“I have the money, but I don’t want to just be a partner. I want this to be considered a down payment in the purchase.” I had to hope to fuck a bank would finance the rest, but at this time, I just needed a commitment from Mr. Coffee.
“I’m not quite ready to sell.”
“You told me you were considering Stark’s offer,” I reminded him.
He shrugged. “It’s hard to turn down cash like that.”
Boy did I know it. “The problem is, you’d be selling to Stark. Do you want to be seen as a sell-out or would you rather keep the place in the Salvation family, so to speak? I’ve got twenty grand to give you right now. All you have to do is sign this contract that says I’m a partner, I can buy it when you decide to sell, and under no circumstances can you sell to Stark.”
His bushy gray brows rose. “You’ve got a beef with him.”
“I do. You know I do after what he did to my sister and her husband.”
He nodded. “You wonder what makes a man act like that. He’s got enough money he could buy some manners, you’d think.”
“So, you’ll take my money? Make the deal.”
He sat in his chair and sighed. “Stark’s offer is a lot. I have to consider my and my wife’s future. We’re not getting younger and medical care gets more expensive the older you get.”
Part of me wanted to argue. The other part of me was feeling like I’d sacrificed my pride and betrayed my sister for nothing.
“Fine. I’ll take my twenty grand and buy something else. I’ll have my resignation to you tomorrow.” It was an impulsive move, not conducive to the steady, well-thought-out hand Trina would want me to deal. But desperate times called for desperate measures.
“Now hold on boy. What bee’s gone
up your bonnet?” He frowned at me. “We’re negotiating here.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to negotiate. I want to secure my future too. I’ve got a child on the way and house to fix up, and I need to get my financials in place. I’ve been a good employee of yours for a long time. I know the folks who come in, and you know that I’m one of the reasons they keep coming.”
“A baby? Goodness. Not sure how my wife missed that on the gossip mill.” He ran his long boney fingers through the few strands of hair he still had left.
“It’s a new situation. So? What do you say?” I asked.
“I need to talk to my wife, but I think we’re both in agreement that we’d rather see the place stay with someone local. Stark would probably turn it into some chic place that people around here couldn’t afford to eat at.”
I nodded in agreement.
“I’ll be in tomorrow. You’ll have that twenty grand?”
“I’ll have it.” I had the fifteen from the down payment, and now I had the second fifteen from selling my soul.
As I drove home, I should have felt good. All the pieces of my life were falling in place. But the way I’d gotten there made me wonder if it was worth it. Did the means justify the ends? Fuck, I hoped so.
24
Trina
Over the last few days, I’d gotten myself a little more together. At least at work. I had to pull it together because I had a child to think about and couldn’t risk losing my job, along with health benefits. Of course, my workday was made slightly less stressful as Sinclair seemed to be mad and was avoiding me. Brooke kept a wide berth from me as well, which I appreciated. I couldn’t look at her and not think about how the mayor was giving her my job. And since the mayor seemed to prefer to work with Brooke, I didn’t have to talk to him much either. As a result, I could work in peace and quiet, without drama. The only problem was that the isolation was turning out to be unwelcome as well.
There’d been a time in which working on my own without distractions would have been ideal. Now, while I got a lot done, I felt alone. As an adult, I’d grown to want to be alone and self-sufficient, but this tapped into some sort of residual childhood pain. It was one thing to be alone because I wanted to. It was another to be ignored or forgotten, which was what I felt now.
It was my own doing and perhaps Sinclair was right in that I needed to talk to someone. The problem was that Salvation was a small town. While the few therapists that were here kept client confidentiality, their offices were in places where people would see me. I didn’t want people knowing I was seeing a counselor. My business was my business. Perhaps I was too proud. Maybe people wouldn’t care that I was getting help. Maybe they’d be glad. All I knew was that I’d felt like people watched and talked about my family while I was a kid. I didn’t want that now that I was grown up.
I was just sending the mayor a recent financial report from the parks and rec department when Sinclair stormed into the main area of the office and slammed a newspaper down on my desk.
“Did you have something to do with this?” she demanded.
I stared at her in stunned confusion and then looked down at the paper, reading the headline. “Wallace is running for mayor. You think I set that up?”