The Space Between Us Read online

  And I envied him.

  Meredith had told me I went for what I wanted. That I had to answer to nobody and could do whatever I liked. In a way, she was right. I mean, I had my job, and my responsibilities as part of Vic and Elaine’s household. I had bills and debts. But I didn’t have convictions, not really. Nobody would ever come to me when they were in trouble. Hell, I was twenty-six and still living in a basement, not because I couldn’t get out and live on my own but because staying there was easier than moving out.

  Not exactly a picture of someone wild.

  When I got to work, Meredith was convincing people to tell stories again. I knew it the second I walked in the front door and saw her sitting at her favorite table with her head tipped back in laughter. I knew most of the others by face, not necessarily by name, but everyone looked as if they were having a grand old time.

  She waved at me. “There’s our Tesla!”

  I lifted a mittened hand in response to the raised coffee cups. Meredith’s smile made the cold outside seem faraway, but I didn’t stop at her table. She was busy talking; I had to get busy working.

  “What is it about her, anyway?” Darek said when I rounded the counter.

  I pretended not to know what he meant. “Who? Meredith?”

  “Yeah. Queen Meredith, sitting over there with her…what do you call them?”

  “Subjects?” I offered, shrugging out of my coat and hanging it on the rack in the hall leading to the storage room.

  Darek shook his head. “Minions.”

  “That makes her sound like some sort of evil overlord.”

  “Yeah. What is it about her?”

  I paused, thinking. “I don’t know. She’s just… I don’t know. Sometimes you don’t, Darek.”

  He made a noise instead of an answer. I looked across the room at Meredith, whose laughter had trilled to catch my attention. She ran perfectly manicured fingers through her honey-blond hair and it settled just right.

  Again, envy.

  With the late afternoon sun slanting through the glass, she was so beautiful it made my heart hurt. Not just pretty. Not just sexy, though she was surely that with that mouth, those eyes, that laugh. She was like something set up high on a shelf, made to be admired and adored. Coveted, but never gained.

  I must’ve sighed, because Darek gave me a sympathetic look. “You’re into her.”

  I slanted a glance his way but wouldn’t gaze at him full-on. “Look at her.”

  “Oh, I am.” He put his hands on his hips. “She wants people to look at her.”

  “Who doesn’t?” I tied the strings of my green apron tight around my waist and took a few minutes to run my fingers through my hair to stand it on end after it had been flattened by my knit cap. “I mean, don’t we all want people to notice us?”

  “I guess so.”

  I stared at her, then at him. “Don’t you like her?”

  “I like her just fine.” He grinned. “Married ladies are my specialty. But you saw her first.”

  I laughed. Darek was a lot of talk. In all the time we’d worked together I hadn’t known him to have a single fling with a married lady. “We’re just friends. She’s not…you know.”

  “And you are?”

  I shrugged and checked over the desserts in the case, noting which would need to be pulled later if they didn’t sell. “Sometimes. Once in a while. Discriminately.”

  “How many?”

  I turned. “What?”

  Darek appeared way too intrigued. “How many girls?”

  “This place,” I told him with just the barest sourness in my tone, “has really become, like, this hotbed of prurience.”

  “Whose fault is that?” Darek asked, with a lift of his chin toward Meredith’s table.

  “Pffft. You can’t blame her for everything. You’re the one grilling me on my sex life! I already told Meredith—”

  “Yeah?” Again, he seemed too interested, all lolling tongue and wide eyes.

  I put one fist to my mouth, the other at my cheek, and made a cranking motion. “Roll up your tongue. It wasn’t about girl-girl action.”

  Darek appeared only faintly disappointed before perking up again. “Then what was it about?”

  I wasn’t going to tell him about the Murphys. Dredging up that past stuff had already wreaked a bit of havoc on my brain. “None of your business. God, do I grill you about your sex life?”

  “You could,” he said. “So…I’m just curious, Tesla, that’s all.”

  “About my lesbian history?” I had to laugh at him, so typical male. “I had one serious girlfriend. We dated for about four months before she dumped me for a guitar player in a folk rock band who wore wife-beaters all year round and had a tattoo of the feminine symbol on her twat.”

  His look said it all.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I thought, too.”

  Darek made a face. “That’s it? That’s all you got?”

  “Look,” I said, suddenly disgruntled. “What did you think I had? Some long and lurid inventory of lesbian dalliances I’d trot out for you like a laundry list, complete with descriptions? A ‘Desperate But Not Serious’ sort of thing going on? Who with and how many times?”

  He totally failed on the Adam Ant reference. “Huh?”

  I sighed. “Never mind.”

  “Sorry.” Darek frowned. “I just, you know. Thought maybe it was more exciting than that.”

  I sighed again, this time in exasperation. “Why?”

  “Because you just seem like you’ve had an exciting life, Tesla, that’s all. Jesus. I’m sorry!”

  Wild child. I touched my throat, felt the pendant in the shape of a rainbow with a star on the end. Today I wore a black shirt with a picture of the cover of the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers on the front—some dude’s crotch. Black leggings with rainbow leg warmers. Black ballet flats. I had glitter in my hair, but so what? Unconventional, maybe, but not that exciting.

  “Well,” I said, “I’m really not.”

  Darek looked over the front counter to the group of laughing customers. “Maybe you should tell her that.”

  “Tell her what?” I frowned and wished for someone to come and order something, or for Joy to pop out of the back to yell at us. Anything to keep this conversation from continuing. “Oh, that. Well. It’s just a crush. It’s not like I haven’t had them before. They go away, Darek.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You’ve never had a crush?” I rolled my eyes. “Please. I see how you look at that girl who comes in here, the one with the red hair.”

  “Yeah, she’s hot. But it’s not a crush.”

  “Whatever.” I waved a hand. “You gonna tell her you like her? Ask her out, maybe?”

  “She has a boyfriend.”

  “So you get it,” I told him. “It’s better just to crush in silence.”

  He didn’t look happy about that, but he didn’t argue with me, either. Then finally one of Meredith’s admirers broke off from the group long enough to come up and order a slice of pie and another latte, so both of us had something to do and we didn’t have to talk anymore.

  The rush helped, too, leaving both of us so busy we didn’t have time for deep and soul-searching conversations about the sad state of our love lives. By the time we’d gone through that, I figured Meredith would’ve left, but when I took a break to make the rounds of the shop, clearing away crumpled napkins and left-behind mugs, she was still sitting in her spot.

  The sun had moved, and she was alone. She was still beautiful. Something pensive in her face as she tapped away at her keyboard made me pause. She’d pushed her hair behind her ears, in which she wore simple and elegant pearls I knew had to be real despite the size. Not Jangle Bangles, either. She might sell that stuff, but she didn’t wear it. She had faint lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, but they didn’t take anything away from her beauty.

  She caught me staring. “Hey.”

  “Oh. Hey. You’re still her