Keeping the Moon(23)
Author: Sarah Dessen

One morning on the week of the Fourth of July, Morgan burst into work with a huge grin on her face.

“Oh, my God,” Isabel said. She was standing by the coffee machine, working on her third cup; it was drizzling and cool, bad beach weather, and we’d been slow. “What is it?”

“Mark’s coming home tonight, for the weekend,” Morgan said, almost goofy with happiness. “He just called.”

“Great,” Isabel said. “Ya-hoo.”

“Don’t be like that,” Morgan scolded, coming behind the counter and adjusting the coffee cups, pointing their handles in the proper direction. Then she moved on to the napkins, replacing them on the shelf at a right angle to the spoons. But she was still smiling. “You like Mark,” she told Isabel.

“Of course I do,” Isabel said sarcastically. “And if he actually shows up this time, I’ll like him even more. Besides, I thought we had plans.”

“He just called and said he was coming.” Morgan put a hand on her hip. There were certain postures and expressions that made her look kind of like a dodo bird. But I felt bad for thinking this.

“He said that last time, too.” Isabel craned her neck, checking on her only table.

Morgan rolled her eyes, then looked at me pleadingly. “Work for me tonight, Colie? Please?”

A double. But if I owed anyone, it was Morgan. “Sure.”

“Thanks.” She smiled, flashing her ring as she pushed her bangs out of her face. “I have, like, a million things to do. I want to cook him dinner, you know? So I need to clean the house, and buy some food, and do something with my hair. . . .”

Isabel turned back to the coffee machine, grumbling under her breath.

“So, Is,” Morgan said after a moment, “can I have the house tonight?”

“Where am I supposed to go?” Isabel said.

Morgan lowered her voice. “You know Mira would let you stay there.” I pretended to have to go back into the kitchen, where I found Norman with a book by the rain-streaked window. He glanced up and smiled, then turned a page and kept reading. Bick, who was an aging surfer, was out back with his board, waxing it and looking up glumly at the gray sky.

I could still see Morgan through the food window. “Just for tonight,” she said. “I want it to be . . . special.”

“Oh, gag,” Isabel groaned. “Whatever. I’ll get lost, if that’s what you want.”

“You rock,” Morgan said excitedly, running over and giving her a quick hug. Isabel just stood there. “Okay, then, I guess I should go. He’s coming in around six and I have so much to talk to him about . . . I mean, we’ve got to set a date for the wedding. Especially if I want to go back to school in the fall, I kind of have to know when. I mean, there’s so much to plan, you know?”

Isabel swirled her spoon in her cup, adding more cream and sugar. Morgan watched, her smile wavering.

“Isabel,” Morgan said. “Don’t be like this. I never get to see him.”

“Did he say anything about last time?” Isabel snapped. She had her back to me now. I leaned in closer against the cooler door, easing out of sight. “Did he at least apologize?”

“I didn’t ask him to—”

“Did he say he was sorry you waited up for him all night and that he stood up your entire family? Did he explain why he never picked up the phone to call you?”

“That isn’t important now.”

Isabel shook her head angrily. “God, Morgan. You are such a smart girl. Why are you being so stupid about this?”

Morgan blinked, several times. And bit by bit, that grin just slipped off her face. “It’s none of your business,” she said quietly.

“It isn’t?”

“No.” She turned and walked out from behind the counter, grabbing her keys. “It isn’t.”

“Then don’t cry to me anymore, okay?” Isabel yelled after her. I heard the bell over the front door. “Don’t sob and say how much he’s hurt you and make a big deal of taking off the ring and taking down his pictures. ’Cause I’m sick of it. So it’s none of my business. Not anymore.”

The door slammed. Isabel turned back to the window, angrily stirring her coffee. Then she saw me.

“What?” she snapped.

I shook my head. Across the kitchen, Norman kept reading, like a child so used to his parents fighting he hardly heard it anymore. And Isabel dumped her coffee and walked to the back door, where she stood watching the rain, arms across her chest, until her table was ready to leave.

That night, Isabel was off first, around nine, so Norman and I closed up together.

“Want a ride?” he asked as we stepped out into the parking lot. I could hear his keys jingling as he locked the door.

“Are you going home?” I said.

“I could.” He tossed up the keys, then caught them. “I need to make some room in my place, since the church bazaar is this weekend. It’s where I usually get most of my best stuff.”

I thought about the walk home. All of those bright house lights, the occasional glare of high beams coming toward me, making me squint. A ride would have been nice, but now I had to wonder what Norman expected in return.

“I’m okay,” I said, and started across the parking lot.

“So, I, uh, got you something,” he called after me. I turned around. He was standing next to the open passenger door of his wagon, the dome light glowing. In the back seat I could see a stack of egg crates, a lamp that appeared to be shaped like a windmill, and a large plastic goldfish. Norman, the collector.

“Got me something?” I said.

“Yeah.” He sat down in the passenger seat and opened the glove box; there was the ritual explosion of sunglasses. He rummaged through them quickly, glancing up a few times as if to make sure I hadn’t left.

I stayed where I was.

“All right,” he announced triumphantly, picking out one pair and tossing all the others back into the glove box. When he slammed it shut it fell open. Twice. And then stuck, with one good whack.

I came closer as he got out and took a few steps to meet me halfway, under the bright white of the one buzzing street lamp.

“Here.” He deposited the sunglasses in my open hand; I could feel their slight weight in my palm. “I just saw them and, you know, thought of you.”

Thought of me. I looked down at them. They were black, with cat’s-eye-shaped frames, slim and streamlined. Very cool.