Chapter Twenty-Eight

Brandy

“What in the hell ?”

I stood in stunned silence as I watched my grandmother, who for the entire time I had lived with her since coming back had moved like she was half stuck in molasses, whirling around the shop like a woman a third of her age. She was chatty and laughing and making sandwiches with the expert hands of someone who’d done it for fifty years of her life.

A growing line of people from around town were starting to snake a line out of the door, and the camera crew was everywhere, zooming in on her as she worked, completely ignoring them, but seemingly aware they were there. It was like everything she had been acting like for years was a lie, and she had just revealed it all to be one big joke. My jaw dropped as she calculated the price of an order with modifications in her head, took the cash, and made change without skipping a beat.

“Okay, so, yesterday, she was a feeble, forgetful woman,” Basil said. “So who the hell is this?”

“Grandma?” I shouted.

We were standing in the doorway of the back door, watching her from behind as she worked. She spun around to see us and waved excitedly, then went right back to the line.

“Should… should I go help her?” Basil asked.

“I…. I don’t know.”

“Brandy,” Grandma shouted over her shoulder, “we need more green peppers! Can you chop some up?”

“All right.” I added quietly, “Basil, you chop the peppers. I’m getting to the bottom of… all this.”

“On it,” Basil said, heading to the closet to get an apron and wash her hands in the sink back there.

I marched up to the counter to get a closer look at Granny and what she was up to. Sure enough, she was moving like she used to, back when I was a little girl and would watch in awe as she mowed through lines of customers without breaking a sweat. Boxing up their lunches and adding the little twine bow with a quick, smooth movement that was ingrained from years of doing it over and over. It always looked perfect.

“Marshall,” she called from behind the counter, adding the twine just like usual.

A man came to the counter, and she handed the boxed lunch over, along with two more that had been set aside.

“All right, thank you now,” she said sweetly, then looked to the woman who was standing at the register. “One moment, please. I’ll be with you as soon as I catch up on these.”

“Grandma?”

“Oh, perfect! Brandy, why don’t you hop on the register? My, you sure have gotten bigger since I last saw you. Not in a bad way, dear. New York must have been good for you. I worried you wouldn’t be able to eat.”

Ah, right. I forgot about Granny’s accidental insults. Tried to forget them, at least.

“Granny, what are you doing?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, filling a new box.

“What are you doing here ?”

“It’s Monday, love. I’m at work, like usual.”

“Granny, it’s not Monday, it’s Friday, and you haven’t worked here in a decade.”

She laughed airily and turned back to the kitchen area.

“I could use those peppers, dear!” she shouted, then turned back to me. “Your mother is not very good at prep work. Never has been. Now I do have a question for you, though. These friends of yours with the cameras… how long will they be here? Are we going to be on the news?”

“I… No, Granny. We’re not going to be on the news. And these are not my friends. They shouldn’t be here.”

“Oh, dear, they’re not bothering anyone. It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not,” I said.

Behind her, I caught sight of a camera moving from side to side to keep us both in frame. I made a face into the lens and heard the cameraman audibly grunt.

“Where is Phil?” I asked.

The cameraman either ignored me or pretended he didn’t know I was talking to him.

“Who, dear?” Granny asked.

“Not you, Granny,” I said. “You. Camera guy.”

I pointed directly into the lens, and he finally stopped bobbing and weaving.

“Sorry?” he asked.

“Phil. Where is he? I need to talk to him.”

He stood, pulling the camera up so it faced the ceiling but rested on his shoulder casually, and pulled a walkie talkie off his belt with his free hand.

“Phil, I need you on camera one, over,” he said.

“Brandy?” a voice asked back.

“Affirmative,” the cameraman said.

“On my way.”

I looked back to my grandmother, who was now putting twine on another box. In the distance, I saw one of the customers opening his box and almost getting emotional. Nostalgia was strong, I knew, but having Madie herself make the boxed lunches seemed to be hitting an entirely deeper note.

“Granny, did you happen to sign any papers with these people?”

“Hmm?”

“Papers. Contracts. Autographs, anything. Did they ask you to sign anything?”

