Power Play (18 page)

Creases of confusion formed between Landon's eyebrows as he contemplated my request. “Why would you want to lay—”

His understanding became apparent as his eyes popped and his cheeks flushed. He grabbed the sides of his head with both hands and arched backward. “Geez, Gabriella.”

She shoots. She scores!
It took me a while, but I'd finally managed to make Landon's cheeks flush in response to a sexual comment.

In my peripheral vision, I saw Joey look up from helping a customer. I put my hands on Landon's back and guided him toward the door, hoping to avoid another fight with Joey.

“Time to go. I'll see you later.”

“You know this story is going straight to the locker room, right?”

And just like that, Landon had the upper hand. Again.

While I walked to the register, I stared at the cover of the book. Harry Potter riding a broom with his arm extended trying to catch the Golden Snitch. I lifted my eyes to the door that Landon had exited through, realizing I'd caught my Golden Snitch. And I'd never let him go.

“What do you mean there's no order there for us?” I chuckled. “They've had an order for us every Saturday for more than seventy years.”

Bertucci Produce was a third-generation company. We purchased our produce from the same family farm since the beginning. We held our holiday parties together since before I was born.

My stomach tightened and I bolted up in my bed as I listened to my cousin explain that he'd already talked to the delivery manager at the farm. Bertucci Produce did
not
have an order scheduled for today. There were no future orders for us in their system either.

“I just don't understand. What happened?”

“I don't know, something about paperwork and changing their billing system. They stopped the shipment since we never responded,” Sammy explained.

“With no heads-up? Couldn't they have called?”

“They did. They said they called multiple times and left messages.”

Damn.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

I knew I should have checked the voicemails myself at the store. I knew it. Why had I trusted Joey to take care of such an important part of the business? I should've checked every single thing Joey had been doing, just like Papa wanted. What started as an annoying inconvenience, proved to be what the store needed to stay on track with Papa gone.

Think, Gaby, think.

“Okay.” I swallowed back tears. “I'm gonna call Jackie. She'll straighten it out.”

I could handle this.

I would handle this.

A might-be genius idea popped in my head before I hung up with Sammy. “Can you pick me up in your truck in about ten minutes? Oh and, Sammy, bring any empty crates you have.”

Time to get to the bottom of this. I'd barely hung up with Sammy and my thumbs were busy scrolling through my contacts to reach Jackie, the office manager at Mitchell Farms.

“Hey, Jackie, it's Gaby Bertucci.”

“Hey, sweetie. What'cha need?”

The tone to her “Hey, sweetie” sounded anything but affectionate. After I'd accused her grandson of rape, she barely looked at me, let alone have a kind word. But I still had to deal with her—with all of the Mitchells—when it came to the business.

“We didn't get a delivery today. Just checking to make sure everything is okay. Is it running late?”

“Nope. Not running late. You never got us the billing change form we sent weeks ago. You never responded to any of our calls. I already told Sammy all this.”

“Jackie, I'm so sorry we didn't get you the information you needed, but Papa had a heart attack and we've been picking up the pieces since.”

“I know that and I am so sorry to hear, sweetie. But we both run businesses. We needed a form for our new billing system. Your father told us to fax them to him at your Three-one-three store so he could sign off. We did that and you never returned it. We left multiple messages. There's only so much we can do.”

“I understand that. It's my fault. I'm taking complete blame.”

“Oh, are you now? Well, that's a change of tune.”

Ever want to pounce through the phone and bitch-slap a person? Yep. That was me at the moment. A tiny, horrible part of my brain wanted to drive to Mitchell Farms and ram one of their tractors into the pole barn they used as an office.

Instead, I ignored her jab. “We've run on credit before. You know we're good for it. I can fax this information within the hour. I'll drive to the store now.”

“This week's orders have already been delivered. But fax that information today, because we need to process it to have your order ready for next week.”

“So there's no way to get an order today? What if I drove to the farm and picked it up?”

“Don't you ever set foot on this farm, Gaby Bertucci. We don't need any more trouble.”

“This is completely out of line, Jackie.”

