Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 134830 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134830 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Second, while we don’t have ordinances against home businesses, she spent an ungodly amount of time bitching about mine at the monthly city council meetings. They finally told her that there was nothing they could do under the existing guidelines, and for a bit, I was afraid she’d decide to run for office and make the rules herself, as a board member. Thankfully, that hasn’t happened, though I’m sure it’s still a possibility in her mind.
Third, there are no laws about commercial trucks driving down the road, despite her pleas (and likely contributions) to our representative in the State House. Besides, the vehicles that come down our street aren’t technically commercial. They’re big trucks for sure, even some long-bed dually trucks, and lots with trailers, but ‘commercial’ is a DMV classification that even Kathy can’t change.
She’s been thwarted at every turn, except one… loudly bitching at me and my customers to the point of daily uncomfortable confrontations.
But I won’t let her stop me.
I didn’t grow up with the goal of opening a home-based, to-go lunch business. No, my plan was to work in my family’s restaurant, helping my father with the daily flood of blue-collar workers who rushed in, slammed down food, and scurried out to continue the afternoon’s work. Our food and our recipes were honest, tasty, filling, and most importantly to our customers, inexpensive.
All that changed when Papa got sick, and rather than letting me run the restaurant the way I suggested, he decided to close it instead, putting us all out of a job.
Customers mourned, of course, but people always need to eat, so they moved on. Especially since hard-working guys require a lot of food. Every day. They especially need it at prices they can afford, from people they trust.
So, while I was pissed as a wet chicken at Papa, I quickly decided that I was the perfect person to fill that void. And I’ve done it in my own way.
By getting my home kitchen licensed as a cottage operation, I can cook for the masses each day, providing hearty, delicious, homemade meals that keep them working on full stomachs while bringing in enough income for me to pay my bills.
Although it seems to have pissed my neighbor off. But since she’s not the one paying my mortgage, I try to ignore her as best I can. Including today, when she’s part two of the reason Nessa is so late with my delivery.
I glare at the clock again, cursing how fast the minutes are slipping away.
I started cooking over an hour ago because my first pickup is usually at nine a.m. Thankfully, there are only a few crews that swing by that early, though. Most of the guys come closer to noon, lining up down the street from eleven until one for their daily lunches. The lineup is the problem, annoying Kathy on a good day or making her stomping, hollering livid on a bad one.
Because of course it does. Everything irritates her. She even complains about the squirrels and birds, for fuck’s sake. Not their noise, but that they supposedly chew on the wood trim of her house. I’ve seen birds and squirrels do all sorts of weird behaviors around the neighborhood, including playing chicken with the cars that speed down the street when it’s not blocked by my customers, but I’ve yet to see them chewing on someone’s trim. There’s more than enough other things to eat around here.
“You’re not gonna believe this,” I tell Nessa, loading an onion into my chopper and slamming the lever down to start making fresh pico de gallo. I glance up to make sure she’s listening before I share the information I got from spying into Kathy’s back yard, first from my kitchen window and then from my back patio where I didn’t even pretend to not be watching with eagle eyes. “She’s getting a pool!”
“Huh?” Nessa asks.
I nod, loading another onion from the pile Nessa brought. “A whole crew showed up this morning, unloaded an excavator, and started digging up piles of dirt. If she’d lived there longer, I’d be worried they’d find the dead bodies.”
Is Kathy a serial killer? No, probably not. But she is a widow whose adult children unsurprisingly don’t seem to come around very often. She’s not even nice enough to have cats, that’s how nasty she is.
Nessa looks aghast, her hands on her cheeks and eyes squeezed shut. “Oh, God! You know what that means, right?” She cracks one eye open the tiniest sliver. “You’re gonna have a direct view of Kathy in a swimsuit. The horror!”
Ugh! I hadn’t thought that far ahead, but she’s right. “I’ll add eye bleach to my daily shopping list from May till August.”
Nessa scribbles in the air like she’s making a note. Since she does my shopping for me every morning, it’d be valid… if eye bleach were an actual thing.