by Jamie Canosa
Sometimes it was hard to bite my tongue. Really hard. But the last thing I wanted to do was send her running to the bottom of a bottle, so I bit it. Hard.
Ignoring the taste of copper in my mouth, I gathered up the dirty clothes and took them down to the laundry room. The groceries were a grand total of three bags, none of which were perishable. I hauled those upstairs, put them away, and made a side trip to the dumpster on my way back to the laundry room all before the wash cycle was finished. Thankful to find my clothes right where I’d left them, I collapsed into the hard, plastic chairs and sighed. It had been another long day.
Who knew serving coffee could require so much brain power? Keeping all of those orders and ingredients straight was like one long series of pop quizzes along with all the stress that accompanied them. If I could have hacked my feet off with a dull blade, I might have considered it. Four hours doesn’t seem that long, until you spend the entire time standing. Then your feet beg to differ.
I hurt all over by the time the clothes were dry and folded. Head, feet, back, body . . . heart. Everything ached. I coupled the last pair of socks and tucked them into my dresser drawer. Stretching my back, I heard something pop that probably wasn’t supposed to and considered if sleeping in my clothes would really be all that uncomfortable.
I was two seconds away from finding out when a loud banging echoed through the apartment. The sound made my heart skip a beat. Only one person ever knocked on that door. But it wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. He was gone. He wouldn’t be coming over to whisk me away ever again. This was my life. I’d better get used to it.
“Open the damn door!” A muffled voice flooded through the thin walls, dragging me from my pity party long enough to realize something was up.
I crept to my bedroom door and down the hallway. Mom was standing just inside the front door, bracing herself against the frame. What the—? Flipping the lock, she threw the door open, revealing a man in holey jeans and a button down flannel. His dark hair was slightly greasy and in serious need of a trim. The scruffy facial hair didn’t quite cover the sores on his skin.
“Hey, sugar.” He folded his arms across his chest, a cocky grin curving his chapped lips.
“Oh no. Don’t you dare show up at my door after, what? Eighteen years? and ‘Hey, sugar’ me.” Mom tried to slam the door in his face, but he blocked the jamb with a booted foot.
“Don’t be like that. I missed you.”
She stopped struggling with the door, and folded her arms to match his. “You missed me? That’s rich. You missed me so bad, where the hell have you been?”
The man’s arms dropped to his sides on a shrug. “Got busted a while back. Held me up for a bit. But I’m here now, ain’t I?”
Was he seriously trying to use jail time as an excuse for not coming into her life sooner? Who the hell was this guy?
“Mom?” Stepping out from the shadows of the hallway, all eyes fell on me.
“Jade . . .” Mom flicked her wrist at the slob standing in the door. “Meet your father.”
Oh . . . crap.
“Jade? As I live and breathe, if you aren’t the picture image of your old man.” Lord, I hoped not. He pushed his way inside under the pretense of getting a closer look at me. Even halfway across the room, it was closer than I would have liked. “But you got your mama’s beauty, that’s for sure.”
Perfect. A real charmer. Mom could not possibly be buying this. And yet, one look at her confirmed she most definitely was. Hook, line, and sinker.
“What do you say, Marilyn? Let me crash? Just one night, for old time’s sake?”
I saw her resolve break before she even opened her mouth. The woman had a backbone made of marshmallow. “One night, Michael. Then you’re out of here.”
“Alright.” He clapped his hands together, dropping his bag on the floor and flopping onto the couch to kick his feet up on the coffee table. “What ya got to drink around here?”
“Nothing.” I figured it was best to make that clear from the start.
Michael sighed heavily. “Now is that any way to treat a guest, Lyn? No worries. I brought my own.”
Unzipping his bag, he pulled out a large bottle of vodka. And from the sounds of clinking glass, I was guessing it had company in there.
“You can’t—” My complaint was cut short by a tight, nearly painful, pressure on my arm. Mom squeezed tighter before letting go, and shook her head.
“Join me?” He lifted the bottle to my mother and I felt her whole body tense.
“She doesn’t—”
“Not tonight, Michael. It’s late. I’m going to bed. I want you gone in the morning.”
Following my mother’s lead, I trailed her down the hallway, hoping she had something more in way of explanation for what just happened. She didn’t. I don’t know why I was surprised when she shut herself in her room without a word. I wasn’t about to go back out there with him. My father. So I ducked into my own room and shut the door, fervently wishing there was a lock on it.
Michael was my father. That douchy slob out there was my dad. All genes considered, I really had a lot going for me. Sighing, I collapsed onto my bed. I’d always known he was a loser. I wasn’t one of those little girls who harbored illusions of her absentee daddy as some kind of prince who would swoop in and rescue her one day.
But, then, why did I feel so utterly disappointed?
A pale blue light illuminated the darkened room with a pulsing beat from my cell, sitting idly on the rickety nightstand. I’d a missed call and I knew without looking who it was from. Not difficult to deduce given that only two people in the world had my number and one of them had just gone to bed.
