AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
It's the first one where I'm not recycling anything from the old story (beyond, as I mentioned before, cast and some settings). So, I'm really excited about that! It's like a breath of fresh air. We're stepping out on our own now. Anything could happen (but I know what's going to happen is going to be great, and so much fun!).
I hope you enjoy the chapter! Let me know what you think!
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"OK," Carol said, approaching the table. "One extra-large coffee, black, in a to-go cup, for Michonne. One large iced vanilla bean latte, blended, with whipped cream for Alice. One cinnamon macchiato with extra cinnamon, and a snickerdoodle on the side, for Andrea. And—a coffee with cream for Carol."
Carol owned the Gypsy Rose Café in Living Springs, Georgia. Her business partner was a woman named Jacqui Ford. Jacqui was one of the Glory Gals, and Carol had met her when they'd both been taking business classes together. Jacqui had decided to take the business classes to fulfill a life-long dream of having a nice business that got her out from under demanding, and sometimes irrational, bosses and their unforgiving schedules. Carol had taken the business classes as part of her decision to reclaim her life after she divorced the man she'd been married to—a man who had abused her mercilessly—for well over a decade.
The Gypsy Rose Café was a dream come true for both women, and they treated it as such. They both worked hard to keep it going, and it thrived in the small town where it was, really, the only one of its kind.
There were three other Glory Gals in their little circle. Michonne was a no-nonsense lawyer who, despite having taken over her father's business, had made her own name in town. Andrea was a hairdresser who sometimes dabbled in makeup for her clients. And Alice was a local doctor and surgeon—since everyone in Living Springs learned to be a jack of all trades. She worked, currently, at the new hospital system that had only opened up about three years prior—proof that Living Springs was growing.
The hospital system, really, had done great things for the Gypsy Rose Café, as well, so Carol was pleased to see some of the growth of the little-town-turned-blossoming-small-city.
The Glory Gals were the best customers that the Gypsy Rose Café had. Like clockwork, they moved through the café throughout the day, always buying something when they were there. They grabbed a coffee here, a sandwich there, and a cookie or some pie to celebrate any minor milestone. As a result, they were natural advertisement for the café, and they brought in other customers by accident and on purpose. The other great thing about the Glory Gals was that they actually patronized Carol's business, and paid for their treats, instead of expecting her to slip them free food and beverages. Their patronage to the café was just one way that they showed support for Carol and Jacqui and, in return, each of them sought out the other Glory Gals when they had a need for the goods and services they offered to the community.
It had been Michonne, after all, that had handled Carol's divorce from the man who had made her life a living nightmare and still, frequently, haunted her subconscious and unconscious mind in a variety of ways.
Carol's friends were also more than happy to be her guinea pigs, so it wasn't unusual for her to force new possible dishes on them for opinions and feedback. The forced food, of course, was always an on-the-house treat in exchange for opinions and feedback. This morning, as soon as their ordered drinks were delivered, she pulled her notepad from her apron's pocket and sat at the table with them to record their thoughts on the samples she'd brought them.
"There's no caffeine in this, is there?" Alice asked, happily sucking on the straw of her beverage.
"Alice, made to order the way you like it," Carol offered, "the only thing that separates that from a milkshake is the freezing process."
"Excellent," Alice remarked. "I can sleep through sugar, but not caffeine. And I swear, the moment I get home, I'm going to sleep for the next forty-eight hours without moving. I don't think I'm even waking up for food."
"I'll bring you something to eat," Andrea offered. "I'll leave it on the kitchen counter."
"You really do love me," Alice teased.
"So," Carol urged. "What do you think? About the new stuff?"
"Honest opinion," Andrea mused, "was that—those eggs? Last week – the ones with the like spicy sausage and peppers and tomatoes? I mean it was heartburn hell, but it was like—hurt me, please. I'd go with that. I don't know how I feel about this trip to Little Italy, or whatever, for breakfast."
"Yeah, olives, a big thumbs down for me," Alice said. "She dramatically showed Carol her thumbs down, barely looking up from her phone where she was doing something, as she often was, and she blew a raspberry to add to Carol's understanding of her disapproval."
"I like this," Michonne said. "Not—maybe not necessarily at seven thirty in the morning, really, but I like it. I think I'd like some control over the ingredients, though. Like—maybe you offer a list of what you could put in it and then I could pick. That could get rid of Alice's olive thing."
