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Heartbreak requires concentration. If you forget for a moment that you've been dumped, you might enjoy a bit of sunshine and then, wham, you remember. Then you feel bad about being dumped all over again. I needed to stay depressed, but I couldn't think of anything in Archers Rest that was bad enough to keep me that way.
CHAPTER 7
Archers Rest, like a lot of towns on New York's Hudson River, was first established in the 1600s by Dutch settlers. The head of the group was man named James Archer, who died the first winter. He was buried in a small field on the edge of a town that in the nearly four hundred years since grew into a large a cemetery, with almost seven thousand graves. Since Archers Rest had only five thousand living residents, there were more dead than alive in the little town.
I thought it was a delightfully morbid fact about the town, but my grandmother dismissed me. "It's big enough that you don't know everyone but small enough that even strangers have friends in common," she had told me once. And everyone had friends in the cemetery.
Archers Rest runs along the river, so we followed the river's edge from my grandmother's house to Main Street. We turned down the street past the hardware store, a pharmacy, and the post office.
As we got to the end of the street I saw Someday Quilts just ahead. Inside lights were on and Nancy was in the doorway changing the sign from CLOSED to OPEN.
"Why doesn't Nancy come to your quilt club?" I asked.
"She does when she can," Eleanor said tiredly, as though this were old territory for her. "Her husband isn't well and it's difficult for her." She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. "Sometimesshe likes to leave a little early on Friday. She closed the shop an hour early yesterday."
"She just wanted to get home?" I asked.
"Perhaps." Eleanor looked at me. "I believe you said you were hungry. So I expect you to eat plenty."
My stomach was making quiet rumbling sounds that were about to get a whole lot louder. But in a typical bit of grandmother irony, we arrived at the one restaurant in town that made me nearly lose my appetite-the diner next to her shop.
The place seemed old and tired. At the front were four small Formica tables with two chairs each, and every one was taken. Past them were booths on either side. The seats were reddish-brown leatherette, but small rips at the seams revealed hints of the bright red they must have been thirty years before. There was a sign on the wall that a
"I can't believe this place still exists," I said. "Has the food improved?"
"It's not about the food. It's about the people," my grandmother said as we walked in. "The owner was good to me when I opened the shop, and I like to support her."
Natalie and Susa
"It's a shame this place is closing," my grandmother said.
"Carrie was talking about opening up a coffee shop. This would be a good space," Natalie offered.
"Oh, she's just talking," Susa
"Who wouldn't?" interrupted Natalie. "It must be so exciting to live in New York City and have a cool job and go out to fancy restaurants all the time."
"Yeah, it must be," I laughed. "Most of the time I eat a salad in my cubicle."
"What are you talking about? Eleanor said you work at a news magazine. I don't read it, but it sounds glamorous. My husband and I are pretty simple high school graduates." She laughed. "A hairdresser and a mechanic. Nothing glamorous, like your life."
"That's nonsense. There's nothing simple about either of you," her mother interrupted. "Anyway, where does glamour get you? Carrie gets ideas in her head all the time about opening a business. Last year it was an antique shop, this year it's a coffee shop."
"Last year it was a child care business. The antique shop was the year before," Natalie corrected her.
"Regardless," said Susa
It was like being at a te
"She doesn't go through with it," Susa
Then they switched topics, talking about a favorite quilt show they all watched. My food had arrived, so I kept busy wolfing down pancakes and bacon. Only baby Jeremy had less concern for etiquette.
"How do you stay so thin?" marveled Natalie, watching me.
"Depression eating." I laughed, but I put down my fork.
"You're allowed," Susa
Both Susa
"Yes. This weekend." My grandmother suddenly sounded stern. "After this weekend you have to get on with your life. He made a big mistake, and gaining twenty pounds won't change that."
She was right, of course, but rather than admit it, I changed the subject. "What will happen to this place if Carrie doesn't buy it?"
"She won't," said Susa
"Turn it into a hip little restaurant like they must have in your neighborhood," said a suddenly excited Natalie. "Put in WiFi and serve chai tea."
"Are you speaking English?" Susa
Natalie just rolled her eyes. "They'll make it like a city place, is what I'm saying."
I looked around. It wasn't impressive. Even though it was a diner, it would still have to be stripped to the joists to turn it into the kind of trendy place the women thought it would become. I had a better idea.
"Why don't you take it?" I asked my grandmother.
"Me? What do I need with a diner?"
"Expand the shop." I looked around again. Since it needed a major remodeling, it could be anything. "You could knock down the wall between your place and this and double your selling space."
"Someday is packed to the rafters, El," agreed Susa
Eleanor looked around the diner. "Needs work," she said.
We all nodded. It was impossible to ignore that it was a big job. "Well, maybe it is too much for you," I started to agree.
She looked at me. Even Natalie and Susa
"Could be done," Eleanor finally admitted. "Where's the bill? I need to go to work."
Susa