“Stop staring,” she says, and opens her mouth all slack-jawed and dopey like she’s saying I look like that.
She’s almost always nice to me. It’s been her and me against the spoiled kids. But this is one of those moments that gets me feeling shaky and teary and embarrassed even though it shouldn’t. I’ve handled worse. Why would it matter for Carly to look at me funny? I turn away and distract myself by wiping down the espresso machine, which keeps me busy enough, because I’m the only one who ever bothers to do it.
* * *
After lunch, the phone rings and it’s some girl for Carly. She says her name is Rosemary and instead of letting me take a message, she says she’ll hold while I get Carly, as if we have one of those fancy phones with a hold button and I won’t be balancing the receiver in an empty coffee cup.
I go outside to look for Carly. She’s crouched against the wall, perched on the toes of her combat boots, sucking at her cigarette like it’s a lifeline, spitting smoke into the air with force. Icicles from the overhang drip on her like rain and that raccoon makeup is streaming down her face. Her tights are ripped. With Carly, you never know if she wanted her tights like that or it happened by accident, but something about her ripped tights makes her look extra sad.
“Phone,” I say, trying hard not to stare, pressing my lips together as soon as I get the word out.
Carly holds her cigarette in her teeth and wipes her cheeks with both hands, smearing black all the way to her ears. “Who is it?”
“Rosemary.”
“I don’t want to talk to her,” Carly says, her words garbled by a sob. She tries to stand, but her foot slips and she falls to her knees on the icy gravel.
I run over and wrap my arms around her so immediately that it shocks me. “Okay,” I whisper. “It’s okay.”
She cries into my shoulder. I help her stand. Her knee is scraped up, bloody.
“I’ll go get the first aid kit,” I say.
“They can’t see me like this.” She tips her head toward the kitchen door. “It’s hard enough.”
She looks so small. She’s short, but all her bluster and brightness made her seem big. Now she looks like a lost kid.
“I’ll be quick and quiet,” I say.
“I just want to leave,” she says, and her face crumples.
“We can go get my car and I’ll drive you home.”
I open the door to the kitchen and yell to Bodie that he needs to watch the register until Kelsye comes in for her shift.
“Where’s Carly?” he yells back.
“Supplier emergency,” I yell, and herd Carly down the alley, hoping that whoever Rosemary is, she’s hung up the phone so Bodie won’t end up talking to her.
“I’m so stupid,” Carly says when we get to the end of the alley. The sobs break through again, even though it looks like every single cell in her body is fighting to hold them back. “I don’t even have any place to go.” Blood from the scrape on her knee is soaking through her tights; bits of gravel are stuck to her skin.
I keep my copy of Adam’s key and my car key tucked in my left boot at all times, just in case. So I don’t even have to go back for my bag. We walk down Aurora Street to avoid the front of the cafe. Carly tries hard to pretend her knee isn’t hurting, but I catch her wincing when we cross Green Street and she has to step up on the curb. I grab her hand as we climb the hill on Hudson, because I don’t know what else to do, and I think about all the times I wished someone would hold my hand when I felt defeated. I want to ask her what’s wrong, but when you feel like that, sometimes having to say it out loud is the worst part.
We get to Adam’s and Carly doesn’t even look at me weird when I lean against the handrail on the front step to dig the key out of my boot. She’s stopped crying, but she keeps wiping her eyes and the smudged makeup makes her look like a cartoon bandit. She stares up at the building.
“You live here?” she says.
“I’m staying with a friend,” I say as I open the downstairs door, not knowing if it’s okay for her to know. Not knowing if I want her to. Just because she’s sad, it doesn’t mean I can trust her.
“You know Adam”—she points to her head—“with the hat?”
“Yeah,” I say, worried about what she’ll say next—what there is to Adam that she knows and I don’t.
“I think he lives on Hudson somewhere.”
“He does,” I say, turning my back as I walk up the stairs.