by J. S. Cooper
“You can’t just push in front of the line, lady.” The man glared at me as he walked up to the counter. I turned my face away from him and ignored him. I wasn’t going to let him ruin my already crappy day. I shouldn’t even be in this coffee shop right now. I barely had any money and no job. I should be drinking tap water and eating ramen noodles until I had an income. I had five hundred dollars to my name now that I’d rented a room out. Five dollars was a lot to be spending when you only had five hundred to your name.
“I already did, so what do you want to do about it?” I sassed back at him, not sure where my bravado was coming from. I was shaking inside, but I think my general frustration at life was coming out and giving me courage I never knew I possessed.
“Wow, you don’t look like the sort to pick a fight in a coffee shop,” he said and all of a sudden, he started laughing. His face completely transformed from that of an arrogant prick to just completely handsome and charming. I ignored the stirring of lust in my stomach as I gazed at him. This was no time for me to be gaining a crush on a stranger in a coffee shop.
“I don’t look like the sort to have a black belt in karate either, do I?” I moved my arms quickly in imitation of a move I’d seen in a Karate Kid movie and narrowed my eyes at him.
“No, you don’t.” He looked thoroughly amused now. “A black belt comedian, huh?”
“You got it,” I said and then I smiled because this was the most ridiculous conversation I’d ever been in in my life. A warm feeling spread through me. This was part of the reason I’d moved to New York. I wanted a different life. A crazy life. Maybe not this crazy, but it was different from my everyday norm.
“Well, nice to meet you ...” His voice trailed off and he gave me a questioning look, waiting for me to supply my name. I stared back at him and just stood there silently. Did he think that just because he wanted to be nice now, I was going to be all oohey and ahhey with him? Wrong.
“Wish I could say the same.” I gave him a sweet smile before grabbing my coffee and bagel. “See ya,” I said as I tossed my long black hair over my shoulder and headed out of the coffee shop without looking back. I was grinning to myself as I walked along sipping my coffee. I looked at the bright lights of the city and a thrill of exhilaration ran through me. I was finally here. I was in New York City. I was going to make my dreams come true. My excitement lasted for all of ten minutes as I trudged along the packed streets, on the way back to my new accommodations. I wasn’t looking forward to going home. My home was not part of the dream I’d envisioned. But I knew I had to just take it one day at a time. Things would get better. I’d only been in the city a week now. Everything would change soon.
“YOU’RE GOING TO BE fine, Pippa. I promise you everything is going to work out.” My best friend Stephanie tried to convince me in her most enthusiastic voice that I hadn’t just ruined my life.
“How can you promise me that?” I whined as I sat on my twin mattress in the corner of my ratty little room. I could barely even call it a room. I was pretty sure that it had been a closet at some point. “Why oh why did I move to New York City?” I groaned into the phone. “What was I thinking?”
“You were following your dreams.” Stephanie’s peppy voice made me laugh. She was really trying her best to make me feel better about myself. I knew how hard it was for her to fake it for me. She was a naturally even more pessimistic person than I was.
“Ugh, I’m a fool.”
“You’re not a fool. And don’t you have an interview tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I do. I don’t even really know what the job is for though.” I closed my eyes and attempted to stifle my sigh. Steph was silent on the other side of the phone and I knew she was trying to figure out how to cheer me up.
“So how is your new place?” she asked. “That must be cool, right? You’ve got your own place in the Big Apple. This is your dream, girl, and you’re living it.”
“I don’t exactly have my own place,” I said slowly, as I looked around the dark moldy room I’d just moved into earlier that morning. “I’m renting a room in an apartment.” If you can call it a room, I wanted to moan and cry. I shifted on the thin mattress that was covered by a thin white sheet on the hardwood floors. I tried not to look at the floor too carefully. It was scuffed and sticky and I didn’t want to know what the sticky substance was. Not right now. I’d figure it out tomorrow, after my interview. I’d tidy up as best as I could and make the best of my little dungeon.
“Do you like it?” Steph’s voice was low. “Is it safe? If it’s not safe you have to let me lend you some money, Pippa.”
“It’s safe,” I said confidently, though I really had no idea if it was or not. I didn’t want to worry Steph and I definitely didn’t want to borrow her hard-earned money. She was my best friend and I intended for our friendship to last forever. I didn’t want money to be a factor in our friendship at all and I knew how easily it could come between friends and family.
“Met any cute guys yet?” Steph asked and I groaned again. Steph was addicted to love and that was always foremost on her mind.
“Steph, I’ve been here for week. I haven’t met anyone.” I laughed as I spoke. “And that’s the last thing on my mind.”
“What? It should be the first thing on your mind. All those hotties.” She sighed. “You’re so lucky.”
“Lucky?” I asked, questioning her choice of words. “Why am I so lucky?”
“Because you’re totally going to meet some rich hottie and get married and become a famous movie star and ...” Her voice trailed off. “You know, just have the best life ever.”
“I’m grateful for your positive thoughts, but right now I just need to get a job.” I sighed. “And have some sort of life period. I don’t even need the best life.”
