Seasons of love
-Stevie Wonder
It was Halloween and Lacey had tried, she had really tried to decorate the diner; but other than Hank claiming she'd turned it into a gay bar (again), no one noticed. Not that pink skeletons weren't scary, they were just more deeply unsettling than anything else.
Lacey leaned over the counter, the low bodice of her dress affording Karen a view she wasn't sure she wanted. "So, no one you've been longing for then? No one whose touch you secretly crave?"
Karen looked askance at Lacey and the change in subject from well-brewed coffee. "Uh, no." she said. "Is this like the time you thought Davis and I were going on a date instead of a First Aid course?"
"No, nothing like that. Maybe someone... closer to home?" Lacey said, and dear god, thought Karen, she was trying to wink.
"Well, my nearest neighbor is Fitzy, so that's another no." Karen said, avoiding looking at Lacey altogether.
"Someone you may not have noticed, initially, but then found yourself looking at in a different way?" Karen glanced up and Lacey was never going to be able to wink but Karen just couldn't bring herself to tell Lacey that. The look of crushed defeat would make her feel too bad.
"Really Lacey, the only person in Dog River I've ever been attracted to was Hank with his sexy fish talk. And of course Brent, but he's just so far out of my league. The bachelors in this town are so scarce…" Karen let off a sigh, full of wistfulness.
"Maybe I'm not talking about a bachelor," Lacey hinted gently.
"What are you getting at?" Karen asked suspiciously.
"Oh, nothing. " Lacey said, lifting her elbows off the counter and wiping it down. "Just wondering, is all." Karen sipped her third cup of coffee for the morning thoughtfully.
Karen didn't give it a second thought after that, or so she thought. It was brewing in her subconscious. Was there someone she'd unintentionally flirted with, laughed too long at their jokes, spent too much time with, brushed up against accidentally. Eventually she figured that Lacey must have meant that Oscar had a crush on her.
And then she stopped thinking about it altogether, other than avoiding Oscar a little more. Well, as much as she could with his constant stream of complaints. She wondered how she hadn't seen it before. It was almost sweet, in a pathetic sort of a way.
Thanksgiving was awkward with Davis around; no one was ever quite sure how to act around him at that time of year. Eventually there was a town Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone was there and someone was ostentatiously playing footsie with Karen under the table for most of the meal.
Christmas was uneventful; other than a kiss under the mistletoe in the darkened diner. The lights went out just before midnight, and it could have been anyone. Karen couldn't figure out who it was from, but she wasn't bothered, because she knew for sure it wasn't Hank.
It was almost flattering, because she'd been standing under the mistletoe a full five minutes beforehand and got nothing. Zip. Nada. It was almost sweet, someone too shy to kiss her in harsh florescent lighting.
It was Valentine's Day before Karen thought about it again. She got an unsigned Valentine and sighed. She'd have to talk to Oscar, or Emma, or someone. Make sure this didn't happen again. She did, however, put the roses in a vase. It wasn't often she got roses; ever, in fact. It made her feel… attractive.
Karen hadn't felt attractive since she moved to Dog River. It was a feeling she wanted to hold onto, no matter who the roses came from.
But when she went around to the Leroys' to get Oscar out of a swimming pool hole he'd been digging with a shovel, he didn't act differently than usual. Just as cantankerous and cranky as ever. And he didn't mention the flowers, which was odd, because Emma wasn't even there and Oscar wasn't known for not claiming an act that made him look good.
So Karen crossed Oscar off the list.
Davis was too excited by everything to be able to keep a secret, so it wasn't him, or anyone that'd confided in him.
Wes didn't even try to sell her any insurance when she went to the liquor store to check an ID. She thought the fake ID might have been a ploy to seduce her, but Wes just looked disappointed in the foot-shuffling teen.
Brent and Wanda didn't even look up when she went in to pay for gas. They were too absorbed in fixing the ping of the register.
"If you jiggle the whatsit clockwise," Brent was saying, but was cut off by Wanda jamming the upper half of her torso in the machine. Karen just put the money on the counter and wandered over to The Ruby.
"So, Happy Valentine's Day," Lacey said in that overly cheerful way she had, pouring a coffee into Karen's outstretched mug.
"For some, maybe," Karen mumbled.
"Didya get anything?" Lacey asked, smile firmly in place.
"Yeah," Karen said, tugging the card out of her pocket and sliding into a bar-stool. "Any idea whose handwriting this is? Got some cheques I can check out"
"Ha!" Lacey said, putting the coffee pot down. Karen looked at her suspiciously, expecting it to be some joke, that someone had sent her a Valentine as some sick joke. "Check the cheques," Lacey offered lamely. "And no, I don't. Isn't that an invasion of privacy or something?"
"Only if I'm asking for them to solve a crime and I don't have a warrant." Karen replied promptly.
"You really know your laws," Lacey said, looking impressed as she refilled Karen's cup for the second time.
"Well, police. Laws. They go together," Karen shrugged. "Thanks for the coffee."
"Wait, don't you want this back?" Lacey asked, holding out the card. Karen shrugged and took it from Lacey. This mystery was taking too long to figure out, and she wasn't even sure if it was a mystery. It could be a set of coincidences. Maybe she'd just leave it. Surely whoever this admirer was would give in soon and come out in the open.
Still, when she got home, she changed the roses' water and sat them on the table, staring at them as she thoughtfully chewed her Kraft dinner.
On Saint Patrick's Day Lacey was wearing green and a shirt that read 'Kiss me, I'm Irish'. Karen was confused, because she was pretty sure that Lacey wasn't Irish at all, but she shrugged it off and accepted some green cookies and some weird green-black coffee that stained her teeth. She didn't ask about the shirt though, because she could tell Lacey was busting for her to say something about it.
After her fifth refill she finally caved and asked, mostly because Lacey looked fit to explode if she didn't ask.
"Oh, no reason," Lacey said, smiling. "It just doesn't hurt to advertise in this town. That you're single."
At the word single a line of truckers looked up and started cat-calling. Lacey sighed and stepped out back.
When Karen came back for her seventh refill, Lacey was wearing one of her cutesy retro diner shirts. Karen thought she looked better in the tee.
On Earth Day the diner was dimly lit with candles. When Karen pointed out the barbaric practices of wax collection from bees, Lacey looked even more disgruntled than usual.
The atmosphere was nice though.
"So, you still don't have a crush on anyone?" Lacey asked, leaning closer in what she probably thought was a confiding manner. Karen shook her head.
"No, because I'm not in grade school," Karen snorted, rolling her eyes and trying not to think about the pressed roses in her phone directory.
"Well, I do," said Lacey, leaning in an extra couple of inches. Karen drew back.
"Wait… it was you?" Karen asked.
"Me what?" Asked Lacey.
"You that kissed me at Christmas, and sent me that card, and those roses." Karen was kind of adorable when she was confused, Lacey thought.
"Well, dur." Lacey said, and leaned in the remaining few inches. Karen was too surprised to pull away until Hank and Brent walked in (but mostly because Lacey tasted like coffee)and Lacey moved away from her. Karen touched her lips. For someone so often tongue tied she had untold tongue skills that Karen was probably the first person in Dog River to learn about.
"Lacey, you got to stop turning this place into a gay bar," Hank wailed again. Lacey just turned her best glare on him before sliding into the booth next to Karen and kissing her again. Karen didn't even mind. 'Mystery solved,' she thought to herself as she bought her hand to wend its way through Lacey's hair to cradle her face the way she'd been wanting to since the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.
Author's note: My Canadian Care package came with a Corner Gas shirt and it is amazing, much like the show. They veered away from seasonal holidays so this seemed feasible.