Last Stand (2 page)

“You’re the best,” she says, grabbing her car keys and purse from under the register. “I should be back in time to close up at six. It’s probably another ear infection. They can diagnose that and get me medicine fast.”

“Really, it’s no problem.” Especially since she promised to pay me, which brings me that much closer to automobile ownership. If it stays quiet, maybe I can get some of my American Lit reading out of the way, start on Trig, and still try to meet Amber. Not that she’s acknowledged my earlier text.

I check my text messages one more time. Finally, a reply:

no prob. catch u later…A.

Yep. She’s pissed. Otherwise, there’d be a ‘love A.’ at the end. I start to dial, then remember that she stayed after school to get a jump start on some work for her Model U. N. class. I hang up, deciding it’s better to call when I know I can talk to her, not her voice mail, and tell her I think I can get to her place tonight. I should probably bring her something from the coffee shop as an apology gift, just to cover my bases.

Unfortunately, within ten minutes of Keira’s departure, I’m overwhelmed by the entire junior varsity volleyball team, who all decided to grab iced coffees post-practice. When Keira shows up at five minutes after six, with Stewart crying in the crook of her arm, I’m only halfway through wiping up the tables and have read exactly zero pages of
The Great Gatsby
. The volleyball girls left black mystery sludge on the table nearest the TV, and I’m trying to soften it up with a wet rag. Soaking is the solution to all messes, isn’t it?

“I can get that, Toby,” she says.

“And put Stewart where?”

Keira glances down at Stewie, who nestles in closer. “You have a point.”

My nephew loves me like crazy—who wouldn’t love good ol’ Uncle Toby, the guy who sneaks you pieces of French fry when your mom’s not looking?—but when Stewie’s sick, he’s all about Mommy. He’ll scream like mad if she sets him down or hands him off to me now.

I use my fingernail to pick at the edge of the black stuff. Don’t those girls care that they made a mess on such nice tables? Keira shopped forever to find them, hoping to give Fair Grounds just the right combination of comfort and class. It hacks me off when people have no respect for others’ property.

“So what’d the doctor say? Another ear infection?” The kid’s only eighteen months old, and he’s had six or seven already.

“Yep. And strep.”

I stop working on the table and look at Stewart. His cries have settled down to hiccups now that he knows his mom’s going to keep cuddling him. “Isn’t that pretty serious?”

She smoothes his hair back from his forehead and smiles at him. “Nothing modern drugs can’t cure. Problem is, no daycare for a couple days. They won’t take him back until he’s fever-free for twenty-four hours so the other kids don’t catch it. Of course, daycare’s probably where Stewie got it, but whatever.”

I go back to chipping away the table gunk. The soaking must’ve worked, because it peels off in one big, sticky strip, like frozen maple syrup, leaving the table unmarred. “So what are you going to do about the shop?”

“Beg one of the morning people to pull a double shift. I can’t keep Stewie here with me, even in his high chair. Don’t want to expose customers or staff, you know?”

“What if they can’t do it?”

“Close up early for a couple days.” She says it like it’s no big deal, but I know it’s a huge deal. She’s open from four-thirty in the morning until six in the evening. She has two people who come in and work the early half of the day, while she’s giving Stewie his breakfast and getting him to daycare, but she’s always here from eight ‘til six—and all by herself after two, when the lunch rush ends. If she has to close at two for a few days, it’ll hit her profits hard. The afternoon guys—the ones with the laptops—can nurse one coffee for hours, which is how Keira handles the shop by herself then with no problems. But boy, do the laptop folks spend money. They’re the ones who buy the fancy coffee mugs, take home bags of shade-grown organic coffee by the pound, or grab a dozen muffins on a whim to take back to the office. The stuff with good profit margins.

I go behind the counter to rinse out the rag in the sink. “I could try—”

“No, you can’t. You have cross-country and homework and other responsibilities. I’m not so far out of high school that I’ve forgotten. I’ll swing it.” She walks to the door of the shop and flips the sign to indicate the place is closed.

I want to tell her that Pete should be swinging it, too. But they broke up, he joined the Army and went to some post in Georgia, and she’s stubborn enough not to accept anything from him. Says she doesn’t want a dime, doesn’t want to deal. No ties.

She claims she’s ecstatic with this arrangement. I’ve programmed my mouth to issue a,
“Whatever you say, Keira!”
auto-response whenever she tells me this.

I think she doesn’t remember what she was like pre-Stewie anymore. She was totally into sports in high school, had lots of friends, and did a decent job on the academic front. She met Pete, who’s from Northglenn, at a high school football game and they hit it off. Things were even better when she got to college in Boulder. Pete was there, too. She loved her classes, raved about her professors. She even claimed to love her dorm. But after two years, she was back home again, pregnant and single. She said it was okay, that she’d manage, and promptly used the rest of her college savings to put a down payment on Fair Grounds.

To everyone’s surprise, Keira got the place in shape in only three months. Within a week of opening, it became
the
popular place to be, despite the fact she looked like she’d swallowed a basketball at the time. I know she’s proud of how Fair Grounds has done and claims she’s happy beyond words with her life.

But she’s not the same Keira anymore. Always tired, always serious. She doesn’t talk about her friends from high school or college, and I don’t think she ever sees them, even when they’re in town during school breaks. It’s all about Stewie.

Not that it shouldn’t be all about Stewie. It just strikes me as a lonely life, no matter what she says.

She grabs the drawer from the cash register and sets it on the counter with one hand, balancing Stewart against her chest with the other. He’s completely quiet now; he probably loves the smell of coffee and the relaxed atmosphere of Fair Grounds as much as I do.

I take off my apron and toss it on the counter. “Want me to help tally?”

“Nah. Go do your homework. Don’t want to screw things up on the first day of school.” She pauses. “Isn’t it a big day for you and Amber?”

