Getting Over Garrett Delaney (7 page)

“That’s Dominique,” LuAnn whispers. “A total team player.”

Carlos rolls his eyes. “You’ll swap if I ask you to.”

“I have classes!” Dominique’s voice rises. “And don’t forget, I’m in law school, not some third-rate technical college where they don’t care if you ever show up!”

“Hey!” the tiny, blue-haired girl cries in protest. Dominique just gives her a withering stare.

“Like I said, some of us go to real schools.”

Carlos puts his hands on his hips. “And like I said, you’ll take whatever shifts I give you or go find another job!”

“Maybe I will!” Dominique shoots out of her seat. “Maybe I’ll leave you to try to do the accounts on your own. You wouldn’t last a week without me,
idiot.
”

I feel a tug on my arm. “Come on,” LuAnn says through a mouthful of muffin. “I’ll show you the ropes.”

“But …” I glance back at Carlos and Dominique, now yelling about opening hours and labor rights. “Shouldn’t we … ?”

“Leave them.” She sighs. “She’ll storm out, and he’ll apologize. Or maybe he won’t, and you’ll get more shifts. Win!”

The rest of the staff is dispersing around the fight as if it doesn’t exist, heading out front for a cigarette break or starting to barter over shifts with the time sheets and markers.

“Um, sure,” I say, edging out of my seat before Dominique starts hurling things. “I love ropes. Show them to me!”

LuAnn breezes through my introduction to the register, baked goods, and fearsome coffee machine in ten seconds flat. “It’s easy, kid. You’ll be fine,” she tells me with another reassuring yet condescending pat on the head.

“But where are you going?” I blink as she rounds the counter.

“I’m not on until this afternoon.”

“Then who … ?” I trail off as LuAnn points to Dominique. “Oh.”

“Don’t worry,” LuAnn tells me carelessly, armed as she is with her awesome vintage style and unshakable confidence and — oh, yes — age. “Just ignore the attitude. She’s a marshmallow, really.”

But if she is, it’s a stale, hardened marshmallow, because nothing I do or say during that first shift makes any impact.

“Two lattes — one soy, one decaf — and one iced chamomile!” Dominique yells over at me later that afternoon.

“Sure thing!” I reply, quickly dispensing with the easy tea option before facing my new foe: the dreaded espresso machine. Having spent the morning busing tables and working from the relative safety of the register, she’s finally pushed me to the back of the counter and set the Beast loose on me. Sure, you think I jest, but you haven’t seen the thing — a looming silver monstrosity of dials and switches and funnels, all which (if caressed in just the right way) supposedly work to produce Totally Wired’s famed coffee, “the best in New England.”

“Sometime this week would be nice!” Dominique adds, raising an eyebrow at me in disgust.

Yay, team unity.

“What are you doing, trying to fly that thing?” Our resident chef, Josh, appears in the hatch window, brown hair sticking out in unruly tufts over blue eyes. He watches with amusement as I gingerly prod and press the machine.

“I’d settle for a latte.” I try not to look like such an idiot, still painfully aware that I’m the new kid.
Kid
being the operative word. LuAnn was right to assign me that nickname — all the other staff is clearly way older than me. Carlos is thirty or something ancient like that, Dominique is maybe in her twenties, and that blue-haired waitress, Aiko, may look young, with her petite frame and steampunk T-shirt, but it turns out she’s a junior graphic-arts student at college nearby. The next-youngest person around is actually Josh — Aiko told me that he’s nineteen, a year out of high school — but he’s kept mostly to himself, hanging out in the kitchen, pressing panini all day.

And, of course, popping his head out to watch me flail around in utter confusion.

“Try hitting the thing,” Josh suggests. I prod a shiny silver button. “No, next to that other thing.”

I follow his directions, still half-convinced that the Beast is going to reach out and skewer me with one of its levers. There’s a hiss, a groan; the machine gives an almighty shudder, and then … success! Two cups of espresso stand before me.

“Lifesaver!” I beam. “Now, um, if I can only remember how to do that again. Another hundred times …”

Josh laughs. “Hold that thought.” He ducks back into the kitchen and reappears a moment later with a pack of Post-it notes. “These should help you keep track,” he says, scribbling
1, 2, 3
 with a black marker and slapping the notes on each of the knobs and dials in turn.

“Thanks,” I tell him, grateful. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”

He grins. “That’s why you’re a serving wench, and I have a whole kingdom of my own!” He gestures grandly at the tiny kitchen. “Behold, my domain.”

I laugh. “Wow, impressive. You’ve got running water and everything.”

“Well, most days.”

“Sadie!” Dominique doesn’t even turn as she yells.

“I better get back to serving. And wenching,” I tell him. “But thanks!”

I deliver the drinks — probably lukewarm now — to Dominique. “That’s just wonderful,” she drawls. “Maybe next time you can wait until we all drop dead from old age.”

“Sorry, I —”

“Look, just go clear the tables out front.” Dominique lets out a weary sigh, as if my incompetence is just too exhausting.
“Tout de suite.”

I stare blankly. “I took Spanish.”

“Now!” she translates.

I grab the cloth and duck out from behind the counter. I take my time cleaning each table — not so much out of my faultless work ethic as in the hope of eavesdropping on some juicy plotlines for that novel I’m going to write one day. But, as usual, Sherman fails me.

“You know, I told him to paint the fence. It’s bringing the whole tone of the street down.”

“And they’re having a sale on paint right now at Mike’s Hardware.”

“Exactly! Some people have no sense of community.”

See? If I wanted to write about the minutiae of existence, I’d be in heaven right now. Or maybe that’s the point: I could write about a waitress in a small-town coffee shop, doomed to spend her days listening to conversations about DIY home repair while her love is far away… .

A flash of red outside the window catches my eye, and I look up to see a trail of grade-school kids in summer-camp T-shirts, winding down the street in an unruly snake formation. Kayla walks alongside, outfitted in her very own red shirt and weighed down with water bottles and sunscreen. She beams, perky as ever, adjusting one kid’s falling baseball cap, then nudging another back in line. The very picture of summer enthusiasm. I should have guessed that she’d wind up working with kids — or the elderly, or cute fluffy animals.

She sees me watching, and raises her arm in a wave. I manage a vague gesture, balancing dirty dishes.

By the time I’m done clearing, my stomach is rumbling at an alarming volume. I was so busy picking out my first-day outfit that I skipped breakfast; I haven’t had time to eat all day.

I approach Dominique apprehensively. “I was thinking maybe I could take my break …”

“Whenever we hit a lull,” Dominique finishes for me, her expression stony. “Does this look like a lull to you?”

“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.

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.

I laugh. “Come on, they’re just kids.”

“Have you been stuck with a group of ankle biters before?” Kayla stares at me, wide eyed. “Sure, they toddle around quietly, but if they turn on you … it’s like in the movies. The ones that seem sweet and innocent are always, like, possessed. Or zombie spawn.”

“The kids are demons?”

“It would explain a lot. But hey, I get to use it on college applications. I want to major in psychology,” she explains. “And it’s fun watching the parents, trying to figure out how traumatized and messed up their kid is going to be.” She beams happily at the thought of all the future therapy the kids will require.

“Um … great.” Clearly, I’ve been underestimating Kayla.

She looks around at the fluorescent-lit room full of limp sale signs and people dejectedly picking through the remainder bin of underwear. “Oh, my God, this place is so depressing. I should go buy these before I change my mind. Or kill myself.”