Random (Going the Distance) (23 page)

Touched, I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him. “Me, either.”

We eat breakfast at the small table under the windows, not talking a lot. I suspect he might not be a morning person, exactly. My mom was like that. It took her a couple of hours to get going and be able to talk. I don’t mind. My mind is entertaining itself, admiring the roominess of the kitchen, the glass-fronted cupboards, the gorgeous view.

“You’re so easy to be around,” he says, touching my hand. “Thanks for breakfast.”

“You’re welcome. I’m going to have get moving if I’m going to make it home and back to the Spoon in time.”

“Next time bring a bag.”

“And a toothbrush.” I rub my tongue over my teeth.

“I guess you don’t want to know that I have some extras, huh? For, you know, like my boarder buddies.” His eyes glitter.

“I don’t care who they’re for. I want one, please.”

He laughs.

We clean up the kitchen together, then I get dressed and we kiss a long time at the doorway. I finally push him away. “Gotta go, gotta go. See you in a little while.”

As I’m out the door, he grabs my hand. “Do you want to go out to dinner tonight?”

“You don’t have to feed me every day. I promise I’m not starving.”

“Not like that,” he says, and his expression is faintly abashed. “Like a nice dinner. Out to dinner properly.”

I would love to do that more than I can say, but I have nothing remotely acceptable to wear for a fancy dinner. “Um…my wardrobe runs more to jeans, Tyler. How about someplace kind of casual?”

He smiles, blinking like a blue eyed cat. “Okay. I’m going to pick you up at 5.”

“It’s a date.”

Chapter NINETEEN

W
hen I get to my house there’s a bouquet of daisies on the step, along with a note. From Rick, of course. The flowers are already so wilted there’s no point to doing anything with them, so I toss them in the outside trash. The note is on lined paper torn out of a spiral notebook. The edge is shredded, and something about that slices right through my ribs. I carry it inside.

I drop my bag on the floor by the couch and sit down to read the note. It’s long, and he’s worked hard to keep his handwriting legible. For a minute, looking at the paragraphs, I’m overwhelmed—things have happened so fast!—and my whole life looks skewed, like I’m in a glass globe and somebody turned it on its side.

For long minutes I sit with the note in my hands. Do I want to know what he has to say? My living room is tiny, but sunshine is pouring through the lace curtains, and it somehow gives me the courage to take the letter, unread, and put it in the trash.

As if he knows it, my phone rings that very second, and I don’t even have to look at the number to know it’s him. Irritated, I answer the phone. “Rick. Wasn’t it enough to get arrested?”

“Did you get my letter?”

“And the flowers.” I open the fridge and wonder if I need to eat more before I go to work. “Yes. You have to stop this, Rick. Focus on your music.”

“I can’t sleep,” he says in a ragged voice. “I can’t eat anything.”

Why did I think I could make this better?

“I can’t help you. It’s over. This is the last time I’m going to answer my phone when you call, and I‘m blocking you on Facebook. If you come anywhere near me, I’ll call the cops.”

“Babe—”

“I’m done, Rick,” I say, and end the call. My stomach hurts a little. Standing in my kitchen, I say, “Mom, I wish you were here to tell me what to do.”

There’s no answer, of course. As much as I wish she was a ghost, hanging around with me to answer the questions I never got to ask her, there’s no such thing, and she’s dead.

As I get dressed, I find myself wondering what happened between her and my dad in New Zealand. Why did we lose touch? I don’t know that part, and I wonder if Henry does. I need to tell him about my other dad, anyway, so I punch his number into the phone and wait.

“Hey, little girl. Did you have a good time last night?”

A bar of heat runs over my forehead, and I push the images of me and Tyler away. “Yeah. I really like him. Listen, I don’t have a lot of time, but I need to ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“Do you know why my other dad—” That was how we’d always said it. “—stopped talking to me?”

For a long moment he’s silent. Then he clears his throat. “Your mom never told me.”

Is he lying? I’ve never known Henry to lie in my whole life. “Henry?”

“I wish she was here to tell you her stories, sweetie. It’s not my business.”

“Yeah, well, she’s
not
here. All I have is you.”

“You have to ask him, then.”

I frown. “Did you know I found him?”

“He friended you on Facebook, baby.”

