Shelter (18 page)

             
She got warm and melty inside whenever her thoughts drifted toward him, which was often. And her job performance soared because of it. On Thursday, as she fetched the coffee carafe from its warmer and weaved her way between tables, she was overcome by the notion that things – her life, her pregnancy, her dreams – would work out for the best. She hadn’t felt so optimistic since…she didn’t know when, and it was exhilarating.

             
“How are you today?” she greeted a familiar face as she came to his table. The young Latino man who’d offered her an encouraging line on her first day was coming fairly regularly, and Alma was making a point of learning the names and preferences of their frequent customers. Sharon had even, grudgingly, told her she was doing a good job.

             
He offered her a wide, white grin over the car magazine he was flipping through. “Good. You?”

             
“Awesome.” She fished out her order pad. “Coffee two sugars?”

             
Sal – they’d traded names on his last visit – was in khakis and a plain blue button-up today, one shiny square-toed loafer protruding from beneath the table. Always a snappy dresser, she felt like a slob in her work-issue black pants and white shirt. Apron tied over her baby bump.

             
“No,” he said. “I’m thinking more caramel latte and a turkey and Swiss Panini.”

             
“Got it.” She scribbled the order and flashed her best on-the-job smile, already shifting her weight so she could make her way back to the kitchen and put in for his sandwich and mix up his coffee, but he cleared his throat in a polite request for her attention.

             
“Are you doing okay?” Like Carlos, his English was flawless, no trace of an accent. He’d grown up in the States obviously. But unlike Carlos, there was no genuine warmth and concern in his eyes as he asked what was supposed to be a compassionate question. Carlos spoiled her with those puppy eyes of his: so easy to read and so adoring. Some might call him pathetic, she called him safe. She always had to guess and wonder if other guys had ulterior motives.

             
It was getting hard to pretend she wasn’t pregnant, so she smoothed a hand over her belly. “Yeah, I’m doing well. Little tired, little queasy, but that’s to be expected.”

             
He smiled, flashing two neat rows of bright white teeth. “Do you know what you’re having yet?”

             
“No, not yet. It’s being stubborn about flashing us,” she said with a little chuckle. It really wasn’t the most appropriate thing to say to a customer, but she dealt with so many disgruntled frowns, it felt a shame to spurn a friendly guy who tipped well.

             
He returned the chuckle. “What are you hoping for?”

             
“Healthy.”

             
His nod was a bit dismissive, so she excused herself, promising to return with his latte. After she’d put the oversized ceramic mug beneath the machine and waited for the amazing little fancy coffee robot contraption to work its magic, she pulled out her cell phone and checked to see if she had any messages. She didn’t, and she sighed, breath ruffling the loose hairs that had escaped her ponytail. She’d been texting Caroline since the day before. Talking with her mother had felt good, now she wanted to hash things out with her best friend – well, former best friend – but she was hoping they could take out the
former
and get back to just being
best
.

             
When she returned to Sal’s table with his order, she saw a large group coming in and paused, the plated Panini held suspended above the table. All of the men entering were in Good & Green landscaping shirts, and Carlos was leading the way. Hurriedly, she set down the sandwich and felt a wide grin bloom across her face. This would be the first time he’d ever visited her at work.

             
Carlos, though, didn’t look so happy to see her.

**

It was an unseasonably cold afternoon; the wind bent the sapling trees they’d been planting in two, making it impossible to get the stakes and guy wires driven into the ground. Carlos’s fingers had gone numb around the shovel and the cloud cover looked like a gray quilt thrown over the heavens. It even smelled cold – like snow and wood smoke. Alma had told him that once when she was younger, that cold had a smell, a particular odor that could only be described as, well,
cold
. He’d chuckled, thought she was cute, but he’d come to find it true. And though it was early December and people had only just begun unfurling yards of garland and stringing icicle lights, it felt like a deep, dark January night.

             
A hot lunch had sounded good to all the guys so he’d suggested they head over to the Silver Plate – Dolman Plantation was in the uppity part of town near the little wifi café anyway – and Alma had mentioned something that morning about tomato basil soup being the special.

             
The shopping center in which the café resided was packed with Christmas shoppers: all the wealthy housewives with money to spend and time to kill. But they’d found spaces for the work trucks at the back of the parking lot and the whole trek across the asphalt, Carlos had held his Carhartt jacket closed and tried to drown out Salvador’s incessant chattering while imagining how nice it was going to be to see Alma in the middle of the day like this.

             
The front windows of the little eatery were fogged up and when he pushed through the door at the head of the knot of landscapers, the scents of baked goods slapped him in the face. The guys murmured approval as they pooled into the shop, no doubt leaving muddy boot prints all over the cream and tan, meant-to-be-soothing tile.

             
“Shit, I’m hungry,” he heard Salvador.

             
“Smells good.” Mike.

             
“Look, they’ve got those cinnamon things.” Alex.

             
And there was his girl, standing in front of him, a tray balanced perfectly in one hand, looking hot as sin even in her work getup as she leaned over and set a giant mug of something steamy in front of a patron. She righted herself and moved her ponytail over her shoulder with an unconscious little toss of her head. He knew that she should be writing for a living – forget the publishing house sales position, people should be paying her mass amounts of money to entertain them with her stories. But he wished her parents could see that, even though she’d hit a rough patch and was recovering slowly, she was just as beautiful, just as sweet, just the same Alma, only a little banged up. And that once she got steady on her feet again, she’d go back to being the girl they were proud of. As it was, he was proud of her now, of the way she took pride in whatever she did, even if it was putting her degree to use by serving coffee to –

             
His smile slipped when his eyes fell over the customer at the table. The man raising the mug to his lips was young, thirtyish, Latino but light-skinned, his black hair gelled and sculpted into some kind of douchebag ‘do. And as Carlos let his gaze wander down he verified that, yes, he had fancy, shined-up shoes too.

