Read Online Queenie's Cafe by SUE FINEMAN - Free Book Online Page A

happen?”
    “No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me,” Laura said through clenched teeth. She felt like screaming, but she didn’t want to scream while there were customers in the café.
    Queenie’s harangue lasted several minutes, until Laura took the order out to her customers. “Your lunch, gentlemen. I’m sorry about the side show.”
    Charley said, “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”
    “You didn’t.”
    The two men were the only lunch customers. As soon as they left, Laura walked out of the café. Queenie hated her, but then Queenie hated everyone.
    Queenie yelled after her. “You’re not finished in the kitchen.”
    Laura wanted to yell back at her, to tell her if she kept chasing the customers out, she wouldn’t need help with anything. But she kept her mouth closed.
    She shook away her memories. It did no good to dwell on the past.
    Maybe Dad would know what to do about the motel and the partnership Luke offered. She went inside and called him. “Dad, how are things going there?”
    “Okay, I guess. What’s happening there?”
    “Frank Fosdick refused to even consider a loan, so I applied at a couple banks in Melbourne.”
    “Frank is a jerk.”
    “He sure is. He tried to push me into selling.”
    “If you sell, go through Carmen Messina. Frank will cheat you.”
    “I know. I told him I’d take my business elsewhere.”
    Laura walked around the counter with the phone in her hand. “There’s someone who approached me about a partnership. He suggested turning the motel into one-bedroom apartments. If I agree to the partnership, he’d also give me money to fix up the café. What do you think?”
    “About the partnership or the apartments?”
    “Both.”
    “The apartments might not be a bad idea. I’d have to know more about the partnership deal. Who is it?”
    “Luke Windsor. His mother is the one who won all that money in the lottery four years ago. She ran a little place like Queenie’s when he was growing up, so now they invest in other businesses.”
    “I heard about their corporation. Who would have control, you or the corporation?”
    “I don’t know yet.” She leaned on the counter and twisted the phone cord around her finger. “He said we’d need an estimate on the remodel costs and an appraisal.”
    “That makes sense. It might not be a bad idea under the right conditions. You can’t compete with the motel chains. You could pour money into the motel and still not compete with the chains.”
    As if she had money to pour into anything.
    “Luke is the silent partner in Bernie’s Place in West Palm Beach. We went there for lunch the other day. It’s a really nice place, Dad. Luke and Bernie designed it together. He seems to know what he’s doing.”
    “See if he’ll give you other references. Call around and check him out.”
    “Okay.” Laura sank into the chair behind the counter. “I really wanted to do it myself, but I don’t know.”
    “You can’t do it all yourself, Laura. You’ll work yourself to death and end up hating it there as much as I did.”
    She’d never known her father to be happy, but she thought that would change when he left Kingston. But he still didn’t sound happy. “Is everything all right there?”
    He didn’t answer right away, and when he did, his, “Sure,” didn’t sound very convincing.
    Were he and Florence getting along, or was it something else?
    <>
     
    The next afternoon, Luke arrived with a little boom box and a stack of old cassettes. Laura was surprised a wealthy man like Luke would keep anything so outdated.
    Ivy found several Elvis tapes in the stack. She wrinkled her nose. “You guys really listen to this stuff? Isn’t this from like back in the dark ages, like the fifties and sixties?”
    Luke glanced at Laura. “She wanted music and now she’s complaining.”
    Ivy started a tape and the three of them went to work. They finished the first coat of paint on the walls and put the second coat on the ceiling. That