“. . .I really am, I really do, I really have a love for you. . .”
Jenny hummed quietly with the tune coming from the cassette player over the coffeehouse speakers. She’d never actually seen a cassette player before—it was something left over from the Wildflower Café which she was turning into the Perky Bean Coffeehouse. In her mind, her coffee was bringing the scent of Portland, Oregon to the culture-bereft residents of Waterville, Nebraska. She hummed as she scraped away what she liked to think of as the paint of ignorance from the old café walls. She heard the scattered applause and laughter from the tape as affirmation of her goal.
Helping her in her renovation project was long-time resident of Waterville, Kenneth. Kenneth, also in his 30s, was a mystery to her. Slim, casually dressed in a polo and khakis, with a small goatee, he’d lived in Waterville his whole life and was proud of it. He was cleaning the fireplace in the corner with the expertise of someone who’d cleaned their share of barns. “I wonder if I’ll find anything,” he said.
“Brick, I hope,” said Jenny. “I love natural brick.” Her mother, Agatha, owned the Wildflower Cafe for many years and never did much decorating. Now, Agatha shared the apartment above the coffeehouse, and Jenny was her caretaker. When Agatha handed the café over to Jenny, she gave Jenny free hand to set things up the way she wanted.
“Maybe somebody hid something in the chimney. Like a treasure map or rare stamps,” Kenneth said.
“That’s a bit Scooby Doo. Let me know if you find stock in Apple.” She continued to scrape a moment and then said, “But, it’s interesting that you say that. Carrie—you know, the barista with the ‘Haim World Tour’ t-shirt?–told me a story. A man came in and ordered a coffee—she remembered because he asked for soy milk just after she had poured in free-range cream. While she was remaking his drink, he looked around and then stopped dead. ‘Do you know what that is?’ he said. ‘No, of course you don’t. You’re a millennial. You don’t know anything prior to your birth. I’d read about it online, but I never thought it existed. Do you know how much it’s worth?’
“Carrie asked him what he was talking about, but he told her to forget about it. Later that night, the coffeehouse was broken into. Nothing was taken. Nothing was even much disturbed, but Carrie thought it was the guy looking for whatever it was he thought he saw.”
“How do you know he didn’t find it?” Kenneth said. “Maybe it was the world’s rarest artificial sweetener packet, and you just didn’t miss it.”
“Well, now we only serve agave, so we’ll never find it.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Jenny noticed several older men staring through the window. One was in suspenders, shading his eyes with his hands as he peered around to see what was happening inside. One had his face pressed up against the glass, creating an expression both creepy and sad. The one in the red hat simply stood grumpily with his arms crossed. Must be some of the regulars waiting for the reopening, thought Jenny.
She went over to the window, smiled, pointed to the “Opening soon!” sign, and shut the drapes as they walked away.
As she held the drapes shut, she noticed how soft they were, how well-made for a local café. “Kenneth,” she said, “Come over and touch this.”
Kenneth stood up quickly and went over to the window. “Oh. You mean the drapes,” he said, with a trace of disappointment.
“Don’t they feel extra soft to you?”
Kenneth rubbed the drapes back and forth, grabbing small bundles, and felt himself blush slightly. “Yes—very soft.” Why was he a bit breathless?
“I’m thinking—what if this is what the robber meant? Could these drapes be silk or vicuna? Maybe an antique from some foreign castle? Brought here by outcast pioneers in search of a new homeland?” Jenny’s mind was already racing to fill in the romantic details.
Kenneth’s rubbing led him to a label. “Only if exiled royalty shop at Target,” he said, showing her what he’d found.
They went back to what they were doing. While squatting at the fireplace, Kenneth looked around the room. “But you might be onto something–the robber looked around, saw something expensive. . .”
“He didn’t say expensive. It sounded more like rare.”
“Rare implies expensive. Are these the paintings that were up that day?”
“I haven’t changed them. But they’re all just local artists.”
Kenneth walked over to a rather splotchy painting behind one of the booths. “This could be a Miro, or a Klee, or even an early Pollock.” He pulled it off the wall.
“I think that one was done by Mrs. Judson. She teaches senior yoga at the Y.”
“You never know.” He pulled it out of the frame. The back was cardboard labelled T and T Market, Waterville, NE. “OK, so maybe not this one.”
“I’m pretty sure all the paintings can be verified by their artists as not rare or expensive.”
“Still, he must have seen something.”
“I bet the fastest way to find it is to get back to work,” said Jenny.
