Love And Coffee: A Cup Of Grace Romance Series Book 1 (6 page)

              “Great,” I said.  “I wonder what that will cost?”  That was a cost we hadn’t planned for.

              “I don’t think it matters at this point,” Kathryn said.  “We just need to get this taken care of.  And I agree with Matt. We want a professional to handle it.  No way are we going in there with a can of Raid and a bug bomb.”

              “I wasn’t going to suggest that,” I said.  “Although it would save us a lot of money.”

              There was a thump that sounded like it came from the kitchen and we all looked at the still open door and then at each other and ran for our car, leaving poor Matt to fend for himself. 

              Yup.  This looked like a professional job to me.

CHAPTER NINE

I showed up at the shop ready to work.  The exterminator had been in three days earlier and had done his business.  Thank goodness there were people like him, much braver than I, that would go in and do the dirty deed.  Because no way was I going to do it. 

Kathryn looked me up and down.  “Seriously?”

She must have been referring to the white Tyvek HAZMAT suit that I was wearing.  Complete with hood pulled up tight with a drawstring around my face.  I wore black rubber wading boots that I had found at a sporting good supply and had tied a piece of twine around the tops of both boots to keep any of the creepy crawlers from deciding to get sneaky and crawl inside. 

“What?  Jealous that you didn’t think of it first?” I said and handed her the cardboard drink holder that held yummy coffee deliciousness for all three of us and a fourth for Matt when he got there.  I put my goggles and face shield on.  “Okay, I’m ready,” I said after taking a deep breath.

“Wow,” Jillian said, looking me up and down. 

Kathryn rolled her eyes and stuck the key in the lock.  “I can’t believe you actually went into a coffee shop looking like that.  And I am not jealous.  Not much, anyway.”

“Well, I did get some stares, and one old man asked me if the Martians had landed.  I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about.  Can you imagine?”

“Actually, I can because you’re nuts,” she said as we entered the shop.

“Jealous,” I tossed out again.  She could deny it all she wanted, but the germaphobe was jealous.

“Oh my,” Jillian said as she stepped into the shop.

“Oh my, is right,” Kathryn said.

The floor was littered with dead bugs.  Hundreds.  Thousands.  Roaches and ants and a number of bugs I had never seen before.  My heart sank.  What had we gotten ourselves into?  What if there were millions more still waiting underneath the shop?  And what if they pooled their resources and, once having tasted freedom, they busted through the hole again?  I shuddered to think what might happen when we opened up the kitchen cupboards.  Or the ovens.

“Okay, well, I guess we better get going then,” I said, trying to sound cheerful after we had stood around for a few minutes.  The crunch of the bugs as I walked over toward the broom and dustpan made my skin crawl.  “Don’t throw up, don’t throw up,” was my mantra.  Throwing up in this get up could prove to be lethal.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pair of surgical rubber gloves and put them on.  I wasn’t touching anything with my bare hands.  I picked up the broom and started sweeping.  “Jillian, can you man the dust pan?”

“Sure,” she said and headed over.  I reached into my pocket and gave her a pair of gloves.  “Uh, thanks,” she said, furrowing her brows at them.

“You’ll be truly thankful when you don’t catch a bug disease because you were wearing those,” I said.

“Oh, I’m truly thankful now.”

I didn’t believe it.  Kathryn went into the kitchen to check it out.

“How is it?” I called.

“Oh, no worse than the rest of the shop, I guess.”

“Good,” I said.  I sidled over to the hole that now had the rags removed.  I looked over the side, but all I could see was black.  “I hope they’re all dead.”

“Me too,” Jillian said, coming over to stand next to me.

“Hello,” Matt called as he opened the shop door.  “Oh.” He said when he saw me.

“Hey,” I said and smiled, then realized he probably couldn’t see that I was smiling through the face shield.

“Um, what’s up with the Mr. Goodyear outfit?”  He grinned like he had said something funny. 

“What?  Are you calling me fat?” I said indignantly.

“Oh, no of course not,” he said and tried unsuccessfully to hide his grin. 

“Well, good,” I said. “I would hate to have to knock you down and make you take your words back.  But I will, believe me, I will, if need be.”

He laughed.  “Oh I have no doubt about that.”  I could see that cute smile of his and I wished I hadn’t covered up my face with this face shield. 

“It is kind of over kill though, don’t you think?” he asked, still surveying the bug carnage.

“Nope, not at all.  I think it’s appropriate measures for what we have to deal with here.”

“So, did the exterminator give you a report?” he asked, deciding not to encourage my insanity.

“The bug man said he thought we wouldn’t have too much trouble from here on out, although he did say that we might occasionally find a survivor or two,” Kathryn said.

“Hence, the hazmat suit,” I said, waving my hand in front of said suit.

              She rolled her eyes at me.  Sure, roll your eyes now, but wait until those roaches start scurrying around, I thought. 

