Blushing Pink (7 page)

She'd asked what she could do to help, and a long silence had followed before a manager silently responded. He'd pointed to Reese, then to a box. A bizarre directive to say the least, but she got the point, and began unloading the box—hence joining the silent ranks of work mules who didn't believe in formal or informal introductions.

That was the same day she'd met Elliot, who was also new. Her only impression of him had been that of a chubby little guy who didn't say much. But then out of the blue, when they were Windexing the front glass, he'd looked at her and whispered, "Bookstore or Gestapo headquarters? You decide." After that, she knew she'd like Elliot.

Now Reese punched in on the wall computer. Good, she still had two minutes left on the clock. She might have enough time to swing by the new fiction table and check out the December releases. It wasn't like it paid to start her shift early—not when she was working in an environment where a "long" duration in the bathroom was docked as a sick day.

On her way out of the break room, she stole a peek at the work schedule posted on the door, listing who would be working with her that day. Her eyes roved across the sheet until they landed on the names Rhoda Dobson and Clay Duckman.
Oh, jeez.

Rhoda and Clay both worked full-time at the store, and had to be the most pretentious people she'd ever met. The most basic problem with them was their shared delusion that if they sold books, shelved them, or in any way handled them in a professional capacity, they were part of the literati. Strange but true. They both earned eight dollars an hour, yet were imbued with so much elitism, they would mock customers who bought "mindless trash," rather than what Rhoda and Clay supposedly read, "very obscure poetry."

Please.

In many ways, Rhoda and Clay reminded Reese of the graduate students and professors at Crewlyn. More strangers she couldn't relate to—another place where she'd never truly belonged. Which begged the question, of course: Where
did
she belong? And with
whom?

Now she shuffled around the bend and cut a quick right toward fiction. One thing about working at Roland & Fisk: It kept Reese's desire to write fresh in her mind, surrounding her with so many gorgeous books....

Just then, an unmistakable shrill voice shattered the moment. "This isn't your post,
Brock!"

"Oh! I-I know; I was just on my way there."

"Ooh, congratulations," Darcy mocked, and crossed her arms over her chest, partially covering the embossed glitter cursive that read
Baby Girl with Attitude.
It seemed totally inconceivable that Reese hadn't noticed how immature Darcy was when she'd interviewed for the job. She'd just thought she was "quirky." (
Another hah!)
"Quirky" implied some uniqueness of style. No, that was definitely not Darcy... who was twisting her pale blond hair around her finger while squinting her shimmery eyelids at her subordinate. "Now, maybe you'd better get to your post before you're docked for an extra lunch hour," she threatened—meaning it.

"Right, okay."
Teenybopper wench
.

"Now,"
she whined, snapping her fingers in rapid succession.

Reese scrambled away, thinking,
My life is definitely lacking something.
She darted over to her post—known in lay-speak as the register. "Hi, guys, what's up?" she said to Rhoda and Clay, who were apparently engrossed in a conversation about feng shui.

They both said hello, and continued their pseudointellectual exchange of half-witted pontifications. Meanwhile, Reese busied herself by straightening the little gift items that were sold behind the counter. Looking at her coworkers, she'd guess they were both around her age. Rhoda was tall and slim; she usually wore a turban around her hair, large hoop earrings, and a vintage
Straight but Not Narrow
pin on her collar.

Clay, on the other hand, was preppy. Well, sort of. On more than one occasion, Reese had noticed a butterfly collar creeping out from under his J.Crew sweater. He had bleached-blond hair that was combed forward—a style Reese still struggled to understand, several years after its inception. He also wore black-rimmed glasses that angled up at the corners, reminding her of her late Nana, Maggie, except Nana's had been cooler.

"So you switched your hours?" Rhoda asked casually.

"Oh, yeah," Reese replied. "I'm on break from school now, so my days are free."

"That's cool," Clay added blandly.

Then they fell quiet. Maybe they'd temporarily run out of "obscure poets" to talk about—or around. Just then, there was a page over the loudspeaker: "Brock to the break room. Brock to the break room.
Now."

The three of them exchanged a confused look before Reese turned and scurried from behind the counter, across the expanse of the store, and to the back. As soon as she entered the break room, she saw Darcy coming out of the private office that she kept dead-bolted at all times so the employees couldn't see what was in there. Now, true to form, she hurried to close and lock her office door, but Reese still managed to catch a glimpse of an Eden's Crush poster hanging on the wall, and a black light on the desk.

"Hi," Reese said to Darcy. "Is there something you need?"
Like a soul? A bottle of Prozac? Hot coals to walk on?

"Brock, people are on vacation, so you're gonna sub in at the cafe for the next two weeks," she said.

"Oh... I am?"

"Yeah, you're
bright,
aren't you?" she said sarcastically.

"Well, it's just that I never work at the cafe."

"You were trained for cafe duty, like everyone else," she said without sympathy. "God, Brock, it's not rocket
science."

"Believe me, I realize that."

"If you have questions, ask Tina."

Reese shrugged. "All right."

"Um, maybe I should have made myself more clear," Darcy said slowly. "You're subbing in the cafe
today.
As in,
now!"

"Right, okay, okay," Reese said. Rolling her eyes, she turned away and thought,
I knew there was a reason I hated that damn break room.

Chapter 5

Reese took a moment to swipe her brow of confectioner's sugar, and suck on the soft spot between her thumb and index finger where she'd spilled scalding hot coffee in her mad frenzy to serve the lunch crowd.

It had gotten off to an awkward start. As soon as she'd come to the cafe, she'd met Tina, the cafe manager. She was a somewhat burly girl, with short, purply-red, frizzled hair. She'd tossed Reese an apron with what had to be a pitching arm, and announced, "We're gonna get along fine—as long as you know I'm not one of those phony people who's gonna smile and be all fake. I'm honest. I
always
tell people the truth."

