Clean? Was my daughter implying my store was dirty?
“Thanks. We basically gutted the inside, left the exposed ceilings and duct work to give it a modern feel, and added more windows. I laid the flooring myself.” He tapped it with his foot.
“It’s beautiful.” Bella dropped her gaze to admire it.
“The carpet we removed was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen. Talk about bad vibes from the moment you walk into a store.”
Bella laughed. “See, Mom … maybe if you’d get rid of the carpet, more people would come to the store.”
After her pregnancy and STD tests, we were going to talk about her lack of respect for the business that fed her for eighteen years.
“Oh, sorry, Mrs. Smith … I forgot you have carpet over there. My apologies. I didn’t mean for my observations to sound so harsh.”
He did. And I could see it in his barely restrained smirk and twinkle of asshole in his eyes.
“It’s fine. Your generation has no filter. I wouldn’t expect anything less. When you grow up, you’ll learn to think before you speak.”
“Mom …” Bella’s eyes widened. “That’s rude.”
It was rude, but necessary.
“Crap …” Bella glanced at her phone. “I forgot I told Nila we could hang out. She’s waiting for me. I gotta run. Bye, Mom.” Bella kissed me on the cheek. It was one respectful and loving thing she still retained. “Nice meeting you, Kael. I’ll be back later to buy some stuff.”
The girl had no money. Was she really going to muster the nerve to ask me for money to buy goods from my competitor?
“It was nice to meet you too, Bella.”
Kael and I watched her exit his store.
“Stay away from my daughter.” I snapped my attention back to him.
“Uh …” he chuckled. “Okay. That will be hard if she stops by again.”
“You know what I mean. I saw the way you looked at her. She’s a young girl.”
“I thought you said she’s eighteen.”
“Listen, perv …” I glared at him, stabbing my finger into his chest. “She’s a senior in high school.”
He glanced down at my finger pressed to his white apron, a smile on his lips mocking me. “You think I’m interested in your daughter?”
A customer passing us stole our attention, and we smiled at her on cue as I withdrew my finger.
Lowering my voice, I made a quick glance around to see if anyone else was in earshot. “I think you sell products because you flirt with anything that moves.”
His lips pursed to the side as if I wasn’t speaking English. “You know what I think? I think you’re upset that I’m nice to people. I think marriage and years of fearing God has made you paranoid that if you smile too big or shake someone’s hand too long, people will think you’re flirting and therefore cheating. Maybe if you smiled like you were offering your customers more than stale popcorn, even if you’re not, then you’d see long lines at your shop again. I bet your husband knew how to smile at customers. Now … I have work to do. Thanks for stopping by.” He winked. Winked at me like he was selling more than vinegar and oil.
That wasn’t part of Marketing 101. There was another word for his level of ruthlessness. I needed a few minutes to unpack all the nonsense from his little speech, so I headed back to my store, mumbling to myself the whole way. “Craig did not flirt to get customers and sell products.”
Did he?
“Oh, Elsie … wait up!”
I stopped ten feet from the door to my shop and spun around. “Rach, what’s up?” I opened my arms and hugged one of my good friends from high school whom I hadn’t seen in years. “Did you move back here? Or are you just visiting?”
“I lost my job, so I had to move back home. How embarrassing, right? I have one child in college and another who got married last year, and I’m living with my parents … at forty-two!”
I jerked my head toward my shop. “I’m running the Smith family business that has no business and apparently terrible carpet. No husband. Kids are basically grown. Bella just informed me that she’s not a virgin. And my parents now have a place in Arizona, so I see them during the summer and on Christmas. When Bella goes to college next year, I might quit my job and go live with them, so really … it’s life.”
Rachel laughed. “Who knew the forties would be such a shit show. And who knew you would be the talk of the town.” She rolled her lips together and eyed me with wide blue eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“My mom said you’re in a support group at church, and you brought out the evil side in some of the widows.”
I coughed a laugh. “Um …”