Page 52 of Fast and Dirty

“I bet more people would visit if you offered things like that though.”

I’m only partly paying attention to the next movie as the idea of the town residents gathering in the street won’t leave my mind. I can’t get the images of a closed off main street, relaxed smiles, and people enjoying good food and drinks. Going to the Crafty Coyote is fun, but a special event where the town comes together to celebrate being a community – okay, maybe Hattie’s onto something and my sappy idea of towns like this.

But I think of all the stiff-ass parties my mother had to host as part of her wifely duties. I learned a thing or two, sure… but could I pull that off? In a place like this where no one has crystal stemware rammed up their asses? Maybe…

“Can I ask you something?”I ask Hattie, as we maneuver our small but awkward load up the stairs. I don’t know her well, but I feel like since we hung out tonight, not to mention the teamwork we’re currently engaged in merits me taking another step towards a new friendship.

“You’ve been looking after my gramma when she wouldn’t let me, you can ask whatever you want,” she huffs, blowing a stray hair out of her face.

“Speaking of that,” I raise an awkward shoulder as we turn a corner. “Are you sure it’s okay that I’m staying here with her? I don’t want to horn in on anyone’s family.”

Hattie’s face turns from hard concentration to soft compassion. “Listen Kira… Gramma’s well…a stubborn weirdo,” she jostles said grandmother to demonstrate. Agnes just lets out a snort, blissfully unaware of Hattie’s hands under her arms. “As I’m sure you noticed,” she finishes. “She’s a spunky little pistol but she loves love, and is hell bent on seeing everyone she knows paired off. Especially those of us that are of this certain ‘ripe’ age as she calls it.” She takes another backward step up the stairs. “She refused to believe that anyone can be happy without a mate, and so when I told her I didn’t think the dating life was for me, at least not right now, she insisted she wouldn’t -”

“Enable you by letting you live with your elderly grandmother?” I finish for her.

“More like she didn’t want to twat-block me,” she corrects.

I nod as I carry Agnes’s legs up another couple of steps. “If she’s such an advocate for young love, I’m surprised she moved me in here, then.”

“Well for one thing, you were in a jam, with nowhere to go,”Hattie explains as we finally reach the summit of the stairwell, and she blows out an exhausted breath as we amble more briskly down the hall. “And for another, you had already bagged West - her words, not mine.”

I nod thoughtfully as we gently swing Agnes onto her pink and white polka dot comforter and Hattie positions a pillow under her head. “So what’s your secret?” Hattie steers us back to the original subject. “It’s just you and me, and Rip Van Winkle here.” She gestures to her sleeping, twenties era pimp grandmother as I cover her with a blanket.

“I will not live in a winnebago!” Agnes groggily announces, with her boney hand punched in the air.

After our crossfit-worthyworkout of dragging an old biddy up the stairs, Hattie and I decide we’ve earned another beer, opting to sit at the kitchen table this time so as not to wake the snoring Toby on the couch. There’s no way in hell we were going to attempt schlepping his stocky six-foot frame up those stairs.

“Do you think I’m a useless leach that’s barged into a town that I don’t belong in?” I pick at the label on my bottle.

“Honey, no…” she reaches forward to place a hand on my shoulder. “Why would you think that?”

“Because look how long I’ve been here and I haven’t made any kind of contribution.”

She patiently indulges me telling her about my interest in doing something with my life besides being a pretentious trophy wife. Something that would actually be putting something good out into the world - or at least my immediate community - but also something I’d enjoy the hell out of.

“If anything, I’ve just created destruction for the nice people of this town to deal with.”

Hattie’s shoulders slump with annoyance. “Again with the bakery?”

“Don’t forget Mr. Layton’s apple cart,” I hold up a finger.

“That wasn’t you,” her eyebrows pin together. “That was Mayor Wineberger on his motor scooter, everyone knows that.”

“But what everyone doesn’t know is that it was after he visited the coffee stand the one and only morning I worked there,” I rest my chin in my hand, mumbling into it.

Her eyes go wide. “Oh my God, did you serve him caffeine on accident?”

“No, Brenda served it to him. But only after I rearranged her coffee grounds in alphabetical order without asking her.”

“Oh…” Hattie’s face falls. “That makes sense. Brenda knows better than to serve that old guy caffeine, it gives him a wicked case of the zoomies.”

I nod along with her in silence before she suddenly raises her head.

“Hey… so you were just trying to be helpful…”

“Yeah, I mean, she knows her macchiatos like nobody’s business but her little hut was kind of a clusterfuck.”

She swiftly points her finger at me. “You have organizational skills. That could come in handy in this town.

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