Caulder had been calling a few times a month since the funeral just to check in. We swore we’d keep in touch, even hung out a few times in the beginning to keep each other company. But, as it always does, life got in the way. It had been nearly two weeks since his last call, but it couldn’t have come at a better time.
Snatching it, I powered up the screen and saw that he texted this time instead of calling.
Hanging in there?
I smiled at his now familiar greeting and considered calling him back. There was a lot I wanted to talk about, but he’d texted for a reason.
Maybe he was somewhere he couldn’t really talk, or hear . . . or maybe he didn’t want to commit to a full-length conversation. Maybe it was just a courtesy check-in. If I texted him back it would give him an excuse not to reply if he didn’t really feel like talking to me.
Guess who showed up at my front door. Hitting send, I sat back to wait.
Caulder’s reply came almost immediately. And a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding escaped me. Who?
My father.
He didn’t miss a beat. Your deadbeat absentee father?
That’s the one.
Well . . . hell. My sentiments exactly. An instant later another message chimed in before I could respond. Where is he now?
He was going to love this. In the living room.
Why?
He’s crashing on our couch for the night.
Are you sure that’s a good idea?
I’m sure it’s not. He brought his own party.
As in alcohol? I could practically hear the scowl in his words.
Seems to be the family tradition.
A moment later, the phone rang. “Hello?”
“Are you okay?” Caulder sounded genuinely concerned.
“I’m fine. I’m going to bed. Kinda hoping he’ll be gone by the time I wake up. Like a bad dream.”
“How’s your mother handling the alcohol?”
“She seems okay. I think she went to bed, too . . .” My mind drifted to the man sitting out there, stirring up our already tumultuous lives.
“Angel?”
“Why now? Things were finally getting on track for us. Why did he have to show up now?”
“I don’t know. Did he say what he wants?”
I crawled up to my p
illow and tucked it under my head, letting Caulder’s voice ease some of the tension in my body. “He said he needed a place to crash for the night.”
“But . . .”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like he’ll be that easy to get rid of. And Mom can’t stand up to him at all. She folded like a cheap suit the minute he opened his skeevy mouth.”
“Do you want me to come over there? Kick his ass out?”
I smiled knowing he’d do exactly that if I asked him to. “No. Let him spend the night. I’ll figure it out in the morning.”
The sound of his even breaths soothed me and soon I found it difficult to keep my eyes open. “Just wish my door had a lock on it.”
“What?”
Woops. Hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “Nothing. Never mind.”
“Jade, tell me the truth. Are you safe there?”
“As far as I know. I’ve never met the man, Cal. Mom didn’t seem overly concerned about leaving him alone in the apartment.”
“Because she’s one to trust with your safety.” His snipe was justified, but I still jumped to defend her.
“She’s trying!”
“I know. I’m sorry. I know she is. I just . . . I don’t like this. You sure you don’t want me to toss him out on his ass?”
“I’m sure. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. I just . . .” Tugging my blankets up, I snuggled deeper into my hard mattress.
“Hey. You can call me anytime. About anything. You know that.”
“I know. Thanks, Cal.”
“Do me a favor? Keep the phone near your bed. If anything happens, anything at all, you call me. Right away. No matter what time it is, okay?”
“Okay. Good night, Cal.” My eyes slipped closed and his voice dimmed.
“Good night, Angel.”
I don’t remember hanging up with him. I’m not even sure that I did. The phone was still wrapped in my hand when I slipped into unconsciousness.
Two
“Triple venti, half-caf, nonfat caramel macchiato with whip. To go.”
Venti macchi . . . what? Was that even English? The only word that even sorta pierced the haze of panic clouding my brain was caramel. Super. Where was that cheat sheet Rebecca made me on my first day?
I hated to admit it, but Mom was right. Hell, DJ was right—for once. What good was algebra doing me now? Physics? American history? Any of it? None. I was about to lose my job. A job I desperately needed for things like food and shelter. Real things in the real world. And that high school diploma sitting on my dresser wasn’t doing a damn thing for me.
“Breathe, new girl.” A hand wrapped around my wrist as I reached for the sleeve of foam cups. “I got this. Can you make the guy at the end a tall decaf, two sugars?”
Attempt something within your realm of capability and leave the complicated stuff to those of us with half a brain in their heads.
“Sure.” I shrank away from his grasp, taking a tall cup with me. “I can do that.”
When a simple morning beverage had become something closer to a science experiment, I had no idea. But watching Simon mix and swirl and steam as I filled my cup with coffee and carefully measured out two sugars, I was starting to think that maybe this wasn’t the job for me. Not that there were any other jobs out there. I’d looked—for months—before finding this one. Months that I couldn’t afford to spend looking for another.
“How do you remember all of that?” I watched him top the concoction with a generous amount of whip cream and pass it off to the gorgeous brunette waiting across the counter with a wink.
“It’s not as hard as it looks. You’ll get it.” Taking the cloth I was using to wipe counters, he tossed it at the sink. “Relax. We’ll take care of that later. How long you been working here, anyway?”
How much longer before I have a competent person to share the workload with?
I shrugged. “A couple weeks.”
“That long?” How do you still have a job? “How have I not seen you before?”
