The Owl & Moon Cafe: A Novel (No Series) by Jo-Ann Mapson Read Free Book Online Page B

who’d driven drunk. The elderly clutching their chests because it was true, when your heart broke, it hurt. And all the lost souls who’d been turned out of institutions into the street when Reagan was in office, wandering, off their meds, ended up at CHOMP—the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula—as if it was their Mecca. This was the world she tried to feed, not a population she belonged to. The test had to be a mistake. They’d repeat it and that would be the end of her big scare. She poured Scotland’s hot water and smiled at Kiki Cooper, who was peering into the cold case. “Hi there, Kiki! What can I do you for on this soggy September day?”
    “Cookies. Iced oatmeal raisin if you have them. I have bridge group this afternoon and they can’t get enough of your baking. Better make it a dozen.”
    “Coming right up.”
    By ten the sleepy beachfront town fully roused itself. Shop doors unlocked. Compulsive shoppers cruised the wet streets. The bell on The Owl & Moon’s door rang and rang, delivering Pacific Grove’s population that needed a wake-up, a fill-up, or a cheer-up. Allegra loved all her customers, but she had a special spot in her heart for the seniors. They practiced tai chi in the park. They gave tours at the Monterey Bay Aquarium that Lindsay loved so much that Allegra had given her a membership for Christmas. They knew the steamy bits of Central Coast history. Where else could you find out that author Robert Louis Stevenson stayed here for three months to court the unhappily married Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne? The seniors were respected elders in Allegra’s tribe. They kept in shape by walking, and The Owl & Moon was their in-town oasis.
    But Allegra knew the sunny, happy stuff was only the town’s outer fabric. Behind that façade were people who had worked all their lives here, and now were forced to sell their Victorian homes that lined Laurel Avenue to Ocean View Boulevard and move to where the cost of living wasn’t so dear. It seemed like every six months another bed-and-breakfast conversion popped up. When she and Lindsay walked Khan, Allegra made sure to point out the widow’s walks atop houses, and to explain to her granddaughter how the wife of a sailor would stand there watching for her husband’s ship to return. That this town was once a fishing capital reaping huge profits from sardine and abalone sales must have sounded to Lindsay like a fairy tale, but Allegra wanted her to know more of the world than MTV and meth labs and astronomical housing prices.
    Allegra wiped tables, cooed over customers’ photos of new grandbabies, took phone orders, ran into the kitchen when she could to defrost cookie dough and get it into the oven.
    “Last night I dreamt I found car keys under a giant redwood tree,” Simon said as Allegra folded dried cherries into another batch of fudge. “What do you think that means, Allegra?”
    Before she could answer, Gammy said, “That you have a hole in your pocket, you fool,” as she harvested clean cups from the ailing dishwasher.
    “Bess,” he said, “you are the meanest old lady in this town.”
    Gammy didn’t so much as twitch. “Maybe so, but I’m still the one who makes out your paycheck.”
    “Mama!” Allegra said.
    “Mama what?” Gammy answered, walking away. “I’m only stating a fact.”
    “Simon, “ Allegra apologized. “She can’t help being cranky. Her legs hurt.”
    “I’m Teflon,” he said. “Your mother’s insults slide off me like a fried egg.”
    Allegra doubted that. She turned fudge onto the marble counter to cool. Through the order cubby, she saw Mariah dart from table to table, unsmiling, but committed. Her daughter was like that from day one, putting the square peg in the square hole. Not what Allegra expected when she’d given birth to her at age sixteen. Why couldn’t Mariah see that this job loss was a mere blip in her timeline? The reason this job had ended meant the universe had other plans