"OK—nobody was listening to me," Carol said with a sigh. "Not a single one of you was listening. Andrea, the fiesta sunrise omelet is absolutely going on the new breakfast menu. But this is part of the lunch menu. Michonne—your feedback is good. We could definitely have an ingredient list with a build your own option. That opens up the possibility for—maybe even more variety and, like you said, that fixes your olive thing, Al."
"Oh," Andrea said. "Well, yeah. I mean—I'd eat this for lunch. Absolutely. I want something to—I don't know. Something to dip it in."
"That's good," Carol said, making a few notes on her pad. "What would you want to dip it in?"
"Ranch?" Andrea asked.
"You can't dip everything in ranch dressing, Andrea," Michonne chided.
"The only thing you can't dip in ranch dressing is ranch dressing," Alice offered. "Lose the olives, add the ranch, and I'd eat this. But don't get rid of my hot turkey sandwich, please. I like options, not forced change. And the Glory Gobbler has been like my go-to for years."
"None of the traditional menu items are leaving," Carol said. I guess—seeing that bistro in Snydersville, it just made me realize that the Gypsy Rose really needs to step up the menu options. Especially with the hospital system, and now they're remodeling the old college. That's going to bring in a lot of young people who are going to be looking for hip new foods."
"Is that a thing?" Michonne asked. "Hip foods? I swear—it's like no matter where you go, you can't miss the young and the hip. Whatever happened to love for the old and the comfortable?"
"I still love the Glory Gobbler," Alice offered. "But I mean—like you take technology. You take medicine. There's something to be said for the new, but there's a lot to be said for the old, too. Sometimes you just can't beat the tried and true. Or—even the experience that comes with, you know, with age. The wisdom that comes with age."
"That's the problem with almost everything these days," Andrea said, picking up her fork and clearly deciding to finish up the complimentary sample food from her plate and Alice's. "Everybody's so into the new. It's like—you just don't stand a chance, and people don't even realize that whatever's new now will just be old soon enough. Like give it time. Literally."
Carol laughed and slipped her notepad back into the large pocket of her apron. She looked up when the bell jingled over the door, and noted the first morning people slipping in before their official open at eight. The majority of them, at this hour and on a Monday morning, would be grabbing a coffee to go on their way to work. Jacqui greeted them warmly. For the time being, she could handle the drinks. She preferred the counter drinks to working the floor. She'd let Carol know if she needed her—and Carol would handle being the all-smiles and welcoming-words hostess to those who came in, soon, for breakfast and coffee, or brunch and coffee, because they were either off-work or retired.
"Are we still talking about food?" She asked, sipping her own coffee.
"Food," Michonne said. "Office technology—no don't text that, we prefer everything in digital document form. Don't worry that it adds a thousand more steps to your day and everything that can screw up, will."
"Techniques," Alice said. "Even though the old is sometimes best, the new sounds flashier. It's like some doctors would rather kill you, and have it sound good than save you by just—doing what the hell they knew how to do in the first place. It's called cutting-edge medicine."
"Cutting edge techniques at the Cutting Edge, too," Andrea teased. Her salon, the Cutting Edge, was just around the corner from the café. That made her the most common visitor among Carol's friends, because she frequently popped in when days were slow or she had an odd block of time between clients. "But it's not just that. I mean—let's face it. It's women, too. Gotta be the hot, young thing."
"Issues with Shane?" Michonne asked.
Shane was Andrea's long-time on-again-off-again sort of boyfriend. He was awful for Andrea, and all of them wanted to see her tell him goodbye for good. He was toxic to her self-esteem, mostly owing to the fact that he'd always been not-so-secretly in love with his best friend's wife – a woman they were sure he'd had an affair with at least once. He also tended to expect a level of perfection from Andrea that, realistically, no woman could achieve—at least not past the age of nineteen.
Andrea didn't respond, which was really response enough for all of them. She could only stretch the food she'd taken from Alice's plate for so many carefully chewed bites.
"He's an asshole," Michonne mused. She was the only one of them married, divorced, and on her second marriage. "Just like Dean was. I mean, really, the similarities are uncanny. You should get rid of his ass like I unloaded Dean. It's bad enough to have to deal with the whole world pushing you toward new technology and learning new computer programs, but it's something else to have to live with," she dropped her voice and leaned in a little like anyone grabbing coffee at the counter would pay them even the slightest bit of attention, "the worry over new pussies. Tight pussies. Whatever the hell he's on about this week. Meanwhile, they never want to hear about—bigger and better dicks when they're harping on tight, new pussies."
Andrea laughed to herself and Carol caught the quick smile that flitted across Michonne's lips. It was a smile she wiped away as quickly as it had come. She wasn't interested, really, in waxing poetic about dicks and pussies, but she was interested in making Andrea smile, and she'd accomplished that.
