Come Back to Me (13 page)

I opened the
book back to the page he mentioned.  I studied Sylvester’s poor parents, the
two police officers—one behind a big desk, the other standing next to it—and I
wanted to laugh.  The police were cartoon animals like the rest of the characters
in the book but not donkeys—they were pigs.  It was ridiculous.  Why ban it and
call attention to a stereotype that kids weren’t even going to notice? 
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble wasn’t a cover for some agenda.  Unless the
agenda was the importance of family, love, and a little magic coming into your
life.

Maybe they
banned it because that agenda seemed impossible.

* * *

At home, I
ignored my Converse and hopped online.  I couldn’t stop thinking about my
conversation with Evan, specifically about the Sylvester book.  I kept
replaying it in my head, weaving it with my quest for my lost memories and even
my grandmother’s.

I clicked on
a collector’s edition copy of the book and ordered it.

Thinking about
Sylvester turning into a rock and being unable to communicate to his family
reminded me of my grandmother.  Was her disease like that rock?  Was my
grandmother stuck somewhere inside herself unable to get out?  Was she
answering our questions, contributing to the conversation, but simply unable to
convey them?  Or was she not thinking about anything at all?

Were the
happy memories I searched for unreachable, stuck forever inside me?

I didn’t
know, but they all sounded like terrible options.

The next
week, Kiki Stone came into TEA.

I didn’t
notice her until she stepped up to the counter and said, “Hey, Whit.”

“Hey, welcome
to TEA.  What can I brew for you?”  I felt not only self-conscious but pastry
conscious—the dry, crumbly muffins on display in the glass case looked
especially pathetic.  After all, Kiki had been the star of the Muffin Brigade.

Kiki
smiled.  “I don’t know.  What’s good?”

“The chai
tea is the best, iced and sweetened.”

“Okay.  I’ll
have that,” she said.

I rang her
up, and as I moved to the right to make her drink, she moved, too, staying in
front of me.  Thankfully, she couldn’t hear the pointless thoughts about muffins
going on in my head.

“I ran into
your mom at Bloom Town Center.  She told me you worked here.”

I glanced up
from scooping ice into her to-go cup and a few cubes toppled over the edge,
scattering onto the counter.  She watched me.  Was she waiting for me to say
something?  I swept the runaway ice across the counter and into the sink behind
me.

Why was Kiki
trying to be friends?  I really didn’t get it.

“I started working
here last week,” I said, but then realized I didn’t need or want to explain
things to Kiki.  What was the point?  “I’m just volunteering.”

Why did I add
that?

“Really?”

I nodded.  I
didn’t see any judgment on Kiki’s face.  My fingers loosened their grip on the
ice scoop.  I set it down and shrugged.  “I was missing a few volunteer hours.”

Then I
focused on making her drink.

“I just
barely finished.  Two hundred hours is a lot, especially when they make you
split it up and don’t let you use church activities.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I’m working
at the hospital this summer.” She smiled.  “I’m going into nursing in the
fall.”

“Oh.”  I
shot her a quick glance as I poured the tea concentrate over the ice in her cup.

Kiki twirled
a straw in her fingers, like a tiny baton.  “Where are you going again?”

“Colson.”  I
cleared my throat.  Kiki asked the question as if we’d talked about it before. 
Maybe she and Katie had.

“That’s in
Boston, right?”

“Not far.” 
My mouth turned down a little, and I poured the milk into the tea.  I felt like
we skated too close to the subject of Katie, and the ice was far too thin for
that.

Kiki beamed. 
How was it she did that so easily?  Was it that Fake It until You Make It thing
that so many people born and raised in Bloom were more than capable of doing? 
Make a mistake?  Not a problem, because everything was fixable—wrinkles, subdivision
signs, and getting a completely new set of friends.

I looked at
Kiki’s sunny face. There was no way I could be sure if her friendliness was
genuine.  I was a walking contradiction, with an unsteady smile covering
insides that rebelled and rumbled with conflict.

As I
drizzled agave syrup over her tea, I caught a glimpse of today’s tea quote on
the chalkboard:

A good
brew obscures the brouhaha.

Who was
writing this stuff?  Whatever they meant, the saying seemed to go against
everything I learned at Gosley.  My drinking was all about obscuring,
forgetting.  Although, if I was going to tune something out, a cup of tea was
probably the safest method.

I pressed a
lid onto Kiki’s drink and slid the cup in her direction.

“Thanks,”
she said.  “Katie loved chai tea.”

I swore I
misheard her because why would she bring up Katie?  Then again, Katie was kind
of the only thing we had in common.

My hands
shook a little as I placed a straw next to her cup, but I avoided her gaze.

“Large iced
chai tea,” I said, reciting her drink title, even though she stood right in
front of me, instead of waiting at the end of the bar under the sign that read,
Pick up here
.

Why was it
that I couldn’t get Kyle to remember something so small like the Scrabble
memory, but here was Kiki digging up things that, well, really didn’t matter
anymore?  Not that the memory of Katie loving chai tea was difficult.  The hard
part was the fact that Kiki knew that because she was her friend.  I didn’t
want another reminder that Katie told someone else all her likes and dislikes,
and all her secrets.  Nothing against Kiki. I just didn’t want to hear her Katie
induced observations.  The entire exchange with Kiki was another failure at a
connection, even if I wasn’t necessarily trying to create one.

I knew there
was a big possibility that Kiki missed Katie, too, and was trying to
commiserate with someone who knew her, but I couldn’t.

The quote on
TEA’s chalkboard popped into my head. 
A good brew obscures the brouhaha.

Yeah, this was
too much brouhaha.  I was done.

“Have a nice
day,” I said, cutting off any further conversation.

