The Space Between Us Read online

  I’d pay him back.

  Unfortunately, not everyone was in the same great mood as me. I was the first one to the Mocha and used my key to unlock the door, but within twenty minutes both Darek and Joy had shown up. Darek was silent, but that was normal for him this early. He didn’t usually perk up until about forty minutes after opening.

  Joy was characteristically sullen. I hadn’t even known she was scheduled to work that morning, which wasn’t such a big deal. She often came in to perform unscheduled inspections. Still, I thought I was being funny when I said, “You know, Joy, there’s this new thing called a life outside of work. I hear they’re on sale this week. Maybe you should pick one up.”

  Turns out I wasn’t as funny as I thought.

  Joy had been rearranging a tray of carrot cupcakes in the case. She stood to face me. “Maybe you should mind your own damn business, Tesla.”

  The bubble of my good mood got pricked, but didn’t quite explode. “Sorry.”

  “You know something? Not everyone is content to just flit around making nothing of themselves. For some people, work’s important. Some people take their responsibilities seriously. Some people—”

  “Some people need to take a chill pill,” Darek said from out in the shop, where he’d been taking the chairs off the tables in prep for opening.

  Joy looked across the counter at him. “What did you just say?”

  He shrugged, apparently ballsy enough to shoot an undertone insult her way, but not willing to bring the fight to her face. Joy frowned and turned her attention back to me. I didn’t want to fight, either.

  “I said I was sorry, Joy. I was teasing you.”

  “Well,” she said stiffly, “don’t tease.”

  “Right.” Nodding, I stepped back to let her pass me.

  Darek and I shared a look across the counter after she’d gone into the back room. He made a whirling motion with one finger at his temple, but I didn’t laugh. I didn’t think Joy was crazy, just supremely unhappy, and on a day like today, when I was feeling so good myself, that just didn’t seem right.

  I followed her into the back room, where she had a minuscule office she’d carved out of a former coat closet. It wasn’t even large enough to hold her whole desk, which she’d put in sideways, leaving space for the mini fridge where we kept our personal lunches and snacks. When she was sitting at her desk, her chair was pushed back against the wall, leaving just enough space for her to squeeze into the seat. Nobody sat in Joy’s chair but Joy.

  “Hey,” I said quietly.

  She looked up from whatever accounting she was doing on the computer. “What?”

  “I just wanted to say that I’m really sorry about teasing you. I think it’s great that you care so much about your job. I mean, it’s good to love what you do.”

  She gave me a blank look that slowly oozed into derision. “Is that what you really think?”

  “I…uh…”

  “Really?” She’d have shoved her chair back if there’d been room, but as it was she put her hands on the edge of the desk and pushed at it. “You think I love this fucking job?”

  In all the time I’d worked at Morningstar Mocha, I’d seen Joy lose her shit almost on a daily basis. Until this moment, though, I’d never heard her curse with anything stronger than a mild “hell” or “damn.” I’d have been less surprised if a toad had dropped from her mouth.

  “Guess what, Tesla,” she continued. “I don’t. In fact, you were right. I’m here all the damn time because I don’t have anything else. I have this job. That’s it. Because at least while I’m here at work, I don’t have to be anywhere else thinking about everything I want but don’t have and won’t ever have.”

  We weren’t anything like friends. If you’d asked me to make a list of all the people in the world I’d want to spend my time with, Joy wouldn’t have been on it. Honestly, I knew I wasn’t the only person who felt that way, either, so it was no surprise to me she didn’t have much beyond work.

  “I’m sorry,” was all I could say.

  “You’re not. You have no idea. You come in here every day with that big grin on your face, like the world’s just handed you a big old gift-wrapped box of chocolates and a credit card without a limit. And people love you. They all wait in line, longer than they have to, for you to help them. They ask you how you are, they flirt with you.” Joy’s voice ground to a halt.

  “I’m just nice to them, that’s all. Believe me, Joy, I don’t love this job every day. Most days I like it, and on the days I don’t, I just try to act like I do until…well, until I do again.” I shrugged. “It’s no great secret philosophy or anything.”

  She looked bleak, her cheeks and even her mouth paler than usual. Her throat convulsed as she swallowed. “Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid. You think I don’t know all of that?”

  I didn’t know what to say. She didn’t seem to want comfort or advice or even commiseration. In typical Joy fashion, it seemed she just wanted a fight. “If you know it, why don’t you do it then? People don’t like talking to you because you’re terse, and you grunt.”

  Her eyes went wide. “What?”

  “You heard me,” I said. “And you know it’s true. I’m sorry, Joy, but you act sort of like a raging bitch most of the time.”

  She blinked rapidly and sat back in her chair so hard it knocked against the wall. “Get out of here.”

  I held up my hands. “I came in here to apologize for teasing you, but the fact is, you don’t want me to say I’m sorry. You want me to grovel or something, which I won’t do. You want to be angry with me for whatever reason. Maybe it’s because you’re jealous—”

  “Jealous! Why should I be jealous of you, Tesla? Because you’re funny and cute and people adore you? Because you don’t seem to have a care in the world? Is that why I should be jealous?” She spit the words as if she wished she could shoot me with each one.

  “Hell if I know.” I didn’t want to let her rile me up, but my voice rose, anyway. “I like this job, okay? I like my life. No, as a matter of fact, right now I love my life! And I’m not going to pretend I don’t just so you don’t have to feel like a sorry, sad-sack twat about your own!”

  She gasped. I choked myself off before I could say more, already ashamed at what I’d said…but sort of glad, too. She’d pushed me into it.

  “And for your information,” I added in a softer voice, “my life hasn’t been all sparkles shooting out a unicorn’s ass. I just try to make the best of things, and they usually turn out okay. Maybe you should try that once in a while.”

  “Get. Out.” She probably wished for a door to slam in my face, but had taken the closet door from its hinges in order to put her desk in there. She twisted in her chair to block the sight of me, and put her hands on the keyboard again, though she didn’t type. Her shoulders heaved.

  I thought about saying I was sorry again. I’d have meant it. I didn’t like saying mean things, even when the other person deserved it, and it seemed over the past few months I’d had to do more than my share of uncomfortable truth-telling. I was sorry I’d been mean, but I wasn’t sorry that anything I’d said was true. I got out.

  In the meantime, Darek had opened the shop for the first anxious customers. Those who’d be staying awhile had marked their territories with laptops, newspapers and mugs. The ones taking away waited semipatiently in a line that stretched all the way to the front door. I tied on my apron and got to work.

  I thought for sure Joy would come out to supervise and find fault with what we were doing, but she kept to herself for most of the morning. It was almost like she wasn’t there, and Darek and I fell into our usual routine of joking around and sharing the duties of taking and making orders and cleaning up the tables.

  “Morning, Dr. McFancypants.” I gestured at Eric’s plate, empty but for some crumbs. “Want me to take that for you?”

  He looked up from the yellow legal notepad on which he’d been so seriously scribbling. “Hey, Tesla. Sure.