The Moon and More (17 page)

I swallowed, hard, as the waitress returned with the coffeepot. Luke turned over his cup, she filled it, and then, thankfully, moved on. “I don’t even know what you’re apologizing for yet.”

He ran a hand over his hair, then looked outside at the boardwalk, the ocean beyond it. It was a cloudy day, the sky gray and flat bordering the horizon. I waited for him to speak again. He didn’t.

“Okay,” I said finally. “You were pissed about me not returning your text because I was with Theo. So you called her. I get it. I’m not happy, and clearly it’s a sign of a bigger issue. But—”

“It was before that.”

I took me a minute to actually hear this. Like the letters or sounds were scrambled and had to rearrange themselves. “What?”

He shifted his gaze slowly away from the window, then found my face. “I called her before I saw you with him.”

“You—” I stopped, realizing I was sputtering. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“That’s not an acceptable answer,” I told him, like this was a game show and he’d phrased it incorrectly. “Try again.”

I watched him exhale, his chest falling. “You know we haven’t been hanging out so much lately. Things have been … weird. Kind of off, you know. And then she left that note …”

“And you decided to cheat on me,” I finished for him.

“It wasn’t like that.” He reached up, pinching at the skin between his closed eyes. “Look, I’m not sure why I called. I just did. And she said she was going out that night with her friends, and I should meet them. I wasn’t going to do it. At least, I don’t think I was.”

I held my breath, scared that even the smallest sound might cause him to say what I so did not want to hear.

“But then,” he went on, dropping his hand, “I
did
see you, after you’d blown off my text. I was pissed off. So I went.”

“You met her,” I said, clarifying. He nodded, not looking at me. “Did you sleep with her?”

“No!” he said, sounding surprised. “God, Emaline. Do you really think I’d do that?”

“I don’t know what to think about you anymore!” A woman at another booth turned, slightly, to glance at us. I lowered my voice. “Seriously. How could you
do
this?”

“I’m not the only one who’s been acting questionably here. You were hanging out with another guy, remember?”

“That was work related.”

“Oh, right,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Because you’re always driving around after dark with some dude on official company business.”

“I didn’t do anything with Theo
but
drive him around,” I shot back. “We weren’t at some club together. Where did you go, anyway? Tallyho?”

I’d been joking, not that any of this was funny. When he stared back at me, though, flushing slightly, all I wanted to do was cry.

“Oh my God,” I said. “Luke. Really?”

And it was then, of course, that the waitress appeared at the end of the table, her pad in hand. “Okay. Ready to order?”

Food was the last thing I wanted. But somehow, I asked for my usual scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. Luke got a bacon and egg biscuit, like always. Even when nothing was normal, breakfast apparently did not change.

Once the waitress was gone, neither of us said anything for a while, instead just sitting there as the sounds of the restaurant—forks clinking against plates, other conversations from the tables and counter customers, the door chime sounding again—filled the air around us. Finally, I said, “So what now? We break up?”

“I don’t know.” He picked at his napkin, fraying the edge. “Maybe we just spend a little time apart, to think.”

“God, that is such a cliché.” I shook my head, looking out at the water again. “Next you’ll be saying that it’s not me, it’s you.”

He sighed, letting this pass without comment. “Look. We’ve been together since ninth grade, Emaline. We go to college in a few weeks. I just wonder if, you know, this is happening for a reason. Like maybe we both were missing out on something.”

“Like a date with some tourist at Tallyho?” I asked. “Oh, no, wait. You did that already.”

He shot me a look. “Fine. You don’t have to agree with me. But I bet, if you think about it, you might actually get what I’m talking about.”

“Don’t hold your breath.” I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, glancing outside again. Just another Friday, or so it would seem from the outside. But down deeper, something I’d seen as solid—not perfect, but solid—was suddenly crumbling. I felt like I was falling to pieces right along with it. “I don’t need to get anything, Luke.
You
did this.”

He didn’t say anything. But I could feel him watching me, that heaviness of someone’s scrutiny, as I focused solely on a sea tern outside, floating above the boardwalk. Its wings were outstretched as it rode the breeze, up and down, up and down.

