“CU Denver. Engineering school.”
Holy hotness, a college boy. Sal would totally freak. “Oh,” I managed to say. “That’s cool.”
“It’s my first year there. Last year I went to a community college because it was cheaper, but this year I transferred to CU.” He shrugged. “It’s intense but I’m doing okay.”
I nodded wordlessly.
“Knock ’em dead, Darcy.” He shot me another killer smile. “I’ll see you around.” He flipped me a peace sign, then disappeared through the curtains.
I didn’t know what it was about him. Nobody had ever affected me with such intensity. If hotness was an app, Lucas would be a bestseller.
Bella was a beast. A shiny, noisy, scary beast. She belched steam and spewed burning liquid. She terrified me.
“Baby steps,” Liz said. “Let’s start with an espresso.” She ground coffee beans and filled the filter cup, grinding and pushing with a metal tamper until the grounds were tightly packed.
“Here.” She handed me a long black handle attached to the silver filter cup. “Slide and lock it into place.”
I slid. I tried to lock it into place, but instead I dropped it, and fine grounds of espresso flew everywhere. “Crap. I’m sorry.” I bit my lip. Inhale calm. Exhale stress.
Liz grinned. “You should’ve seen the mess I made my first day battling Miss Bella. Let’s do it again.”
And so we did. Grind, tamp, slide, lock. Steam, release, magic! Hot steaming espresso filled the tiny china cup under the spout.
“You did it!” Liz high-fived me and laughed. “One down, a million to go.”
We spent a long time together behind the counter. I watched her like a hawk, trying to memorize all the steps needed to make a latte, an Americano, a cappuccino.
I served tea and pastries and worked the register. I met some of the regulars, whose faces lit up when they discovered I was Charlie’s niece. I tried to make up for my Bella incompetence by cleaning every cup and utensil the second it hit the sink. I bussed and cleaned tables before Liz even noticed they were dirty. I played Candyland with two little girls while their mom talked to Liz. I refilled the tea racks every fifteen minutes until Liz told me to take a chill pill.
I was the embodiment of Thoughtful! Responsible! Initiative! It was the best time I’d had in forever.
At ten o’clock, after everyone had packed up their knitting and laptops and said good night, Liz locked the door. She sank onto one of the couches and sighed. “Busy night.” She yawned.
I stacked up board games and put them on a shelf.
“Sit down, Darcy.”
I sat across from her and smiled tentatively, wondering how I’d compared to the other applicants. I looked around the shop, imagining working here regularly, daring to hope I would be.
“I know it’ll take me a little more time to learn Bella,” I said. Understatement of the century. “But I promise I’ll work very hard. I’ll do anything. Even clean the bathroom.” I’d learned how to wield a toilet bowl brush, since we no longer had a housekeeping service.
Liz looked at me intently, not smiling. Her voice was quiet when she spoke. “There have been three total applicants—a guy who cranked death metal and scared away my customers, a girl with a permanent sneer and an inability to make change to save her life, and you.”
Her face blossomed into one of her cosmic smiles. “No contest, Darcy. The job is yours. Can you start this week?”
“No way. I mean, yes! Of course!” I wanted to hug her but didn’t want to freak her out.
“Good. Call me tomorrow after school and we can figure out this week’s schedule.” She rose from the couch. “Thank God you were the best applicant.”
“Why?”
“Because it would’ve broken Charlie’s heart if I didn’t hire you. But this was a business decision.” She smiled down at me. “You showed an excellent work ethic and you treated my customers with kindness, even the kids. I’d be stupid not to hire you.”
“Thank you, Liz. I promise I won’t let you down.” I stood up and put out a hand to shake.
She ignored my outstretched hand and pulled me into a hug. “I know you won’t. Now let’s get out of here and tell your uncle the good news.”
Chapter Ten
October 3
The next day I barely focused on school. Mom had been passed out on the couch when I’d gotten home from the coffee shop the night before, killing my glow from Tin Lizzy’s. I wanted to talk to her about my new job. About ditching her at the photo shoot. About Dad’s latest postcard that had arrived yesterday. But how could I if she wasn’t awake in the mornings and was hardly ever sober at night?