The one downside of my first-ever kiss with Amber? My sister walked in on us. It’s not like we told everyone that today’s the one-year anniversary of that event, but since Amber mentioned talking to Keira before buying the Alamo book, I’m guessing Keira put two and two together.

I brandish my cell phone. “I’m going to call her on the walk home.”

“That’s not good enough, Toby. Girls remember the first kiss. Even if that kiss happens to occur in a garage.”

“I bought her a gift, okay?”

“A good one?” Why un-romantic Keira focuses on this is beyond me. Females are a mystery, my sister most of all.

“So how’s Pete doing these days?” I ask. “Gonna fill him in on Stewie’s strep? Guys like to know that kind of thing.”

She rolls her eyes and laughs out loud. “Now, was that necessary? You could have just told me to leave it alone, mind my own business.”

“Coulda. Didn’t.” She’s so used to me making comments, she doesn’t even get annoyed anymore. I grab my backpack from under the counter and ask her one more time if she wants me to tally the receipts. On her assertion that she’d prefer to handle it herself, I tell her I’ll see her at home, then slip out the front and down the stairs, holding my cell phone above my head so Keira knows I’ll call Amber ASAP.

I
’m dialing Amber’s number when I hear her calling my name.

I turn and wave my cell phone while she jogs to catch up to me. “I was just calling you.”

“Saw the lights still on at Fair Grounds and had Meghan drop me off on the way home to see if I could help you close up. Keira told me you’d just left.” Amber’s out of breath, but smiling. She weaves her fingers through mine, and we head up the road, toward the gates of Rocky Knolls, the development where we both live. Saying “the gates of Rocky Knolls” makes it sound fancier than it is. They’re two generic stone pillars with a sign that says ocky Knolls; we lost the R my freshman year. It’s a source of constant amusement for those who don’t live in Rocky—or “ocky”—Knolls.

As we walk, I apologize for the text, but she says it’s cool, that she’d have done the same thing for Keira and Stewie. We talk a little about Model U.N. She thinks she and her best friend, Meghan, may actually get to be ambassadors this year, which is why they stayed after school to help out. I gather being an ambassador is a good thing, so I say all the appropriate supportive boyfriend stuff. After that, we’re quiet, just enjoying each other’s company. Eventually, my mind drifts to my homework. How long could it take to read thirty pages of
The Great Gatsby
and do twenty Trig problems?

“You’re not going to come over tonight, are you?” Her voice is soft, but there’s a pouty undercurrent to her words. She’s forgiven me for the text message, but she’s unhappy about it jeopardizing our time together. And she knows me well enough to know that when I’m quiet, it’s usually because I’m making a mental to-do list instead of thinking about her.

“I’ll try to after I shower and eat. I need to see how bad the Trig homework is.” I can’t screw up the first week. I had a teacher in middle school with a reputation for being super-strict. I was so nervous about impressing her that I vomited at my desk on the first day. Not only did my friends tease me for weeks—they still bring it up, so to speak, from time to time—but I swear the teacher held it against me the whole year. Thought of me as the strange vomit kid.

It’s never, ever something I’d admit out loud, but I want to make a good impression on my teachers this year. They’re the people I’m going to need to write college recommendation letters for me.

I stop walking and tug on Amber’s hand to stop her, too. “Think you could come by my place for a few minutes right now?”

She shakes her head. “I promised Mom I’d get home by six-thirty for dinner.”

“Just for a sec? We’re nearly to the gates already. You can still get home on time.” I have to find a way to give her the necklace today. She’s big on celebrating events on the exact day. No party for her on Friday night when her birthday’s actually on Thursday, no attending Fourth of July fireworks on any day other than the Fourth.

She turns and starts walking again, but doesn’t let go of my hand, so I follow along. When we get to the intersection where I usually go left to my house and she goes right, heading uphill to her family’s two story French colonial, she stops and looks up at me. “You know if I come to your house, I won’t make it back by six-thirty and I really need to get home. Just come over later and bring your Trig. All right?”

I know I should say no. Just stay home, wash off the cross country stink, finish my homework, and then do a lightning-fast run to her place to deliver the necklace before she goes to bed. But I want so, so bad to go to her place, to curl up with her on the basement sofa, like we did before summer and Friendly’s got in the way, that my mouth overrides my brain.

“Okay,” I tell her. “But we actually have to do homework.”

“No problem. I have a bunch, too.” She gives me a quickie kiss goodbye, and I tell her I’ll try to be there in an hour.

• • •

“You kids okay down here? Need anything else to drink?” Mrs. DeWitt is standing halfway down the basement stairs, leaning over the railing so she can see Amber and me on the sofa in front of the television. I’m sprawled at one end, with my Trig book open, calculator out, and fifteen problems finished. Amber’s at the other end, feet tucked under her, reading her history assignment.

“We’re good, thanks,” I assure her. Amber adds a, “yep.”

“Holler if you need anything.” She turns and heads upstairs, then shuts the basement door behind her. We listen to her footsteps on the hallway floor above us. Seven steps, then the sound deadens as she hits carpet in the family room. Amber looks at me. We both know this is the signal that we’re being left alone for the evening, that her mother expects us to keep working on our homework.

We also take it as the signal that we’re good for at least an hour if we feel like making out. There will be seven more steps, the sound of the door opening, and five steps down the stairs until she hits the visual danger zone. But she probably won’t be back, and Amber’s giving me the look.

“How’re you doing on that?” I ask, shooting a pointed look at her history book.

“Almost done.”

“Me, too. Only five more Trig problems.” Of course, I still have to do the
Gatsby
reading. But if I can just finish this—

Amber’s feet tangle with mine on the sofa. I move a little closer, trying to focus on the next Trig problem.