Kenneth dutifully went back to the fireplace and continued scrubbing. Overhead, a couple of voices giggled about missing their gig on Saturday night—“That’s $3000 lost!” Jenny kept scraping off the wallpaper. Finally, she brushed her brown bangs out of her eyes and sat in a nearby chair.
Kenneth noticed how her frame pressed through the slats in the back. After a few moments of contemplation, he said, “It’s the chair!”
“What?” said Jenny, not turning around or getting up.
“Your chair,” said Kenneth running over. He traced his fingers over the back curve, just glancing against her t-shirt. “It’s a Windsor chair. They sell for thousands at auctions.”
“I’m pretty sure this isn’t an actual Windsor.”
“You never know what people find lying around.”
Jenny reluctantly got up. “OK, let’s give it a once-over.”
They circled the chair, looking for clues. Finally, Kenneth turned it over. There was a sticker: “Made in China,” and the remains of a Shopko price tag.
“I don’t think this is worth thousands. I doubt I get a Shopko Gift Certificate in return for it,” Jenny said.
“It was worth a try, at least. What’s your idea?”
“I never really thought about it until you brought it up.” She looked around the coffeehouse. “I suppose if anything here was worth money, it would be that lamp.”
She looked at the table where she kept the coffeepots. The lamp, colorful and small, sat between the Morning Mocha and Brazilian Dark Roast. “My mom found that lamp at a rummage sale. I always liked it. I thought it might be a Tiffany—they’re worth a lot.”
“Are you kidding? Do you know what this would sell for at auction?” Kenneth walked over and carefully examined the intricate lampshade. “Except this is plastic.”
“Weren’t the later Tiffany’s made out of plastic?” Jenny said.
Kenneth scoffed and they both went back to their jobs. Kenneth was humming along to an rocker which had been introduced as a Viper’s B-side when he had an idea.
The door rang as a man entered. “We’re not open yet,” said Jenny. “Closed for renovations.”
“Not even for a small cup of coffee?” he said as he walked up to the counter. He was a short man, built like a boxer, wearing a hoodie and sweats. Kenneth thought the guy took fashion tips from police sketches.
“Nothing’s on. Nothing will be on for a few days. We’re not open yet,” Jenny said.
“I’ve got three bucks in my pocket just burning a hole, waiting for cup of coffee. This place used to serve the best coffee.” He turned to face Jenny and Kenneth with a sinister, stubble-faced smile.
“I’ve seen you at the gym,” said Kenneth. “Rob, right?”
“Uh, yeah. . .Rob. Sure.”
“Come back in a couple days, and I’ll set you up,” said Jenny. “Right now, we’re renovating.”
“Yeah, about that. . .” Rob moved toward them in what Kenneth felt was a menacing way. Kenneth hoped Jenny still had the pepper spray she used when he surprised her behind the counter the other day.
“I was wondering if you found something,” Rob said as he reached into the front pocket of his sweatshirt.
“Did you leave something here, uh. . .Rob?” Kenneth asked, waving his paint scraper in front of him in what he hoped was a threatening manner. He wondered if black pepper would work just as well and looked at the tables for a shaker.
“Not exactly,” said Rob. “But there’s something I want.” He pulled out a gun.
“Wait a minute,” said Jenny, “we don’t have anything worth stealing.”
“Oh, come on, you must have found it by now. Just give it to me, and no one gets hurt.”
“You were the guy who tried to rob this place the other night,” Kenneth said. “Rob. Ironic.”
“You’re pretty smart,” Rob said. “And now I’m back, to rob it again. Only this time, I’m not leaving without what I want.”
“You’ll have to tell us what it is first,” Jenny said. “Rob the Robber.”
“Don’t play dumb. Just get it for me.”
Jenny said, “We were wondering if it might be this lamp.”
“What lamp?” said Rob the robber.
“This one,” she said, going over to the table. “It looks like an original Tiffany.”
“You think you’re going to fool me with plastic?”
Kenneth said, “Maybe it’s this chair.”
Rob said, “What chair?”
Kenneth grabbed the chair, swung, and knocked Rob over. The chair broke into pieces. The gun slid over to the fireplace. Kenneth sat on the robber and pulled the robber’s hands behind his back. Jenny hit Rob over the head with the plastic Tiffany lamp.
“Get me something to tie his hands with!” Kenneth yelled.
“Like what?” said Jenny.
“There must be something around here.”
