“Well, as far as I’m concerned,” Sally said with conviction.“I’ll be passing along any vital information to Petra, and the two of you can do with it as you see fit.”
“It doesn’t even have to be vital,” Petra reassured her.“Any information, and we can take it from there.”
“I can do that,” she said as she looked at her brother.“You got anything?”
“No, I’ll talk to my boss tomorrow.The only question I have is if you want to go out riding now?We can tour the county so you can get a feel for the area.”
Paul and Petra looked at each other with grins.“I can wrap my head around that.”They laughed as they hurried away to get ready to go out for a motorcycle ride.
Chapter 13
One month later, thefour of them were sitting around a table at an outside bar on the other side of the county they lived in, and Sally asked Petra a question.
“Do you ever think of driving your own bike?”
“Not really.Don’t get me wrong, I love riding, but I really don’t want the responsibility of being in charge of another passenger or fighting the asshole cagers when they try to run us off the road.Knowing my luck, I would chase them down, pull my gun, and shoot them.”They all laughed and when they were under control their meals had been delivered and no one spoke for several minutes as they appeased their hunger.When they slowed down, Petra looked at Sally.
“Have you always ridden by yourself?”
“Not always,” Sally said with a grin.She looked at her brother and grinned harder when he hung his head and shook it.Petra and Paul exchanged confused looks.
“Years ago, I’m talking like twenty-five or so years ago, I was barely twenty-two when I met someone.Warren had been riding all his life.It started out with dirt bikes and gradually worked its way up to what he rides now.”
“Before you continue, Sally, they’re going to need some context.”Warren nodded as he held a fry, dripping with Ketsup, in his fingers.“Our grandparents started the diner, and the bar.When they passed, Mom ran the restaurant, while Dad ran the bar.When they passed, Sally took over the diner, and I took over the bar.Don’t get me wrong, nor our parents, and we’re not being sexist, but all three generations thought it would be better for the men to run the bar, while the women ran the diner.”
“At the time Sally mentioned, Grandpa and Grandma were already gone, but Mom and Dad were still around.Because we’ve lived here all our lives, and it was more than three generations that lived here, everyone knew us.When the factory came to town, it brought a lot of people.”
“What was here before this factory came to town?”Paul asked as he paused in eating his own burger and fries.
Warren shrugged.“Locals, farmers, people who owned businesses in town.The factory was a big deal, and I think it was thirty years ago that they came to town.”
“Yeah, it was,” Sally said with a sigh.She looked at Petra with a grin.“I didn’t want to age myself.Anyway, the factory was set up outside of town, and like Warren said, it brought a lot of people with it.Oh, not that they were associated with it, but people came to work there.That’s when houses started being built, and the community as a whole expanded.Anyway, there was a guy that worked at the factory.He was one of the people hired to work on constructing the building.He stopped into the diner every day for lunch and dinner.He had already been here for a couple of months before I finished college and returned home.”
She looked at her new friends with a grin.“My college was for business.I already knew how to cook and run the diner, but Mama and Daddy wanted me to know the business aspect of it.You know, doing the books, the taxes, ordering, making sure I made a profit every quarter, paying the invoices on time.Things like that.”
Warren snorted a laugh, and when they looked at him, he shook his head.“Maybe the executives at the factory should have taken the same classes, because that’s why they closed their doors.Piss poor management.They went bankrupt.”
