AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No one can report you. Well, they can, but your building was grandfathered in, so you don’t have to follow the rules that new builders do. You can only do so much retrofitting with an old building, and that’s understandable.”
“And what you’ve done here is above and beyond,” Irving said. “I will sing your praises at the committee and board meeting, Ivy Lund. Others need to follow suit.”
“Please don’t,” she said, folding her hands in the prayer pose. “I’m embarrassed it took me so long to figure out I could do it, and I don’t want anyone to know how lame I am for not doing it sooner. I mean, you’ve been in town for a year!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “It’s shameful.”
“It’s not,” Irving said, taking her hand. “It’s a learning process for all of us. I’m confident that had you hired a person who uses a wheelchair, you would have made the changes immediately. That’s who you are. Obviously, you’ve been putting this in place for a few months. Don’t beat yourself up. Accept my thanks and tell other business owners how easy it was to make these few changes. Maybe they’ll follow suit.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I plan to do that at the next community business meeting. There is one thing I haven’t figured out how to fix, though.”
“What’s that?” I asked, leaning forward on the table. “We’ll help anyway we can.”
“Don’t think there’s much you can do. It’s the restrooms. They’re completely non-compliant. Unless I knock out half the kitchen and the back of the restaurant, there’s no way to fix it.”
Irving held up his hand. “Again, there’s not much you can do with a building this age, Ivy. It is what it is. Don’t stress about it. They didn’t make wide doors back then. I’ll be honest with you, there are a lot of newer, bigger businesses that do an abysmal job with accessibility. I’ll make sure to go potty before I leave home.”
Her laughter filled the diner again and made me smile. Ivy Lund deserved the title of a nightingale. There wasn’t a soul in this town who didn’t love her and for good reason.
“I’m glad you’ve been warned. So, I say, you need to break in this new table,” she said, tapping the top. “You’re the first to inaugurate it! Two orders of sweet potato nachos?” She pointed back and forth between us until we both nodded yes. “Do you want pop?”
“Sprite,” we both said in unison, making her smile.
“I’ll put your order in and bring out the surprise Brittany made for Star!”
Irving held up his finger, but Ivy was already off putting the order in the computer. He dropped his hand and shook his head. “She’s a firecracker.”
“That’s an apt word to describe her.”
He leaned back in his chair and ran his hands over the table as though it might disappear from under them. When he glanced up at me, he wore a smirk.
“I know, I know,” I said, chuckling. “You were right with your wait-and-see approach. She went all in.”
“That’s Ivy, though,” Irving said with a nod. “She doesn’t do things halfway.”
Ivy scurried toward us with the pop, so we hushed our gossip about her. She set down two glasses and a plate of cookies. “Brittany was sure you’d be in today for her nachos, so she made a special treat for Star. Sweet potato cookies.”
Irving lifted a brow. “He does love sweet potatoes.”
“They’re all natural with nothing bad for him. Brittany used organic oat flour, sweet potatoes, eggs, and a little honey. I googled, and it all looked safe for dogs.”
I picked up a cookie and sniffed it. “It smells good enough to eat. I’m not going to lie.”
“That’s what I thought!” Ivy said, laughing. “I told Brittany she might have to start making dog cookies for the bakery!”
“Well, I think you need a taste tester then,” Irving said. “Star, are you hungry?”
He held the cookie out, and Star gently took it between his teeth, being careful of his master’s fingers. He laid it on the mat, sniffed it, and immediately turned into Cookie Monster. Crumbs flew. Crunching ensued. Chops were licked.
By the time we finished laughing, Star was resting on the bed again, quite satisfied with his treat. “Seems legit,” Irving said, still giggling. “Man,” he said, wiping his eyes. “Give him a few minutes to reboot and have Brittany come and give him one. She needs to see that.”
“I agree,” Ivy said, wiping her own eyes. “We might be onto something, though. We could make sweet potato or peanut butter.”
“That one,” I said, pointing at her. “Star is always stealing my peanut butter sandwiches.”
“No,” Irving said, pinning me with a critical eye. “You’re always giving him your peanut butter sandwich because he bats his bushy eyebrows at you and smiles.”
I tipped my head back and forth as I thought about it. “He’s right. That’s what happens.”
When Brittany hit the bell, Ivy giggled and headed to the window to get our nachos.
