This was what I spoke about. Women talked too much. Would it be too much for her to just check me in and keep it moving? I was in a small town now, so I knew it would be worse. “Yes, ma’am, I am.”
“Well, it’s nice to see new blood inPlasters, especially when the blood is so pretty. Oh, the boys are going to do double takes at you. My name is Mrs. Cook. I’m the owner here and theRosebuds Dinerin town.”
She’s still talking and hasn’t given me a price or asked for payment yet. Am I smiling too much?“Oh, okay. I’ve never stayed at a bed-and-breakfast. For the breakfast part of it, how does that work?”
“Oh, yes. Well, it’s served in our great room, buffet style, or for a nominal fee, we can deliver a plate of your choice from the menu to your room. Let me get your ID and your credit card, sweetie.”Finally.
I reached into my fanny pack, pulled out what I needed, and handed it over. She looked at my ID and smiled but didn’t say anything. She told me that my total for the week was $897. That wasn’t bad at all in my opinion. After she was finished, she handed me back my things and an old-fashioned room key. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you for your service, Ms. Winters. To get to your room, go to the right at the top of the stairs, and 203 is at the end of the hall,” she told me.
My head snapped to the right at the sound of footsteps. Instinctively, my hand went to my waist. Three teenage boys walked in from a back hall. They laughed with each other loudly.
“Kevin, James, and Chris, what did I tell y’all about being so loud!” Mrs. Cook yelled. “Y’all better not be out there causingany trouble. Sheriff Crawford already told y’all he would lock y’all lil asses up.”
Yeah, this is definitely a small town because professionalism is out the window.The mannerism of the boys told me that her words went in one ear and out of the other. When one of them told her to shut up as they walked out of the door, I knew for a fact that they didn’t give a damn about what she said.
I didn’t want anything to do with it. More than that, I didn’t want to engage in a conversation about adolescent boys. I turned and made my way up the stairs to my room. My room may have been to the right, but that didn’t stop my leftward glance.Four doors.I wouldn’t assume that they were all rooms. I walked toward my room. The layout on this side was the same.
Scan the frame . . . key in lock . . . pause.I turned the key, paused again, then opened the door. “Oh, wow!” I was very impressed with the room. I had a preconceived notion that it would be a little dated, but it was anything but. It rivaled the inside of five-star hotels. I did my normal checks inside of the room before I ventured to the bathroom.
The bathroom was just as impressive. The claw-foot tub was to die for, and I loved the glass shower as well. I opened the sealed, full size bodywash, lotion, shampoo, and conditioner. They all had a citrus smell that I liked.
After I finished checking my room, I unpacked, then tried out the bed. The way the mattress engulfed me in its fluffy love should have been studied, then told to the world. I lifted my arm to glance at my watch. A little nap couldn’t hurt. I set my alarm to wake up in three hours.Let’s see if this mattress can handle the way I toss and turn.
Miss Busy Body. . .
I closed our glass-front refrigerated display case that housed an assortment of our meats. We had meats such as rib eye, brisket, ground beef packs, New York strips, and sausage links in vacuum-sealed cuts labeled with processing dates. I found myself organizing it a few times a day. I liked the refrigerator well organized. Customers tended to pick over packages, then put them back where they didn’t belong. That shit vexed the hell out of me. My brother, Vince, screamed on them, but I didn’t have the time to change people that didn’t, in the grand scale of life, matter to me. Besides, I found a small peace when I organized things.
Dawson Premium Cuts Butcher Shopwas a family business that spanned generations within the Dawson’s family. It was the perfect complement to our cattle ranch. Our shop was at the front of our land.
Our land totaled ninety acres. The land was broken up into pasture, woods, hayfield, our housing, barn, and shop area. We had a very nice-sized fishpond as well.Plasterswas what the townies called a hidden gem in Georgia. With a population just under three thousand, it was a place with one large school building that looked like a college campus, but it was our elementary, middle, and high school. Everyone came to Friday night football, whether you had a kid that played or not.
It was a town of generational families where everyone knew everyone in some way. Families were connected a lot of times by marriage. There was a lot of military connected to this town, whether it was active, veteran, or fallen soldiers.
“Vic, Beverly is supposed to be in here to pick up that order forRosebudsin a few. Is it ready?” my mother, Victoria, asked from behind the counter after her customer left.
I stepped behind the counter to get to the walk-in cooler. My mom handed me the order inventory list so that I could check it. I was sure that it was correct, but for her benefit, I would check it again. She had been a worrywart all my life for the most part. “It’s all here, Ma.”
We supplied all of the beef supply for the diner and the bed-and-breakfast. Mrs. Cook’s diner was the only restaurant we had here, technically. We just got a McDonald’s a few years ago. You would think that it was a five-star restaurant because of how busy it stayed. It was a little hangout spot next to the ice cream shop.
“I wonder what gossip Mrs. Cook gonna come in here with today? You know that lady knows everybody business but her own. Can tell you that Suzanna is smoking that good stuff, butwon’t tell you that her son, Kevin, is the one selling it to ’em,” my mama said smugly.
At seventy-four, Victoria Michelle Dawson was still a firecracker. I wished she would sit her little ass down somewhere. Her husband, my father, fussed at her every day about working. Hell, at seventy-six, Carl Anthony Dawson was no better. The only reason he wasn’t here today was because he was in the pasture. Between the military and farm life, it acted as a youth potion.
Vince sucked his teeth. “Ma, really? You gossip just as much as that lady. When she comes in here, you be right there listening.”
“Of course I do! Let me tell you something that I’ve learned in my seventy-four years of life. When you mind your business, everyone will tell you their business. Who am I not to listen to them? I have always had a listening ear. Oh, and I don’t gossip. I research and report when necessary.” The conviction in her words made me chuckle.
I shook my head. “Ma, you’re too much. Research and report, huh?”
“Yep! It’s what y’all call recon,” she said. Her cheeks were high.
The dinging of the alarm to let us know that someone pulled into the parking lot caused us all to look at the camera monitors behind the counter.Mrs. Cook.I never understood why she didn’t send one of her male employees to pick this shit up. I didn’t expect any of her badass sons to do it, but that truly was another subject. I started to pull her order from the cooler so that I could box it up.
“Hey, Dawsons! How are y’all today?” Mrs. Cook asked as soon as she came through the door. She had a very lively personality that often overshadowed everyone—not in the flattering way either. She was a woman that wanted to be thecenter of attention, and when she wasn’t, she had an attitude. I believed that was where her sons got it from.
My mother put on her wide smile. “Hey, Beverly! How’s business going at the bed-and-breakfast?”
