Living in a Small Town

The tattoo artist, who had instructed Tommy and Kaden to call him Uncle Darren, followed the minivan back home. He ate dinner with Stan and the boys that evening before going to Mr. Patel's motel out on the highway for the night. The next day he woke up to knocking at his room door. He was greeted by the sheriff and his wife, the local judge and his wife, as well Stan, both boys, and a little girl named Janie. Once he had enjoyed Mrs. Patel's continental breakfast with the family, which was an experience beyond anything he had ever encountered, he was police escorted to the real estate offices in town, where he was left with Stan and the three children, as the other adults all went to work.

"Well, there are several commercial properties available, but there is only one that comes with an apartment above it," the agent told Darren. "It was a sewing shop for years, but Mrs. Higgins got too old to climb up and down those stairs, so her niece packed her up and moved her in with the niece's family down in Florida somewhere. She passed down there, and left the building to them, but they had no interest in doing anything with it. They sold it a while ago, but the new owners couldn't do what they had planned, so it's been empty for quite a while."

"It's not condemned or something, is it?" Darren asked the young lady.

"Oh, no, my husband and I have been going over once a month to check on it for the last owners and now for the new ones as well," she assured him. "It's in fine shape; it just needs a purpose again."

It wasn't that far, since the town wasn't that big, so everyone just walked over to the building in question. "I have to say I was expecting something a bit larger given what it used to be," Darren told the agent. "Not that it's a bad thing. In fact, this looks like it might just be perfect for what I want." He smiled as he looked around the empty shop. "Of course, I should see the apartment upstairs before I commit to anything."

"Certainly," the agent agreed.

"Jude and I considered this place when we moved to town," Stan told him. "I had thought of opening a little coffee shop and bookstore, but we didn't have the money for all the startup equipment and furniture and inventory. Of course, now I can't imagine not being home for the boys, and that apartment would have been only one bedroom for us, which would definitely not work now," he added as he hugged Tommy and Kaden.

"This place isn't zoned right for a coffeeshop, either," the agent pointed out. She then got back into sales pitch mode. "You have two ways up to the apartment. There is the separate front door that you saw outside and to the left of the shop, and there is also the staircase in the back room through here." She opened the stock room door and walked in with everyone following her. "As you would not necessarily have need of a stock room, you could actually make this space your living room. The benefit of this property is that rather than opening up onto an alley as many businesses do in the rear, this opens onto a small open space and then onto the street beyond, which happens to border the combination city park and playground for the schools; the elementary to the right, and the junior high straight across. So, there is space to park off the street, and still have a bit of a lawn if you would like. Of course, the area is bordered on the left by the dollar store and on the right by the appliance business, both of which are larger buildings than this one."

"If you wanted to fix this up as your living room, you could easily replace that back door and scrape the paint off the windows on each side of it to let some light into here," Stan suggested.

"Or you could leave them painted and have more of a media room feel," Tommy added. "You could put a big screen tv and game center on that wall over there."

"I don't think I would get much use out of a game room," Darren laughed softly. He saw Tommy's expression slip a little, though, and added, "But, of course, if I had young folks coming over to visit their old uncle Darren occasionally after school, it might be worth the investment."

"The high school is just on the other side of the junior high, so I could walk over and pick up the ankle biter and we could stop by here for a game or two before we go home," Tommy gushed excitedly. "And Tay could come too, and you and him could talk about his pictures."

"Pick up the what?" Kaden demanded. "Mama Stan, can I bite him when he calls me an ankle biter?"

"No biting your brother and no calling your brother names," Stan said flatly, repeating a common phrase not only of his, but almost all parents ever.

Darren wisely took the moment to escape up the stairs with the agent. At the top, he found himself in a hallway with several doors and the stairs back down to the door beside the front of the store. The agent led him to the door closest to that set of stairs. "Officially, this is the room that would be the living room for the apartment, but as you can see, if you were to use that stock room area as a living room, this could quite easily be a guest bedroom. It does connect to the kitchen and dining room through the door on that wall, but it isn't like an open concept space obviously."