It was the guy Sean had told him to call “Diego” from the alley.
Here was a drug buyer sitting at a table in front of Alma, smiling at Alma, thanking her in his criminal, drug-buying voice. He’d be leaving her a tip with his drug-buying hands.

Guilt twisted his gut when he thought about what his own drug-selling hands did to her body at night.

Too late he realized that he was making a spectacle, standing inside the door like he was, glowering at the guy. Alma was coming toward him now, a frown marring her pretty face.

“Carlos.”

He shook himself. Forced a tight grin. “Hey, baby.”

They didn’t exchange intimacies in public like this, but she laid a hand on his arm in a concerned way before she greeted his coworkers and offered to show them to a table. Carlos followed, because he didn’t want to look more conspicuous than he already did, but he shot a glance over his shoulder and locked gazes with the buyer. Diego, or whatever his goddamn name
was, gave him a little up-nod of greeting.

The rest of the guys had pushed together three of the dinky café tables and Carlos found his way robotically to a chair, his pulse feeling like it had been slowed down, then sped
up, then pulled to a halt again, like a straight shift transmission with a new driver behind the wheel.

“Menus are behind the napkin dispenser,” Alma said. He tried to focus on her face, only becoming more disturbed by the notion of the well-dressed buyer sitting mere feet away from them. From his girl. She twitched a little frown, worried about him. But she kept up her spiel. “The specials today are tomato basil soup with a half Caesar salad, or French onion with a half of a pastrami on rye. Half-priced cappuccinos too. I’ll let you guys have a look and be back.” She gave him one last lingering look that seemed to say,
talk to me
, and whisked away, low heels clipping over the tile.

“Hey, bro,” Salvador, who he’d somehow managed to sit beside, nudged him in the ribs. His brown eyes were lit up. “Isn’t that your girl?”

“Yeah,” he sighed.

Dave, always trying to be complimentary even if it wasn’t always too tactful, nodded. “She’s real cute, Carlos.”

He stared down at his menu and tried to keep from scowling. “Thanks.” As he swiveled his head around to check and see if fake-Diego was still sitting there, accepting coffee and polite chit-chat from Alma, he saw Salvador’s almost delighted expression.

“Yeah, she used to be his sister-in-law,” he told the group.

Mike groaned. “Cousin-in-law. And I thought we talked about this, dipshit.”

Carlos was too preoccupied to be aggravated. The dealer was still there, eating some kind of fruity looking sandwich with small, delicate bites. He had his napkin in his lap like he was at cotillion or some shit. He read the paper and sipped his drink and seemed completely at home.

You’re being stupid
, he told himself, returning to his menu. Just like he was living multiple lives – or lies, as they were – lots of normal people dipped into product, indulged in a little coke here and there. No one talked about it, but it happened.

But yet, all the words ran together and he had no idea what anyone around him was saying. When Alma returned to the table, he had no idea what he wanted to order.
He asked for the special and about three seconds after she’d walked away to put in for their food, his phone dinged to indicate that he had a new text message. It was from Alma:

R U OK?

Fine. Talk later
, he sent back and tried to pick himself up and get back into the conversation at hand.

He stayed aware, though, knew that Diego settled his bill and left about twenty minutes later with a smile and light chat with Alma. He’d been in here before, he realized, a cold shudder running down his spine. This wasn’t the first time he’d interacted with Alma. His departure settled his nerves somewhat; he ate and managed to steer Salvador off the topic of his love
life and back to the somewhat safer topic of the upcoming Christmas vacation.

“They wanted us to have all the lots done,” Alex said, shaking his head. “But they’re still laying the plumbing in lots eighteen through twenty-five, so they’re only gonna fuck up the sod if we roll it out.”

“Dude, I know,” Salvador agreed. “And I ain’t workin’ on Christmas, I can tell you that shit right now. My brother and I gotta go see our mom, take her to church…”

Carlos saw Alma at the
soft drink fountain and excused himself from the table. If he was going to have to bail on dinner, he’d rather do it in person.

She heard his approach and half-turned toward him, cup held beneath the Dr. Pepper spigot. The way one hand balanced on her hip and the way her shirt stretched over her breasts, she looked a bit like some kind of soda model or something. It was cute. It didn’t help with his nervous preoccupation, though.

“Hey,” her eyes did a walk down to his boots and back up again as she tried to figure out what was up with him.

Lying to her was awful. He’d always advertised himself as the honest one, the shoulder she could lean on, and now the deception felt almost sinful. But he forced a smile. “
You look hot.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Pregnant waitress. Not just a cliché, but tantalizing too apparently.”

“Apparently.”

She set the Dr. Pepper down and reached for the next cup. When she glanced at him, he swore she could see all the way through him and knew everything there was to know: drugs and all. Which was stupid, but it reminded him that, of all the people in her life, Sam had been the only one whose faults she’d been blind to. He wouldn’t get the same benefit of her undying affection if she figured out the truth.

Which was why he had to keep lying to her. Just for a little bit longer.

“You okay?” Alma asked.

“Yeah, it’s just…I hate to do it, but I’m gonna be home late tonight.”