              Jillian and I got the two brooms and started sweeping up.  “This is gross,” she said.

              “Tell me about it,” I said.  “It’s like a bug end of the world movie.”

              She giggled.  “That would be awesome.  The end of the world for bugs everywhere.”

              “Hey Matt, why don’t you check out the ovens?  You know, just to be sure we don’t have any surprises in there?” I asked.

              “Yeah, okay,” he said and headed to the kitchen.  “Oh boy.”  I heard him say.

              I didn’t like the sound of that.  “What?” I asked and hurried over to the kitchen doorway.

              He was standing in front of one of the open ovens.  He looked over at me.  “We might have bigger problems,” he said.

              “What? Why?  We don’t have money for bigger problems,” I said and went to his side.  “Oh, no,” I said right before I ripped my face shield off and vomited on the floor in front of the oven. 

              Matt jumped out of the way, but was a little too late.

              “I think I got some on your shoe.  I’m sorry.” 

              Matt let out his breath.  “Yeah, looks like it.”

              Inside the oven was a dead rat.  The smell was horrific.  How could something that small, smell that bad?

              “Well, at least it’s dead,” Kathryn said from her place in the doorway.  The big chicken wasn’t going to come any closer.

              “All right, you all clear out.  I’m going to take the shovel and shovel out everything I find.  Get me that trash can, will you?”

              I pulled the big metal can closer to him and he put some gloves on.  He nodded at me and I left the kitchen to let him handle things.  Clearly this was man’s work.

              We continued sweeping out in the front of the shop, and the bug pile got bigger and bigger.  I hated to do it, but I was going to have to ask Matt to do the actual shoveling of the dead bodies.  I just couldn’t do it.

              After a while, I started to get really hot in that HAZMAT suit.  I was afraid to turn the air conditioners on.  No telling what all would come out of there.  I sat on the front step to get some air, my head hanging down a bit.

              “What’s up, buttercup?” Kathryn said, nudging me with the toe of her shoe as she sat on the step above mine.

              “Just thinking this isn’t going quite as expected,” I said.

              “No.  It’s not.  But what does?  We expected to stay at the paper forever.  Or at least a lot longer than we had.  I expected to be married by now.  I expected Jillian to have made me gain at least forty pounds with all the baked goods she’s always shoving in front of me.  That, of course, is a good thing though.”

              “You did?” I asked.

              “Sure.  Carrot cake, scones, muffins.  That stuff ain’t cheap calorie-wise, you know.”

              “No.  You expected to be married by now?”

              “Sure.  I thought I’d be married at twenty-five.  Maybe have a baby by now, too,” she said wistfully.

              I looked up at her.  “Huh.  I never really thought you would have wanted that so young,” I said.  “I have always seen you as a career minded woman.”

              “Yeah.  I might seem like a modern girl, but I’ve got some old fashioned wants in me.”

              I turned back around.  “Yeah.  Me too. It will happen.  You’ll see.”

              “Listen to you, Miss Optimistic,” she said, pretending to punch me in the shoulder.  “Be optimistic about this coffee shop, too, will you?  Cup of Grace.  We named it the right name.  We are going to find our Grace for this thing.”

              I turned and looked at her again.  “Yeah.  We are, aren’t we?”

CHAPTER TEN

              I had just gotten out of the shower when the doorbell rang.  “Can one of you get that?” I called from the bedroom I shared with Jillian. When it rang again, I remembered they had gone shopping for more cleaning supplies for the shop.  That place was going to need a lot of cleaning supplies.  I sighed.  Was it worth it to open the door in my bathrobe and a towel turban wrapped around my wet hair?  Would I send someone screaming and running away by doing so?  I shrugged my shoulders.  Let’s see.

              Then there was a knock.  “Hold your horses,” I muttered and went to answer the door.

              “Oh!” I said when I stood face to face with Matt.

              “Oh!” he said taking in my bathrobe and towel turban.  “I—I can come back later.  I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he said, looking away.

              Awkward.  I was suddenly regretting having opened the door as I pulled my robe tightly around myself.

              “No, that’s okay,” I said.  “Come on in, and uh, have a seat. I’ll throw something on really quick.  I turned around and headed back to my room without checking to see if he had come in.  I threw on some clothes faster than lightning and re-emerged in record time.  I left the towel turban on.  There was only so much he could be expected to handle all at once.  I wasn’t wearing makeup, after all.

              “Sorry for disturbing you,” he said with a nervous laugh.  He was still standing up, looking awkward.  I guess I shouldn’t have put the poor man through that.

              “You’re not disturbing me,” I said and smiled, hoping I didn’t look completely ridiculous with the turban on.

              His cheeks had turned a bit pink, I noticed.  “It’s a nice day, isn’t?” he finally said after looking around the room again.

              “It is,” I agreed.  “Why don’t you have a seat?”

              “Oh, no, I have to get going, but um, I wanted to ask you something,” he said, hesitating.