“Oh, of course.” I feel ashamed of myself in some odd way. “I was going to tell you, it’s just been this crazy couple of days, like a million things have changed.”

“I get it. Life runs like that sometimes.”

“Does it hurt your feelings that I looked him up?”

“Hell, no! Curiosity is perfectly natural.”

“I wish you’d tell me more, though.” A weird swell of emotion burns in my throat. “Lately I just keep wanting to know more about her. Like why did she leave her family and never really talk to them anymore? Why did she leave my dad?”

“Why did she leave you?”

I close my eyes, but hot tears burn right out anyway. In a whisper, I say, “Yes.”

Being Henry, he doesn’t try to make it all better with some pat phrase. He just sits at the end of the phone and listens to me breathe hard and pretend I’m not crying.

“How can I still miss her so much?”

“I do, too.”

“I know you do.” I take a deep breath and glance at the stove clock. “Shit. I have to go this minute. I love you, Henry. You know that, right?”

“I love you, too, Jess, baby. Just as you are.”

I hang up the phone, hollow with questions I can’t answer. Fifteen minutes later I’m walking into the Musical Spoon. My hair is still unbraided and I forgot to put any makeup on, so of course the first person I run into is Lena, shoveling ice into a bucket. She’s wearing a short, filmy dress that shows off her legs. Her feet are in a pair of lace-up ankle boots that give the dress just the right weight. “Cute outfit,” I say.

Her cat-lined eyes swoop over me with disdain. She doesn’t say anything.

I roll my eyes and shove my stuff in the locker, then go into the bathroom to braid my hair. My eyes are still kind of red from crying, but I splash cold water on them, wishing I had some mascara in my purse. Next to Lena’s elegant look, I’m a plain piece of bread. Wonder bread, too white and too ordinary.

But when I come out there’s Tyler, lining up celery and heads of garlic on the work table. When he catches sight of me, his face does that amazing thing, flooding with light, and his eyes go a brighter blue, and his lips turn up just slightly on one side. My heart skitters to a stop, and it doesn’t matter if I’m white bread or that my ex is nuts or that I need answers my mom never bothered to leave me.

In the way the light comes on in Tyler’s eyes, I see the love he’s feeling. This is big and crazy and fast.

It’s also real. I touch my index finger to my lips and hold it out. He holds out his index finger, too, and I can almost see the streak of energy arc through the empty kitchen and crackle when it meets my flesh.

I’m not going to let Lena get under my skin. Simple as that.

* * *

I’m still training, but I have tables of my own today. Mollie is on hand to keep me from screwing up too much and remind me which abbreviations mean what in the computer, although most of them are in a list on the wall. It feels good to be learning a new menu, working in an environment I really like. The customers are friendly for the most part, and the menu itself isn’t complicated. The only aggravation is Lena, who takes three times longer to get my drinks than anyone else’s. All cold drinks come through the bar, too, so unless my tables order tea or coffee, I have to deal with her.

Around 12:30 it’s very busy, and I know the other two servers are taking up the slack for me and my mini-station of four tables. A table of middle-aged women come in, dressed casually in khaki shorts and expensive t-shirts and walking sandals. Two of them are vegan, one is vegetarian, so she orders the soup and bread with butter. The others both need to make substitutions I’m not sure how to write down for the computer. “Bear with me,” I say, “this is only my second day.” I write out
guacamole instead of cheese, mustard instead of mayo, dressing on the side.
“I’ll double check to be sure nothing else has dairy, too.”

“Thanks, sweetheart. We’re your headache customers for the day.”

I smile. “You have no idea how complicated people can get. You’re fine.”

Of course they order special drinks, too. Nothing overtly complicated, but I’ll have to explain to Lena. My shoulders are tight as I approach the pass-out section. “Soda water with lime and lemon and orange slices,” I read out from my little notebook. “White wine spritzer with soda water, not 7 Up, and a Blue Moon with limes instead of oranges.”

She lifts her black brows. “Really?”

I pass her the paper. “Yep.” I tuck the notebook back in my pocket and hurry over to the computer, where I’m trying to figure out how to punch in the substitutions. Another server, a girl named Tina, waits not-so-patiently. “Hey,” I say, “can you help me? They need substitutions and I’m not sure how to do it.”

