My Not-So-Still Life (7 page)

Holly turns her head to the side with the same look on her face that dogs get sometimes; the one that’s straining hard to understand. Mom swallows.

“I stuck it into his locker. Nobody saw me. So he’d know someone had noticed him.”

She squints.

“It said he should look for the locket tonight. To see who.”

Her face sort of crumples, then turns pink. She reaches for the locket, cups it against her chest.

“Oh, Vanessa,” Mom says. “You didn’t.”

“Look, it worked! It was helpful!” I
was
trying to help. And it
did
work.

Holly looks stunned. Blank.

“Right? Aren’t you glad? He asked you out! He likes you back!”

“Glad?” she practically screams. “I’ve never been more embarrassed in my life!”

She grabs the necklace and yanks. Beads spill on the floor.

Holly stomps away.

I can’t breathe. “Mom?”

She picks up the locket and starts walking toward the door. I follow. “I can’t believe you’d be so inconsiderate of Holly. Your best friend.”

“I only wanted to help. She’d never tell Wilson on her own.”

“That’s her business, Nessie.”

“Well, but she wasn’t doing anything about it! At all! She was just waiting around!”

“That’s her business.”

We walk out the front door toward the bus. Not talking. Mom keeps shaking her head, like there’s been a tragedy.

The bus ride is silent.

I cannot stand it when my mom is upset and I’m the reason.

Mom goes to the kitchen. I go straight to my room.

I flop onto my bed.

I might explode.

I can’t believe Holly’s mad at me. I press my hands against my face.

I can’t just lie there.

Mom’s drinking tea at the kitchen table.

“Why are you so mad?”

She just looks at me.

“I was helping,” I say. “I want Holly to have someone. I mean, don’t you ever wish someone was there to sit next to you at things like that? Don’t you ever feel this, like, absence?”

“Nessie, you were next to me. You’re my someone.”

Me? No. That’s not what I’m talking about. “I’m your kid. That’s different. You’re still so young. You could have a life. And Holly can have something with Wilson.”

“I’m more than okay with my life the way it is.”

She’s acting like that’s the end of it, but I still feel the music in my bones, making me sad and making me long for something. Making me know that our little life is not enough. For either of us.

“For the record,” I say, “I want someone next to me. Someone other than my family and my old friends. Someone who feels electric. And I think you deserve that too.”

I walk back to my room, shaking inside.

Saturday morning
, I wake up tired. I hardly slept, thinking about Holly.

Why was what I did so bad? I hate knowing that Holly has a reason to be mad at me.

I drag myself from bed and text her: “Great job. You rock.” Better not to mention Wilson. But I’ve got to establish communication so that this gut-knot can unravel.

Mom’s out, probably running errands; Grampie’s in the garage. I toss on my longer black mini and a plain black tee, zip up my Doc boots, sling my messenger bag across my body, tie on a green string—very average—and hustle out the door to Palette for my first shift.

On my bicycle, I smell salt water, as usual. It’s the sound, mingling with the fine mist of rain.

The cherry blossoms are close to popping.

I get to Palette ten minutes before ten o’clock, when I’m due, and find the door locked, so I lean against it. I look out between the low buildings across the street—the Mexican restaurant, the Secret Garden bookstore, the tattoo shop, the organic pet supply store—to where I can see a peek of the water. That water always makes me feel peaceful and safe, a response I inherited from Mom and Grampie, I guess.

I want to chew my nails, but that’s why I’ve been keeping them painted: if I like how they look, I won’t mess them up by biting them.

Instead, I twist the green string.

There’s a beep and I look up to see Oscar honking from his orange Vespa, which he’s parking.

As he takes off his checkerboard-pattern helmet, I wonder, how much would I have to save up for a scooter? It would be awesome to get around that way instead of pedaling and walking and busing. Turning sixteen was not a magic ticket to vehicular bliss. I will never be surprised with shiny keys. “You have to earn something like a car,” Mom says. If I work through the summer, maybe I can manage a scooter.

Oscar throws me a peace sign as he walks over.

“Hi there.” I stand up straighter, shuffle over to unblock the door.

“Hey, Vanessa,” he says. Somehow, I’m a little surprised that he remembers my name.

He unlocks the dead bolt, we walk inside, and I feel this tingle. The whole world should be watching as I step into what might be a new life.

