Текст книги "Let It Snow"

Автор книги: John Green

Соавторы: John Green,Lauren Myracle,Maureen Johnson
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

Chapter Eight

By five A.M., our morning prep was done. At 5:01, our first customer rapped on the glass door, and Christina walked over to officially unlock it.

“Merry day-after-Christmas, Earl,” she said to the burly guy waiting outside. “Didn’t know if we’d see you today.”

“You think my customers care what the weather’s like?” Earl said. “Think again, darlin’.”

He trundled into the store, bringing with him a gust of frigid air. His cheeks were ruddy, and he wore a red-and-black hat with earflaps. He was huge, bearded, and looked like a lumberjack—which worked out nicely since he was a lumberjack. He drove one of those semis you never wanted to get behind on one of the many mountain roads around here, since, first of all, the weight he pulled meant he maintained a speed of a rip-roaring twenty miles an hour, and, second of all, the back of his open trailer was filled with logs. Massive logs, stacked five or six high. Logs, should the trailer restraints snap, that would roll off the truck and smush you as flat as a crushed to-go cup.

Christina crossed back behind the bar and got the steamer going. “Must be nice to be needed, though, huh?”

Earl grunted. He tromped over to the cash register, squinted at me, and said, “What’d you do to your hair?”

“I cut it,” I said. I watched his face. “And dyed it.” When he still didn’t say anything, I added, “Do you like it?”

“What’s it matter?” he replied. “It’s your hair.”

“I know. But . . . ” I found I didn’t know how to finish my sentence. Why did I care if Earl liked it or not? Eyes down, I took his money. He always got the same drink, so there was no further discussion required.

Christina swirled a generous galaxy of whipped cream onto Earl’s raspberry mocha, drizzled the cream with bright red raspberry syrup, and topped the whole thing off with a white plastic lid.

“Here you go,” she announced.

“Thank you, ladies,” he said. He raised his cup in a toast, then strode out the door.

“You think Earl’s lumberjack buddies tease him about getting such a girly drink?” I asked.

“Not more than once,” Christina said.

The door jangled, and a guy held it open for his girlfriend. At least, I assumed she was his girlfriend, because they had that coupley look to them, all goofy and love struck. I immediately thought of Jeb—I’d gone, what, two seconds without his crossing my mind?—and felt lonely.

“Wow, more early birds,” Christina commented.

“More like late birds is my guess.” The guy, whom I recognized from school, had bleary eyes and an up-all-night sway to his posture. I thought I recognized the girl, too, but I wasn’t sure. She couldn’t stop yawning.

“Could you quit that?” the guy said to Yawning Girl. Tobin, his name was Tobin. He was one grade above me. “You’re giving me a complex.”

She smiled. She yawned again. Was her name Angie, maybe? Yeah, Angie, and she was nongirly in a way that made me feel too girly. I doubted she meant to, though. I doubted she even knew who I was.

“That’s just great,” he said. He appealed to me and Christina, spreading his arms. “She thinks I’m boring. I’m boring her—can you believe it?”

I kept my expression pleasant but noncommittal. Tobin wore scruffy sweaters and was friends with the Korean guy who said “asshat,” and he and all of his buddies were intimidatingly clever. The kind of clever that made me feel cheerleader-dumb, even though I wasn’t a cheerleader, and even though I personally didn’t think cheerleaders were dumb. Not all of them, anyway. Chloe-the-Stuart-dumper, maybe.

“Hey,” Tobin said, pointing at me. “I know you.”

“Um, yeah,” I said.

“But your hair wasn’t always pink.”

“Nope.”

“So you work here? That’s wild.” He turned to the girl. “She works here. She’s probably worked here for years, and I never knew it.”

“Spooky,” the girl said. She smiled at me and kind of tilted her head, as if to say, I know I know you, and I’m sorry I don’t know your name, but “hi” anyway.

“Can I get drinks started for you guys?” I asked.

