CoffeeHouse Angel

by Suzanne Selfors

  "What?" I dropped the knife.

  "Well, you know, she joined the team this year and we've been spending lots of time together. She asked me yesterday and I said I'd go." He acted as if he'd shared something as innocuous as a fair weather report. I felt as if I'd been struck by lightning. "I can't remember the last time I went to the festival."

  I remembered the last time he went. We were sixth graders and we felt silly making those peanut butter pinecones for the tree, but we did it anyway, somehow realizing that it was our last chance to be kids. We waited for St. Nick, holding out our hands for candy canes and licorice. We knew it was Ingvar behind the white beard, not just because his pipe was dangling from his mouth but because we were wiser and the magic of the holiday had begun to fade. After the Grand Feast, Vincent's dad let us hang out on the deck behind the marina office. Vincent and I curled up under a big blanket to watch the parade of Solstice ships. I remembered every minute of that night.

  I grabbed the edge of the counter. "What do you mean you're going to the Solstice Festival with Heidi?"

  "I know you don't like her, Katrina, but it's just a date.

  I'm still not going to buy her dad's coffee." He grabbed a slice of toast. Elizabeth grabbed the other.

  I could barely control my panic. "But you're supposed to be here during the festival, remember?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I asked if you would help hand out the special drinks and sign the cups."

  "Oh, that. You never said it was during the Solstice."

  "Yes, I did."

  "No, you didn't."

  I looked to Elizabeth for help. She shrugged. "Come to think of it, I don't think you mentioned when you needed Vincent's help."

  "WHAT? Of course I did. When else would I need him?"

  Vincent finished his toast. "Jeez, Katrina, don't get so mad. How was I supposed to know? I'm not a mind reader."

  Panic turned my voice all screechy. "You have to help that night. We can't outsell Mr.

  Darling without you."

  "But I already said yes to Heidi."

  "So?" I glared at him. He'll have to choose. Heidi or me. "Why would you want to go out with her in the first place?"

  He looked away. That single gesture revealed all I needed to know. Vincent Hawk, best friend since the fourth grade, was in love with horrid Heidi Darling, daughter of my worst enemy. Unbelievable.

  He wasn't thinking clearly. Heidi had hypnotized him with her fresh-scrubbed beauty.

  I needed to warn him, to help him see the truth.

  "She doesn't care about you. She's only doing this to get to me."

  "What are you talking about?" He narrowed his brown eyes.

  "Her dad is trying to pay us to close the business and move. If she ruins my life, then I'll want to move. Don't you see?"

  "How is my going to the Solstice Festival with Heidi going to ruin your life?"

  Elizabeth was wide-eyed as I struggled for words.

  "Because...because..." Because Heidi already has a perfect life and if she gets you, then she'll have everything. Because if you go out with her, then I'll feel like you stabbed me in the back and that will change things between us. And then we won't hang out and I'll be miserable.

  "Because it's about loyalty," Elizabeth said, punching Vincent's shoulder. "Katrina needs you to help her."

  "I'm loyal! How can you say I'm not loyal? I do everything with Katrina. It's just a date. You're both acting like it's the end of the world." He slid off the stool. "Look, Katrina, maybe you should think of another way to compete with Java Heaven. You can think of something." He put on his coat. "And I'll help, you know I will. I just can't help during the Solstice Festival. Heidi's all excited about going and I'm not going to hurt her feelings." As calm as ever, as if he had titanium skin impervious to my feelings, he put on his hat and left.

  It had been such a great plan, but Hero Hot Chocolate was nothing without the hero.

  Tears welled in my eyes. What was more upsetting--the fact that my plan to make some money had crashed and burned, or the fact that Vincent had chosen another girl's feelings over mine?

  "Vincent's way too good for Heidi," Elizabeth said, hugging me. "She'll lose interest as soon as she realizes that he doesn't have any money, except for that scholarship. He doesn't even have a car. She'll dump him after a few dates."

  I nodded, finding comfort in my best friend's potential misery.

  "But you know..." She paused, then brushed crumbs off the counter. "I feel like I need to be brutally honest."

  I fought off more tears. "What do you mean?"

