“If lull is French for ‘Sure. It’s slow — go take your break,’ ” LuAnn interrupts, breezing past us from the back entrance. She dumps her purse on the counter, spilling makeup and quarters from the fringed, beaded, bedazzling bag. “Go ahead. I can cover for ten.”
“Thanks,” I say, already pulling off my apron. “I won’t be long. I just need to grab some lunch.”
“Lunch?” LuAnn blinks. “Honey, it’s, like, three p.m.” She turns to Dominique. “What have you been doing to her?”
Dominique gives a lazy shrug. “She’s here to work.”
“You are a cold, heartless woman,” LuAnn tells her sternly. Dominique just shrugs again and turns back to the fashion magazine she has stashed behind the coffee grounds.
I watch them bicker, curious. When I was on the other side of the counter, just a lowly customer, I figured that the staff here were all the best of friends. It sure seemed that way from my vantage point at the back table, watching them laugh together across the room. But after listening to LuAnn talk about Carlos, and Dominique talk about . . . well, just about everyone else, I can see they’re really more like family — the big, dysfunctional kind that fights over everything and doesn’t care what each other thinks.
“Josh!” LuAnn yells, pulling her hair back into a twisty bun that she secures with a couple of pencils.
He pops his head out and affects a low southern drawl. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Get this girl some sustenance before she passes out.”
“Really, I’m fine,” I say, embarrassed, but LuAnn is in full flow.
“Fetch a chair! Find some water!” she cries, dancing around the small space. “We don’t want the child-labor people beating down our door for exploitation again!”
I cringe, but Josh just laughs along.
“Look, she’s pale with malnutrition.” LuAnn squeezes one of my cheeks. “Make her one of those fantastic BLTs.”
“Um, actually, I don’t eat bacon,” I pipe up awkwardly. “Or ham. Or, you know, any pork products, really. . . .” I trail off.
Josh throws a dishcloth at LuAnn. “And the award for cultural insensitivity goes to . . .”
She smacks her forehead. “Jewish! Man, I’m sorry!”
“It’s OK,” I say quickly, burning up now. “Really. I don’t even keep full kosher — it’s just a habit, I guess.”
Finally, Dominique looks up. “Leave the poor child alone,” she tells them. I smile at her, grateful for some support, but then she adds, “If she quits on us, I’ll have to take her shift tomorrow.”
Charming.
7
With the Beast just about tamed and my magical Post-its marking the route to coffee utopia, my first week at work soon slips into a steady rhythm of grind, pour, froth, and serve.
“I even made twenty whole dollars in tips,” I tell Garrett as I clutch the phone between my ear and shoulder and shimmy into some jeans on Saturday morning.
He laughs, his voice clear and strong even a hundred miles away. “Big tippers, huh? Don’t go spending it all at once.”
“I have to.” I sigh. “I’ve nearly ruined all my cute outfits with coffee grounds. I don’t know how Amélie didn’t wind up with cappuccino foam all over her dresses.”
“It sounds like you’re having fun, hanging out with all these new people.”
“I am,” I agree. I hesitate, then say casually, “I wish you could meet them all. You’d get a kick out of LuAnn, she’s the one with red hair. She’s great.”
“I keep thinking the same with people here,” he says. “My bunkmates are probably sick of hearing about you. It’s ‘my friend Sadie’ all the time.”
Delight dances in my chest. See, he’s thinking about me. He’s talking about me! But before I can find out exactly what he’s been saying, Garrett sighs.
“Look, I’ve got to get to a workshop.” He sounds regretful. “Will you be around later? I’ve got a ton of stuff to tell you.”
“Yes!” I cry. “I mean, sure, just call anytime.”
“Great, later then.”
He hangs up, and although I’m tempted to just mooch around the house for the rest of the day until he calls back, my poor, coffee-stained wardrobe is calling out for reinforcements, so I grab the keys to Mom’s car and drive out of town thirty minutes to the looming concrete vista of the Hadley mall. I usually try to stay away from this place — Garrett calls it a soulless temple to modern capitalism — but my budget limits my options.
I’m browsing the department store bargain basement when a familiar face appears from around the next aisle.
“Sadie? Hey!”
“Kayla.” I pause, embarrassed. She’s looking cute and shiny as always, in jeans and a snap-front plaid shirt.“Um, hi.”
“Hey!” She beams, her blond hair falling in effortless waves. Effortless for her, anyway — she was born without the dreaded frizz gene. “What’s up? Are you — ooh!” she exclaims, suddenly reaching for the rack behind me. “This is perfect!”
“It is?” I blink. Kayla’s holding up a pair of hideous shorts: khaki, with a red flower print, they reach at least to her knees when she holds them up against her body.
She catches my expression and laughs. “No, I mean, they’re disgusting, but that’s perfect. Those kids destroy everything I own.” She plucks a lurid chartreuse T-shirt and adds it to her basket.
“I know what you mean,” I say. “About the destruction, anyway. You have no idea how hard it is to get melted chocolate-chip smears off your jeans.”
“Oh, I do,” Kayla says, “if it’s anything like finger paints. I swear they do it on purpose.” She adds, “This one kid, Jaden? He slapped bright-blue handprints all over my favorite shirt. Ruined!”
“How is it?” I ask as we stroll toward the dressing rooms. “Working at the playgroup. That must be fun.”
“Sure, they’re just adorable,” she says. “For the first five minutes. And then I want to wring their adorable little necks.”
I stop, shocked. “I always figured you loved kids.”
“Yeah, no.” Kayla shakes her head emphatically. “One kid, I can do, even two — just stick them in front of a Disney movie, let them play Xbox all night. But a herd of them?” She shudders.