Tobin scanned the menu board. “Ah, Christ, this is the place with the messed-up sizes, isn’t it? Like, grandé instead of large?” He stretched it out all stupid and fake-French, and Christina and I shared a look.

“Why can’t you just call it a large?” he asked.

“You could, except grandé is a medium,” Christina said. “Venti is large.”

“Venti. Right. For the love of God, can’t I order in plain English?”

“Absolutely,” I told him. It was a delicate balance: keeping the customer happy, but also, when needed, calling him on his crap. “It might confuse me, but I’ll figure it out.”

Angie’s lips twitched. It made me like her.

“No, no, no,” Tobin said, holding his hands up and making a show of recanting. “When in Rome and all that. I’ll, uh . . . let me think . . . can I get a venti blueberry muffin?”

I had to laugh. His hair was sticking up, he looked utterly exhausted, and yes, he was acting like a tool. I was fairly sure he didn’t know my name, either, despite the fact that we’d gone to the same elementary school, middle school, and high school. Yet there was something sweet about him as he looked at Angie, who was laughing along with me.

“What?” he said, bewildered.

“The sizes are for drinks,” she said. She put her hands on his shoulders and aimed him toward the pastry case, where six identically plump muffins sat at attention. “The muffins are all the same.”

“They’re muffins,” Christina agreed.

Tobin blustered, and at first I assumed it was more of his act. Hapless counter-culture-boy, thrust against his will into Big Bad Starbucks. Then I noticed his rising blush, and I realized something. Tobin and Angie . . . their togetherness was new. New enough that being touched by her still came as a glorious, blush-worthy surprise.

Another wave of loneliness flooded through me. I remembered that skin-tingling exhilaration.

“This is my first time in a Starbucks,” Tobin said. “Seriously. My first time ever, so be gentle with me.” His hand fumbled for Angie’s, and their fingers locked. She blushed, too.

“So . . . just a muffin?” I asked. I slid back the glass door of the pastry case.

“Never mind, I no longer want your stinking muffin.” He pretend-pouted.

“Poor baby,” Angie teased.

Tobin gazed at her. Sleepiness, and something else, softened his features.

“Um, how about your biggest-size latte,” he said. “We can share.”

“Sure,” I said. “You want any syrup in that?”

He shifted his attention back to me. “Syrup?”

“Hazelnut, white chocolate, raspberry, vanilla, caramel . . . ” I said, ticking them off.

“Hash brown?”

For a second I thought he was making a joke at my expense, but then Angie laughed, and it was a private-joke kind of laugh, but not in a mean way, and I realized maybe everything wasn’t always about me.

“Sorry, no hash-brown syrup.”

“Uh, okay,” he said. He scratched his head. “Then, um, how about—”

“A cinnamon dolce white mocha,” Angie told me.

“Excellent choice.” I rang it up, and Tobin paid with a five and then stuffed a bonus five in the “Feed Your Barista” jar. Maybe he wasn’t such a tool after all.

Still, when they went to the front of the store to sit down, I couldn’t help thinking, Not the purple chairs! Those are Jeb’s and my chairs! But of course the purple chairs were the ones they chose. After all, they were the softest and the best.

Angie dropped into the chair closest to the wall, and Tobin sank into its mate. In one hand, he held their drink. With his other, he reclaimed Angie, lacing his fingers through hers and holding on tight.

Chapter Nine

By six thirty, the sun was officially on the rise. It was pretty, I suppose, if you liked that sort of thing. Fresh starts, new beginnings, the warming rays of hope . . .

Yeah. Not for me.

By seven, we had an actual morning rush, and the demands of cappuccinos and espressos took over and made my brain shut up, at least for a while.

Scott swung by for his customary chai, and, as always, he or-dered a to-go cup of whipped cream for Maggie, his black lab.

