“What we’re saying is this is ours and we want to keep it,” said Beatrice. “That no billion-dollar multinational has a right to take it away. And to make our dad have to go out and sell pastries from a street cart so we make enough money to live. And the new lease? And the roof at home? I hold Gargantua personally responsible even though he’s a gorilla.”
Eyes fierce but moist, Kathleen turned to the shelf of drink flavorings, fiddled with the bottles. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“Sure, Mom,” said Beatrice.
“Carry on, team,” said Belle, stepping to the counter to service a couple of fishermen who were looking at the Let It Bean staff with uncertain expressions. “Welcome, anglers!”
Wylie caught up with his mother in the kitchen. She was slamming around the pots and pans harder than she needed to, anger frozen on her face.
“Mom, what gives?”
“Rent doubles in November, if we stay here. Stan over at Mammoth Commercial told me that Gargantua has made an offer for this space. And he told me what it will take to beat them. I don’t know how the girls found out, but it’s a fact.”
Chapter Sixteen
Anger simmering, Wylie walked up Old Mammoth Road and saw Steen manning the Little Red Pastry Shed, and a line of customers waiting. Steen was gesticulating enthusiastically, and even from this distance Wylie could tell that he was retarding his own business. The only thing Steen liked more than baking was talking about what he’d baked. He could go on for an hour on a certain grind of cocoa. The Mammoth Sports parking lot was busy with tourists, some checking out the bikes and racks of postseason snow apparel, some eating and drinking in the warm July sun, some letting their children try to net a tagged prize-earning fish in the aboveground “Trout Derby Catch-and-Release Pool” sponsored by the Mammoth Chamber of Commerce.
From here, Wylie could also see Gargantua Coffee across the street, with its tethered balloons fluttering in the sky and its inflatable plastic logo large as a dirigible floating high, and of course the streetlight banners up and down the street with more ape-faced logos on them. There was a sun shade set up in the parking area out in front of Gargantua, and Wylie could see skis and boards and even a couple of bikes gleaming under it. A woman’s amplified voice announced winning numbers.
Wylie and Steen were busy for the next hour solid. Wylie outsold his stepfather two-to-one due to Steen’s yapping, but Wylie noted that the yapped-at customers just yapped right back. He didn’t understand how people could be so happy buying and selling coffee and pastries. Steen had gotten the smart phone app to run credit cards. The change box had lots of twenties, some fifties, at least a couple of hundreds, and even several of the personal checks that Steen was always too cordial to refuse, though they almost never bounced.
Steen jovially blathered on. “Oh, yes, I have permission from Mammoth Sports to be here. They know I will bring in business for them!”
“No,” said a young man wearing hiking shorts, trekking boots, and a Gargantua barista’s shirt. He stood at the front of Steen’s line, sipping from a venti Gargantua cup. His nameplate read JACOBIE. “I said the town. Did the town of Mammoth Lakes issue you a sidewalk vending permit?”
“We are very far from the sidewalk!”
“Funny,” said Jacobie.
Wylie looked at him. “You’re holding up the line.”
“Pardon me.” Jacobie stepped aside, turned to the people behind him, and swept his free arm toward the cart in an exaggerated gesture of hospitality. “I’m looking forward to the first Gargantua Mammoth Cup, Wylie. We’re now the featured sponsors, as you might know. I’m Jacobie, regional manager.”
Wylie looked up at the nearest Gargantua banner, then back to Jacobie. “I recognized you from the banner.”
“Cute.”
“It’s unethical for you to undercut us like you did today. This used to be one of our biggest days all year.”
“Are you calling unnecessary roughness? I feel bad now. But Froth of July is national, Mr. Welborn. Not just here in Mammoth. You don’t take everything this personally, do you?”
“I take it personally when I see your prices cut in half and my store empty.”
“To be honest, we’re looking to win here in Mammoth Lakes. But back to the Gargantua Mammoth Cup — good luck. I love it that you and Sky have squared off. Like a good weigh-in. Like the Rumble in the Jungle. It’ll build the gate. Now that Robert canned up.”
“‘Canned up’ is disrespectful. Don’t say that about Robert again.”
Jacobie stared at Wylie. “So now Sky’s the most talented ski crosser on Mammoth Mountain. Though you used to be a real bruiser.”
Wylie considered Jacobie as he used to consider tactical situations. It always boiled down to consequences and what you thought they were worth. He tried to find that calm place inside.
“Are you judging something?” Jacobie asked.
“How far into that Trout Derby pool I could throw you.”
“Violent bastard, aren’t you?”
Wylie came around the cart. Steen squawked and tried to stop him. Jacobie held his ground with dissolving confidence. In the end, all he could do was drop the venti cup and raise both hands in frank capitulation. Like a strongman, Wylie jerked him by his belt and the scruff of his shirt, holding him high like a barbell, teetered a few yards, and pitched Jacobie into the fish pool.
The kids screamed and got splashed and the parents tried to gather them to safety. Some took pictures and video. Jacobie surfaced, throwing his head to shed the cold water.
“You’ll pay,” hissed Jacobie.
“You should pay,” said April Holly. Her dour-faced mother was not far behind, bodyguard Logan towering next to her, and a square-jawed, clean-cut young man caught uncertainly between them and April.
“What do you want?” Wylie asked her. Right now, he was less angry at Jacobie for pissing him off than at April for seeing him this way.
“I want to know why you’re violent. Why are you so violent?”
“This... he... okay, yeah, violent at this moment in time, but...”
“But why?”
“Ask the prick yourself.”
“No call for language like that,” said the clean-cut young man, stepping toward Wylie.
Wylie raised a hand and ordered Clean Cut to halt. It worked. Logan took a few steps Wylie’s way, then stopped, too. Jacobie vaulted the shaky wall of the pool and plopped to the asphalt, soaked and dripping. He briskly brushed his hands together back and forth: a job well done. April was addressing Wylie and he heard her voice, but because of the water splashing off Jacobie, and the amplified voice across the street announcing the winning number, and the Trout Derby contestants bickering over whose turn it was next, and a teenaged girl now offering April a pen and a Gargantua T-shirt to autograph while she told April that her switch backside 540 was, like, epic, Wylie couldn’t hear what she was saying. “What? Can’t you speak up? I can’t hear you.”
April cleared her throat and projected with some effort. “I’m asking you. Why are you so violent?” She smiled down at the girl, signed the T-shirt, and handed it back. Clean Cut tried to help in this transaction but was too late.
Wylie tried to slow his heart and order his thinking. “Well, we’ve had this family coffee business for fifteen years and Gargantua’s trying to shut us down so they can have all the business in Mammoth Lakes. And Jacobie, if you deny that or try to spin what I just said, I’m going to throw you back in that pool and hold you under.”