by Rachel Vail
“You know how to make tea?”
“Sure.” I shrugged. “Cup, tea bag, hot water?”
“No. Gross. Never say or do that again.”
“Okay.” I was obviously acing this tryout. Unless the other applicants actually murdered a customer during their audition, they had little to fear, clearly.
“I’ll teach you, and it will change your life.”
“Best offer I’ve had all year,” I said truthfully.
“What were you protesting?” Anya asked, handing me a bulky but surprisingly light cardboard box.
“Protesting?”
“When you quit newspaper.”
“Oh. Everything, I guess. First Amendment rights. Oppression. A blue-eyed boy going out with my best friend.”
“Ah.” She put another three boxes on top. “Good causes.”
“Just kidding,” I said, following her out through the swinging door despite not being able to see anything over the boxes. “About the boy. That was a joke. Penelope will tell you I have a bad sense of humor.”
“No worries.” Anya took the top box off the stack in my arms and plopped it onto the counter. “I will teach you to make a good pot of tea. And the blue-eyed boy stays our secret. You want to try taking your first order?”
She pointed with her thumb toward the counter, where Tess was standing with Darlene, Felicity, and Paige. They hadn’t mentioned to me that they were coming here after school. I hadn’t seen any of them after the last bell. But beyond that, it was all too freaking likely that they had just heard Anya tell me the blue-eyed boy would stay a secret.
As if there could be any mystery who the blue-eyed boy might be.
The stomach-clenching cramps I thought had healed up like an old paper cut were back in force.
“Hi,” Tess said. “You work here?”
“Probably not,” I said. “What can I get you?”
“Seriously?” Darlene asked. “Since when?”
“Now,” I said. “Five minutes ago. I just—”
“Cookies-and-cream mocha whip,” Tess said.
“Oooh, that sounds good,” Darlene said. “Me too. With extra whip?”
Paige frowned nervously at Felicity, her pouty lips curved disappointedly despite their glittery gloss, and whined, “Will you share one with me, Felicity? I’m obese.”
Felicity rolled her eyes at me, and I couldn’t help smiling in response. Paige is about as obese as a stick. Felicity planted a long-fingered hand on the hip of her dark jeans and considered.
“Okay,” Felicity told the anxiously panting Paige, who grinned like a good puppy. “Iced pomegranate green tea, though,” she added.
Paige’s face sank for a millisecond, then rebounded. You don’t say no to Felicity. “Great,” Paige squeaked. “Pomegranate green tea! Perfect! I love iced pomegranate green tea! Good idea! Yummy!”
Felicity shook her head microscopically at that, like, You see what I have to deal with? Save me! But what she said, in her low voice, was, “A skinny, extra-cold iced pomegranate green tea, and an extra cup.”
“Okay,” I said, and added perkily, “Coming right up!”
I think Tess may have swallowed a chuckle. But maybe not. She was mad I hadn’t told her about possibly getting a job, I knew. I had meant to. If she didn’t want me to have the job, that was fine with me, really. I’d rather hang out with her. I obviously was not going to get chosen for it anyway.
“So,” Felicity said, leaning across the counter toward me. “Is everything set for Saturday night?”
“Oh,” I said. “I haven’t asked yet.”
“Well, definitely text me later, okay?” Felicity asked. “That would just be so extreme.”
“Yeah,” Paige said. “Completely extreme.”
“Best sleepover ev-ah!” Darlene said, loud enough to make everybody in Cuppa look over at her.
“Okay,” I said as Anya handed back their change and then went to finish up their drinks. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Congratulations,” Tess said. “On your job.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, hoping nobody else heard the crack in my voice. “It isn’t—I don’t …”
The four of them sat, giggling, at the table Tess and I had picked out, until they finished and waved good-bye.