She wasn’t home when I got home from school. After calling Liz to figure out my work schedule, I took Toby for a long run, listening on my phone to one of Dad’s classic spiels on how to survive tough times. “The human spirit is indomitable,” he said. “Just like gardens that lie dormant all winter and resurrect every spring. So do we, even when we’re sure we can’t.”
His latest postcard wasn’t so indomitable. The front of the plain black card said, “This is a postcard from someone on the road.” How lame. On the back he’d scrawled, “I’m still looking. Not sure when I’ll find it. But I love you. –Dad.”
What was I supposed to do with that?
My stomach rumbled as Toby and I neared home. I hadn’t eaten lunch at school because I’d forgotten my sandwich, and I didn’t want to spend any cash. I thought of Mom spending her day with the evil Pam, and guilt washed over me as I remembered how I’d ditched the photo shoot and destroyed our henge.
Instead of microwaving junk tonight, I’d make her dinner, to apologize for everything.
But I had no idea what to cook. I’d never made anything besides cereal, Pop Tarts, and sandwiches. Maybe I could find something easy from one of her cookbooks.
I flopped onto the couch with a stack of cookbooks. Toby jumped up next to me, nosing the books. How did that crazy dog know I was reading about food?
French Cuisine for Special Occasions. Indonesian Delicacies for the Adventurous Cook. Whatever happened to Cooking for Dummies? I pulled out my phone and searched “cooking for idiots.” Aha. Cookingfortheclueless.com.
Step one: what ingredients are on hand?
Hmm. I moved Toby from my lap, went to the pantry, and stared at the nearly empty shelves. Noodles. A jar of salsa. A can of tuna. A half-empty box of generic cereal. Two bottles of unopened dill pickles. A can of evaporated milk.
“Not even Mom could turn this junk into a meal,” I told Toby.
I looked at the website again. “Tasty meals on a tight budget.” That was more like it. I clicked the link and scrolled through the choices. Tuna noodle casserole. Hmm. I pictured the pantry shelves. We had noodles. And tuna. What else did I need? Frozen peas, cream of mushroom soup. Sour cream. I had twenty bucks in my wallet.
When Mom got home three hours later, she almost fainted when she saw the casserole dish on the counter.
“Darcy? Is this… Did you cook dinner?”
I grinned. “Yes ma’am. It ain’t fancy, but it’s not too bad.”
She gaped at me, then regained her composure. “Don’t say— ”
“Ain’t. I know.” I grabbed a plate from the cupboard and spooned a heap of tuna and noodles on it, then zapped it in the microwave.
“So.” I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to give her the same assessing look she’d given me every day after school. “How’s life? Aside from your photographer bailing on you?”
She laughed, then dropped her keys on the counter and walked over to give me a hug.
“My day sucked. But it just got a lot better.” She held me tight.
“Mom, please. Only vulgar girls say ‘sucked.’”
She stepped back from me and shook her head. “You never cease to amaze me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Mom. It’s just tuna casserole,
not the Nobel Prize.” I opened the freezer and grabbed the pint of Ben & Jerry’s I’d splurged on.
“How was your day?” she asked. “The truth, please.”
I shrugged. “Like yours. It sucked.” I pulled the lid off the ice cream and grinned at her. “But it’s better now.”
We sat together on the couch watching some show about hot aliens with supernatural powers. One of them kind of reminded me of Lucas.
“So,” I said. “I have news. I have a job.”
She almost choked on her food. “You’re kidding. Where?”
I told her about Charlie and Liz, about how I’d made a mess with Bella but somehow gotten the job anyway. I didn’t mention Lucas. I was keeping him all to myself.
“That’s wonderful, sweetheart. I’m so proud of you.”
Her pride made it that much harder to tell her the next thing. I swallowed over the lump that rose in my throat.
“After I left Pam’s, I went to the cabin. And I…” I blinked my eyes against the tears. “I knocked down Dad’s Stonehenge.”
Mom didn’t say anything for a long time, then she heaved a long sigh. “So you saw the ‘for sale’ sign?”
