One Foot In The Gravy by Delia Rosen Read Free Book Online

And, like Dad, I wanted to be away from my significant other. In this case, though, Phil Silver, my husband, was equally happy to be rid of me. I took my cats, I took my original name, I resigned from the accounting firm of Schneider & Stempel, and I moved into the forty-year-old colonial my father and his brother shared on the unfortunately named Bonerwood Drive. I had just enough money to gut the two bedroom place and make it habitable for a non-man-slob.
    I didn’t see my father a lot over the years—he was big on letter-writing, a holdover from the Air Force, and I saved them all—and when I did visit I didn’t get to see much of Nashville. Still, I noticed that the city had changed a lot between then and now. It was no longer a few blocks long and all about twangy country music, the Hank Williamses and Roger Millers and even the Glen Campbells. It was sprawling and taller and it was about all music and entertainment. People from New York and Los Angeles and Chicago and Philadelphia had relocated here. They had changed the dynamic, making it more cosmopolitan. That influx was also what kept my father going. He gave them a taste of home. They gave him a living he enjoyed. It was what my bubbe used to call chochem —being a genius due to luck.
    I don’t have quite his passion for this business, but I do love business . As long as I have Thomasina to handle the deli—and I do, since one of the stipulations of my inheritance was that I retain her until she wanted to leave—I’m pretty content.
    Especially when I have something like the Hoppy death to add some kosher salt to the week.
    I walked in as Newt, on the grill, was saying to Thom, on the register, “What kind of a name is Lolo anyway?” He saw me walk in and repeated the question.
    “You askin’ a girl nicknamed ‘Nashville’ to explain a name?” Thom laughed.
    “It’s short for her maiden name, Lollobrigida,” I told him. “She’s a distant relative of the Italian movie star.”
    “Never heard of her,” Newt said. “Was she hot?”
    “She defined the term,” old Mr. Crowley said from his seat at the counter. “She had what we called ‘bosoms.’”
    “We call them that too,” Thom pointed out.
    “We do?” Newt said, his face ruddy from the heat lamps.
    “In this restaurant we do,” Thom said with an edge of menace. “How is the grand dame?”
    Thom said it like it’s spelled, possibly being ironic, possibly because she didn’t know any better.
    “She’s fine,” I said and slapped the check on the cash register as I walked toward the back room.
    “Hoooo-eee!” Thom shouted.
    “Any tips?” Newt asked hopefully as I passed.
    “Buy low, sell high,” I said. Ordinarily I don’t swing at the easy ones but, as I suspected, the country boy had never heard that. And didn’t get it when he did.
    I closed the door to my small office and sat on the worn vinyl cushion on the precarious old swivel chair. One day I’d have to get over the sentimental value and replace it. It had belonged to my father and was one of two chairs crammed in the room. The other one, on the back end of the desk—where the Good Luck Troll and framed photos of various Jackson kin resided—belonged to Thom, who had run the place while Murray tried to write and sell music. It was in much better shape since Uncle Murray was rarely in it.
    I moved aside an empty plate; I’d been gloomy about my love life the night before and had eaten a sliver of cheesecake. I didn’t do either often—brood or indulge—but sometimes I felt a little lonely down here. That feeling came back as I flipped open my cell phone and looked at it for a moment. Did I really want to call Grant Daniels? The detective and I had enjoyed a torrid little fling that threatened to become more. Both of us had just ended relationships, and neither of us particularly wanted another. But when you start calling each other pet names, it’s time to get serious or cool it.
    We chilled. But I really