“So take him for a test drive and see if you want to invite him out to your retirement compound.”
“Stop talking,” I order Zen.
“Please. She’s been lonely, not dead. But use a condom, Mimi. Just because you can’t get pregnant doesn’t mean you can’t get an infection. Do you know how many articles I’ve read about the rampant spread of STIs in retirement communities?”
“Did I not just tell them to stop talking?” I say to Mimi.
Also, my face better not be turning red.
“Like you don’t want to be still getting it on with the ladies when you’re in your nineties,” Zen says.
“Mimi, how would you like to have all of your dreams come true and run a café in the mountains while we all decide if this guy you have your eye on is worth your time?” I say.
And then I hear myself.
And all of the pieces of this puzzle click.
That’s what I’ll do.
I’ll give the café to Mimi on the condition that she pass it to Sabrina when she’s done with it.
“Oh, now that sounds like a lovely plan,” she says. “Do I have to do anything?”
“Just sit in the corner and talk to all the old people about the weather,” Zen says. “Sabrina and I have everything else under control.”
“What if I want to talk to the young people about their lives?”
“You can do that too,” Zen says, “but you should know there’s a very dedicated contingent of old people here who demand that the café’s owner acknowledge the weather with them at least once a day. Also, if you’re the new owner, you can put a halt to all of the construction plans.”
“Construction plans?”
“Uncle Grey’s sitting on a contract to completely gut the inside of the café and turn it into a kombucha bar—I’m sorry, akombrewcherycalledThe Hivewhere he’ll brew his own kombucha and convince the county to give him a liquor license so he can serve and sell mead too. And he’s putting a gigantic bee on the outside of the building so that Chippy Choochoo Sullivan will freak out every time he looks at the café he used to own. Sorry, Mimi, most of Harry’s grandkids are great, but the Cheese Turd isnot.”
“Take the café, Mimi,” I say.
She laughs.
“I’m not joking,” I say slowly. “Take the café. For a day. For a week. For however long you want it.”
She laughs again over her breakfast.
“Was Harry Sullivan your first choice?” I push. “Was he the man you wanted to marry instead of Grandpa?”
Her laughter stops, and she eyes me like she doesn’t want me putting the pieces ofthispuzzle together.
“Was he?” I press.
“That was seventy years ago, young man.”
“Why did you break up?”
She sighs. “That’s not my story to tell.”
Fuckinggossip. “Did you know Elsie Sullivan?”
Zen stops eating and looks between us. “What’s going on? What do you know?”
“Did you?” I press Mimi.