My first job. It’s like the first day of school, only instead of counting down the days till it ends, I’m gearing up for a good time.

“Maye will be here soon to train you on the espresso machine,” he says. It looks complicated, with lots of knobs.

“Great.”

“Stash your stuff here,” he says, walking around the main counter to a plywood shelf under the register, where I put my messenger bag.

“Why don’t you just look around till Maye shows up? Get used to the inventory?”

I’ve been here a thousand times, but now he’s my boss. “Sounds good.”

“I’ll be in the back office, checking in some new stock that we can put out if it’s slow later. I’ll bring out your paperwork in a bit.”

He clunks off, and I wander down the wide aisles and touch the brushes: horsehair, synthetic. I take a mental inventory of every type of paper: watercolor, drawing,
multi-use. And the colors. When I really pay attention to the colors everywhere—the paints, the pencils, the markers—it almost makes me queasy. With possibility. Shades of everything.

I find the spray paint in the back corner, locked in a case. There are all kinds of nozzles and caps and other accessories to go with the cans. Fat markers too. In lots of different colors. I cannot wait to figure all this out for the new project that’s forming in my brain.

I wind up at the espresso stand. The top is a metal slab with legs screwed into brackets on the floor, and the front is an old red refrigerator door on its side; it’s covered in superhero magnets and rock-show stickers and bumper stickers. My favorite reads, “What if the hokey-pokey really
is
what it’s all about?”

I love this, the way property is kind of disrespected for the sake of decoration. Making a statement where some people might think it doesn’t belong. That’s art.

I step behind the counter and feel as if I’m doing something naughty. The register on top of the metal slab looks like something from an old-school mom-and-pop drugstore. I have no idea how to work it.

The shelves under the counter are filled with metal pitchers, recycled paper cups, plastic cups, lids, wooden stirrers, and canisters full of coffee beans, tea bags, and individually wrapped biscotti. Against the wall behind the counter, there’s a sink, a milk-stocked fridge, an ice maker,
two high-tech-looking drip coffeemakers, and an array of flavored syrups with pumps atop an old wooden dresser. The beautiful espresso machine is next to two hoppers filled with beans. One’s labeled “Decaf only!” So I’ve learned that much.

I’m wiping down the counter, armed with a bottle of cleaner I found in the sink, when Oscar walks out of his back room. “Maye’s here.”

A girl is walking through the front door as she ties on a green Starbucks apron, obviously pilfered. She’s tall with full arms and legs and a bit of a belly pooch, wearing a low-cut, raw-edged black T-shirt and bloodred A-line skirt.

Her look is so … bright.

A big turquoise rock dangles from a thick silver chain into her cleavage. Two tattoos—a bright green swallow and a yellow anchor—are visible at the edge of her shirt, where a lacy black bra also shows when she moves a certain way. Both arms are covered in classic tattoos: a bubble-heart, a rose, the word “Love” in a pretty script.

Maybe the best part is her hair: a heavy-looking mass of pure white dreadlocks. Platinum white. She looks like an angel descended from the planet Awesome.

This is exactly how I’d like to look. Modern pinup girl. With edge. And ink. Real ink, not just hair dye. Tattoos.

Maye: my new hero.

She walks over—it’s almost like swimming, or yoga, the easy way she moves—and kisses Oscar near his ear. They’re
the same height, which is so adorable. “I’m Maye,” she says, and stretches out her fingers toward me.

“Vanessa,” I say. We shake. “At your service.”

“I love your nails,” she says.

“Likewise.” Hers are done in a French manicure. Instead of white at the top, there’s purple.

We kind of bow at each other.

She’s so cool.

“Let me show you how this stuff works.”

Oscar heads to the back room and Maye joins me behind the counter.

“Quick,” she says, “what’s the difference between a latte and a cappuccino?” I get distracted because that sunny blond guy comes in, his skateboard under his arm.

My hunch when I first saw him holds up: He seems like the slightly older version of Jewel. But where Jewel can be moody and cloud-hidden, James is the sun. Bright. Summer.

I can’t resist thinking he might be exactly what I need to get over my mashed heart. I tear my gaze away and turn to Maye. “No idea.”

“It’s just the milk. Cappuccino is foamy. Half milk; half foam. That’s a lotta foam. Latte is all milk with just a dab of foam.”