  "This was going to happen eventually. Vincent's too cute not to have a girlfriend.

  You've had him to yourself way too long."

  Not long enough. But she was right. How could Nordby's swim champion and life-saving hero stay single? He'd get marriage proposals from all over the country once that People interview came out. But of all the people...Heidi Darling.

  "It's getting late," Elizabeth said. "If we're going to grind up that bean, we should do it now."

  Right. That bean. That stupid bean. I'd show Vincent. I'd grind it up and drink it and get real famous and I wouldn't need his signature on a coffee cup. I ran upstairs.

  "You're going to be late," my grandmother called from the bathroom.

  Ratcatcher pawed at my ankles as I pulled last night's jeans off the top of the laundry basket. Inside the pocket, the chocolate-covered bean was all sticky. Ratcatcher wound between my legs as I hurried down the hallway. "Stop it," I scolded. She kept winding. At the top step, she got right under my foot and tripped me. I caught myself on the railing, but the bean flew out of my hand and rolled down the stairs. The cat bounded after it. "Ratcatcher!"

  The bean bounced off the last step and rolled across the kitchen floor. Ratcatcher wiggled her rump, then pounced. She swallowed the bean whole.

  Elizabeth looked up the stairs. "Why are you standing there? Where's the bean?"

  What a totally crappy morning. "Ratcatcher just ate it."

  "You've got to be kidding."

  "I'm not."

  She put her hands on her hips and frowned. "If your cat gets famous, I'm going to be so mad at you."

  Sixteen

  As I've said, Law #1 in my book of laws is Thou shalt never, ever partake of Java Heaven coffee. The recent addendum to that rule is Nor shalt thou PARTAKE of anything from Java Heaven, be it a beverage, a food product, or THE OWNER'S

  DAUGHTER.

  In World Mythology I shunned Vincent and took the desk next to Elliott, dreading the moment when Mr. Williams would call on me to read my good deed story. And he would call on me, because he had given me the eager eye when I had walked into class. But first he made us sit through three other stories that had the following things in common: each story had been written by a girl, each story was about Vincent, and each story made me sick.

  Isabelle read: "It was a dark and stormy morning when the accident occurred. Fate looked down from his throne in the sky and said, 'I choose that man to die today'

  Little did Fate know that Vincent Hawk was in the neighborhood."

  Oh, please.

  Ashley read: "Rain pounded against Vincent's face as he shouted, As God is my witness, I will not let this man die!' "

  Give me a break.

  Chloe read: "Vincent didn't think about his own safety. I mean, what if the man had collapsed from the bird flu? Vincent risked his own life in order to save another."

  Whatever.

  They read. They blushed. They smiled at Vincent. He soaked up the adoration in his button-down shirt and jeans. The perfect hero, maybe, but not the perfect friend.

  Enough with the whole good deed thing. Could we just move on?

  "Katrina?" Mr. Williams called. "Do you have a story to share?"

  "I didn't write about Vincent saving that guy."

  "I didn't expect you to write about Vincent. I'm sure I speak for the entire class when I say that I'd
like to hear about your own good deed, the one your visitor referred to on Monday."

  "I didn't write about that either." A few people groaned. "I made something up."

  "Oh." Mr. Williams frowned and tapped his fingers on his desk. "Well, let's hear it anyway."

  I shouldn't have read it aloud because I wrote the story in a fit of anger while Elizabeth drove me to school. It's never a good idea to read something aloud that you wrote in a fit of anger.

  I'd never been mad at Vincent before. Well, just over little things, like the time he had dumped his clarinet spit all over my shoe in sixth-grade band practice, and the time he had purposefully tipped the canoe because he knew murky water freaked me out.

  Little things, boy things-- things that didn't matter.

  I stole a glance at him, sitting over there, all dressed up. He had chosen Heidi's feelings over mine!

  "Please stand so we can all hear," Mr. Williams said.

  "There once lived this girl who was a potato farmer," I read. More students groaned, some fell back in their seats. No one cared, now that it wasn't a story about me and Skirt Guy. I continued. "She worked very hard every day digging her potatoes. On the weekends she took the potatoes to market and sold them. And everything was fine.

