Much Ado About Muffin Read Online Free PDF

Janice has brought you up to speed. Anyway, Minnie came in yesterday afternoon, sent poor Isadore flying, then stomped over to Crystal and Em’s table—whole damn luncheonette shook; you know Minnie—and shrieked at her that Crystal was trying to turn Brianna over to the devil, that she was brainwashing a kid who didn’t know any better, and she’d better be careful, or there’d be hell to pay.”
    â€œWhat did Crystal say?” Janice asked.
    â€œIt was Emerald who jumped up and told Minnie to keepher fat trap shut, and that she’d better not threaten Crystal, or she’d get what she had coming to her,” Mabel said.
    â€œI thought this Consciousness Calling stuff was making Em calmer,” I said.
    â€œHah!” Mabel brushed some ash from her sweater sleeve, poked an errant sunset curl back into place on her forehead, and continued. “Anyway, Crystal gave Emerald this look—chilled
me
to the bone—and the girl quieted down right away. It was like hypnotism or something. Crystal stood and faced Minnie. You haven’t met her yet, right, Crystal Rouse?”
    â€œNot yet,” I replied.
    â€œShe’s one of those people who always has a self-satisfied smirk on their faces, the kind you want to smack off. She told Minnie that she was clearly a deeply unhappy woman. She said if she’d just give Consciousness Calling a chance, it might help with her
weight
problem, she said, and her
anger
issues. I tell you, if Crystal says
one word
to me about smoking I’ll dump an ashtray on her head.” Mabel growled in the back of her throat. Her employees call the lunch counter manageress “the dragon lady,” mostly for how smoke so often curls out of her mouth after a deep drag, but also because of that growl. “Anyway, Crystal said Brianna showed a lot of promise and was on her way to finding peace and happiness.”
    Standard self-help group fare. “Peace and happiness are good, right?”
    Mabel’s mouth twisted in a sour look. “Minnie gave Crystal a shove, and that’s when someone called the cops, giving them a play-by-play. Emerald jumped up and bopped Minnie on the nose, made it bleed.”
    I rolled my eyes skyward.
    â€œAll the while, Crystal was chanting,
this too shall pass
,
it is what it is
,
we must agree to disagree
, and
let’s put a pin in this and talk later
! I tell you, I felt like bopping
her
in the nose after a few minutes of that mindless drivel.”
    Janice snickered and so did a couple of others. Someclapped. “
Way to go, Mabel
!” one called out, while a few patrons called her
Bruiser
and
Mabel Dempsey
, asking when the fight was scheduled. The two young fellows exchanged looks and got up, shambling out of the café.
    Mabel watched them go, then said, “Virgil came, but it was all over by then except for the blood on the floor. No one is pressing charges. But then this morning Brianna came waltzing in asking people for money for that Consciousness Calling crap! Trying to gather
followers
, for the
cause
!” Mabel stood, towering over our table as she eased the kinks out of her knees. “I won’t have that. Told her to can it unless she was collecting for veterans, and then she said, maybe I valued dogs and cats over humans but I shouldn’t.”
    I bit my lip. “Did you clarify veterans versus veterinarians?”
    â€œNope. Told her to hustle her butt out of here and that’s it.
And
I told her to tell Crystal not to send her lackeys in to collect dough from my customers.”
    â€œAre you sure the money was for Consciousness Calling?” Janice said. “Could have been a handy excuse to make some pocket change.”
    â€œMaybe,” the manageress said. “Anyway, as much as I’m not fond of Minnie, that Crystal character gets on my last shaky nerve and shreds it like a cat on terry cloth. I’m choosing sides in this one, and I