And this is one of your attributes?
Reese had thought.

Tina added, "And if I don't like you, I tell you
right
to your face."

Can't wait.

Now, though, they had a decent rhythm going. Tina was taking care of the register, while Reese baked, and so far she hadn't had anything told to her face. The baking was hard, but luckily all the recipes were posted up on the wall.

The only real downside to making the food was having her back to the rest of the cafe, which was the cutest little place to be. Square wooden tables broke up the cozy space, and the milk bar in the center existed as a pristine black Formica island. Strings of white lights were woven through evergreen garland, and a Beatles CD was playing in the background—lifting up the day, which had gone from cloudy to pouring-down-rain in the last hour.

Tina's cell phone rang. It was a special Roland & Fisk phone, distributed so Darcy could keep in constant contact with her operatives. "'Lo!" Tina said with authority. "Right. Right, boss. I'm on it. Over!" She hung up, set it back in her holster-type belt, and said, "Brock, I'm gonna leave you for a few minutes. I have to pick up lunch for Darcy. By the way, do you know if BK still sells Hershey's Sundae Pie?"

"Uh... I have no idea."

"Shit, they'd better, or I'm
dead,"
she muttered, definitely to herself. "Okay, it's slowed down, so you should be fine by yourself for a while."

"All right," Reese replied, and Tina turned and stomped off—not angrily, but in what Reese had come to recognize as her usual intense style.

A few moments passed before customers approached the counter. Reese set down a pitcher of milk she'd been pouring into a bowl of batter, and turned to help them. "Hi, how are you today?" she said to the elderly woman waiting there, and the disheveled man standing next to her. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, are the cinnamon rolls fresh?" the old woman asked—challenged, really, as though she were used to being bamboozled where cinnamon rolls were concerned.

Reese said, "Um, ordinarily yes, but we actually don't have any more right now—"

"What?"

"I was about to put some in to bake—"

"What?"

"Mother, open your ears!" the man snapped, and then smiled tremulously at Reese.

"Oh, no, no, it's okay," she said brightly to defuse the awkwardness.

"What?"

"They don't have the cinnamon rolls, Mother! Why are you so deaf?"

"They don't have 'em?" she groused. "Why not?"

"Mother, stop causing a scene! I hate it when you do this!" he yelled, but his mother didn't even notice. Still, Reese swallowed uncomfortably.

"Really, it's fine," she said. "Um, can I get you something else? A fresh-baked muffin, maybe? A croissant?"

"A muffin?" she repeated. "Well, do you have bran?"

"Mother!" the man yelped, embarrassed, and making it weird when it didn't have to be. Well, weirder than it already was. What, was he afraid the cafe server would think his mother was concerned about being "regular"? (She hadn't until now.) And more to the point, why would she
care?

Reese gave him a quick closed-mouth smile that was meant to assure him it was fine. He gave a closed-mouth smile of his own, only not as quick, sort of slow and drawn out, and his meaning was unclear. "Uh, we have oat-bran muffins," Reese said.

"What?"

Okay, it was time for a little
show, don't tell,
so she went over to the display case and, from behind, pointed to the muffins in question.

"What,
that?"
the old woman said, disgusted. "That's bran? It looks like turd."

"Mother!"
The man's face reddened fully now, and he turned to Reese, rolling his eyes with exasperation. "She is such an embarrassment. I'm really, really sorry."

Reese wanted to shake him and say,
She's not a cat who peed on the carpet; she's your mother.
But she just said, "Please, it's not a big deal at all. Like I said, I'm putting in a new batch of cinnamon rolls. They'll take about fifteen minutes." She lowered her voice so other customers in the cafe wouldn't hear, and added, "On the house."

"We'll wait!" he volunteered eagerly. Then he flashed one of those odd smiles that were starting to look plain demented now. "Come on, Mother, let's go."

"What?" she quacked, as he pulled her toward an empty table.

Less than a minute had passed before Reese's cell phone vibrated in her pocket. When she saw the number of the Goldwood house on the display screen, she immediately answered, in case it was an emergency.

"Hello?" she said quietly.

"Reese? It's Mom."

"Hi, what's up? Is everything okay?"

"Mmm-hmm, fine, I just wanted to see how you were. But I don't want to bother you."

"No, it's okay," she replied, "I can talk for a couple minutes. What's new at home?"

"Oh, nothing much. I've got some
pate brisee
in the oven, and
gateau aux pommes
cooling on the counter; you know how it is."

Reese grinned. "Actually, for once, in a weird way, I do know," she said, taking a pan of lemon-poppy muffins out of the oven and setting them down on the counter. She slid the pan of cinnamon rolls in, and nudged the door closed with her elbow.

"Have you given any thought to your toast for Ally's wedding?"

"Well, the store just got in a new biography of Marcel Marceau," Reese said dryly. "I think I've found my hook."

"What do you—Oh, no—"

"But I don't want to ruin the surprise, so I'd better not say any more. Let's move on."

Joanna mumbled something under her breath, and Reese could tell that moving on was just
killing
the woman. "Did you have fun last night with Ally and Ben?" she asked.

"Yeah, it was okay."

"Lane went too, right? Who else?"

"Brian Doren." Just saying the name out loud brought back vivid images from the night before. He looked even better than Reese had recalled. But unsurprisingly, he hadn't seemed too impressed by Miss Place Mat Pants.

"Oh, that's nice," Joanna said conversationally. "I'm glad it was fun. So have you made plans with Kenneth yet?"