Diana, who worked at the preschool down the road, stopped in for her skinny latte, and as she dug around in her purse for her Starbucks card, she told me for the hundred-billionth time that I needed to change my picture on the “Meet Your Baristas” board.

“You know I hate that photo,” she said. “You look like a fish with your lips puckered like that.”

“I like that picture,” I said. Jeb had snapped it last New Year’s Eve, when Tegan and I were goofing around pretending to be Angelina Jolie.

“Well, I don’t know why,” Diana replied. “You’re just such a pretty girl, even with this”—she waved her hand to indicate my new hairstyle—“punk look you’ve got going on.”

Punk. Good Lord.

“It’s not punk,” I said. “It’s pink.”

She found her card and held it aloft. “Aha! Here you go.”

I swiped it and returned it, and she wagged it in my face before going to claim her drink.

“Change that picture!” she commanded.

The Johns, all three of them, came in at eight and took up residence at their customary corner table. They were retired, and they liked to spend their mornings drinking tea and working through their Sudoku books.

John Number One said my new hair made me look foxy, and John Number Two told him to stop flirting.

“She’s young enough to be your granddaughter,” John Number Two said.

“Don’t worry,” I replied. “Anyone who uses the word foxy has pretty much taken himself out of the running.”

“You mean I was in the running till then?” John Number One said. His Carolina Tar Heels baseball cap perched high on his head like a bird’s nest.

“No,” I said, and John Number Three guffawed. He and John Number Two knocked their fists together, and I shook my head. Boys.

At eight forty-five, I reached for the strings of my apron and announced that I was going on break.

“I have a quick errand to run,” I told Christina, “but I’ll be right back.”

“Wait,” she said. She grabbed my forearm to keep me with her, and when I followed her gaze, I understood why. Entering the store was one of Gracetown’s finest, a tow truck driver named Travis who wore nothing but tinfoil. Tinfoil pants, tinfoil jacket-shirt-thing, even a cone-shaped tinfoil hat.

“Why oh why does he dress like that?” I said, and not for the first time.

“Maybe he’s a knight,” Christina suggested.

“Maybe he’s a lightning rod.”

“Maybe he’s a weather vane, here to predict the winds of change.”

“Ooo, nice one,” I said, and sighed. “I could use a wind of change.”

Travis approached. His eyes were so pale they looked silver. He didn’t smile.

“Hey, Travis,” Christina said. “What can I get you?” Usually, Travis just asked for water, but every so often he had enough change for a maple scone, his favorite pastry. Mine, too, actually. They looked dry, but they weren’t, and the maple icing rocked.

“Can I have a sample?” he said gruffly.

“Of course,” she said, reaching for one of the sample cups. “What would you like a sample of?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Just the cup.”

Christina glanced at me, and I trained my eyes on Travis to keep from laughing, which would be mean. If I looked closely, I could see lots of “me”s in his jacket-shirt-thingy. Or rather, fragments of me, broken up by the crinkles in the foil.

“The eggnog latte is good,” Christina suggested. “It’s our seasonal special.”

“Just the cup,” Travis repeated. He shifted in agitation. “I just want the cup!”

“Fine, fine.” She handed him the cup.

I pulled my gaze away from the “me”s, which were mesmerizing.

“I can’t believe you’re dressed like that, especially today,” I said. “Please tell me you’ve got a sweater on under that tinfoil.”

“What tinfoil?” he said.

“Ha-ha,” I said. “For real, Travis, aren’t you cold?”

“I’m not. Are you?”

“Um, nooo. Why would I be cold?”

“I don’t know. Why would you?”

I half laughed. Then stopped. Travis regarded me from beneath his craggy brows.

“I wouldn’t,” I said, flustered. “I’m not. I’m totally, completely comfortable, temperature-wise.”

“‘Temperature-wise,’” he scoffed. “It’s always about you, isn’t it?”

“What?! I’m not . . . talking about me! I’m just telling you that I’m not cold!”

The intensity of his gaze made me feel itchy.