Kiki’s
expression went blank as she picked up her drink. With a hesitant wave, she
left, and I puffed out my cheeks, blowing out the breath I’d been holding.

* * *

Nobody ever
ordered the pot of blooming tea, at least not while I’d been at the counter.  Maybe
because it was too expensive, and not a to-go thing.

Before my
shift was over, I picked up one of the balls of dried flower tea, which looked
like a large dehydrated green olive, and placed it in a glass teapot.  Then I poured
boiling water over top and watched the bundle rise up, bobbing under the stream.

The glass
turned hazy, but then the flower stretched, once stuck petals unfurling one by
one.  I stood there watching until a complete flower floated under the surface
of the hot water.

It was odd
but pretty.  Just like TEA could be, I supposed.  I scanned the empty store, once
again taking in the lumpy chairs, scratched wood floors, and tables.

And the
glass bakery case with pastry items that didn’t entice me at all.  Instead of a
magical kid in a Willy Wonka candy factory experience, the baked goods at TEA came
across scary in comparison, more like something out of a Tim Burton nightmare
movie.

You’d need
buckets of tea to make that disturbance recede.

I slid the
teapot to the center of the counter.  TEA needed some room to blossom, too.

Because my
mom was always experimenting in the kitchen, she had surplus baked goods she
was more than happy to share.  So after I finished my Converse project, I moved
to my next—TEA.  I figured it could use some sparkles, too.  I brought
cranberry nut with a white chocolate drizzle and cocoa raspberry crumble muffins
to the cafe later that week.  Steve, however, wasn’t impressed.

“I can’t
sell these,” he said, counting out the cash in the register.  TEA wasn’t
opening for another fifteen minutes, just enough time for me to set up a
display and a free tasting plate.  The place wasn’t known for its bakery items,
and if anyone dared to buy one, it was because they’d never had one.  Nobody
fell for that a second time—once bitten, twice shy and all.

“Why?” I
asked pushing a plate with the cocoa crumble muffin closer to the register. 
“This is cocoa from Belgium.”

“I don’t
care if it’s from Jupiter.  I can’t sell it.  City codes require that all goods
sold must be from a kitchen inspected by the department of health.”

“My mom’s
kitchen is beyond clean.  You can eat off her floors.”

“I’m sure,”
Steve said, but he was already tuning me out.  Fancy cocoa and spotless
kitchens be damned.

I plucked
the muffin from the plate and put it back in the box with the others.  Then I
sighed. “You know this place could be so much better.”

“Yup.” 
Steve pushed the register drawer shut.  “But it’s not mine, so doesn’t matter.”

“Oh.” 
That
I didn’t know, and it explained Steve’s laissez-faire attitude about the
place.  He never seemed to care that TEA could be better.  “Who owns it?”

Steve
stopped and glared at me.  “You’re making me regret your unpaid employment
right now, Denison.”

“Okay.” I waved
my hand as if it dismissed our entire conversation.  I was curious, but I also
liked working there.  So I picked up the muffins and headed toward the front
door.  “I’m just going to give these to those guys that hang out near the
park.”

“You mean
the homeless.”

I pointed at
him.  “Maybe they don’t like to be labeled.”

“Right.” He nodded,
then pulled a pen from behind his ear and turned his attention to a file folder
on the bar.

His sarcasm
had me pushing my luck.  “Well, you obviously have a problem with labels.  You
don’t want TEA to be known as a yummy muffin stop.”

He half
laughed but didn’t look up from his paperwork.  “My cousin owns TEA.  He’s in
rehab. End of story.”

“Oh.”  My
face drooped.  Steve’s explanation might’ve been short, but it was enough to
make me feel sorry for pushing him.  Except, a part of me wanted to help or
commiserate.  “I was in rehab.”

Instantly, I
regretted it, wanting to suck the words back in from the silence surrounding
us.

Steve tapped
his pen on the counter as my breathing turned shallow.  I couldn’t read his
face.  “That sucks, Denison.  You better?”

I bobbed my
head.  Relief flooded my limbs, my fingers tingling where they pressed against
the cardboard box of muffins.

“Stay
clean.”  For a moment, he seemed serious, then the corners of his mouth turned
up a little.

“I am.” I
matched his smile.

Steve
cleared his throat.  “Don’t you have some sweeping to do, or something?”

“Well, I’m
not working today.  I, um . . .” I stared at a red cranberry sticking out of
one of the crumbly tops.  The muffin idea had been a distraction.  I really needed
to talk to Evan about graduation night.  After almost three weeks of hanging
out with Kyle, I was getting nowhere.  In terms of my memories, anyway.  I liked
knowing I had somewhere to go, somewhere I could belong and feel understood.  It
was a relief to have something to do, even if Kyle was always loaded.

Now though, I
needed some sit down time with Evan—except I had no idea how to get in touch
with him.  He came into TEA most days, but lately it was when we were busy.  He
always made a point to say hi to me. Each time he did, I felt a stronger urge
to talk with him.

“Steve?”

He exhaled. 
He’d gone back to his paperwork, and I was interrupting again.

“Do you know
if Evan will be coming in later?”

“I have no
idea.  Why don’t you go ask him when you’re down at the park?”

“Evan is
homeless
?”
I almost dropped my wares.

Steve
laughed, shaking his head.  “I thought you two were friends.  Wasn’t he the one
who brought you in here to get this job?”

I shrugged. 
“Yes and no.”

Steve considered
me.  “You
like
him.”

I shifted
the box of muffins and pointed at Steve.  “You’re completely wrong about that.
It’s like the opposite of that.”

“You hate
him?”

“No, but . .
. um…” I swallowed nervously. “You don’t pay me enough to have this
conversation.”