“If you want to start the shipments back up, get that paperwork fa—”

Before she finished the sentence, I'd pressed
END
and slammed my phone into the mattress. The wood floor would've had a much more dramatic effect, but I didn't want to pay for a replacement phone.

“What's up?” Joey asked, poking his head into my bedroom. He stood there, already showered and dressed, a surprising change of pace. Usually someone in the house had to wake him so he'd fly into the store at the last minute.

“There's no produce delivery for the stand today.”

“Why?”

“Billing paperwork for Mitchell Farms that
you
never completed and returned.”

A flash of something passed over Joey's face, and he leaned back. “I'm heading over to the store early today. I'll go back to the office and get that done first thing. I'll, uh, check and make sure everything has been paid, too.”

Without waiting for a response from me, Joey shuffled away from my door. His footsteps pounded the stairs seconds later. The same scary part of me that wanted to ram a tractor into the Mitchells' pole barn, wanted to don an old-school goalie mask and go Michael Myers on Joey. Sure, take care of the invoices after the fact. What product would we lose next as other outstanding bills piled up on Papa's desk?

Anger pumped through my veins, propelling me out of my bed and into the bathroom where I quickly washed my face and brushed my teeth.

I'd never had so many violent thoughts in all my life as I did in the last three minutes. Maybe I really should take up yoga and live a life of peace and Zen.

At least Joey acknowledged that he hadn't paid the invoices as he should have since he'd been assigned to be Papa's replacement. He should have shut his mouth and done the job, instead of resenting me for attempting to teach him the ins and outs of the store. If he needed help, he could have asked.

Sammy's truck turned into our driveway, shining bright lights on the front of the house, reminding me to take a few breaths and get some composure. We still had a plan B. Even before talking to Jackie (plan A), I knew that it could have a sour ending, so I'd formulated plan B just in case.

“Hey, Joey! I'm running out to see if I can help with the stand. I'll be back soon,” I called into the kitchen, where Joey stood at the bar with a bowl of cereal in front of him.

“Okay. I got it at the store, Gaby. I promise. Don't worry.”

Don't worry.

Easy to say. Hard to do.

“Why are we going to your old place, Gaby?” Sammy asked.

“It's my backup plan,” I told him. My heart soared, proud of myself for starting a garden on the site of our former house five years ago. I never imagined we'd need it for the business. For the last few years, I'd donated any harvests the garden produced to Capuchin Soup Kitchen.

Sammy stopped his truck in front of 16301 Iroquois Street, where the first home I'd lived in once stood. The place I learned to walk, learned to ride a bike, learned to stick up for myself with two teasing brothers.

Someone burned the house to the ground nine years ago. On the night before Halloween, which had long been known as Devil's Night in Detroit. It still is, though there's been a citywide effort to lower vandalism and arson for years. It's supposed to be called Angels' Night now. But what did that politician say a few years ago: “You can't put lipstick on a pig.” Crimes still occurred—as we found out the hard way.

“Is this some sort of community garden?” Sammy asked as he opened his door and jumped out of the truck.

“Nope. It's the Bertucci garden.” I rounded the truck. Standing on my tiptoes, I leaned over and grabbed two empty crates from the bed. “Grab some crates. You're gonna help me harvest.”

Sammy had already started toward the garden while I retrieved crates.

He turned around and cupped his hands over his mouth. “Harvest what?”

Confused, I ran to his side and examined the plot of land. Someone had raked over every row of produce. The gaping holes where vegetable plants had once grown were obvious even from the curb where I stood. Was there anything left?

“What the hell?” I exhaled. I dropped my crates and unhooked the latch on the chain-link fence.

The garden was huge, the size of two plots of land—the spot where our house once stood and the empty land behind it. Papa had bought the vacant lot behind ours shortly after the fire. He'd had the land cleared and grated immediately, as he'd originally planned to rebuild our house.

Seems silly, doesn't it? I mean, we lived in Detroit. People go missing every day. Senseless crimes happen every day. Houses burn down every day. And my dad wanted to rebuild, right there in that same spot.

But Papa didn't want to walk away from the first piece of land that he and Mom bought once they'd saved enough money for a down payment. Too many years. Too many memories. Too much pride. We may have had to cut back or make changes, but the Bertucci businesses continued to thrive in Detroit, despite our own tragedies in the city. And Papa refused to give up on the city that provided him and his family with a great life.