“Okay, maybe I’m talking about me this very second,” I said. “But it’s not always about me.”

“Some things never change,” he said scornfully. He strode off with his doll-size cup, but at the door, he turned for one last parting shot. “And don’t bother asking for a tow. I’m off duty!”

“Well,” I said. He’d actually hurt my feelings, but I didn’t want to let on. “That was interesting.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard Travis deny anyone a tow before,” Christina said. “Seriously, I think you’re the first.”

“Please don’t sound so impressed,” I said faintly.

She laughed, which was what I wanted. But as she refilled the napkin container, Travis’s words came back to me: It’s always about you, isn’t it?

It was disconcertingly similar to what Dorrie said to me last night: Have you truly looked inside yourself? Do you even know what you need to change?

Or something like that.

“Hey, um, Christina . . . ?”

“Yeah?”

“Is there something wrong with me?”

She glanced up from the napkins. “Addie, Travis is nuts.”

“I know. But that doesn’t mean everything he says is nuts, necessarily.”

“Addie.”

“Christina.”

“Just tell me the truth: Am I a good person? Or am I, like, too self-absorbed?”

She considered. “Does it have to be either/or?”

“Ouch.” I drew my hand to my heart and staggered back.

She grinned, thinking I was being Funny Addie. And I was, I guess. But I also had the strangest fear that the universe was trying to tell me something. I felt as if I were teetering on the edge of a great chasm, only the chasm was in myself. I didn’t want to look down.

“Look lively,” Christina told me. “Here come the seniors.”

Sure enough, the Silver Sneakers van had pulled up outside Starbucks, and the driver was carefully helping his load of senior citizens navigate the sidewalk. They resembled a line of well-bundled bugs.

“Hi, Claire,” Christina said as the first of the seniors jingled through the door.

“Nippy, nippy!” Claire said, slipping off her colorful hat.

Burt made his way straight to the counter and ordered a shot in the dark, and Miles, shuffling in behind him, called out, “You sure your ticker can handle it, old man?”

Burt thumped his chest. “Keeps me young. That’s why the ladies love me. Right, Miss Addie?”

“Absolutely,” I said, putting the universe on hold as I grabbed a cup and handed it to Christina. Burt had the biggest ears I’d ever seen (maybe because he’d had eighty-odd years to grow them?), and I wondered what the ladies thought of them.

As the line grew, Christina and I fell into our crunch-time roles. I took orders and manned the register while she worked her magic with the steamer.

“Grande latte!” I called.

“Grande latte,” she repeated.

“Venti soy toffee nut mocha single shot no whip!”

“Venti soy toffee nut mocha single shot no whip.”

It was a dance. It pulled me out of myself. The chasm still gaped within me, but I had to tell it, Sorry, caz, no time.

The last of the seniors was Mayzie, with her gray braids and a beatific smile. Mayzie was a retired folklore professor, and she dressed all hippy-dippy in battered jeans, an oversize striped sweater, and a half dozen beaded bracelets. I loved that about her, that she dressed more like a teenager than an old lady. I mean, I didn’t want to see her in super-low-rise Sevens and a thong, but I thought it was cool that she did her own thing.

No one was waiting behind her, so I rested my hands on the counter and allowed myself a breath of air.

“Hey, Mayzie,” I said. “How you doing today?”

“I’m terrific, hon,” she said. Today she was wearing purple jingle bell earrings, and they tinkled when she tilted her head. “Ooo, I like your hair.”

“You don’t think I look like a plucked chicken?”

“Not at all,” she said. “It suits you. It’s spunky.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said.

“Well, I do. You’ve been moping around for too long, Addie. I’ve been watching. It’s time you grew into your next self.”

There it was again, the prickling sense of standing on a precipice.

Mayzie leaned closer. “We are all flawed, my dear. Every one of us. And believe me, we’ve all made mistakes.”