  But then a man bought the land next door and planted potatoes. And come summer, he bought a brand-new tractor so he could dig his potatoes faster. And because he dug faster, he was able to take double the amount of potatoes to market. And because he put them into fancy bags with fancy organic labels, the townspeople started buying his potatoes instead of hers."

  I didn't look up. I didn't care if they were bored out of their minds. This story had a point and I was going to make it.

  "The girl was desperate. Selling potatoes was her only way to earn money, and the potato festival was in a few days--the biggest sales day of the year. So she asked her best friend if he would help her dig so she could try to get the most potatoes to the festival and the friend said, 'Of course I'll help you because that's what best friends do.' The next day the girl got up early and started digging. But where was her friend?"

  I took a dramatic pause. Someone sneezed. "The roar of a tractor's engine approached.

  She looked up from her digging and saw that her friend was driving the neighbor's tractor, in the neighbor's field. She was shocked. 'Why are you driving that tractor?'

  she asked. 'You know it belongs to my neighbor and he is stealing all of my business.'

  And her friend said, 'I'm driving it because your neighbor asked me to drive it.' And the girl said, 'So? You're supposed to be helping me get ready for the festival today. I need you.' And the friend said, 'But you never said that today was the day when you needed my help and I really, really like this tractor because it's pretty and I don't want to hurt your neighbor's feelings by not driving it.' And the girl said, 'Whatever! BE

  THAT WAY! YOU TRAITOR!' "

  I sat down.

  No one applauded or anything.

  Mr. Williams scratched his head. "Uh, Katrina, is that it? Where's the good deed?"

  I folded my arms. "There is no good deed. That's the point. There could have been a good deed but because the friend was a total jerk, he missed the opportunity to do a good deed."

  "But what's the moral?"

  "The moral is that sometimes you have to help your friends, even if there are other things you'd rather be doing." I smirked, confident that I had made my point. I felt righteous, sitting atop my wave of truth.

  Vincent cleared his throat. "Maybe the moral is that she shouldn't rely on her friend for everything. Maybe she should figure out how to save her potato business on her own. Maybe she should get a life."

  When waves break they can really crush a swimmer, especially if they're carrying bits of broken shells and rocks. Especially if they're carrying hurt feelings.

  I didn't go to the rest of my morning classes. As soon as the bell rang I fled World Mythology. Mr. Prince had filled the hallway display case with Heidi's accomplishments.

  How to Get into the Ivy League. I caught my reflection as I hurried past, ghostlike with long blond hair and pale eyes. I swear to God it whispered, "Get a life."

  I didn't care that Elizabeth's car was covered in frost. I yanked the hide-a-key off the back tire, climbed inside, and settled in for a long sulk. When someone tells you to

  "get a life," what that person is actually saying is: "Your concerns are stupid. They are trivial and beneath me." That's a really mean thing to say to a friend.

  That Beatles' song ran through my head--/ get by with a little help from my friends.

  Without Vincent, there was only Elizabeth. When had I stopped making friends?

  When had I decided that two were plenty? Time passed. I did nothing, which is the truth, because sulking is as close to nothing as a person can get. If you ever want to waste time, and I mean waste it in a way that adds not a drop of meaning to your life, anyone else's life, or to the universe itself, then sulking is your answer.

  I got hungry. I slid down the seat until the parking lot disappeared and all I could see was Elizabeth's glove box. I reached in and grabbed a pack of Hostess Ding Dongs.

  How long would it take me to freeze to death?

  The driver's door swung open. Elizabeth threw herself into the car, slammed the door, then slid down next to me. "I'm glad you're out here. I can't take that sweaty cafeteria today. Why are you hiding?"

  "I don't want to see Vincent. Why are you hiding?"

  "I don't want to see Face. I asked him."

  "You did?"

  "He said he needed to think about it."

  "Oh." I tore open the Ding Dongs wrapper with my teeth.

  Elizabeth clutched the steering wheel. "That's not bad, is it? I mean, if he didn't want to go with me, then he would have said I can't or something. But if he wanted to go with me, he would have said yes." Her knuckles turned white. "Oh God, he's going to say no, isn't he? This is totally embarrassing. He's going to make me wait and then reject me. I wore these boring clothes for nothing. I hate him."

