Yesterday had been the corner. One time, she hid behind another car just to pop out the second I opened my door. For a while, she liked the potted plants on the square.
Years ago, she would have had fewer options. The square used to be dark and empty. The color on the buildings was faded, and there wasn’t a single decoration or potted plant in sight.
I wasn’t sure when it started to change, just like I wasn’t sure when I decided to stay. But slowly, I saw the buildings get repainted. Then the pots appeared. And now, the square lit up at night like a dream.
The change should’ve scared me off, just like the new attention almost had. I was supposed to leave this place years ago.
And I opened a coffee shop instead—one that was doing well.
There was something about this odd little town that made me want to try. It rendered me helpless whenever I tried to leave. Before I’d even decided to, I was saving every dollar I had and researching how to make coffee. Then I got the chance to franchise a larger shop out in Nashville, and suddenly, The Reserved Bean became a reality.
I’d done all of this the right way.
Every part of this was legal and mine.
Now I just needed it to last. Sometimes, I swore I heard aclock ticking, just to remind me that I was overstaying my welcome.
Then Marjorie would pull me into one of her weird conversations and the sound would disappear.
She had slowly worn me down over the years. Every time I mentioned I was about to put my house up for sale, she came up with some lie about how shitty the market was to get me to stay. “Come on in, Marj.” I opened the door for her. “I’ll get the coffee started.”
“Thank goodness,” she said. “I can’t function without it. And making you sweat a little.”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s your favorite pastime.”
“Technically, my favorite pastime is pissing my wife off.” She smiled fondly. “But I have to limit myself or she’ll actually leave me.”
There were plenty of people in town who didn’t understand how Marjorie and Henrietta stayed together, but for all their teasing, they loved each other. I was just lucky enough to see it.
Back before I had the coffee shop, I helped them maintain their house. Every time I got done with something, they would con me into dinner, and I got the chance to see them in their element.
These days, I didn’t get that time, and I missed it more than I expected.
“You know Hen isn’t gonna do anything.”
“Probably not, but she’s always slow to get started in the morning. You know how she is. She’ll be a little better with a hot drink.”
“Getting that started right now.”
“I don’t usually hand out compliments, but this place is a godsend. Do you know how long I’ve waited for coffee that doesn’t taste like piss water?”
“Shit water is moreapt.”
Marjorie laughed. “You and your descriptors. Still, I tell you this every day?—”
“You do.” And it warmed my heart every time.
“I’m just proud of you, you know. Who knew that little anxious kid would turn into this?”
“I was twenty-seven when I moved here.”
“Just a baby,” she said with a laugh.
The people of Strawberry Springs had been ready for a coffee shop. And I made it happen. Kind of.
Technically, a nice woman in Nashville named Riley had given me the building blocks to make it happen and allowed me to franchise through her to cut some of the upfront costs, but I had the idea.
I’d worked with Wren, the woman who was fixing up most of the town. Between her and her contractor, Dean, we’d turned an old, dilapidated building into a decent-sized coffee shop with a roasting space in the back and an apartment upstairs. Wren had worked on that space later, and for a while, things were loud as they fixed that up.