I nodded, still fighting back tears, and full of remorse.
“I was going to tell you. Eventually. But I knew you’d be upset.” She gave me a sad smile. “Guess I was right about that.”
“Honestly I’m not sure why I did it. I think it was everything. Hearing Pam—” I stopped. I wasn’t going to tell Mom about Pam’s insults. “Just being around her,” I said. Inhale. Exhale. “Just everything,” I whispered.
Mom nodded and slowly chewed another bite of casserole.
“I’ll go back and fix it.”
She swallowed her food and shook her head. “Don’t bother. I’m sure whoever buys it will get rid of the stones.”
My throat burned and tears spilled down my cheeks as the reality of our losses overwhelmed me again. It wasn’t just the stuff, like my car or the cabin. That sucked, but what I missed more than anything was my dad. I missed his strength, his booming laugh, his constant insistence that I could do more, be more. I even missed his platitudes and clichés.
Mom set aside her plate and reached over to hug me. “It’s not always going to be this hard, honey.”
I wanted to believe her. More than anything, I wanted to believe her.
But I didn’t.
Chapter Eleven
The universe hit the pause button, granting me a blissful couple of weeks. There were no weird postcards from Dad, just texts from J.J. telling us Dad was okay but still on the road. I only found a few empty wine bottles in the recycling bin. Even the harassment at school had eased off, but I knew that would only last until Dad was in the news again. Girls like Chloe didn’t just turn over a new leaf overnight.
Every day after school I headed straight for Broadway, even on the days I wasn’t scheduled to work. The shops became my sanctuary. When I was there, I could breathe without reminding myself to exhale. On my days off, I hung out in Charlie’s shop. I sorted through clothes and organized books. Lucas kidded me that I was trying to steal his job, but I told him I had no interest or ability in repairing broken appliances. Plus, as I reminded him, it wasn’t really a job when I was working for free.
As I got more comfortable, I was able to joke around with Charlie and Lucas. Every time I made them laugh I felt like I’d earned the right to hang out a little longer. I could even make eye contact with Lucas without breaking a sweat. Laughing with him felt natural and easy. He’d nicknamed me Shaker Girl, since I was so obsessed with Charlie’s collection. I contemplated getting the words tattooed on my thigh every time I passed the Inkheart tattoo parlor.
Charlie and I talked about everything. He told me stories about my dad from when they were kids. According to Charlie, my dad didn’t always have a stick up his ass. He’d actually been fun sometimes.
“From the moment you were born, you became the most important thing in Ty’s life,” Charlie said one day while I sorted through a box of books.
I set aside a few regency romances to borrow later. Maybe it was because Mom had named me after a character in a Jane Austen novel, but I loved to immerse myself in a world full of gentleman callers with impeccable manners and dry wit. Guys who said all the right things and made a girl feel treasured.
I ran my hands over the worn cover of a paperback featuring a perfect couple dancing in a ballroom. Nobody was dropping by my house leaving calling cards or inviting me on carriage rides. Or texting to ask me to a movie. I couldn’t even get my dad to return my calls. I sure didn’t feel like the most important thing in his life.
“It’s true,” Charlie insisted, reading my doubtful expression. “I know Ty can be intense. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.”
Of course he loved me. I just didn’t know how much he liked me. I wasn’t his dream daughter, I knew that. I’d rather curl up and read than prance around on the stage telling people to “plant their dream crop.”
“I don’t think I have any of his DNA,” I said with a sigh. “At all.”
“I disagree,” said Charlie. “You’re a natural with customers. Liz can’t believe her good luck.”
I flushed with pride. But still, making somebody coffee wasn’t exactly comparable to standing on a stage inspiring thousands of people.
Charlie watched me closely, then tossed a dust rag at me and grinned. “Get busy, Shaker Girl.”
One afternoon, Lucas and I were in the middle of a fake karate fight over a Pokémon T-shirt we both wanted when the Halloween cackle announced Aphrodite herself. Lucas froze mid-action move. I snatched the T-shirt away from him, declaring victory by forfeiture, but Lucas was in a daze.