Jenny went behind the counter to see if she could find anything. “I have some garbage bag ties,” she said.
“Those aren’t big enough.”
“Maybe I could hook some together, make a chain.”
“We don’t have time for arts and crafts.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Rob struggled to get free. “You know, Kenneth, I don’t the gym is helping with your weight problem.”
Kenneth said, “Come over here and take off my belt.”
“Look, we need to talk—I like you, but I don’t feel that way. . .”
“We can tie his hands with the belt,” Kenneth said.
“Oh. That’ll work,” she said as she came over and started working to get his belt unhooked, which turned out to be harder than it looked when fighting a struggling body at the same time.
The chair elevator started with a clunk at the top of the stairs and started coming down.
“What do you mean you don’t feel that way? You don’t think I. . .” Kenneth said.
“She’s just not that into you,” said Rob.
Jenny’s mother, Agatha, got off the chair at the bottom of the steps and saw the three of them on the floor, grappling with each other.
“You young people,” she said, sighing. “Well, who am I to judge?”
Dressed in a pink terrycloth robe and fluffy pink slippers, she walked towards one of the coffeepots when she saw the scraps of wood. “My chair! My Windsor chair!” she cried. “How could you break that? Do you know how much it was worth?”
“No, Mom, it was made in China. I looked at the label.”
“I put that label there in case someone tried to steal it. It was worth thousands!”
“So, it was the chair you wanted all along,” said Kenneth.
“No,” said Rob.
The singer on the background music sang, “Life begins at 40. . .”
“You’re listening to the tape Yoko gave me,” said Agatha. “That’s nice.”
The pile of three uncomfortably positioned bodies stopped moving at once and looked up. “What tape?” said Jenny.
“What Yoko?” said Kenneth.
“Dammit,” said Rob as he ceased to struggle.
Agatha went over to the cassette player and pulled out the tape. “You know, Yoko. Ono. We met at Sarah Lawrence, years and years ago. She kept in touch. She gave this to me for Christmas one year when I was in New York.”
Kenneth and Jenny simultaneously recognized the voices on the tape. “Do you know who this is?”
“It’s Paul and John, I assume. Lovely guys. Yoko told me they’d been working on some songs, and she gave me this tape.”
Rob, who was no longer struggling, sat up. “It’s a legendary tape. John and Paul got together in the mid-70s and decided to write some new songs to see if the partnership could be reunited. They recorded the demos in John’s apartment, but the tape disappeared. Some of the songs turned up on solo bootlegs, but everyone thought the original tape with both of them on it was gone forever. Then, I walked in here one day, and I heard it playing over the speakers—the vocals were unmistakable.”
“Why would Yoko give my mother such a valuable tape?” said Jenny.
“She probably didn’t want to have them working together again, so she got rid of the evidence. She didn’t want to destroy it, though—she’s an artist. What better way to hide it than give it to someone who lives in the middle of nowhere?” said Kenneth.
“So, you finally agree that Waterville, Nebraska is in the middle of nowhere,” Jenny said.
“I didn’t say that,” said Kenneth.
“Anyhoo,” said Rob. “It’s probably worth thousands—maybe millions.”
“If it’s that important,” said Agatha. “It should probably go to a museum. I’ll take it to a friend of mine in the music department at UNL—she’ll know what to do.” Agatha put the tape in her robe pocket. She grabbed her cup of coffee, sat on the chair elevator, and went upstairs.
Rob stood up. “I’m sorry about all this—but you understand now.”
“Yes,” said Kenneth, thinking about the tape and the pile of wood on the floor. He had a vision of a moneybag with wings flying out the window.
“Except you pulled a gun on us,” said Jenny.
“It’s plastic,” said Kenneth, as he went over to the fireplace and picked it up. He handed it back to Rob.
“It’s from my Guardians of the Galaxy costume. I’m not much of a robber. I run the tattoo parlor down the street,” said Rob. “I could really use that coffee.”
“We all could,” said Jenny, walking over to the counter to grab some mugs. A few minutes later, they were sitting around a newly-varnished table, commiserating.
A middle-aged woman in a red Husker sweatshirt and jeans came through the door. “Are you open yet?”
“Not yet,” said Jenny, “but. . .”
She was cut off by the woman’s high-pitched scream. “Do you know what that is?” The woman ran over to the lamp. “That’s a genuine Tiffany! Do you have any idea what that’s worth?”
Jenny, Kenneth, and Rob banged their heads on the table with a single, loud thud.