“Easy enough. Cappuccino is extrafoamy. Got it.”

“When in doubt, latte. Only the real connoisseurs like cappuccinos, and we don’t get a lot of them in here.” She
pointedly shifts her gaze to James, who’s propping his board against the funky couch. She raises her voice. “Right, James?”

He walks over. “Absolutely,” he says. “And a mocha is just a latte with chocolate syrup. And lots of whipped creamy goodness. Might I get one of those right now?” He waggles his eyebrows at Maye.

“Indeed,” Maye says. She reaches down for a metal pitcher. “James, this is the latest and greatest, Vanessa.” She nods her white-dreaded head at me. “Vanessa, James. Skater-boy and photographer.”

“Don’t forget friend and lover,” he says.

Lover
.

“Maybe when you get the rare opportunity to woo some unsuspecting young rose, I suppose,” Maye says. She pulls out the jug of whole milk.

“It’s been a while.” James hangs his head, as if he’s ashamed.

“He’s kind of heartbroken,” Maye says as she pours milk into the pitcher.

I’m collecting facts like brushstrokes, building the portrait of this guy. Adorable. Youngish. Available. Possibly vulnerable. Definitely adorable.

“Who isn’t heartbroken?” I say.

They both look at me as if I said something profound.

“I’m not, kid,” Maye says.
Kid
.

“Oh, you and Oscar. So adorable it’s disgusting. Gag me,” James says. But he’s smiling.

Oscar comes out of the back room carrying a box. He flashes a grin at us as he walks to a row of shelves and begins stocking watercolor palettes.

James squats and fiddles with the magnets stuck to the espresso counter, staging a battle between Batman and Superman. It’s something Nick would do.

“So, even though most of our customers don’t order anything too fancy, I take pride in this sweet puppy.” Maye pats the machine. “I call her Betty.”

“Then so will I.”

I’m about at the top of my happiness. Purple string when I get home. I should’ve known. Should’ve brought it with me. This is exactly how I wanted my first day to go.

“So,” she says. “The art of steaming milk.”

The daily paper is lying on the counter. She plucks the rubber band from around it and uses that rubber band to gather the top snakes of dreads out of her face. Pebbles Flintstone meets Gwen Stefani.

“It’s not difficult, but there is a knack to it. Skim foams the quickest, but it’s lame. Airy. So I’ll teach you on whole. You’ll learn how to get the velvety stuff.” She pours milk into the pitcher, takes me through the whole process.

I lean next to her to watch what’s happening in the pitcher. Hear the hissing of the steam wand. I’m impressed
by how much she seems to know, and how much she seems to care about it.

It feels almost indecent, standing this close to a person I just met. An espresso-machine diva.

“Keep the wand close to the surface of the milk,” she says. “That’s how you get foam. If you don’t want foam, then just stick it in the middle and watch the temp. You’re shooting for a hundred and forty degrees.

“You try,” she says, and lightning-fast, I’m holding the pitcher. I pull the milk down too low and the wand sputters. She puts her hands over mine, nudges it back.

James stands up. “Who would win in a fight? Batman or Superman?”

Maye leans on the counter. “Pretty evenly matched. Superman has actual powers, but Batman has those wonderful toys.”

The thermometer shows 130 degrees. The milk smells like hot marshmallows. I realize I need to turn the knob to turn off the steam, but I don’t exactly have a free hand. “Um, how …?”

Maye comes to my rescue, flips the handle on the steaming wand, and the wand quits steaming. “You’ll get the hang of it,” she says. “And you’ll get strong wrist muscles, too.”

“Thanks for the rescue,” I say to her. Then I look straight at James and say, “Superman. I’ve always thought so. I mean, he wouldn’t even have to fight. He could just fly really, really far away.”

Maye finishes off James’s drink, hands it to him without charging him. He says, “That’s not winning. That’s avoidance. I’m a Batman guy myself.”

“But Batman can’t escape to outer space.” I could debate the superhero thing all day, and it seems like he could too. That makes me smile.

I take a step toward the sink, and my boot sticks. I bend down. Yep. Gum. “Eww,” I say. I get a napkin to shield my fingers while I attempt to pull off the chewed Bazooka.

Maye’s wearing saddle shoes. Perfect for the Palette espresso stand. I’ve gotta get a pair. Unofficial uniform.