I fought the urge to shrug again. It was going to start looking like I had a twitch. “This is only my third shift. They don’t have a lot of hours for me, yet.”
More hours obviously meant more money. I needed more hours. I’d been promised more hours when I started. But they couldn’t exactly put me on the schedule more often if the best I could manage was a tall decaf, two sugars.
I’d studied the cheat sheet for my past two shifts, but it was like trying to read another language. The power button was about as close as I came to being able to use any of the equipment and I didn’t even know what half of the ingredients were, let alone where to find them.
“Well, we can fix that. Come here.” Simon snagged a cup from the sleeve and handed it to me. “Triple venti, half-caf, nonfat caramel macchiato. Let’s start there.”
For the remainder of my shift, every gap in customers—of which there were many—was spent wasting untold supplies, making practice drinks of every kind imaginable. Simon was patient and a good teacher. It didn’t seem to faze him one bit when it took me four tries to master the espresso grinder. The more he talked, the more I listened and the less I heard.
“You did really well for a beginner.” That was a compliment, not an insult. “It took me over a month to get all this stuff straight. No worries. You’ll get there.”
“Thanks, Simon. You saved my job.” And that wasn’t an exaggeration. I was certain his training had just secured my only source of income. “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”
“I do.” The gleam in his eye sent my stomach into a freefall. “With a kiss.”
“Wha—?”
He couldn’t . . . I couldn’t . . . But before I knew what was happening, he’d snapped up my hand and pressed his lips to my knuckles.
I think I stopped breathing. Not in a good way. In a pure panic, what-the-hell-am-I-supposed-to-do-now sort of way.
“Oh, jeez, you’re not at it again, are you?” Rebecca breezed through the front door, rolling her eyes in our direction.
“At what?” Simon sounded innocent enough, but the wicked grin on his face said otherwise.
“Harassing your co-workers.”
“I’m not harassing, anyone. You don’t mind, right, new girl?” He looked to me and all I could do was gape at him.
Rebecca rounded the counter. “Do you even know her name?”
“Of course I do. It’s . . .” I’d told him at the beginning of our shift, but he’d been calling me ‘new girl’ ever since.
“Jade,” I filled in his blank.
“Jade. Right. That’s exactly what I was going to say. New girl Jade.”
“Uh huh.” Rebecca wasn’t buying it as she twisted her long black hair up in a neat bun and dropped an apron over her head. “Well, Jade, you’re off, so get out of here. And ignore him.” She tipped her head toward Simon who was leaning up against the counter, smirking at her. “He’s an incurable flirt.”
Oh . . . well . . . incurable flirt . . . okay.
Gathering my jacket and bag from the office, I dug out my phone to find a missed call from Caulder. I wasn’t surprised. After last night, I would have been surprised if he hadn’t called.
“Good night, guys.” I waved to Rebecca and Simon on my way out the door.
My car was built when things like GPS and Bluetooth sounded like alien technology, so I waited until I was parked outside my apartment to listen to Caulder’s message.
“Hey, it’s me.” His voice sounded tight. Strained. “Just calling to check on the situation. Do me a favor and call me back when you get this, please . . . Alright . . . I’ll talk to you later.”
Short and to the point. How very . . . Caulder. Smiling, I hit the call button and listened to it ring twice before his voice reached me.
“Hey, Angel.” He sounded more at ease than in the message. “Hanging in there?”
“Hanging. Sorry I didn’t call you earlier. I just got out of work.”
“H
ow’s it going?”
“Work?” I cracked my door and hit the power lock button before leaning over the seat to manually lock the back door that didn’t like to be told what to do remotely.
Cal didn’t answer. I knew what he was talking about. And he knew that I knew. Sighing, I dropped my keys in my bag and headed for the lobby door. “I think he’s gone.”
“You think?”
“Well, he wasn’t there when I woke up this morning. Mom was gone, too. I thought maybe she tossed him out and then went to find a meeting or something.” Yeah, and if wishes were fishes . . .
“Good.” An audible sigh carried down the line.
“Are you okay? You sound tired.” And I was beginning to sound winded as I dragged myself up three flights of stairs, actively avoiding the sections I knew were dangerously close to caving in. I didn’t live in the most structurally sound building on the planet.
“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” he confessed.
“Why?” Dumb question. “Cal, you don’t have to worry about—” I’d made it to the top of the stairs when a loud crash sounded from down the hall. “What the—?”
“What’s going on?” Caulder sounded worried, but I could only concentrate on the continuing noises. More banging and a loud thump. From my apartment.
“Mom!”
“Jade, what’s—?” The phone fell away from my ear as I burst into the apartment and stopped dead in my tracks.
The living room was trashed. Lamps overturned, furniture out of place, and beer bottles . . . everywhere. Mom was pushed up against the wall and Michael was all over her. As in, all over her. Hand up her shirt, the other in her hair. And hers . . . good Lord. She did not have her hand down his pants!
Oh, ick. Yuck. Ew. Gross. On so, so many levels.
Mom’s eyes snapped open and she glared at me with that old familiar hatred that made my heart sink faster than a brick in the ocean.
