Glory had a hunch she was stalling. Glenn was probably back there in the Misty Cat’s little office, and they were probably going to have a confab.
Sherrie pivoted and slipped behind the counter and disappeared into the depths of the kitchen.
Glory sat down at the empty table Sherrie had gestured to and looked around. At one table a guy was twirling his final French fry into a pool of ketchup, his face the picture of dreamy, gustatory satisfaction. At another table a pair of guys in heavy work boots, hardhats slung over the backs of their chairs, those huge, tough work gloves hanging out of their back pockets, were laughing over something on one guy’s phone. One of them glanced up and saw her, and she lifted a hand. Bill Cranford, one of Jonah’s old friends from high school.
And that was how it normally was in the Misty Cat. Half the time you’d know at least half the people in the place, and they all knew a little too much about you, too. Same was true of Hellcat Canyon itself. The blessing and curse of small towns everywhere.
Giorgio was glowering at her as if she was the health department. He knew Glory pretty well, and he clearly anticipated she would be a disruptive force in his orderly world if she got a job here.
“You can glare at me all you want, Giorgio. I saw your pee-pee when you ran through the sprinklers at my cousin’s house when you were five years old.”
Giorgio lowered the spatula, impressed by this opening gambit.
“Piglet panties,” he said pointedly, after a moment.
Well, damn.
She had indeed split her pants when she was in kindergarten and the whole class had seen her underpants, which were covered with little Winnie the Poohs and Piglets and Eeyores. Honestly, she could hardly blame them for calling her Piglet Panties. She was only glad no one had thought to call her Pooh panties.
“Well played,” Glory allowed.
He actually flashed her a little smile and saluted her with the spatula.
Mutual blackmail sorted out, she resumed looking about the place as if she hadn’t done it a hundred times before. Old pickaxes and sieves hung on the walls, now decorations where they’d once been tools in someone’s hands. Daguerreotypes of scruffy guys, some of whom struck it rich, some of whom never made it out alive. A few women were pictured, too, hardy souls, camp followers, a few prostitutes who made excellent marriages, and a few, like Nellie, a victim of the primal lawlessness of that time.
Glenn Harwood emerged from the kitchen wiping his hands on a towel. He was tall and big boned and soft bellied, and he had a bushy head of hair, all gray, as was his formidable mustache.
“Let’s sit over here, kiddo, and have a chat,” he said briskly.
He’d coached her softball team when she was in grade school, and then he’d coached soccer in high school. His daughter Eden, who ran the flower shop and had hair a few shades lighter than her mom’s, was the same age as Glory. In Glenn’s eyes Glory was probably forever nine years old. He would probably call her kiddo until the day he or she died, whoever went first.
Thing was, he also knew her pretty well. And he knew her family lineage going back a long, long way.
“So, Glenn. Did Sherrie send you out here to talk me out of wanting a job?”
He grinned. “There. Right there is why she likes you. She says it’s because you’re smart and you have strong opinions, and if that doesn’t describe my Sherrie I don’t know what does.”
Glory smiled cautiously.
“Strong, ceaseless, unsolicited opinions,” Glenn expounded.
That was also true. For example, “You’d probably be able to bend over and do your own filing if you’d just unclench and let that stick slide out, Mr.Torkelson” was Glory’s exit line at her last job. Mr.Torkelson was a mortgage broker who had hired her to “sit quietly” and answer phones and file papers even when the phone didn’t ring and there wasn’t a scrap of paper in sight. “I’m not paying you for your opinions,” he’d said when she pointed out that maybe this didn’t make a whole lot of sense. It was just that the kind of routine required by the jobs she was qualified for was a recipe for personal misery, and she’d do nearly anything to alleviate it, which is probably how four men ended up thinking they were playing poker for her favors at the Plugged Nickel.
“Some people are more comfortable issuing orders than taking them, let’s just say,” Glenn added.
“I can be flexible.” Even she wasn’t convinced when she said that.
He snorted. “Flexible the way a slingshot is flexible.”
She started to laugh at that, but she cut it short. She was in the business of persuading him to give her a job.
The Baby Owls flyer suddenly slipped from the wall. Glenn grabbed it before it could go sailing onto the floor. He looked down at it.
“The Baby Owls,” he groused. “Stupidest name I ever heard. Owlets! Baby owls are calledowlets. Sweet Jesus.”
“I think it’s meant to be ironic.” She was amused.
He snorted. “Ironic. Irony is for wimps. Their album is calledHoot Are You?, did you know that? A takeoff on ‘Who Are You,’ by The Who. Whatever happened to just smashing your guitar when you’re finished with your set? But my little granddaughter Annelise loves that damn song, though, so... I worked something out with their manager. Who is a bit of a tool, between you and me.”