“I’m too young to be an old drunk,” he says, laughing. “So I guess I need change for the collection plate.”
“Sounds about right.” I fight a smile. I wonder if Tom Bilford told Adam about me. I wonder if Adam asked. I pick up the coffeepot. “I should get back to it,” I say, pointing to the counter.
“You didn’t answer.” Adam’s eyes are still sparkly from laughing.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I say, because I can’t decide, not because I’m trying to be mysterious.
“Will she or won’t she?” Adam says. “I’ll be waiting by the phone with bated breath.”
“Keeps life interesting.” I put the coffeepot on the burner and go into the kitchen like I have something to do in there, when really I just need to get away so I can think.
The kitchen is empty. I swipe a slice of bread from the sandwich station, hoping it will soak up the excess coffee in my stomach so I can figure out if that churning feeling is telling me something about Adam or it’s my own fault. As I’m shoving bread in my mouth, I get the kind of tingle on the back of my scalp that comes from being watched. I look up and realize the Lettuce Murderer is standing against the wall next to the fridge. I don’t understand how I could miss an entire person with flaming red hair, except that he’s very still. I freeze midchew. He looks at me, puts a finger to his lips. And then, with lightning speed, he lunges, smacking the prep counter with his bare hand, so hard it echoes. He looks at his palm, shows me the black smudge. “Spider,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say, and try to swallow the gluey wad of white bread in my mouth. It hurts all the way down.
* * *
When Carly comes back from her smoke break her hair is messy and she looks like she just woke up from the kind of thick nap where you drool all over the pillow. She hums to herself and it’s either a totally different song from the one playing on the sound system or she’s tone deaf. It’s hard to tell with the shit music she listens to. Most of it doesn’t even sound like music, just noise and screaming.
She wipes down the espresso machine and checks the paper roll on the register.
“April, May, June,” she says, smiling at me when she looks up. “July, August, September.” She reaches over and pushes hair from my face. She’s a little shorter than me, so she rocks up on her toes to tuck the strand behind my ear.
I don’t really know how I’m supposed to react, but since she’s being so friendly, I ask her about Adam. “What’s he all about?” I say, using words I heard from a girl chatting with her friend at a table by the counter this morning. “I told him, point-blank,” the girl said, “that is not what I’m all about.”
“Adam? He’s a townie,” Carly says, waving her hand with a flick of her wrist. She stares at me and sighs. It’s a long stare and I’m not sure what it means, but it doesn’t make me feel better about Adam.
“Can you work all day tomorrow?” she asks.
“Uh huh,” I say, looking past her, out the window. The dark seems so much darker than it did yesterday. I wonder if maybe I should ask Carly if she knows a place I could stay. I try to think of the right words. Maybe I could ask her to let me sleep on her couch. Maybe that would be the easiest thing. Just one night. More time to think and another day of earning money. If I had a couch and she asked, I would say yes, so it’s not the craziest thing.
“Don’t you ever have class?” Carly asks.
“I’m not in school,” I say.
She scrunches her eyebrows so they almost meet. “I thought you went to IC.”
I shake my head and it feels like the wad of white bread is still stuck in my throat.
“Huh,” she says. “Huh.”
I worry I’ve done something wrong even though I never said I was in school. I worry she’ll ask more questions, but she stares into my eyes and says, “I’m going to get a sandwich,” as if she’s making a major confession. She turns on the toe of her boot and stomps to the kitchen like she’s about to conquer food.
I wipe the counter and decide to call Adam after work. But Adam doesn’t leave. He’s sipping coffee that’s probably gone cold, hunched over his notebook, scribbling. I catch his eye too many times when I look over, even when I try not to, and I feel like a deer being watched from the blind. This is the kind of thing Margo warned me about. Someone paying too much attention. But I don’t know how you’re supposed to meet people, how you’re supposed to tell if someone likes you in a normal, friendly way.