“Hi, Lucas,” said the girl. From the way she looked at him, and the way he suddenly forgot I was there, I realized she must be his girlfriend. How could he not have a supermodel for a girlfriend?
“Uh, um,” he stammered. “Darcy, this is Heather. Heather, Darcy.”
“Hi,” I said, forcing a smile. I felt like a ragged shepherd in the Nativity play, standing next to a glowing angel.
She glanced at me, barely making eye contact. “Hi.” Then she returned her focus to Lucas. They’d both forgotten I was there.
I headed to the back storeroom to calm my nerves and dig through boxes, looking for salt and pepper shakers, my comfort kitsch. The last thing I needed was to watch Lucas drooling over some gorgeous girl. I’d told Sal that Lucas and I were friends, nothing more, and I told myself that, too. Constantly.
As I dug through boxes of donations, getting newspaper ink all over my hands, Lucas poked his head in the storeroom. “I’ve gotta go,” he said, sounding anxious. “Charlie should be back anytime. You got it under control until then?” He glanced toward the door and I knew he was dying to chase after the angel.
“Sure.” I forced a smile. “Have fun.”
He gave me an odd look, then grabbed his backpack and left without saying anything else.
I wondered what it would be like to have him chase me down like that. “Give it up, Shaker Girl,” I whispered. I opened another box and my mood lifted when I spotted the Scooby-Doo and Shaggy salt and pepper shaker set. I might not get the guy I wanted, but there was always Scooby-Doo.
Liz told me I was free to read or do homework during slow times at her place, so one day I brought my backpack full of wire, beads, and my jewelry-making tools. I wanted to make something for her as a thank-you for hiring me. It was a quiet afternoon with only two tea drinkers sitting on a loveseat together. I set up my supplies on the rickety table that none of the customers liked. I’d just crimped on my first bead when a dark little head popped up at the table.
“Whatcha doin’?” An adorable little girl stared at me with enormous eyes that looked vaguely familiar.
“Where’d you come from?” I asked, wondering how I’d missed her.
“From outside.” She parked
her tiny body on the chair next to me. A small chubby hand reached tentatively toward my pile of beads.
“Can I touch one? Please?” She looked like her heart would break if I said no.
“Sure.” I smiled and slid a few beads toward her. “Do you want to make some jewelry with me?”
Her eyes got even bigger and she nodded.
“What’s your name?” I glanced around for her parental unit, not seeing anyone. Maybe her mom was in the restroom.
“I’m Pickles.”
I cracked up. “Pickles? Really?”
She shrugged. “It’s my good name. I don’t like the udder one.”
“It is a good nickname,” I agreed.
“My name’s not Nick!” she exclaimed with a huge grin. “It’s Pickles!”
This kid was a born comedian. My dad should add her to his act. I tied a knot at the end of a piece of silver cord and handed it to her.
“I’m Darcy. Just Darcy. You know how to string beads, right, Pickles?”
She nodded again, watching me closely. “Why are you making an ouchy necklace?”
Frowning, I paused. “Ouchy?”
“It’s all pokey.” She pointed to the copper wire in my hands.
“The wire? It really doesn’t hurt. I get rid of the ouchy parts before I wear it.” There was no point explaining soldering to her since she was only three or four years old.
“My brudder uses the same tools,” she said, pointing toward my pliers.
I laughed. “Does he make jewelry, too?”
“No, silly! He fixes stuff.”
“Uh-huh,” I agreed, more focused on the necklace pattern spread out on the table.
“I make my brudder a necklace,” Pickles said happily, swinging her legs under the table. I hoped she had a brother who was cool enough to wear a necklace she made. We worked together in companionable silence, Pickles occasionally sneaking another bead from my pile as I pretended not to notice. I glanced around, wondering who she belonged to.
“Pickles? Is your mom or dad—”
“Uh-oh,” whispered Pickles, interrupting me. She slid off the chair and hid under the table.
I peeked under the table. “Pickles? What’s wrong?” She shook her head and put a finger to her lips to shush me. She pointed to the door. Lucas stood on the sidewalk, laughing with Homeless Harry. Harry had introduced himself that way when he stopped in for a free coffee from Liz.
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