Page 45 of Common Grounds

“Yeah,” I breathe. “Next time.”

***

I run from the coffee shop to the diner, already late for the interview I scheduled with Donna today. I can’t believe I lost track of time. I hate being late, and I especially hate it when it’s an interview I scheduled.

Luckily, Donna doesn’t seem to care too much. She’s set herself up in a booth near the door with a cup of diner coffee. There’s one in front of my seat, too, which I push away as surreptitiously as I can once I’m seated.

“No coffee for you today, hun?” Donna asks. I should have known better. She misses nothing.

“I’m good,” I tell her as I get my notebook and pen out of my bag. When I look up, she’s eyeing me like she doesn’t believe me.

“I was working at the coffee shop before I got here,” I admit.

She smiles knowingly, her ice-blue eyes twinkling. She pushes back from the table and folds her arms. “Ahh. I never could compete with their coffee.” She chuckles. “Never wanted to, actually. There’s something about a terrible cup of coffee from a diner that has people all nostalgic or something.” She winks at me, and I chuckle.

I set up my notes on a blank page, then tap the end of my pen against it. “I wanted to talk to you because you spoke passionately about the coffee shop the other day when I was in here. I’ve never heard you mention it before that day, even though I’ve been coming in here for years. Why’s that?”

She turns her gaze upward and takes a deep breath. “Oh, I don’t know. When David passed, it hit us pretty hard. Me and my husband, I mean. That shop and this diner are the only two original businesses left in this area. I’m closer to David’s father’s age than to his, and to see someone so young leave us so soon…” Donna trails off. She looks at me and shrugs as if I can fill in the end of that sentence myself. I can, and I can also tell that she doesn’t want to continue, so I switch gears.

“Did you know Trevor’s grandfather well?”

“Not terribly well, no. There were a lot of smaller businesses on this block when we opened. The tailor next door, the shoe shop next to that, then a general store…” Her face takes on an expression of nostalgia, and I smile softly at her remembering the good old days. But she moves her hand in front of her face, as if she could wave away the memories like smoke. “Anyway, all those businesses dropped off one-by-one. The buildings are still there, sure, but they’re different businesses now. Marko had retired by then, thankfully.” She kisses her knuckles and looks skyward, then back to me. “He would have had a fit seeing all those businesses close up shop. But David kept the place open despite these big businesses with their tall buildings cluttering up the block—probably in his father’s memory. I stopped in there once or twice at first, just to see if I could help, but he seemed to have everything under control. He had his boy there with him, too. Things seemed fine. Until that big place opened up down the street. I honestly thought he had shut it down and moved on until I heard you talking about it the other day.”

“What made you think that?”

Donna shrugs. “Never seemed to be anyone in or out of there.”

“Yeah, I suppose that’s why we’re here.” I smirk sarcastically, but Donna just studies me, all seriousness. I start to feel a little squirmy under her scrutiny.

Suddenly, she leans forward, and her intensity has me reeling back. “I read your articles, you know,” she says. “Every one of them, since the day you started at The Gazette.”

I nod. I absolutely do know this. She used to have one of my articles—my very first one from The Gazette—framed and hanging above the register, back when she thought for sure I was going to be famous or win a Pulitzer or something. When The Gazette downsized, I made her take it down. I’m positive she still has it somewhere. This woman has believed in me unconditionally since Cass, Vi, and I started coming in here a million years ago.

“The ones you write for Baker’s Grove Living aren’t as good.” She leans back in her chair again, punctuating the sentence.

“Uh, thanks?” I frown. I came here to talk about the coffee shop and its history in the community, not be chastised for my inability to write a half-decent story.

Donna looks at me like I’m an idiot for not understanding her. “This last one, though. It was better.” She says it as if she’s spelling it out for a five-year-old. She regards me with a heavy gaze. “What changed?”

I laugh a little nervously. “I’m not here to talk about my writing—”

“I’ll tell you what changed,” she cuts me off as if I weren’t even talking. I slam my lips shut. I’m actually kind of curious about what’s coming next. “You’ve decided to care about this neighborhood.” When I start to protest that I’ve always cared about this place, she waves it away. “Oh, that’s not what I mean. I mean you’ve started to care about this city. Your home. You always thought you were made for bigger and better things, and who knows. Maybe you were. But I could see it in you when you got the job at the magazine. It was beneath you to write about the smaller comings-and-goings of people. But now, suddenly, it’s not. You care. Why?”

“Jeez, Donna. I’m here to ask you questions, not the other way around.” I don’t exactly appreciate the way she’s dressing me down, and I’m not quite sure what I did to deserve it.

“It wouldn’t have anything to do with that boy, would it?” Now she’s smirking at me, and I don’t like that, either.

I open and close my mouth a few times, but I don’t have words to respond. Eventually, I settle on, “No.” Because it doesn’t. “My boss gave me this… challenge, I guess. He’s going to let me write something I want if this goes viral.”

“And what you want to write is something bigger and better than what you’re doing now.” It’s a statement, not a question. She crosses her arms again.

“Better than puppies and coffee? Yes,” I snap.

Donna points her finger at me. “You’d do well to acknowledge that these things matter to some people, and they matter a great deal. That boy grew up in that shop. His father owned it, and his grandfather before that. His whole life is tied up in that place, just like mine is here. I’d like to hope someone takes over this diner after I’m gone and saves it from some bulldozer and a shiny new high-rise, but that remains to be seen. Trevor is doing that. He has probably used his own savings to keep that shop afloat for as long as he can. If I were a betting woman, I’d put money on it. Just because something doesn’t matter to the whole world, doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. And now, it’s up to you to make that place matter to more people so he can keep his family legacy alive.”

“No pressure,” I mumble.

Donna dismisses that with a wave of her hand. “You’ve done harder things.” She thinks for a moment, then a wide grin spreads across her face, wrinkling her skin even more in the best possible, joyous way. “You’ll have a harder time evading that boy’s charm than writing a few more good articles, I bet.”

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