Two
A few days later I started work at the Violet Hill Café as a hostess-slash-dishwasher-slash-whatever. Basically, I would go in and do the stuff that no one else wanted to, or had time to do. Like taking down the old ads on the corkboard, making sure the tables weren’t wobbling, and helping Daisy in the bakery. I loved that part the most.
“So now everyone wants stuff like from The Great British Bake-Off and I want to be like I’m not Mary Berry! I haven’t been baking from infancy. But I’ll give it a shot,” she said with a laugh as she rolled up perfectly-filled chocolate croissants. I thought all of her pastries were beautiful, and I could definitely not do anything that looked that good. Still, she was letting me try, which was cool too. Today, I was learning about croissants.
Her face was covered in flour, as usual, but I liked Daisy. She knew what she was good at. Her undercut was also totally badass and I envied her bravery in rocking it. I had wanted to do something adventurous with my hair for a long time, but didn’t know what. Today I had it twisted back in a boring blonde ponytail. Blah. I hated feeling blah. I didn’t want to feel blah anymore. I need a change. I need to shake things up.
“Hey,” Anna said, drawing my attention as she shoved armfuls of dirty plates back on the counter toward the dishwasher. “Can you do those and then come help me out front? I just need someone to take a few orders and do some seating. I’m desperate.” Sometimes in the afternoons the café filled up and there was a line out the door of people waiting. It stressed me the fuck out, but I needed this job and working at a queer-friendly (and queer owned) café was more than I could ask for.
After Lacey did a profile on Jen and Sal and the café (including Anna and some of the more colorful customers), people had been traveling to come here, if only because they knew it was a safe place to be.
“Sure, give me a few minutes and I’ll be out,” I said, going to work on the dishes. I got them in the industrial washer, wiped my hands, and put on an apron.
Whoa, Anna was right. People were cramming themselves into nooks and corners, some even standing while sipping their coffee. It was going to be A Day.
I took a breath and thanked my lucky stars that I had worked weekends waitressing up at school to make extra money and could pretty much go into that headspace without a lot of effort.
I slicked on a smile and seated the first couple, who were about my age and painfully cute. They kept looking around in wonder, including studying my nametag that said “Serena, she/her” on it. I gave them menus and poured water and said I’d be back to take their orders.
“Serena?” a voice said behind me. I nearly crashed into one of the tables in all the chaos.
I whirled around because I knew that voice.
“Fi,” I said before I could stop myself. The café faded away as I stood there, locked in on her brown eyes. I hadn’t seen her in person in years, but here she was, in the café, waiting for a table.
I opened and closed my mouth a few times and she gave me a shy smile.
“Long time no see,” she said and I looked from her to the girl she was with. Tattoos, choppy brown hair, and a septum piercing. I looked back at Fiona.
My brain couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to be saying or doing. All I could do was drink in her familiar face with the freckles all across her nose and cheeks. Her skin was tanned and her hair was cut in a cute long bob that framed her face.
Oh, shit. I was staring. I was staring and I needed to stop. I ripped my eyes away from hers and blinked a few times. Right. I was in a café. I was a waitress. I needed to get them to a table.
“Um, follow me,” I said, spinning around and leading them to a table that had just emptied and been wiped down. I robotically showed them to it and then handed out menus and tried to pour water without spilling too much. I couldn’t look at her.
“Hey,” a soft voice said and a freckled hand touched my arm. I looked at her just as I was about to scurry away.
I looked from Fiona to the girl she was with and realized that they were probably together. Well, shit. She’d moved on, and why shouldn’t she? We’d dated in high school when neither of us knew what the fuck we were doing. I still didn’t know what I was doing, but at least I had a few years of experience under my belt.
“I’ll be back to take your order in a few,” I said quickly, because there were people still waiting to be seated and I didn’t want to get fired my first week. I had no backup if I lost this job.
I scampered away, but I couldn’t stop thinking about seeing her. About what happened the last time I saw her. About what had happened in her life since. Clearly, a lot.
As I went through the motions, I kept part of my attention on her table. At last, I was able to go ask them what they wanted. Maybe I could figure out what the relationship was.
“Okay, so what can I get you?” I asked, poised and staring at my order pad.
“I’ll have a why-are-you-acting-like-we-don’t-know-each-other and a side salad,” Fiona said, which made my head snap up.
“What?” I said.
“I . . . think I’m going to find the bathroom,” her companion said, easing out of her chair and basically running away. Great.
“Okay, that was mean, but at least it got your attention,” she said, and I was locked into her eyes again. Such lovely eyes. I remembered the look in them when we’d . . .
Yeah, I didn’t need to think about that right now.
“I’m working,” I said, gesturing around. “And you’ve moved on, so . . . I don’t know what there is to say.” I started to sweat. I mean, sweat more than I was already sweating. With all the bodies in here, it’s heats up quick.
She looked confused and then her eyes went wide.
“Oh! You thought I was with . . . no, no, no! Trick is just a friend. She has a girlfriend and a partner and I don’t think she’s looking for anyone right now. Not that that would make a difference. Anyway, we’re not together.” She spoke in a rush and I almost didn’t catch everything.