Meanwhile, I learned how not to wipe the counter, how not to clean the stainless steel, and how not to steam the milk. I burned myself twice on the frother and once with the espresso machine. I learned that most of the chain coffee places use about seven grams of coffee for a two-ounce shot, and those little espresso pods are filled with five grams—but at Cuppa, we tamp down twenty grams. Twenty. “So,” I said, showing off that fast-learning skill of mine. “Twenty is way more than seven. Like, thirteen more. Grams.”
“Mmm,” Anya said. “And we pull it short.”
“Obviously.”
“Less water. More concentrated.” She showed me. I managed to not say that it looked like mud or worse. I just handed the tiny cup to the skinny hipster across the counter, who was reading a thin paperback by Italo Calvino.
Penelope told me to take the trash out. When I lifted the bag, I must have scraped it against something sharp, because within a second, there was garbage all over everything, including my make-a-good-impression shirt. The skinny hipster peered at me condescendingly through his funky glasses as he sipped from that little thimble of poo while I cleaned up all the trash.
Penelope sighed, pointing at the stain my garbage fiasco had left on the wood floor. She gave me a rag to scrub it with. I was so mortified to have made such a mess I was almost happy to do the scrubbing, down there like Cinderella, so at least I could get away from Mr. Too-Cool-to-Not-Be-in-Brooklyn, and also when Anya emerged from the bathroom, I wouldn’t have to make eye contact.
“That’s enough of that,” Anya said. “Want to take one more order before you go?”
“Sure,” I said. “Why not.”
“Wash hands,” she whispered to me, then smiled at the waiting customer. “Just one moment, please.”
“We’re in a rush,” the customer answered.
I dried my hands and asked, “May I help you?”
A gym-hard mom wearing lululemon, a ponytail, and a weary expression stood waiting at the counter, her oversize Birkin bag looped over one arm and her dreary, slumpy daughter behind the other.
“Give me a small, skinny latte,” she ordered. “Cecile? Hurry up. Your math tutor will be there in half an hour.”
Behind me, Penelope started making the small, skinny latte. I smiled encouragingly at the girl. She had a band of pimples across her forehead and a mouth full of braces.
“Cecile, now,” her mother said, tapping away at her phone.
“Um, I’ll have a Coke?”
“A Coke?” the mom asked without lifting her eyes from the tiny screen in front of her. “Really, Cecile?”
Poor Cecile sank farther into her shoulders. She was becoming a tortoise right there in front of us.
“She’ll have a Diet Coke,” the mom said to me, still clicking away with her thumbs.
“I hate Diet Coke,” Cecile muttered.
Her mother, through gritted teeth, replied, “You have a muffin-top hanging over your jeans, Cecile. And we are not going up a size again. A Coke. She will have a Diet Coke. Quickly, please.”
I was on a trial at this job. The customer is always right—I knew that from the sign in the supermarket, for goodness’ sake. On the other hand, I had already pretty well blown it. So although Anya was watching me, evaluating me, there was no way I could serve that girl a Diet Coke. Even though I knew it was the right thing to do, I couldn’t.
As Penelope handed over the mom’s small, skinny latte, I took a large cup, scooped in some ice, and, under the counter, filled it with regular Coke. Filled it to the rim. Then I placed a top on it and handed it to the girl, with a straw. I kept my eyes down, waiting to be told to get my butt out of there, or maybe to be physically tossed out on it, as
my dad would say I should be.
The mom was holding out her credit card impatiently. As Anya took it, thanking her, she said to the girl, “You know what? Give that Diet Coke a sip, will you? The machine has been acting up a bit. Make sure the Diet Coke came out okay?”
My face snapped up to Anya’s. She’d obviously seen what I’d done.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” the mom said. “Did it go through?”
Cecile unwrapped the straw, stuck it through the hole in her cup.
“Almost,” Anya said, taking her time with the credit card machine, her expression calmly neutral. “Is the Diet Coke fine?”
Cecile’s eyes lifted slowly as the sugary drink filled her mouth. She looked from me to Anya and back again. Without stopping her sipping, she nodded. She drained a quarter of the cup before Anya said, “Let Charlie here top that off for you. On the house.”