Kaden came into the room with his cousin just then and gushed, "COOL!" as he rushed to the front wall of the building. "It's a window bubble. See, Janie? It's a like a bubble sticking out of the wall, but it's got windows on three sides."

"The actual term is bay window," Darren told him with a smile.

"Well, that's a silly name for it," the boy observed with a frown. "There's no garage bays up here, and anybody that can count can tell there's more than one window. OH, hey, I can see Daddy's office from here."

After some snickers and chuckles, Darren and the agent moved into the adjoining room where Stan and Tommy joined them, followed by the younger two kids. "The kitchen looks pretty outdated, clearly, but just to put your mind at some ease, all of those old appliances are in perfect working order. The appliance repairman from next door refers to this kitchen as 'The Museum'," the agent told them as she indicated the vintage 1970's harvest gold appliances, the matching square avocado green Formica dining table and the brown and burnt orange linoleum flooring.

"I feel like I just stepped through a time warp to my childhood," Darren whispered. "I hadn't really paid attention downstairs, but this building is the same layout as the one my brother and I grew up in. This kitchen is an exact match, even to the colors of everything." He sat in one of the green dining chairs and wiped a hand over his face. "We lived over a pool hall, and my brother and I slept on couches in that front room. If this place has one of those old iron clawfoot tubs, I'm a goner, I'm telling you."

"Do you mean goner as a good thing or a bad thing?" the agent asked nervously.

"Oh, it's a good thing, trust me," Darren assured her. "I have very good memories of that time of my life, and especially this room."

"Well, in that case, you will love the bathroom, too," Stan smiled. "This place really is a time capsule."

"Ok, I'm sold," Darren laughed. "Now all I have to do is figure out how to pay for it. I'm betting a building in this good of shape with a location this prime will be top dollar."

"I think hearing your fond memories of a very similar place will have an effect on the owners," the agent said mysteriously smiling.

"I would even bet that they would be willing to rent the place instead of selling it out right, just so the place isn't empty anymore, and has you to look after it," Stan added with a smile of his own. "Let's all go back to Janelle's office so you can sign all the papers, and I can drop the kids off at the drive-up diner next door to it for some ice cream," he announced to cheers from both boys and Janie.

Janie picked a mint chocolate chip cone which Kaden and Tommy both declared nasty and gross. Stan scolded them, but then had all three kids rebel at his choice of rum raisin. Janie and Kaden had both squealed in disgust and run outside to one of the tables. Tommy had just sneered and said, "You, sir, need mental help," before he went out to join the little ones. Stan was left to order a cup of strawberry for Kaden who was not a fan of cones, and Salted Caramel for Tommy. He carried the little tray out to the kids, commenting on them leaving him to serve as waiter for the Legion of Oompa Loompas. Not surprisingly, the kids protested his sense of naming protocols, Tommy especially. "Ok, I get it for the toddlers, but don't you think I'm a bit too tall for an Oompa Loompa?"

Stan extended an arm to rest on the young teen's head as he smiled and said, "Nope."

"Mama, don't mess up my hair," Tommy whined as he spun away and started fussing with his soft brown slightly curly locks.

"I'll mess up a lot more than your hair if you call me a toddler again," Janie threatened.

"Janie, be a little lady. Wait until you're in private to threaten him. No one who cares will see your hair out of place," Stan told Tommy. His words were ruined by a new voice, though.

"Tommy, baby, did somebody mess up your hair? Do I have to kick some butt?" Everyone turned to see Tay walking up to them.

"See Mama?" Tommy whined. "Tay, don't look at me. I'm hideous."

"You're too cute to ever be hideous, Tommy," Tay told him. Tommy of course practically melted, and probably would have if not for his ice cream, which he held up in front of Tay with an impish grin. "I still disagree, but whatever makes you happy," Tay said as he went inside to place his own order.