“I don’t… I don’t remember, dear. I closed for a break and went home, and I saw you… then I went back and opened for the afternoon. They were here when I came back, and they were so friendly .”

“Brandy?” Phil asked as he appeared behind the counter.

“Oh, there he is,” Granny said. “That’s the nice man who said he was your friend. I wasn’t aware you had such handsome friends.”

Granny laughed suggestively, and Phil adjusted his bright pink tie awkwardly.

“What can I do for you, Brandy?”

“We need to talk. Now.”

I didn’t give him a chance to protest. I simply turned and headed to the kitchen, and then through to the office. When I got into it, I turned and waited for him to join me with my arms crossed over my chest.

“Yes?”

“Shut the door,” I said.

He did as I asked, cocking an eyebrow at me and clearly trying to hide a grin.

“First, I don’t know what kind of game you are playing with the hidden camera, but I am going to figure it out.”

“Whoa, whoa, I have nothing to do with that, I told you,” he said. “I checked it out, but it’s not one of ours. I already turned it in to the police.”

“The police? Oh God, the Louisa County police?”

“Of course,” he said. “That’s where we are. I turned it in to one of the deputies there.”

“Eugene?” I nearly shouted.

“Yes, actually, Eugene something. Nice guy. Very helpful.”

“Fuck!”

Phil looked taken aback by my sudden outburst and actually backed up a step.

“What’s wrong with that?” he asked.

“Eugene Anderson has a vendetta against the Galloways. One of whom I am dating. Was. It doesn’t matter. I watched Eugene assault one of the Galloways over nothing, and he threatened me and my grandmother if I didn’t keep my mouth shut.”

“He… he did what? ”

“You heard me,” I said. “And now you’ve given him a goddamn camera with footage of me and one of the Galloways having sex! He’s using it to blackmail me!”

“He is? Holy shit. Holy shit, Brandy!”

“This is your fault, Phil! And what the hell is my grandmother doing here? And what the hell are you doing here after I fired you?”

“Now, hold on a minute,” he said. “We are doing a reality show about the return of Madie’s , and that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with you. Not when we have the namesake on paper saying we can be here.”

“Oh, you do?” I asked, now having confirmation of their idiocy. “Well, did you bother finding out who actually owns Madie’s? As in the building, the name, the intellectual property, the logo, any of that? Did you? Because if you did, you would have seen that I, me, I own that. All of it. From top down, I own it. Grandma sold that to me back when she was actually of sound mind and body.”

“Seems like her mind is pretty sound to me,” he said under his breath.

“She has Alzheimer's, you moron,” I said. “Some days she is like her old self. Some days she isn’t. But she is in no position to sign anything over, even if she did still own it, which she doesn’t.”

“She’s out there moving like a madman,” he said. “Are you sure about that diagnosis?”

“Considering that she just mistook Basil for my dead mother, yes, I am pretty God damned sure of the diagnosis.”

“Ahh,” he said. “Well, none of this is how she presented it to us.”

“That’s really unfortunate for you. But I fired you all. Now you need to get out.”

Phil sighed and sat in the office chair, seemingly unfazed by how clearly upset I was. He rolled back a bit and dug around in his pocket for a moment.

“You know, I understand your point of view, I really do,” he said. “And I really hate to do this, but you forced my hand. I have to protect my investments.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“This,” he said, pulling a thumb drive out of his pocket.

A shout came from the kitchen, and I looked up to see Basil darting through to the sink. She pulled out the fire extinguisher and headed for the stove as a giant flame shot up and my grandmother stepped out of the way just in time before it flashed into her face.

“Grandma!” I shouted, slinging the door open and heading toward her.

“I don’t know what happened,” she said. “I was just cooking up some bacon, and… and there was fire…”

Basil sprayed the stove, and the fire went out instantly, then she slammed it down on the counter and headed out to the floor. I could hear her telling everyone that the place was closing for the day because of a kitchen fire and that they all needed to leave.

To my absolute horror, I watched Phil as he directed the cameras to catch the drama as it unfolded and to interview people outside.

“This will be a great episode,” I heard him say.

“Granny,” I said. “It’s time to get you home.”

“Oh no, dear,” she said. “I just got here.”