"Sometimes it's not just the new ones that are tight," Andrea offered with a shrug, tasting her own coffee. "Carol, here, spent half the day on Saturday walking like she'd just been on horseback for a week and bitching about how sore her flower was."
Carol raised her eyebrows at Andrea. The evil smirk, over the rim of the coffee mug, was the only response her friend gave.
"So as a diversionary tactic to keep from talking about your toxic boyfriend, we have to talk about my tender issues?"
"We can talk about Shane any day," Alice said, putting her phone down and fully leaning into the conversation for the first time since she'd come in and chosen her chair. As the only lesbian in their group, she considered herself the pussy expert, and very little got her attention like a spirited discussion about sex—no matter what kind of sex it might be. "But Carol's tender twat is not something that typically comes up over coffee."
"And it won't come up again," Carol said. "It was just a—thing."
"It must have been a hell of a thing if it had you walking like a bona fide cowgirl," Michonne said with a snort. "That could be a good thing or a bad thing."
Carol groaned.
"I do remember—it was uncomfortable. At first. But…it didn't end badly."
"So, why is it a one-time thing?" Michonne asked.
"Was he ugly?" Alice asked.
"I think—I remember he was ruggedly handsome," Carol said. "Actually, I don't really think I remember what he looked like, but I remember that I thought he was ruggedly handsome."
"Ruggedly handsome, sizeable contributions in the bedroom with a performance that you said didn't end badly," Michonne said. "If it was just a case of being saddle sore that's scaring you away, I can tell you from experience, with Ty, that things will adjust and a couple more laps around the arena will have you over that and sitting pretty."
Andrea snorted.
"A regular Dale Evans," she offered.
"I hate every last one of you," Carol said. "And I don't want to discuss this—or any of your ridiculous euphemisms anymore. It was a one-time thing because we were both drunk. He's probably mortified about the whole thing. And I don't even remember who he was."
"Did you call him?" Andrea asked.
"There's a number?" Michonne asked.
"I can't call him," Carol said, shaking her head.
"Give it to me," Alice said. "I'll call him. No—I'm serious. I'm great at this. I could find out whatever you want to know."
"We could stalk him later," Andrea offered. "If you find out who he is. I don't have anything after four if I don't have any walk-ins. I could close up early for a good cause."
"We're not calling or stalking anyone," Carol said. "He was just looking for what he got. That's all. He doesn't want—strings."
"He left a number," Andrea said. "He practically left a rope, Carol Ann. It's you who's afraid of strings."
Carol sighed. She drank her coffee, but it wasn't good anymore. There was a churning uneasiness in her gut that she wasn't quite ready to explain or to face.
"You know I don't—believe in that kind of thing. Not after Ed."
"We're not talking about marriage, Carol," Alice said with a sigh.
"Right," Andrea said. "We're talking about taking the stud out of the barn for a little while. Having a little fun."
"He was drunk," Carol insisted. "He's not interested."
"You'll never know until you call him," Andrea urged.
Carol felt her face run warm and her stomach churn. She'd looked at the number a dozen times since Saturday morning. She'd tried to search it online, but she'd only gotten back the information that it was a number provided by a cell phone provider that was popular in the area. She had the piece of paper stuffed in the front pocket of her purse, even now, and even though she told herself she would never call it.
He wouldn't be interested, anyway, and even the novelty of sex would wear off quickly. Carol had never really liked the idea of casual sex anyway, and her ex-husband, Ed, had taught her that men were dangerous, unpredictable creatures.
She'd escaped Ed with her life. She didn't need to get back into that kind of bad situation.
Of course, the stranger she recalled hadn't done anything she hadn't asked him to do. In fact, if she remembered correctly, he'd done everything she had asked him to do, though knowing that she'd made requests of him only made her cheeks burn hotter.
Carol pushed herself, abruptly, up from her chair.
"You better check the time," she said. "I know at least two of you need to get to work soon. And—I've got to start handling the breakfast crew before Jacqui kills me."
Her friends looked disappointed, but they accepted that she was ending the conversation. All manner of wallets came out and Carol collected the cash that was offered to her.
"I'll bring change," she offered.
"Keep it," was the primary chorus she got in response.
"If you're feeling old school," Alice offered, standing up and stretching dramatically, "run down to the payphone outside Sam's station and use it to make a phone call on us."
Carol didn't miss her smirk, or her wink, and she ignored both of them as she began clearing the table.