“I’m sorry,” I heard him say again. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sudden blur of movement as he slid out of his seat, left some bills for the breakfast he wouldn’t eat, and walked away. And as he did, I thought again of those mornings in the hallway at school, way back in ninth grade. Everything had started in such sharp detail, each aspect pronounced and clear. Obviously, endings were different. Harder to see, full of shapes that could be one thing or another, with all the things that you were once so sure of suddenly not familiar, if they were even recognizable at all.

I SHOWED UP at work a half hour later with a small plastic take-out box, Luke’s uneaten biscuit wrapped up inside. I’d tried to just leave it, but the waitress, for whatever reason, was determined that I bring it with me.

“They actually keep pretty well, if you stick them in the fridge,” she explained as she folded a piece of wax paper carefully around it. “When you’re ready to eat it, microwave it on low for, like, thirty seconds only.”

I nodded. This must be what shock feels like, I thought, as I paid, tipped her, then carried the box to my car. I passed three garbage cans on the way, and told myself at each one I should toss it in. But I didn’t. Like that box held the last little piece of what was normal, and I wasn’t ready to give it up just yet.

Once at the office, I put on my busy face and headed inside, intending to go straight to the back storage room to get the towels and whatever else needed delivering to clients who had requested them. Then I saw everyone gathered in the conference room. It was Friday at nine a.m., which meant another one of Margo’s mandatory meetings. Crap.

“So nice of you to join us, Emaline,” she said as I came in. “Did you bring food for everyone, or just you?”

I ignored this, taking a seat next to my mom, who was busy typing something on her phone, her morning Mountain Dew from the Gas/Gro on the table beside her.

“Well, I guess we can start now,” Margo said, shuffling some papers in front of her.

“What about Mrs. Merritt?” Rebecca asked. Despite having been with us only six months, even she knew any meeting was useless without my grandmother, who, despite Margo’s posturing, was the real boss here.

“I have a printed agenda that will catch her up,” Margo replied, passing the stack of papers over to my mom, who was still busy with her phone. They sat there on the table, untouched, until my sister finally picked them up again, handing them out to us one by one with a bit too much gusto. “All right. Let’s start with item one. Staff food storage and rules.”

My mom finally put down her phone, then nodded hello to me. I nodded back, very aware of her looking at the take-out box, my face, then the box again. I concentrated on the stupid agenda, not wanting to risk full eye contact.

Margo cleared her throat. “It has come to my attention that certain employees are not showing the proper respect for other people’s foodstuffs.”

“Foodwhat?” Rebecca asked.

“All drinks, snacks, and lunches in the office kitchen area brought from home,” Margo replied. “As I’ve reminded everyone here multiple times, they should be labeled with
the owner’s name, to be removed and/or consumed by that person
only.
”

My mom sighed. “Is this about your coconut juice?”

“It’s coconut
water
, Mother, and no, it isn’t,” my sister snapped. “It’s about the simple concept of respect for other people’s property.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Her drink vanished,” my mom said. “She thinks it was you.”

Of course she did. “I don’t even know what coconut juice is.”

“It’s
coconut water
,” Margo said. “And it was clearly labeled with my name when someone took it from the fridge. It’s not the first time, either. Clearly, the issue needs to be addressed.”

“And it has been. So move on,” my mom said, waving her hand. Then, to me, she added, “What’s in that box, anyway? It smells fantastic.”

Rebecca nodded. “It really does.”

“It’s a biscuit from Last Chance,” I told them.

“Bacon and egg?” my mom asked. I told her yes, and she sighed. “I knew it. I could just
tell
.”

“Item number two,” Margo continued, loudly. “New staff uniform guidelines.”

“Oh, God,” I said. “Not this again.”

“I thought we tabled this?” Rebecca said.

“We did. Until now.” Margo cleared her throat. “Now, I’m aware that this is not a popular issue. But the core of uniformity is
uniform
. It’s important that we as a staff are always easily identified by our clients.”

“If you start talking about khaki pants and denim shirts,” I warned her, “I am walking right out of here.”

