The Perk by Mark Gimenez

later, they arrived in the Pedernales River Valley, halfway to their destination. His people were sick with cholera, so the Baron decided
to settle there on ten thousand acres where two creeks joined the Pedernales.
He named his new town Fredericksburg.
    Buffalo Hump became
angry at the sight of white men on Comanche land; so, in accordance with his
strict anti-immigration policy, he promptly raided and killed many of the
settlers (cholera and Comanche being the two most common causes of death among
the Germans). After enduring a year of Comanche raids, the Baron led an expedition
to meet with Buffalo Hump and the other Comanche chiefs; normally, the Comanche
would have killed and scalped the Baron, but his red hair and beard captivated
them. They called him El Sol Colorado —the Red Sun. The Baron proposed
a peace treaty: in return for an immediate cessation of war parties, the
Germans would give the Comanche $3,000 worth of presents in Fredericksburg. Buffalo
Hump might have been a savage but he wasn't stupid; he signed the treaty and
took the gifts.
    The Comanche became Fredericksburg's first tourists.
    Seven thousand Germans immigrated to the Hill
Country of Texas; over half died in the first year. They never settled the
Fisher-Miller Grant land. The Society went bankrupt. Prince Frederick's dream
of a German state in Texas was never realized. And to add insult to injury, the
Texas legislature refused the Germans' request to name their new county Germania; instead, it was named Gillespie, after a soldier who had died in the
Mexican-American War. But through it all, the Town of Fredericksburg survived as
a close-knit community of Germans isolated in the middle of Texas.
    It wasn't the same town today.
    Twenty-four years before, Beck Hardin had left a
rural Main Street lined with pickup trucks and German businesses. Today, Main Street was about as rural and German as the Lexuses lining the curbs and the city
slickers strolling the sidewalks. If Austin was the high school buddy who had
packed on the weight, Fredericksburg was the ugly duckling who had undergone an
extreme makeover—from a down-home goat ranching town to a high-falutin' tourist
trap.
    They had stopped in
town on their way back from the Rock for lunch and were now caught in buckle-to-butt
sidewalk traffic. The tourists had apparently come for the parade and stayed for
the long holiday weekend. Now, walking again among the tattoos and thongs on Main Street, Beck's greatest fear as a single father rose in his thoughts like a recurring
nightmare: Was he mother enough to raise Meggie alone? He didn't fear raising
a son alone: Luke was a male; he was a male; ergo , he could raise
Luke. (Or so he hoped.) But Aubrey was right: he didn't have a clue about
girls.
    Before Annie had gotten sick, they had gone to
several football games at the high school in Winnetka. He had been shocked to
see affluent teenage girls dressed like high-class call girls—breasts and
butts, thighs, torsos, and thongs, all bared to the world; but he had been completely
unconcerned about Meggie dressing like that when she was a teenager—because it
wasn't his problem. It was Annie's problem. Raising a girl was a mother's
job.
    But now Annie was gone, and it was his job. Now
it was his problem. So Beck Hardin would do what he had done for the last twenty-four
years whenever he needed an answer: he would hit the books. He would read
about raising children. He would learn about girls.
    Just past the brew pub, they turned down a
narrow stone path between two buildings. Twenty paces in, the path opened onto
a grassy courtyard with a fountain and chairs and a two-person metal bench under
shade trees where several people sat reading beside an old rock water well that
was now a wishing well. The noise of Main Street seemed distant.
    On the south side of the courtyard stood a restored
two-story limestone house with beveled-glass doors and a sign that read: BOOKED-UP
& ARTFUL and COFFEE