  "Maybe you just surprised him."

  "Maybe." She reached over and snagged a Ding Dong. "How long do you think he'll think about it? Should I ask him how long he's going to take? Oh my God, that would look so desperate."

  I had no insights to offer Elizabeth. Face was as alien to me as any other guy at Nordby High--including, it turned out, Vincent.

  "He thinks I'm fat."

  "Elizabeth..."

  "Forget him. I'm not going to sit around and wait for him to reject me." She finished the gooey cake in two bites. "I'm going to send him a note telling him that I've made other plans. That'll teach him to make me wait." She smacked her hand on the steering wheel. Then she squealed.

  A face peered down at us, through the windshield.

  We sat up. Malcolm settled on the car's hood, cross-legged, his satchel resting between his legs. The golden letters of Messenger Service sparkled. Elizabeth stuck her key in the ignition so she could roll down the window. She leaned out. "Hey, will you deliver a message for me? I want it delivered to this guy at school. Have it say,

  'Dear David, I regret to inform you that while waiting for your reply to my kind invitation, I received another offer. Which I accepted.

  Regrettably'--no, 'Yours Truly'--no, 'Sincerely, Elizabeth Miller.' Can you do that?

  Like, right now?"

  "I can't do that, I'm afraid. The only messages I'm allowed to deliver are sent directly from my employer."

  "I'll pay cash. You won't have to tell your boss."

  "I'm afraid that is against the rules." Malcolm tilted his head and looked at me, his expression dead serious. "Why didn't you eat the second bean?" Though the windshield muffled his voice, his question slipped right into my ear. It tickled.

  "How does he know that?" Elizabeth whispered.

  No way could he have actually known that I hadn't eaten the second bean. Even if he had been spying through the front window
of the coffeehouse, he couldn't have seen Ratcatcher. She'd been in the kitchen when she devoured the bean. He was bluffing, playing at his weird game. I rolled down the passenger window and leaned out. "What makes you think I didn't eat it?"

  "I'll show you."

  Seventeen

  Truancy can get you into a lot of trouble at Nordby High, but we left campus anyway, intrigued by Malcolm's promise to show us something. "What's going on?" Elizabeth asked, pulling into the only available parking spot on Main Street.

  A big crowd had gathered outside Anna's Old World Scandinavian Coffeehouse, which would have been great had they been waiting to buy Norwegian Egg coffee.

  But that's not why the crowd had gathered. I recognized a bunch of Main Street shopkeepers and other locals. Joggers and dog walkers had stopped, as had toddlers and parents. Clutching expensive organic drinks, customers drifted out of Java Heaven's front door and squeezed their way into the crowd for a better view.

  A better view of what?

  Fear set in. Had something happened to my grandmother? Terrible thoughts ran through my mind, everything that can go wrong with an old person--a fall, a stroke, a heart attack. She hadn't been feeling well. Why hadn't I stayed home to take care of her? Why hadn't I paid better attention when Vincent gave that guy CPR? Where was the ambulance? Why wasn't anyone doing anything?

  Officer Larsen stood at the edge of the crowd, near the shoe shop. I hurried over to him. "Officer Larsen, where's my grandmother?"

  "She's in the coffeehouse, but you shouldn't go in there," he said, writing something on a notepad. His cell phone rang. He turned his back to me before I could ask more questions. "This is Officer Larsen. We've got a situation and it's not pretty."

  I went kind of limp, like in those dreams when your legs won't work. She's in the coffeehouse. Lying in the coffeehouse? Dying in the coffeehouse? For a moment, panic shut me down.

  "Come on," Elizabeth said. I followed in her wake as she elbowed through the crowd.

  "This is worse than an after-Thanksgiving sale. Let us through. We work here."

  Malcolm had disappeared again, but I didn't dwell on that. All I could think about was losing my grandmother. As we forced our way through the crowd, the coffeehouse seemed out of reach. The odd thing was, the crowd wasn't silent the way a crowd is at an accident scene. Everyone was talking and even laughing. With my heart pounding in my ears, I only picked up fragments of conversation.