“Emaline,” she shot back, “I am sick of you always trying to bully me out of making needed changes. As my employee—”

“I don’t work for
you
,” I said. “I work for the office.”

“I am the office!”

“Girls,” my mom said, in a tired voice. I couldn’t really blame her; Margo and I butting heads was a part of just about every meeting, if not every day. Despite the fact that I was the youngest, we’d always argued with each other more than either of us did with Amber, mostly because she was too lazy to get that riled up. We’d both gotten a work ethic; the stubborn gene was just a lucky bonus.

“Khaki and denim is the perfect combination for a beach rental office!” she said now, pulling a glossy catalog from her stack of papers and waving it at us. A picture of a woman in black pants and a white shirt balancing wine glasses on a tray was on the cover. “And there are options here that are practical for every department, from us all the way down to the service contractors.”

“The service contractors?” I said. “What, you’re going to make the cleaners and maintenance people wear them as well?”

“Anyone who interacts with our clients on our behalf is representing Colby Realty. If they are in uniform, there’s no question who the person is who suddenly appears at your rental house to clean your pool. He’s easily identifiable, not some shirtless, barefoot stranger.”

“Shirtless?” my mom asked. “Who’s shirtless?”

I was pretty sure I knew. I looked again at the to-go container, feeling sick.

“Here in the office,” Margo was saying now, “we’ll be in khaki pants or skirts, with denim shirts in long or short sleeves, embroidered with our logo. Contractors will wear shorts and polo shirts or, in certain cases, T-shirts.” She folded back a page of the catalog, then pushed it towards Rebecca. “Everyone will know all the options available to them before they’re asked to purchase them.”

“What?” I said. “We have to pay for these out of our own pockets?”

“Emaline,” she said, looking tired, “I think you and your boyfriend can afford a couple of polo shirts.”

“He’s not my boyfriend anymore,” I muttered. “And anyway—”

And that was when I realized two things: what I’d said, and that it was too late to take it back. Hearing this, my mother literally jerked in her seat, as if this news was an electric charge, straight from me to her.

“What did you just say?” she asked.

I closed my eyes, silently cursing myself. There were probably worse places for me to announce this than right in front of my mom, my nosiest sister, and Rebecca, who spent most of her time at work gossiping with her friends. But right then, I was hard-pressed to think of any of them.

“Nothing,” I said, reaching over to grab the catalog from Margo, as if looking at the available options of button-down
shirts was the most crucial thing at that second. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Wow,” Margo said, her eyes wide. “I figured you’d probably break up in the fall, at school, but—”

“Hush,” my mom told her, then turned to me. “When did this happen?”

I shook my head, knowing I couldn’t even begin to talk about it. Just saying this out loud had made it more real than I was ready to acknowledge.

“Oh, my goodness. Is it Friday already?”

I looked up to see my grandmother in the conference room doorway, car keys in one hand, her purse in the other. Once again, she was saving me.

“It is,” Margo replied. “We’ve only just started, though.”

“What a relief,” my grandmother said, in her classic way that made it impossible to tell if she was being gracious or sarcastic. “I’ll be right back, just let me put this stuff away.”

She disappeared down the hallway, where we could hear her turning on lights in her office and pushing her creaking chair back from the desk before going into the kitchen for something. Meanwhile, we all just sat there, with everyone looking at me while I pretended they weren’t. Finally, my grandmother bustled back in.

“Okay, I’m here.” She sat down at the other end of the table, her regular spot, then plunked a bottled water in front of her and twisted off the cap. “What did I miss?”

“The short version?” I said. “People are stealing food and we have to buy our own uniforms.”

“The talking points are in detail here,” Margo added, shooting me a look as she pushed an agenda to Rebecca to pass down to her. My grandmother squinted at it over her reading glasses.

“Uniforms,” she said, taking a sip of her water. “Didn’t we already decide against this?”

“We tabled it for further discussion,” Margo said slowly. “Is that … are you drinking a coconut water?”

My grandmother glanced down at the bottle’s label. “I don’t know, it was in the fridge. They’re pretty good. Would you like a taste?”