“Look, this is going to have to wait. I just, I can’t do this right now.” I pleaded with my eyes and she nodded.
“Of course. Of course. When do you get off?” I glanced over at the clock.
“In about an hour.”
“Okay, cool. I’ll just wait for you. If that’s okay?” Did I really have a choice? I mean, I was glad to know she wasn’t with the sexy girl she’d come in with. Wait, no I wasn’t!
Fiona Davis had scrambled my brain.
*^*^*
One extremely painful hour later, I took off my apron and told Anna I would see her later. She had a later shift, so I would be at the apartment alone. Lacey wasn’t coming back until tomorrow.
Fiona was out front at one of the café tables, fiddling with her phone. Trick? or whatever the girl’s name was that she’d been with, had left.
“Hey,” I said, taking the empty seat next to her.
“Hey,” she said, setting her phone down. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I asked, crossing my arms. I was on my guard because my heart was still pretty bruised from how things had ended.
“For acting like that. I shouldn’t have said that stuff while you were working. I guess I just got ahead of myself when I saw you. It’s been so long.” She gave me a tentative smile, but I was still on my guard.
“It has. What are you doing here?” I asked, even though she’d grown up two towns over. The area was so small that the high school we’d attended had served seven small towns.
“Home for the summer from school. I wouldn’t be here if I had found any other way. What about you?” I remembered how her parents reacted when we’d started dating. To my face they’d been cordial and nice, but I could tell under the surface they weren’t okay with it. They just weren’t as blatant as mine.
“I’m staying with my cousin, Anna, and her girlfriend. She got me the job here.” She nodded and picked at a little rust spot on the table.
“I’m not with Trick. I know I said that, but the look on your face said that you thought we were together. She’s just the only friend I know around here who knows what it’s like to be queer. She was a few years ahead of us in school. Do you remember her?” Oh, shit. Yeah. She went by a different name then, which I couldn’t recall off the top of my head, and she hadn’t had any of the tattoos, but now she was ringing a distant bell in my memory.
“Yeah, now I remember.” She breathed a sigh of relief.
“I’m not seeing anyone. Not that you asked or wanted to know. But I’m not.” I didn’t ask and I didn’t need to know. But still. A knot in my stomach started to loosen.
“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, tell me what you’ve been up to. I mean, I stalk you on Facebook, and I thought about sending you messages so many times.” I’d thought the same thing. But I’d never had the courage to actually send her a message. What would I have said? Hey, remember how we broke up and you shattered my heart, so, how’s it going? Not so much.
I was still on edge, but being with her was making me relax against my will. She had always been like that. When I had been in chaos and confusion, Fiona had been like gravity. She’d centered me and helped me focus and brought calm. It was something I couldn’t quantify or explain, and it was one of the reasons I’d become friends with her. That was before either of us knew we were queer. At the time, we’d just thought we were really good friends. Good friends who made out sometimes. A lot. Looking back, we’d both been adorably clueless.
“I’m so sorry. For what happened between us. I think . . . I think I just got scared and confused and I bailed. I bailed on us.” Oh, we were really doing this now. I looked around, but no one else was paying attention.
“You broke my fucking heart,” I said and she flinched. Good.
“I know. I broke mine in the process.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“I loved you. And that wasn’t easy for me, you know. I don’t love just anyone like that.” Being demi, I usually only went for people that I had a deep connection, like friendship, with before I could even begin to consider them boyfriend or girlfriend material. I had to know someone, really know them, before the other feelings came into play. I honestly didn’t know how other people could just pick someone to date and be like “sure, yeah, that one.” How the hell did that work? Things with Fiona had just sort of happened, but I hadn’t had anything like that with someone since, and not for lack of trying.
“I know, I know.” Her face crumpled and she started to cry. Oh shit. Instinctively, I reached out to her and somehow she sort of fell over and into my lap.
This was an interesting turn of events.
“I’m so sorry, Cricket.” I nearly flinched at the sound of the nickname she’d given me. It was a long ridiculous story that I didn’t really entirely remember, but the nickname had stuck. I’d called her Ladybug. I hadn’t thought about those names in a long time.
She wiped her eyes with her hands and looked up at me. Her face was blotchy, but she was still so fucking beautiful that it made me ache.
“Hi,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Hi, Ladybug,” I said, pushing her hair back from her face. She smiled and sat up, as if realizing what she’d done.
“Oh, shit, I am sorry about that too.” She dove out of my lap and got back into her seat, wiping her eyes with a napkin.
“I’m just a hot mess, aren’t I?” she said, laughing. A beautiful hot mess.
That same feeling was creeping back and I wasn’t sure what to do about it.
“Do you want to go somewhere to talk?” I blurted out. Now that we’d started, there were more things to say. Stuff we needed to get out. When we’d broken up, it had felt like we’d stopped everything in the middle of a sentence. I needed to finish it and put a period on it so I could move on. And I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who still needed closure of some kind.
She nodded.
“Okay, sure.”