The mom groaned. I grabbed the cup and refilled it with real Coke. Only then did Anya hand over the receipt.
“Have a great day,” I said as they left.
“You’re hired,” Anya said to me after the door closed behind them.
thirteen
I WAS LYING awake in the dark of my room, pondering the eternal existential question that has tortured generations of philosophers: What is there to do at 3:47 a.m. other than go in search of cookies?
Nothing, I answered myself and the ghost-philosophers, honestly.
I tiptoed past the bedroom doors, noticing that Mom’s, uniquely, was closed all the way. I clenched my mind against that observation and skulked down the stairs.
She had said yes to my having a sleepover Saturday, at least. Even though she was disappointed I hadn’t told her about the job at Cuppa until I came home from my tryout, she said she was proud of me for taking it on. She added that if I found it was interfering with homework, I had to quit. And she suggested maybe I should call my father and discuss it with him, too, but she didn’t push it when I said, Yeah, maybe later. She was being so damn reasonable, I couldn’t even argue.
I got all my homework done before Joe finished quizzing his kids, and slipped into bed behind my closed door before Kevin even came upstairs. Tess hadn’t answered my texts all night. When I woke up with a jolt at 3:41, I thought maybe she’d just texted back, finally, but no.
My own fault, again. I know that she hates when I keep something from her, anything, and then there I was, behind the counter at Cuppa. Her supposed best friend. Urgh. Why am I such a bad best friend, when it’s the only thing I really even want to be good at? I broke up with George as soon as she told me I should; shouldn’t that count for something? I knew I should have told her about Cuppa, about my tryout. Was I scared she’d try out, too, and get the job instead of me? I didn’t think so. But how was I supposed to explain when she wasn’t even responding to my texts? Maybe she was just finally done with me now?
Ahh. A plastic bag full of leftover brunch cookies sat waiting for me on the counter. I grabbed it and then my fleece off the hook, and headed for the deck. I figured I could eat my cookies and not think while watching the lake emerge from the night as the sky brightened, all by my piranha self.
That is why I almost screamed when I stepped out onto the deck and saw Kevin sitting at the table.
“What are you, why, whoa,” I intelligently commented.
Kevin slammed his pad shut and stood up before I could get a good look at what was on it. All I saw was a lot of smudgy lines in weirdly psychedelic colors.
He looked pretty startled to see me, too.
We faced off there, him with his pad, me with my bag o’ cookies. Ready to … what? Duel?
“Hi,” he said.
“You couldn’t sleep?” I managed in a whisper.
“No,” he whispered back.
“Me neither.”
We stood there, for a silent minute.
“I’m not great at sleeping,” he said. “You either?”
Usually I am a champion sleeper; it is my best sport. I might go to the Olympics in sleeping. But instead of bragging about that, I whispered, “I like it out here, in the night.”
“It’s nice,” he whispered back.
After another silent-except-for-crickets minute, I let a “Yeah” float out.
“You brought cookies,” he said.
“Well, I can’t draw, so …”
His cheeks burned red as he fingered his pad. He didn’t say anything.
“Just kidding. I mean, not about that I can’t draw, because I can’t, truly, don’t even doodle in math class, but I just, you look like I caught you doing something embarrassing, so I just thought, well, a joke will diffuse the—obviously, though, it didn’t! More trees? Are you drawing?” I ran out of breath, thankfully, so I stopped talking.
He shrugged.
“Can I see this one?”
“No.”
“Why not? Is it for me?” Cringe. Die.
“I don’t—show people. Anybody.”
“Fine, that’s fine. Sure.”
Impasse. Okeydokey, then.
After another horrid moment of silence, Kevin said, “I’m color-blind.”
“Really?” I put down the bag of cookies on the table beside his closed pad. “Color-blind?”
“Pretty pathetic, for someone who wants to be an artist, huh?”
“Actually,” I said, “I think it’s kind of cool.”
“You do?”