Heat rushed to my face. Were my mistakes so public that even my customers knew? Did the Silver Sneakers gang discuss my hookup with Charlie over bingo?

“You’ve just got to take a good hard look at yourself, change what needs to be changed, and move on, pet.”

I blinked at her dumbly.

She lowered her voice. “And if you’re wondering why I get to tell you this, it’s because I’ve decided to pursue a new profession: Christmas angel.”

She waited for my reaction, her eyes bright. It was strange that she would bring up the whole “angel” thing after I’d talked about angels with Dorrie and Tegan last night, and for a teeny-tiny fraction of a second I actually wondered if she was my angel, here to save me.

Then cold, hard reality thudded back down, and I hated myself for being such a fool. Mayzie was no angel; today was just the Day of the Nut Jobs. Apparently, everyone had eaten too much fruitcake.

“Don’t you have to be dead to be an angel?” I said.

“Now, Addie,” she scolded. “Do I look dead to you?”

I looked at Christina to see if she was catching this, but Christina was over by the exit, putting a new bag in the trash can.

Mayzie took my lack of response as permission to continue. “It’s a program called Angels Among Us,” she said. “I don’t have to get a degree or anything.”

“There’s not really a program called that,” I said.

“Oh, yes, yes. It’s offered at Gracetown’s Center for the Heavenly Arts.”

“Gracetown doesn’t have a Center for the Heavenly Arts,” I said.

“I sometimes get lonely,” she confided. “Not that the Silver Sneakers aren’t wonderful. But sometimes they’re a bit”—she dropped her voice to a whisper—“well, boring.”

“Ohhh,” I whispered back.

“I thought becoming an angel might be a nice way to connect with others,” she said. “Anyway, to get my wings, I just have to spread the magic of Christmas.”

I snorted. “Well, I don’t believe in the magic of Christ-mas.”

“Sure you do, or I wouldn’t be here.”

I drew back, feeling somehow as if I’d been tricked. Because how was I supposed to respond to that? I shook myself and tried another tactic. “But . . . Christmas is over.”

“Oh, no, Christmas is never over, unless you want it to be.” She leaned on the counter and propped her chin on her palm. “Christmas is a state of mind.”

Her gaze dropped below the level of the counter. “Goodness gracious,” she said.

I looked down. “What?”

The top corner of the folded-up sticky note was sticking out of my jeans pocket, and Mayzie reached across the counter and plucked it free. The gesture was so unexpected, I just stood there and let her.

“‘Do not forget the pig,’” Mayzie said after unfolding the note. She tilted her head and peered at me like a little bird.

“Oh crud,” I said.

“What pig are you not supposed to forget?”

“Uh”—my mind was jittery—“it’s for my friend, Tegan. What drink can I get started for you?” My fingers itched to untie my apron strings so I could go on break.

“Hmm,” Mayzie said. She tapped her chin.

I tapped my foot.

“You know,” she said, “sometimes when we forget to do things for others, like this Tegan, it’s because we’re too wrapped up in our own problems.”

“Yes,” I said vigorously, hoping to dissuade further discussion. “You want your usual almond mocha?”

“When actually, what we need to forget is ourselves.”

“Yes again. I hear ya. Single shot?”

She smiled as if I amused her. “Single shot, yes, but let’s mix it up this time. Change is healthy, right?”

“If you say so. So what’ll it be?”

“A toffee nut mocha, please, in a to-go cup. I think I’ll take in some air before Tanner comes back for us.”

I relayed Mayzie’s order to Christina, who had slipped back behind the counter. She whipped it up and slid it over.

“Keep what I said in mind,” Mayzie said.

“I’m pretty sure I will,” I said.

She giggled merrily, as if we were in cahoots. “Bye, now,” she called. “See you soon!”

As soon as she was gone, I tore off my apron.

“I’m going on break,” I told Christina.

She handed me the steamer. “Rinse this out for me, and you’re officially free to go.”