“You deserve the best life,” she said and my heart melted. “I miss you, Pippa.”
“I miss you too, Steph.” I could feel tears welling in my eyes. “Promise you will come and visit me soon.”
“I promise,” she said. “Have you spoken to Mad Max since you’ve moved.”
“Nah. No Internet service yet.”
“I bet he’s worried about you.”
“Nah, he’s fine,” I said, but smiled. “You don’t think it’s weird that I’m such close friends with some online dude I’ve never met?”
“Nah, it’s kinda romantic in a way.” She sighed wistfully.
“It’s not romantic.” I rolled my eyes at the phone. “We met on an Al-Anon website. He’s like my little brother.”
“Is he though? Is he really? You guys tell each other everything.”
“Not everything,” I said honestly. “You know that. Anyways, I don’t even know what he looks like.”
“So send him a photo.”
“I don’t want to.” I sighed. “I don’t want to know what he looks like and I don’t want him to know what I look like. What we have is pure now. It’s really sweet and innocent. What if I was attracted to him? That could ruin everything,” I said the words out loud that had been festering in my head for the last two years.
“Or it could be the beginning of something beautiful,” Steph said. “It’s like a movie or something.”
“It’s really not.” I giggled. “Stop being such a romantic. Life is never so sweet.”
“It could be,” Steph said earnestly. “It really could be.”
“I miss you, Steph.” I sighed. “I wish you were here.”
“I miss you too,” she said and then paused. “Actually, I can come and visit if you want me to.”
“I’d love for you to come and visit, but I don’t really have anywhere for you to stay?”
“What about your room? I always used to come up to UCF and stay in your dorm when you were in college. It would be like a mini-college reunion.”
“Yeaaaah,” I said slowly, not wanting to tell her just how unlike college staying with me would be. In college, I’d lived in a cool sunny off-campus apartment with two pools
and a gym. This was a far cry from that and with it being December; it was all gray and snowy in New York City. Snow was romantic if you had a nice log fire and someone to cuddle with. When you were living in a small, drab apartment on the Upper, Upper West Side with no heater and pet rats, it was far from cozy.
“Well think about it. I’d love to come and visit,” Steph said, her voice suddenly cheery. “Maybe I’ll move to New York as well.”
“That would be really cool,” I said honestly. “I’d love to have you here, but what about your job?”
“I think that there are secretarial jobs everywhere.” She laughed. “And you know I’d really love to be a chef. That’s my real dream. I feel like I’d have a better shot in New York than I do in Orlando.”
“That is true. That’s why I moved here,” I said, suddenly remembering all our high school phone conversations about our dreams of moving together to NY or LA to pursue my dream of acting and her dream of being a top chef. “Think about it.”
“I will. Good luck tomorrow. Let me know how the interview goes. And if you speak to Max, tell him I said hi.”
“I will.” I laughed. “I’ll call you as soon as I’m done.” I hung up the phone and then lay back on my pillow and sighed. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. The beginning to my dream was not going as planned. Not at all. But tomorrow was a new day. I’d kill it in the interview and I’d get the job. Hopefully. And maybe I’d even get to flirt with another hot guy. That would be cool. I smiled to myself as I thought about blue eyes from the coffee shop. I wondered what his story was and I wondered what he’d thought as I’d left the coffee shop. I bet many women didn’t treat him like that. I started laughing as I pictured the shocked look on his face as I’d said, “See ya.” It had made my day. It had really made my day.
Chapter Two
Pippa
Hey, you there?
Hey, Max. How’s it going?
I’m okay.
Just okay?
You know how it is. How’s the move?
Okay.
Just okay? :)
You know how it is! :)
So, tell me more. I need to be entertained.
You need to be entertained? I need to be entertained. I’m not sure if I made the right decision moving.
What do you mean?
It’s complicated. I don’t really want to talk about it right now.
How’s your mom?
Haven’t spoken to her. I paid up her rent for six months before I left, so she’s good for now.
You’re a good daughter.
Am I?
Yes! You’re a good person, Pippi Longstocking. The best.
You’re too sweet, Mad Max. So how’s flying going?
Great. I should get my license soon.
That’s so cool. You’ll be a proper pilot before you know it.
Yeah. It will be really cool.
Maybe one day you can come and fly to see me.
Yeah, maybe.
Sorry. I know we agreed we shouldn’t meet.
Don’t be sorry. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to meet as well.
Is it weird that we don’t even know what we look like?
Does that matter to you?
No. You know me better than that, Max.
Yeah, I know. So tell me more about your awesome new home. I want to know all about it.
Except exactly where I live. Haha.
Real names, locations, photos. None of that are relevant. Right?
It’s just kind of hard to tell you about my life without being able to go into details sometimes.
I’m sorry.
Don’t be sorry. I understand why we’re keeping personal information like that to ourselves. I just wonder about you sometimes, you know?
I know ...
Did I make you mad?
You could never make me mad, Pippi Longstocking.
Good. Hey, I have to go now. Interview. Talk later?
Okay, sounds good. Good luck.
Byeeee.
Bye.
