave that volatile situation to her parents, thank you very much.

“Your books came.” Mom gestured toward the kitchen table. “Weighed a ton. I thought online classes didn’t need all those textbooks.” Karla had enrolled in an online restaurant management certificate program even before Karl’s fall. Now she was doubly glad to have the business-related work keeping both her future plans in motion and her mind occupied while all the way out here in Gordon Falls.

Karla began opening the box. “I got a few extra books from the entrepreneurship program. Business stuff.” Pulling off the packing tape, she removed the filling to see Restaurant Ownership, The Chef’s Guide to Marketing, and Culinary Management alongside the two workbooks needed from her online courses. The used texts had clearly seen wear and tear, but they were half the price of the new ones. Plus, if she was fortunate, they came with highlights and notes from their previous student owners.

“Ambitious,” Mom remarked from over Karla’s shoulder. She lowered her voice. “Karl could probably tell you half of what’s in those books.” She winked. “Or so he’d boast.”

“Aren’t we done yet, Rosa? My hip is yelling at me.” Grandpa’s groaning echoed into the kitchen from the living room.

“A saint, I tell you.” Mom was laughing, but probably only because she was picking up her car keys. “I’m off to the grocery store. Do you need anything?”

Oh, there was a long list of what Karla needed, but Halverson’s wasn’t likely to carry any of it. “No, I’m going to place an order with the restaurant supply place this afternoon after I talk to Grandpa about something.”

Mom raised a curious eyebrow. “You can tell me about it later, okay?” She ducked her head into the living room. “Karl, be nice to Rosa. She’s here to help.”

Karla heard her grandfather grumble something about the nature of helpfulness, punctuated by a yelp that generally signaled his descent into the recliner chair. His therapist walked into the kitchen, returning the blue cardboard folder that held the papers showing Grandpa’s daily exercises to its spot on the counter. He was supposed to do exercises twice a day when Rosa wasn’t here, but often refused. “Two more weeks.” She sighed. “Remind him he can go out and about after two weeks but no driving for another month.”

“We’ll see about that!” Grandpa yelled from the living room. “Morehouse is a tyrant, I tell you.”

Karla offered Rosa a shrug. “Dr. Morehouse is on your side, Grandpa,” she called into the other room. “Try to remember that.”

“See if you can get him to keep his feet elevated with ice on that hip for twenty minutes twice this afternoon. After those exercise he claims he does, but doesn’t.” She looked at Karla. “I told your mom just what I told him—he’s doing better than expected. He’ll make a full recovery if we can just keep him from overdoing it.”

Grandpa was the king of “overdoing it.”

“I’ll do my best. You take care. Want a Danish?”

Rosa sighed, took a Danish and headed out the door.

The minute the door closed, Grandpa was making noises in the living room. “Can we go out to lunch today? I won’t tell a soul.”

“Everyone will see you and rat you out.” Karl Kennedy could no more walk down the streets of Gordon Falls unrecognized than Karla could whip up a soufflé over a candlestick. The man’s coffee shop was the unofficial town hall. It was part of the charm—and the pain—of being here: everyone knew Karl, and everyone knew she was Karl’s granddaughter. She was starting to really miss Chicago’s anonymity.

“No one will tell on me. Call Vi. She’ll come spring me.” Violet Sharpton had come to visit Grandpa multiple times in the hospital and stopped by every other day. While she was as feisty as Grandpa, Vi wasn’t a likely conspirator for anything that would endanger his recovery.

“Dad would have my hide,” she replied as she walked into the living room with a cheese Danish on a napkin. “You know that. And Mrs. Sharpton wants you to get better, so I doubt she’ll help you cheat. We’ll order out from Dellio’s, how about that? Besides, I struck a deal at the coffee shop today and I want to tell you about it.”

That got Grandpa’s attention. “What kind of deal? You bringing in some other fancy machine no one knows how to work?”

It was true; no one else seemed to be able or willing to work the cappuccino machine. One high school student managed a brave attempt, but it ended in an incident so awful the entire shop staff had made a pact never to tell Karl how hazelnut syrup got into the heating vents. The other waitress, Emily, had nearly refused to touch the machine.

Karla sat down on an ottoman opposite her grandfather. “We’re going to supply breakfast to Dylan McDonald’s charter fishing customers once or twice a week. I worked out a package deal for the next month.” She laid out the terms of the agreement as Grandpa ate the Danish. “We shook on it, but I told him it wasn’t official until I got the okay from you.”

“We’re catering to McDonald’s fishing boat?”

Grandpa’s idea of catering would come something closer to a thermos of coffee and a box of doughnuts. “No, they’ll place their espresso drink orders with Dylan as they pull into the dock and then I’ll have it all set on a table when they walk in. Dylan will pay up front eight dollars a head. I figure some of them might end up staying and ordering a full breakfast if things go well.” She smiled. “Everybody wins.”

Grandpa grinned. “Well, look at you striking deals and making partners. Kennedys can do, I tell you.” It was the unofficial Kennedy Family Motto. The old man winced and shifted, rubbing his hip. “McDonald. The fireman with the fishing boat business, right?”

“That’s him.”

Grandpa’s gray eyes twinkled. “About your age, isn’t he?”

She swatted her grandfather’s good leg. “Nice try, old man.” Age was the only thing she had in common with Dylan McDonald. Right now her focus was on her principal interest, not Prince Charming. She hoped one or two of the executives Dylan claimed to serve might prove useful business contacts. A woman on her way up in the world had to look for opportunities everywhere she could. If the deal with Dylan found her a commercial real estate broker, a potential investor, or just a handful of likely customers, she’d be thrilled.

As for the flannel-shirted, fine-looking fireman? She could always use a friend all the way out here, but she wasn’t casting a line for anything more.

* * *

Dylan laughed to himself the next morning as he watched Karla continue her one-woman caffeine campaign. She was persistent, he’d give her that much. Violet Sharpton scrunched her face up after sipping whatever coffee Karla had put in front of her. “I thought you said there was chocolate in this.”

“There is.” Dylan saw Karla’s face drop.

“Well, what else is in there messing everything up?”

“Espresso.” Karla had to have known Violet was a tea drinker, didn’t she? She wasn’t that new to town. Still, the froth he saw on the edge of Violet’s mug told him Karla had been trying out a new concoction on the old woman. Not that Violet wasn’t a fan of new things—she was one of the most adventurous senior citizens Dylan had ever met—but some leaps were just a bit too far. “It’s a strong, Italian kind of coffee.”

Violet put the cup down. “I have teenage grandchildren—I know what espresso is. But I could have told you up front I’m not one of those caffeine junkies.” She offered Karla a forgiving grin. “You’re a sport for trying, though. Your grandfather could use a kick in the gastronomic pants once he comes back. Never tries anything new.”

“Karl says he knows what people like,” Dylan offered as he walked up to the counter.

“This ‘people’ don’t much care for that.” Violet nodded toward the brew.

“She made a pretty good latte for me yesterday.” The remark returned a bit of the smile to Karla’s face.

“Well, then, you youngsters go on ahead with your fancy drinks and leave the basics to the old folks.” She put a hand on Karla’s. “Nothing personal, hon, but I’ll be glad when your grandfather’s back up and running.”

“We all will,” Karla replied with a hint of weariness in her voice, making Dylan suspect Karl wasn’t a model patient.

“Maybe I’ll come by this afternoon. Bring him some homemade soup or such.”

Karla took the cup and saucer back with an air of defeat. “He’d like that. He always perks up when you visit. No charge for the mocha, I’ll just get you a tea. Milk and sugar?”