Rebuilding took a backseat when Papa realized he could buy a beautiful old house with more square footage than our previous house and renovate for much cheaper than he would've paid for new construction. His decision relieved me, because I don't think I could have lived on Iroquois after the fire. The bitterness of loss would always be there, a ghost haunting us with the sadness of every wonderful memory burned in less than an hour. But at least we came out alive, right?

Since we owned the land, and we weren't going to rebuild on it, I asked Papa if we could plant a garden instead. At school we'd studied urban farming, which communities throughout the city had been using as a productive way to fill the ever-growing number of vacant lots. Various individuals and organizations bought up unoccupied plots of land and began planting gardens. Other than the obvious benefit of food production, the gardens created jobs for people as well as beauty in the once-vacant lots on the streets of Detroit.

Though my family had instilled pride in ourselves, in our city, and in its people mentality throughout my life, I finally realized that the Spirit of Detroit isn't just a bronze statue on Woodward Avenue. It's the people who continue to create ways to transform negative situations into something positive.

After a few years and countless discussions (actually, me begging relentlessly), Papa finally hired a few guys from the neighborhood to help him put down fresh potting soil. I picked out the fruit and vegetable seeds, and ten of my classmates helped us with the planting as a project for my high school's community service club.

Hope deflated with every cautious step I took, up and down the rows. I was careful not to crush a patch of something plentiful, or at the very least salvageable. A head of lettuce emerged every three or four plants, but the ones that were still there were filled with bug-infested holes or hadn't grown to full size. The tomato vines, creeping up their wire trellises, loomed above the garden devoid of most of their blooms.

I rubbed my eyes with my fingertips before raking them through my hair, pulling the strands toward the back of my head. “What am I gonna do?”

“If this was the backup plan, we're not gonna be able to open at the shed today,” Sammy said, stating the obvious. He removed his faded, formerly navy blue Tigers hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

I'd forgotten he was even with me. Someone to witness my epic fail. Hell, someone to vocalize it.

For the first time in seventy-seven years, the Bertucci Produce stand at Eastern Market would be closed on a Saturday.

No wonder Papa hadn't wanted me in charge. He would've known what to do. He wouldn't have to close down.

I turned my back to the ghostly garden and laced my fingers through the diamond-shaped gaps in the fence.

Part of me wanted to blame it on Joey. He was the one who didn't correct our billing information. He came in on his high horse, thinking he didn't need help from anyone and messed up the biggest thing he possibly could have.

But blaming people doesn't help. Solutions help. And I couldn't even come through with a solution.

“We haven't been closed in over seventy years, Sammy.” I kicked the fence with my heel, still able to feel the vibration a second later. “Not since Great-grandpa started the business.”

“Yeah, well, no one in our family has ever had a heart attack before. There are some things you can't plan for, Gaby.”

I knew that, but it still broke my heart. And made me feel as incompetent as Papa already thought of me.

Dejected, I began walking back to the truck. “Guess we should get going. I should shower before I have to be at the store.”

Just then, my phone rang.

Mom.

Darn it all.

I pressed the green key. “Hey, Mom.”

“Hello, my sweet.” I could hear her smile through the phone.

She and Papa had taken a weekend trip to Traverse City, a welcome break for both of them after the stress of the past few months. I knew Mom was stressed out. Painting until all hours of the night. Worried about my dad. And she was still smiling. My mom, the epitome of survival. She needed the break.

“Do you know where Sammy is?” Mom asked me. “Uncle Sal said he hasn't shown up with the stand's delivery yet and he can't get ahold of him on his cell. It's not like him to be late.”

I wanted to kick the tire of Sammy's old Ford pickup truck, but I didn't because it wasn't his fault.

“Yeah, about that. There won't be a delivery today, Mom.”

“Excuse me?”

“The produce wasn't delivered.”

“Come on, Gaby. This isn't the time to joke. That's been a standing delivery since before you were born. Since before I was born.” Mom laughed, but there was no humor behind it.

If the police would ever question me on why I thought my own mother would attempt to kill me, I'd describe that anxious chuckle.