I pulled on my only nice navy-blue blazer and looked at my reflection in the mirror. I didn’t look like a professional, but I looked smart enough. My black pants were as crease free as I could get them and my white shirt was crisp and clean. My long black hair hung around my shoulders, wavy and sleek and my face looked as pretty as I could make it. I didn’t look like a Hollywood star, but I had a natural beauty. Some days I appreciated my long black hair and brown eyes and some days I thought about dying my hair blond or red and just completely transforming myself. Maybe then I’d be discovered. Walking down the street or just sitting in a coffee shop or something, like really hot beautiful girls.
“You are beautiful, Pippa.” I looked at my reflection again and repeated the mantra that Steph had taught me to say. She’d read some self-help book and supposedly if you told yourself the things that you wanted other people to see in you, you would start to really believe those things about yourself. “You’re so hot, Pippa that you make ice melt.” I grinned at myself as I winked at my reflection. I grabbed my handbag and headed to the door so that I could leave and head to my job interview. It felt very weird to be headed to a job interview when I had no real idea what the job was, but the ad had said the hours were flexible and there was potential to make six figures. That was huge. Six figures? I’d be rich. I almost didn’t care what I had to do. Well, almost. I hurried out of the apartment and walked down the stairs as quickly as I could in my high heels. I grabbed my phone to call Steph. I needed a pep talk before the interview and she would know how to make me feel better.
“What’s up, buttercup?” she answered the phone right away.
“You sound cheerful,” I said. “What are you up to?”
“Right now, I’m eating ice cream and brownies,” she said, her voice muffled. “And they are absolutely delicious.”
“Oh my God, I hate you right now. I want ice cream. I want brownies.” I moaned as I walked onto the street and started the trek to the bar. “My feet are killing me. These heels are not comfortable, at all.”
“Aww.”
Chapter Three
Cole
The Players Club
Cole
I saw her sitting in the corner of the reception staring at her phone and nibbling on her lower lip and I almost dropped the files that were in my hand. It was the girl from the coffee shop that had skipped in front of me. I’d recognize her long black hair and silky brown eyes anywhere. I walked back to my office and called the receptionist.
“Becky, who’s that in the office?”
“Oh, some girl interviewing for a bar job, Cole.”
“Do you know her name?”
“Uhm, let me check, one minute. It’s Pippa. She’s interviewing with Jeff. She doesn’t have any experience though.”
“None?”
“No.” Becky’s voice dropped. “I think Susan must have scheduled an interview for her by mistake. She’s done that like five times this week already.”
“Hmm, why is that?”
“I don’t really want to say, Cole. You know I’m not a tattletale.”
“Uh huh.” I frowned. I didn’t like my employees keeping secrets from me. “Will you ask Jeff to come to my office please? I want to talk to him.”
“Yes, Cole. Is there anything else? Do you want me to send Pippa away? She doesn’t exactly look like the sort that would fit in here.”
“What does that mean?” I asked dryly.
“She isn’t really sexy or anything,” she said and I could feel myself getting angry.
“Send Jeff in,” I said and then hung up the phone. I was going to have to have a serious talk with Jeff about all of the office staff; they seemed more inept than capable, but today was not the day for me to rock the boat. Today, I needed to find out what was going on with Pippa. What sort of name was Pippa? My heart stopped for a second when I thought of what it was similar to. Pippi. Pippi and Pippa were very similar. But they weren
’t the same. Different vowels at the end. I sat there for a few seconds thinking. A wave of sadness passed through me for all of about a minute and then I opened up my email account. I clicked on the new mail tab and was about to type in a name when I stopped myself. Not now. I couldn’t message now. Now I had to concentrate on other things.
Knock knock
“Who’s there?” I shouted out as I heard the banging on my door.
“It’s me, boss.” Jeff walked in looking cocky with his youthful swagger and muster. “You wanted to see me?”
“Yeah, have a seat.” I nodded at him. “What positions are we hiring for? And more specifically what position is that girl in the lobby applying for?”
“What girl?” Jeff shrugged. “I’m not sure who’s next on the list.”
“Pippa something?”
“Oh.” Jeff thought for a moment. “I think she’s going for the dancing position.” He scratched his head and then shook it for a few seconds. “Actually, maybe not the dancing position. I think maybe she applied for the special assistant position.”
“Hmmm.” I gazed at him thoughtfully. The girl I met in the coffee shop was definitely not a good fit for the assistant position. She was way too mouthy and rude. The men in the club would not be happy if she was mouthing off to them and being rude. In fact, they would be personally offended and certainly would complain. There was no way in hell I could let her get that job. Not knowing what I knew. I couldn’t let her risk my business. Though I was curious as to how she would react to some of our customers more unique demands and concerns.
“I want to be a part of the interview,” I said, letting him know that I wasn’t just asking. “You can conduct the first part and I’ll watch via video and then I will come in when I see fit.”
“Oh?” Jeff looked surprised. “I didn’t know you wanted to be involved in the hiring process. Are you not happy with my work?” He looked worried for a few seconds. “Have I done something to upset you, Cole?”