              Oh my gosh, was he going to ask me out?  He had that uncomfortable look about him that may not have been from seeing me without makeup.

              “Would you like to, if you’re not busy I mean, go to dinner and a movie?” he finally finished.

              He did!  He asked me out!  The teenage girl inside of me wanted to squeal and call all her girlfriends.  And maybe start carving our initials in the tree outside.  Or at least write my first name with his last name all over my binder.  “Yes, I would love to!” I said, not caring if I sounded overly enthusiastic.

              “Really? That’s great!  That’s really great!” he said and continued to just stare at me.

              “Um, when?”

              “Oh, how about Friday night?  6:30?”

              That sounds great,” I said. 

We stood and looked at each other for a minute or so.  “Well, um, I guess I’ll get going then,” he finally said.

              “Okay, see you then,” I said and watched him trip over the threshold on his way out.

Friday was two days away.  I wasn’t sure how I was going to survive until then without exploding with excitement.

***

              I was standing in front of my bedroom mirror trying to look at myself from every angle.  Kathryn and Jillian stood behind me, checking out the sides I couldn’t see.  After trying on nearly everything I owned, I had settled on a cute floral print dress.  It wasn’t too dressy as we were going to Olive Garden.  Jillian had pried that information out of Matt.  Don’t judge.  We were both on a budget.

              I had worn the dress to a casual wedding last year and really liked the way it looked on me.  I decided I would have to start wearing it to church every now and then.  We were one of those modern, casual churches and since I wore business skirts and suits to work every day while working at the paper, it had been just too much for me to pull pantyhose on one more day of the week.  I know, some people think it’s disrespectful to wear jeans to church, but I think it’s worse to demand people that don’t have any money to go out and buy clothes they can’t afford.  We had a lot of inner city families in our church and I’m pretty sure God would rather see them come in jeans than not come at all.  Just my two cents.

              “Well?” I asked them as they looked on in silence.  “Oh forget it,” I suddenly said and pulled the dress off over my head faster than ice cream melts on a summer day in Texas.  I tossed it on the bed and started rummaging through all the outfits I had already tried on and discarded.

              “No, no!  What are you doing?”  Kathryn said, rushing over to me.

              “I can’t wear that. I look like a flower shop exploded all over me,” I said holding up a pink dress with a white belt.  “No, this will make me look like Mary had a little lamb,” and I tossed it on the floor.  Next I grabbed a black pantsuit.

              “Will you stop that!” Kathryn said sternly.  “The floral dress is perfect.”

              “Come on, Tara. You look really nice in that dress.  It’s not too fancy and it’s not too casual.  It’s perfect,” Jillian said, picking it up off the end of the bed and straightening it out.

              “No, I need something else,” I said, tossing the pantsuit on the bed.  I rummaged through more clothes, realizing that I had wrinkled nearly everything I owned by trying them on and dropping them either on the bed or the floor.  I doubted that I would have enough time to iron anything.  “Oh what will I do?” I wailed.

              “Here, put this back on.  You don’t have much time,” Kathryn said.

              I looked at her, near tears.  I wanted this night to be special.  “Do you really think it’s the right one?”

              “Yes!”  They both said together.

              I sniffed.  Maybe they were right.  I took one more look at the clothes scattered about and took the dress from Kathryn.  I gingerly pulled it back over my head and straightened it out.  I really did like it.  I decided right then that I would be wearing more dresses to church and that I would start with this one.  Well, except for the days I was too late in getting out of bed, of course.  I looked up at both of them, questioning.

              “Perfect,” Kathryn said.

              “I wouldn’t change a thing,” Jillian agreed, nodding her head.

              “I could always go with the little black dress?” I asked, starting to feel a little unsure of myself.  There was really no point in feeling that way.  I mean, he had already seen me in a HAZMAT suit.  There was no place to go but up after that.

              “No!” they said in unison. 

              “That black dress is too fancy for Olive Garden.  You’d look and feel completely out of place,” Kathryn said.

              “This is perfect.  The blue in the flowers matches your eyes,” Jillian added, leaning back against the doorframe.  She sighed,  “I wish I had a date.”

              “Oh, don’t be sad, sweetie. You know your turn’s coming.  When we get the coffee shop open, you’ll have your choice of guys.  And Christian one’s at that,” I said.

              The doorbell rang and I swallowed.  “Well, here goes nothing,” I said.

              “No, I’ll get the door and you wait just a couple of minutes before making your entrance.  You don’t want to appear desperate,” Kathryn said and headed toward the living room.

              “Answering the door will make me look desperate?” I asked Jillian.

              “Oh yeah,” she said, nodding in agreement.

              I shrugged my shoulders and went back to looking at myself in the mirror. 

              I could hear Kathryn greeting him and asking him how he was.  I silently counted to 30 Mississippi and decided that was enough.  I took a deep breath and headed toward the living room.