Craig didn’t leave.
He sat in that booth while his father finished his coffee. He sat there while the ten o’clock church crowd came in and filled up the café. He sat there while my mother waited on every table in her section, the same way she always does. He watched her the whole time.
He watched her refill old Mrs. Bakke’s coffee without being asked. He watched her slide a piece of pie across the counter to a teenage boy who’d only ordered toast, and wave him off when he tried to pay for it. He watched her stop at a table where a young couple sat with a toddler having a meltdown, and pick the toddler up out of his high chair, and put him on her shoulder, and walk him up and down the aisle between the booths.
The toddler stopped crying in about two minutes.
I watched Craig watch that.
He put his face back in his hands.
Around eleven, when the rush slowed down, he got up. He went to the counter. Bev was behind the register.
“Mrs. Torgerson.”
“Craig.”
“The lease on this building. When does it run out?”
Bev looked at him.
“August.”
“And the Feeney estate owns the building.”
“That’s right.”
Craig nodded. He took out his phone. He made a call right there at the counter. I heard his side.
“Jim. It’s Craig. On the Rushford Falls deal. I want to pull the offer on the Main Street block.”
A pause.
“All of it. Yes. I know. I know what we’ve put into it. I know. Pull it.”
A longer pause.
“No. I’m going to buy the café building myself. Personally. Not Lundgren Development. Me. Call the Feeney estate’s attorney first thing tomorrow and find out what they want for it. Whatever it is, I’ll pay it.”
Another pause.
“Because I owe somebody,” he said. “That’s why.”
He hung up.
He looked at Bev.
“Mrs. Torgerson, when I buy this building, I’m going to give you a new lease. Twenty years. Same rent you’re paying now. And I’m going to put one clause in it.”
Bev crossed her arms. “What clause?”
“That this café stays open. That it stays a café. And that it can never be torn down for any reason, for as long as Darlene Hageman wants to work here.”
Bev stared at him.
“And after that,” Craig said, “for as long as anybody wants to sit in that booth and eat eggs.”
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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