Page 42 of Just Trouble

She looks at my card. “Empire. Should I know where that is?”

“North of Lake Erie, most of the way to Windsor.”

Her eyes narrow and her eyes flick, as if she’s reviewing some private map of her own. “There are greenhouses down there.”

“Mostly tomatoes and sweet peppers. Cavendish Enterprises.”

“And a vineyard.”

“Rhodes Vineyards is the biggest one.”

“There’s another?”

“One of the Cavendish clan has a start-up with fruit wines.”

She dismisses this with a gesture. “Other farms?”

Belatedly, I see what she’s getting at and feel dumb. She’s achef. She cares about local sources of food. “Oh, yes. The farmers’ market in Havelock, the next biggest town, featuresorganic produce, locally-made cheeses, meats raised without hormones locally, and a lot of heritage varieties...”

She opens the door so abruptly that I almost fall over, then waves me inside with impatience. It’s cool and dark, and the emptiness echoes a little. Tables and chairs are stacked to one side and the floor is big enough to dance. “They’re picking up the chattels tomorrow,” she says, inviting me to take a seat. “I’m just packing up my own things today.” She fixes me with a look. “I had a feeling I should be here.”

“Are you psychic?”

“No. I just smell when opportunity might come knocking.” She smiles. “Sometimes I wait too long for it to show up. Tell me about this place you’re trying so hard to unload.”

I do. I have the pictures I took of Queen Street, the front of the diner, even Big Red. I show her the parking space behind the diner, the loading dock, the empty apartment on the second floor, everything else before the diner itself. I’m worried that the sight of its neglect will nix the deal, but she pounces on the pictures of the interior. She rattles off questions faster than I can answer them, demanding to know how many seats, how much fridge and freezer capacity, is that a pizza oven, how long has it been closed, when was the wiring last updated, how big is the town, and just when I think there’s no way she’ll go for it, she pauses and sits back.

“What other restaurants are in town?”

I wince. “None.”

“None?” She’s visibly incredulous.

“We don’t have a donut shop or any fast-food places.”

“You have to have a Tim Hortons.”

I shake my head.

“No Golden Arches?” She’s incredulous, like most teenagers in Empire.

Again, I shake my head. “People have to go to Havelock for that, even for a grocery store. There’s a convenience store in town that has some essentials and there’s a taco truck there on Fridays.” I point it out on my map but she’s not interested. The glance at the map, though, reminds me of something. “Oh, and The Golden Lotus is open Fridays.”

“The Golden Lotus?”

I point it out. “Chinese-Canadian smorgasbord.”

She smiles at that, although I don’t know why.

“It’s a buffet,” I explain. “Or it used to be. All you can eat.”

“I know what a smorgasbord is, but that’s a Scandinavian word. It should have pickled herring and rye bread, not beef chow mein or General Tso’s chicken.”

I see her point. “Well, that’s what they’ve always called it. But Mr. Chang died and Mrs. Chang wasn’t doing so well on her own, so one of their sons came back from Toronto. I think Phil has a lot to manage with his mom’s care, so he’s only open for take-out on Friday nights, but not always even then. That’s why I forgot about it. He’s an engineer, but his dad taught him to cook.”

This is way too much information and I know it, but I’m not sure what she wants to know.

She tilts her head to look at me, reminding me of a bird. “Where does he shop?”

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