The Space Between Us Read online

  “I think you did a nice job,” I said.

  She tilted the plate in her hands so it caught the light, and looked at me. “You know why I’ve never used these plates?”

  I shrugged as I moved around the table to stack dishes and gather the used plasticware. “Because most people don’t ever eat dinner in the dining room except for a few times a year?”

  “Because I don’t like them,” Meredith said.

  I looked up. She stared at the plate in her hands, tipping it, turning it. She traced the gold-plated rim with her thumb and glanced at me again.

  “I feel like I got shoved into picking something because it was what people expected, and now I’m stuck with it. And we got a shit ton of this stuff, Tesla. Dinner plates, salad plates, bread plates. A gravy boat.” She laughed bitterly. “Really? A fucking gravy boat. A soup tureen. Who ever uses that shit?”

  “People who like gravy. And soup.” I moved around the table to take the plate from her and put it on the table. “Hey. What’s going on?”

  “You’re mad at me.” She crossed her arms.

  “You were mad at me,” I pointed out. I rubbed her upper arms, gently squeezing. “Ooh, your sweater’s soft.”

  Sorry wasn’t Meredith’s style. With nobody else in the room, though, I guess she deemed it okay to snuggle a little closer to me. “I wish we’d stayed here all day. Charlie’s sister’s dinner was s-o-o-o bad.”

  “Pie will make everything better. I promise. And we could play Uno. I’m not kidding you, it’ll be fun.”

  She nodded, leaning into me for a second or two before pulling away. We made short work of the dishes on the table, though the platters and serving dishes of food would take a second trip. Meredith paused in the archway and looked at the plates in her hands.

  “It’s good you used them,” she said. “Someone should.”

  Chapter 30

  Joy had wasted no time in hiring someone to replace Darek. Brandy was a little older than me, but proudly told me she’d been working in coffee shops since she was in high school. She named a few of them.

  “They’re all closed now,” she said around a mouthful of gum. “Hopefully this place stays in business longer, you know what I mean?”

  She laughed; I didn’t.

  I wasn’t happy that Darek had quit or been fired, whichever it was. I didn’t like that Joy had hired this gum-cracking, hair-whipping chick to take his place without even asking me to be part of the hiring process. And though Joy herself had backed way, way off of me since the day Darek walked out, that wasn’t really what I wanted, either. Not if it meant that coming to work felt like going to prison. In some ways, dealing with her grouchiness was what I’d grown used to. A habit. With her frosty, frigid attitude to me in direct contrast to her almost ludicrous warmth toward Brandy, Joy was making it pretty painful to be on the job.

  Johnny D. noticed. “What’s up with the new girl?”

  I looked across the room to where Brandy was talking to Carlos. She was supposed to be cleaning up the tables, but seemed to have gotten sidetracked. Carlos was casting longing, shifty glances toward his laptop that Brandy didn’t seem to notice or was ignoring.

  “Brandy. I don’t know. Joy hired her.”

  “What happened to Darek?”

  I frothed some milk for Johnny and added a couple pumps of syrup. “He quit. He and Joy got into it last week, and he just bailed.”

  “Huh.” Johnny shrugged the shoulders of his long black coat. “That’s too bad.”

  “Tell me about it.” I handed him the cup and the plate of cheese-stuffed pretzel he’d ordered. “No sweets today?”

  “My kid’s dropping off my grandson in a few minutes. I’ll let him pick. But these looked good.” He eyed the pretzel, then looked up at me. “Is it good?”

  “Oh…I guess so. I haven’t had one yet.” I grinned. “Wanna gimme a bite, big guy?”

  He laughed, shaking his head. “I’ll give you a bite, smart-ass.”

  “Pffft.” I waved a hand. “Bring it. I can handle you.”

  He turned on the charm, just for an instant, but it was enough to prove to me I probably couldn’t handle whatever Johnny D. dished out. “I thought you had a special friend,” he said.

  “Who told you that?”

  He shrugged. “Nobody had to tell me anything. I could see it all over you.”

  “Like a stain?” I suggested wryly.

  “Something like that.” Johnny narrowed his eyes at me. “Suits you.”

  I preened. “Thanks.”

  The bell jingled; it was Johnny’s daughter and his grandson. While the kid ran to him with a squeal, his mom was a little less excited, at least as far as I could tell by her expression. She gave me a half smile, her dad a half hug.

  “I’ll pick him up about seven tonight, if that’s okay. Call me if you need me to get him sooner. Strike that. Have Emm call me when she’s ready for me to come get him,” she said.

  Johnny shook his head, ruffling the boy’s hair. “Nah. We got it covered. Right, pal?”

  “Right.” The kid grinned up at him.

  “Don’t let him eat too much junk,” his mother warned, then looked at me. “One cookie.”

  “Don’t put her in the middle, Kimmy,” Johnny said.

  She sighed. “Dad. You can’t sugar him up and then send him home to be awake half the night.”

  I left them to their argument and headed out to the main floor to wrangle Brandy back behind the counter. Carlos shot me a grateful look as I told her she needed to get back to work. Brandy only looked surprised.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means,” I said, “that I need you in the back prepping sandwiches or even at the counter making drinks.”

  Brandy gave an insulted sniff. “Fine. I was just cleaning up out here.”

  I looked around the unusually empty shop. “And you did a great job. I just need some help up front.”

  The compliment, half-assed and insincere as it was, mollified her. She gave Carlos a smile and went into the back. I rolled my eyes.

  “She’s gonna drive Joy insane, you know that,” he said.

  “Might be the only plus to her working here.” I pretended to peek at his computer screen. “How bad did she kill your page count?”

  “It’s been worse.” He shrugged. “Some days the words come like a porn star, some days they don’t. Hey, so where’s Meredith been lately?”

  It was a question I’d thought about asking her myself. “I guess she’s been busy.”

  “You guys have a fight or something?”

  Surprised, I stepped back. “No. Why?”

  “Seems like you were pretty cozy, that’s all. And now she hasn’t been in for a couple weeks.” Carlos gave me a significant look. “Just wondered, that’s all.”

  I frowned, counting back how long it had been since Meredith had been at the Mocha. “She’s just had other stuff to do, I guess. Not everyone can sit here all day long, you know.”

  He laughed at that. “Too bad, right?”

  “Yeah.” I tapped his shoulder as I passed. “Too bad.”

  But what he’d said stuck with me. Meredith had come into the Mocha three or four days a week without fail for months. Now that we were…well, doing whatever it was we were doing, she barely came in at all. I saw her at home, of course. And I knew she was still doing all the home parties and other work that had occupied her during her hours in the Mocha’s front window. But where was she doing it now?

  I didn’t have time to dwell on it, because another rush started and I had to get to the front. Brandy, for all her experience working in coffee shops, took forever to make the simplest drinks. She blamed it on the different equipment. I blamed it on her inability to walk and chew gum at the same time.

  “My customer,” she said during the midst of the rush. She said it under her breath as she passed behind me to get a muffin from the case, so I couldn’t be sure I heard her right.

  I l