Though the tours ramp up within a few hours of their return, and perhaps Kidwell might have been expecting something from him today, Jeremy crashes until well past noon. It doesn’t much matter, because nothing requiring his intervention happens, and anyway the owner of this property is nowhere to be seen.
His absence is puzzling, but must indicate more pressing business elsewhere – considering how stoked about this whole tour concept he has been, up to this point. At the very least, however, he apparently cajoled the tall, orange haired, feminine acting kid from the Fairlawn Diner into pitching in at the kitchen, as the lad shows up around six in the morning, claiming such. Denise, who has willingly decided to augment poor Grace’s overworked role during these tours, at least today, walking around under her own volition and mingling with everyone, is at the café making breakfast when she spots him behind the counter.
“Hey!” she cheers, calling out to him, “I’m surprised to see you here! Although…I guess I didn’t realize your hair is, like, dyed bright orange. I thought it was actually orange orange, like naturally.”
“Mmm, it mostly sorta is. I think. At this point it’s kinda hard to even remember what I originally looked like,” he tells her with a laugh. “If I remember right I went blonde, and then a whole bunch of other colors and now back to…pretty much where I started?”
Denise nods, but then, observing the gold plated, Fairlawn Diner name badge he wore, atop his actual uniform from there – which is just a plain white dress shirt, tucked into black slacks – and observes the name, Nick, which strikes her as odd. “Nick, huh? That’s funny, I was thinking your name was like…Evan or something.”
“Yeah, it all depends. Basically whoever’s name badge I find lying around, that’s who I am that day,” he chortles, looking down at it. “Today I’m Nick. Was there ever an Evan there?” he attempts to recall, “yeah, there must have been an Evan there. Maybe.”
As they chat, this middle-aged, yuppie looking dad with three small children approaches. He’s glancing up at the day’s lunch menu, written in chalk on a blackboard, hanging by some rustic looking string from the ceiling. He has his arms loosely around the kids in the manner of someone who doesn’t intend to stick around this vicinity long. Ben happens to be nearing the counter himself, from behind it, bringing a tray of breakfast food to some woman and her teenage daughter.
“Going for an ironically downhome menu today, huh?” the man says to Ben, pointing at today’s offerings of burgers, fries, chicken tenders and so on. “I like it, I like it. Clever!”
“Uh…yeah, that’s it,” Ben says, offering a weak smile. “Glad you picked up on it.”
Only after the man has whisked his kids away and is out of earshot does Ben scoff, under his breath, “ironically downhome.” Then, turning to his lone helper, asks, “have you actually talked to Harry Kidwell recently? I can’t seem to reach the guy. He needs to get some freaking help in here! If this keeps, up, I mean…we’re easily doing double the business we did last week. Easily.”
“Yeah, well, I mean he stopped in at the diner one day. Let’s just say I couldn’t resist his offer,” Nick jokes, rubbing his thumb and first two fingers together. “As far as anyone else, eh…I guess they’re not that curious.”
“If you guys need a hand, I mean, I’m not doing anything. Not of substance, anyway,” Denise volunteers. “Let me wolf this down real quick.”
“Really? That would be awesome, Denise. We’ll hook you up somehow,” Ben tells her. Then, turning to Nick, continues, “that’s great, he made you a killer offer and all. Now if only he’d extend that to maybe ten or twelve other people…” before walking away, still muttering as he returns to his post in the kitchen.
Nick and Denise share a laugh, though she continues to inhale her food right where she stands. “You know, that’s kind of related to what I was just about to tell you,” he advises, with the air of someone on the edge of revealing a secret.
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“Well,” he raises one eyebrow and glances around, nodding vaguely at the café behind them, then says just above a whisper, “I basically just wanted to see the place. For the most part, though, okay…let’s think about what’s missing. You’ve got pretty much everything you need here, everything you would expect, right?”
“Yeah…,” Denise trails off, still unsure where he’s going with this.
“Okay, and so yeah, these tours might draw some folks from the area in, to breeze through real quick before they, like, speed walk back to their cars. But what’s one thing you would expect to have here, that you don’t?”
He says this with a self-satisfied little smirk, letting the question hang there while she ponders it. Finally she shrugs and admits, “I don’t know, what?”
“Locals,” he says with a broad smile, holding up one index finger. “Hasn’t anyone noticed that there aren’t any locals actually living here?”
“Hmm!” Denise offers, nodding at his flash of insight, impressed by this. “No, I guess not. But you’re right.”
“Okay, there’s a reason for that. That’s all I’m gonna say. There’s a reason for that. And you might wanna look into it.”
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