Getting Over Garrett Delaney(18)
Author: Abby McDonald

Motivation enough to turn her down. “Thanks, but I’m having fun.”

Lie.

“And the people are great.”

Well, some of the people. Now that I’m a vaguely competent employee, Dominique has exchanged disdain for icy detachment and doesn’t say a word to me aside from orders and occasional demands to go clean something. Josh is friendlier than her, thank God, but he’s still so goofy; it’s hard to get him to stop messing around long enough to have a straight conversation.

I’m just starting to set up for the morning when he barrels through the door, carrying a fishing rod and a toolbox dangling with hooks. His nose is sunburned and peeling, and his brown hair is sticking up in wayward tufts.

“You fish?” I ask, resisting the urge to pick pecans from the tops of the muffins as I lay out the day’s pastries. Oh, caramelized deliciousness! I turn to Josh before I break, like, five different health and safety laws. “I didn’t know you were the huntin’, shootin’ type.”

“Sure.” He grins and unloads his gear with a loud clatter. “Birds, beasts, mammals, I’ll kill ’em all. There’s actually a couple of rodents out back if you’re feeling hungry. . . .”

“Eww!”

“What?” He laughs. “Nah, the fishing’s more my dad’s thing. He likes to drag me along sometimes. His idea of bonding, I guess.”

“You’re lucky.” I sigh. “My mom’s idea of bonding is for us to sit down and fill out goal charts together. Or go for manicures. But, well . . .” I hold up my bitten nails as evidence of just how futile that cause is. “It’s cute, though, that your dad wants to bond.” Finished with the morning setup, I hoist myself onto the countertop. We haven’t officially opened yet, and the coffee shop is a quiet sea of neat tables and full sugar dispensers. The calm before the storm. “My dad and I kind of have the same thing. He’s always traveling,” I explain. “But whenever he’s in town, we always go to a show together, some band I want to see. It’s dorky, I know, but . . .” I trail off, embarrassed. “I don’t know, it’s kind of nice, to have a thing like that. Just us.”

But Josh doesn’t seem to think I’m being childish. He nods, drumming absently against the counter with a couple of spoons. “Right. I have three older sisters, so my dad has a lifetime of it stored up. You know, football, baseball . . . Pretty much anything involving guns and balls — and don’t even think about cracking a joke right now.” He laughs and points a warning spoon at me. “Because believe me, I’ve made them all.”

“Lips, sealed.” I mime, trying to keep a straight face. “But didn’t your sisters like sports? Us girls can like balls, too.” I stop, realizing what I just said. Josh cracks up. I blush. “Stop it! You know what I mean!”

He coughs. “Too easy.”

I roll my eyes. That’s the thing about talking with Josh; I never know when he’s going to take what I’ve said and twist it into something funny or gross.

“No,” he explains, recovering. “He tried to get them into hunting and sports, but they were just into other stuff. Dance, swimming, books.”

“Heaven forbid.” I press the back of my hand to my forehead. “Us girls, with our fancy book learning.”

“Right, you’re a reader, too,” he says, as if it’s a bad thing. He snags one of the forbidden muffins, breaks it in two, and offers half to me. I pause only a second before taking it. “You know, it’s not good for you,” he says through a mouthful of muffin. “All that sitting around, reading. What are you going to do when the zombies come? You’ll be too out of shape to run.”

“I thought zombies just kind of shuffled.”

“The regular kind, sure.” He grins. “I’m talking about the genetically modified ones.”

“Right, silly me.” I laugh. “Well, when they show up, I guess I’ll just throw my big, heavy books at them and hope for the best.”

“Good luck with that.” He stuffs the rest of the muffin in his mouth and hops up on the back counter next to me.

“So are you starting college in the fall?” I ask, curious.

He shakes his head. “No, I’m done with school — the sitting in class, writing papers kind, anyway. It’s just not my thing.”

“So what is?”

Josh gives me a crooked kind of grin. “That, I haven’t figured out just yet. But I will. Believe me, my parents are making sure of that.”

The door dings with our first customer of the day: a bleary-eyed man in a suit who trudges toward us in a familiar sleepy gait.

“Hey, Mr. Hartley,” I call, hopping down from the counter. “The usual?”

“Mmgmmhm,” he murmurs, yawning.

“One triple espresso and a cheese danish, coming right up!” I set to work on the Beast, hitting the combination levers. It shudders and splutters in protest, but I don’t even pause. I just give its side a smack, and it quickly gurgles out the drink.

“No Post-its,” Josh notes. He holds his hand up for a high five as he passes.

I grin and slap his palm. “It knows who’s boss!”

My mastery of the Beast comes just in time, as we’re soon deluged with a morning caffeine frenzy that doesn’t let up for hours. I find myself shifting into a Zen-like state of order/froth/pour, letting my mind wander to more important things — like Garrett. I’ve always had, ahem, an active imagination when it comes to the two of us, but now that he’s out of reach, my wistful daydreams have taken on a vivid new fervency. I’ve played out the scene at the party a hundred times: if that drunk guy hadn’t wrecked the mood, if Garrett had been able to say what was on his mind. Then there are the “rushing back home” scenarios, where — in the middle of a lecture — Garrett looks at the epic love poem and is struck with the realization it’s about us. He flees the classroom, hitchhikes back to Sherman, and bursts through the café doors to sweep me into a passionate embrace —

“Hey.” An exhausted voice interrupts my daydream. I look up and see Kayla on the other side of the counter, clutching three of her camp kids.

“Kaylieeee, I needa peepee!” one of the boys bleats.

“I’m thirsty!” a girl with pigtails demands.

“In a minute,” Kayla says. Her eyes meet mine. “The things we do for summer wages.”