She shows me the method—first the sub button, duh, and then a little window to type the subs. It takes a while, and Mollie is waiting, too, by the time I’m done. I’m hoping I got it right. Rather than leave it to fate, I carry the piece of paper into the kitchen. Tyler is working the soup pots, so the cook is someone I’ve barely spoken with. “I’m worried about getting the substitutions right in the computer,” I say. “These women are vegans and don’t want any dairy. Table ten.”

He looks at the screen. “You got it right, except that guacamole doesn’t have to be spelled out. You can just use guac.” He smiles, giving me a thumbs up. I flash it back, the tension leaving my chest a little. He bangs a plate on the bar. “Order up!”

It’s mine, a pair of sandwiches. I serve them, make sure the table is happy and head back to the bar. Lena is making a margarita, but my order isn’t there. I look over my shoulder to see if the ladies have been served already, but their table is bare. “Can I get those drinks for table ten?”

Lena glances over at me. “In a minute.”

There’s actually nothing for me to do, so I stand there waiting. Around me the restaurant is bustling, busy, everyone with a task. Lena makes the margarita, picks up a long glass and I think she’s going to start my order, but she fills it with Coke and takes a drink, looking over the glass at me with a challenge.

A bartender or a cook who wants to make a server’s life miserable can do it without blinking an eye. The way I handle this is going to set the tone, but I have to figure out how to stand up for myself without alienating her even more. “Can I get those drinks, please?”

She languorously pulls up three glasses, fills them with ice. Each gesture is as lazy and long as she can possible make it. “Has he painted you yet?”

“What?” I know what she means, but it’s out of context.

“You heard me.” She puts the soda water on the bar. “Has he painted you yet?”

Is it better to say yes or no? To play ignorant or acknowledge this? “No,” I say honestly. “Sketches.”

She puts the wine spritzer on the bar. “Did he tell you his sad story, his suicidal sister and his broken dreams for the Olympics?”

I blink, feeling suddenly hot. “Yes.”

“Did he show you the paintings of me?”

“No. He said it would be disrespectful of you.”

Her smile is bitter as she sets the third glass on the bar. As I step forward to put them on the tray, she reaches over and deliberately knocks two of them over toward me. Soda water and lime soak my shirt and the front of my skirt. I gasp and jump back, but the damage is done.

“Really?” I say, pulling the soaked shirt away from my body. “Give me a bar towel. Two. One for the floor.”

“Sorry,” she says, tossing me clean dry towels. “Let me make those again.”

I drop one towel on the floor and mop up the spilled drinks, pressing the other against my middle. If it were only the soda water I’d be fine, but the wine will get stiff. The air inside my ears is pounding and I want more than anything to throw the soaked towels right in her face. As I slam the towels back on the bar, a thousand retorts blaze through my mind, but they’re all stupid. I don’t have the witty gene. Tonight, when I get in the shower, I’ll think of the perfect thing, but it will be too late.

“All this drama?” I say, taking the fresh drinks. “Really not necessary.”

She lifts a shoulder, unrepentant.

I deliver the drinks to the table, my whole front soaked. The ladies cluck sympathetically. I race into the back, ask Sam for a dry shirt. He fetches me one and I change, but the sheen is off the day.

In my last job, the boss’s wife was the cook and mean as a junkyard dog, but I got her. I mean, she hated everyone, not just me. She hated anyone who was young, anyone of any age who was pretty, anyone who might have a chance at getting a better life than the one she had. I got that. It wasn’t personal.

Lena hates me for personal reasons that also have nothing to do with me. I don’t exactly know what to do with that. Maybe I’m stupid for keeping the job.

Except…I like it. A lot. By the end of the day I’ve put the spill behind me. We’re cleaning up tables and my pockets are filled with cash. Not tons of cash, but some. I’ve got a date. And there on the shelves around me are hundreds and hundreds of books. Once my shift is finished, I wander down the rows of them, touching my fingers to the spines as if that will transfer something inside them into me. An adventure. A romance. An escape.

* * *

I have a couple of hours before Tyler is going to pick me up for dinner. I stop in at the hospital to see Virginia. She’s still in her coma, which is depressing, but there’s been improvement in some of her vital signs. They said it could take a few weeks before they know more. There’s one nice thing, though, the nurse tells me. Her boys have been coming in with their dad in the evenings, and he makes them talk to her.