“Well, to see things differently from everybody else? Yeah.”
He shook his head. “It’s not—I never thought of it that way.”
“You want to be an artist?”
“Yeah. Stupid, right? Everybody wants to be an artist, every little kid.”
“I don’t,” I whispered. “I never did. Maybe only artists think that, when they’re little.”
“What do you want to be?”
I shrugged, trying to think of a goal other than kissing or not kissing him. Save the world from evil? Cure cancer? Win Tess back? Invent a calorie-burning cookie?
“When you were little,” he persisted. “What did you want to be?”
I smiled. “A teenager.”
“Most likely to succeed.”
“Talk about a stupid wish, huh?”
“Not as much fun as you’d imagined?” He kept his lake-blue eyes latched on to mine, though his head was ducked down.
“It has its moments,” I whispered.
“Mmmm,” he answered. His smile, that slow, sexy one, spread his mouth and revealed his white teeth. With no choice in the matter, I stood watching. He watched me back.
A shiver shook my body. I wrapped my arms around myself.
He stepped toward me, closer, closer, stopping my thoughts dead. Inches from me, centimeters, he whispered, “Chuck.”
We stared at each other, and for once I didn’t fill the silence with inane babbles. Just breath.
“I don’t think … ,” I finally whispered.
“Good,” he said. “Don’t think.”
“No,” I whispered. “I mean …”
“Shhh.”
“This is probably a very bad idea, us being out here like this, together in the middle …”
“Very bad,” he echoed.
“Yes, for so many reasons, so we should …”
“Shhh. Can I kiss you?” he asked, his face so close to mine I could feel the heat from it on my cheeks. “I really want to kiss you.”
I don’t think so.
Not a good idea.
What if our parents walk out here right now?
What if your sister sleepwalks?
I’m not even sure if I actually like you.
Kissing you outside that other time practically wrecked my life.
Who are you to me?
We shouldn’t.
“Yes,” I said.
He smiled a millimeter and then tipped his head toward mine, his eyes closing.
We met in the middle, our lips touching lightly, so lightly you could barely qualify it
as a kiss, so lightly there might have remained a molecule of air between my mouth and his, until, after a moment, there wasn’t even that, and then, just as soon, there was, again, the movement as imperceptible as it was unwilled.
We looked at each other, with questions in our eyes. And then I lifted my hands and threaded my fingers into his hair and pulled his mouth to mine.
We breathed each other, kisses upon kisses—faster and harder, more intense—then slower, soft, tender. Soon we were pressing tight against each other and then soft again, a rhythm like unheard music—on and on it played … until the trees began to clarify themselves out of the darkness and then, blinking, we let the air fill in the space between us again.
Our lips, a bit bruised and swollen, smiled a little. There was nothing to say, no pretending this was just a slightly flirty good night between two not-quite-friends who happen to live together. We both knew we had to get inside, in the silence of the brightening dawn, before anybody found us.
He held the deck door open for me. I tiptoed past him to the kitchen. While I was tossing the unopened bag of cookies onto the counter, he grabbed a pear from the fruit bowl and bit in. Slurping, he held it out to me.
“No,” I whispered. “Remember? Those pears sucked.”
“On Monday. Monday pears are hard and unripe. But it’s Thursday now. Bite.”
I took a bite. He was right. It was perfect, juicy and full of pear flavor. I stretched to take another just as he pulled the pear away and took one himself. We cracked up silently, and then he held it out again to me—but yanked it away before I could bite and took it for himself. So I had to grab his wrist and hold the pear steady to get another one in. “Yum,” I whispered. He took a last bite before holding it out toward my mouth. Despite the sticky mess, sharing that pear felt even more intimate than the kisses out on the deck.
By the time he tossed the core into the garbage disposal in the kitchen sink, the light coming through the window was dayish enough to see each other clearly. His hair was rumpled and his lips were puffy red, with a bit of pear juice just off the center. I’m sure I looked similarly worse (or better) for wear.