"What does he disagree about?" Stan asked in confusion.

"Nothing, Mama Stan," Tommy answered too quickly and with a nuclear-powered blush.

"Oh, no you don't," Stan protested. "It's not nothing if it gets a blush like that. Come on, tell me what's going on, or do I need to cancel the sleepover this weekend?"

"You can't cancel," Tommy pleaded. "Mrs. Jenny Sue has been learning to make hummus just for Tay and she's going to let us try it this weekend when we watch movies." Stan just stared at him. "Ok, fine, I told Tay once that I love salted caramel anything because the flavor and color remind me of him."

"The flavor?" Stan asked with a frown. "You're not even in high school yet…."

"Mama, we just kiss, that's all, I swear," Tommy vowed as his blush returned full power.

Stan was about to continue his inquisition when suddenly he was distracted by Darren's voice calling out. "YOU SNEAKY LITTLE PIECE OF…. Well, you know what you are, dang it." The man in question was waving papers in the air as he ran up to them from the real estate office next door. Janelle, the agent, was following him a little more composed. "You could have just told me you owned the place, you know."

"You weren't supposed to find out," Stan said as he frowned at Janelle.

"Now how was I supposed to keep it quiet if you and Jude never named a corporate entity to own the place? It's still in just your names," she defended. "That's on you, not me."

"You are absolutely right, I'm sorry," Stan apologized to her. He turned to Darren and grinned. "Did she get you a good deal on the place?"

"Well, about that," Janelle started. "I would actually need you and Jude to sign with him in the office for everything to be absolutely legal."

"You know darn well I got a good deal on the place," Darren fussed. "Hey, is that rum raisin," he asked as he stared at the ice cream cone in Stan's hand. "I love that stuff."

"EEEEWWW!" all four kids squealed and started to move away from the grownups.

"Hold it right there, you little hormone hounds," Stan said as he practically tossed his ice cream cone at Darren so he could grab the two teen boys. "Do we need to revisit that talk about what is and is not appropriate behavior for you two spending time together?"

"You told him about the salted caramel?" Tay asked, rolling his eyes.

"I had to," Tommy confessed. "He's Mama."

"Mr. Stan, I swear to you that I had nothing to do with him thinking that way, well, except for kissing him that is, but I promise to you on my new parents' lives that all we do is kiss. We stick to the rules that you and my parents have given us. Quite honestly, I don't get it at all. I don't think I'm anything like salted caramel. My skin tone isn't that dark and when I licked my paper cut that one time it didn't taste anything like that sweet stuff." He turned to look at Tommy again as he added, "I would never limit you by comparing you to any flavor that can be added to ice cream or anything else. You are so much more than that to me, although I do admit that I do kind of like it when you use that vanilla flavored Chap Stick."

"Aww, Jude used to flirt with me like that," Stan cooed.

"Mama Stan, you sound like Granny," Kaden giggled.

"And my Mawmaw," Janie agreed.

"My new mom, too," Tay grinned.

"Okay, you little heathens, you've made your point," Stan pouted. "I prefer not to think that I sound like a woman, and focus more on the common theme presented that men do not how to communicate with their spouses."

"Whatever helps you sleep, Mrs. Truesdale," Darren snickered.

"They have the natural defense of being underage and cute," Stan warned the man. "Wait? What happened to my ice cream cone?" he demanded as he looked at Darren's empty hands and sticky face.

"Well, you didn't want me to just let it melt, did you?" Darren asked with an attempt at an angelic smile. Just at that moment, Aunt Rita walked up and greeted everyone, giving Kaden a hug, and Tommy a kiss on the forehead. When she went inside, Darren asked about her. She came back out with a to go container, and hugged the two boys again before walking away, headed back to work at the sheriff station. "I may not know her, but I know that voice," Darren mused as he watched her leave. None of his companions seemed to pay the moment very much attention, but for some reason, Darren couldn't get the woman off his mind.