The Secrets of Attraction (2 page)

“And his shirt kind of fell up?” I said.

“Stop,” Wren said, smiling as she checked out the texts on her phone.

“I swear, even the walls sighed,” the girl finished.

“We need to drag Jazz here next week,” Wren said.

“Whatcanigetcha?” asked Broody Barista, fingers poised on the cash register to ring up our order. I was tempted to say, “The usual,” but it would have crushed me the tiniest bit if he'd been clueless as to what that was.

He was a tall, lanky guy whose name tag read
JessE
. I couldn't tell if his last name began with an
E
or if he was trying to make a statement; either way, he didn't seem approachable enough to call him that, so he was Broody Barista in my head. Even though I was sort of involved with Zach, flirt was my natural language. It wasn't necessarily about getting with someone, more like making friends. Week after week, I tried my best, but this guy, the rim of his baseball cap pulled low over his light brown bedhead, never got into it. He wasn't snobby or anything; more aloof, or maybe just perpetually bummed.

“Two medium nonfat chai lattes, and a chamomile tea,” I answered.

He chewed his full lower lip as he rung us up, eyes on the register until the total lit up on the display.

“Seven twenty-five.” He knocked on the counter and threw a glimpse at the growing line behind us. I reached into my backpack and pulled out a ten. I laid it onto his outstretched palm, my fingertips grazing the top of the wide leather cuff bracelet he wore. He didn't strike me as the jewelry type but there it was, along with several smaller bands, including one with a brass infinity symbol, on his left wrist.

He took the bill and called the order to the guy behind the coffee bar who was too busy staring at Wren to pay attention. I followed his gaze to see exactly what he was looking at. Her deep-green tie-dye exercise tank fit her like a glove. In class she looked like everyone else; in here, with her warm-up jacket zipped only halfway, she—or more precisely, her assets—stood out. Wren was bent over her phone, scrolling through her messages, oblivious to what effect that particular view was having on this creeper. I stepped in front of her and glared at him. He raised his eyebrows at me and shrugged.

Broody Barista cleared his throat to get my attention.

“Don't mind him, he only comes out at night,” he said as he dropped the change into my hand. One corner of his mouth turned up. A tiny ripple in a mysterious sea, but it was
something
. I ran with it.

“Hmm, a nocturnal perv, the creepiest kind.”

He laughed as he wrote in Sharpie on the to-go cups. “Tanner, you're scaring the customers again.”

“Then my job is done.” Tanner flashed me a megawatt grin that was irritatingly charming. Wren finally looked up from her phone and smiled at him. When faced with his object of lust, he got flustered and turned away. All stare, no bite, apparently. Wren furrowed her brow. We moved to the end of the counter to wait for our drinks.

“What was that about?”

“That, was about
this
,” I said, tugging up her zipper. “You don't realize the power of a little cleave, do you?”

She grimaced. “Ick, really? I'm sweaty and gross.”

“No, you're dewy and flexible,” I said, nudging her.

The door opened, sending a gust of cold air into the café. Leif stepped in, my mother right behind him, a plastic Quick Chek shopping bag swinging from her wrist. “Mom!” I waved her over. She acknowledged me with a nod, but then turned back to Leif and another woman from class. I wanted to tell her I'd already ordered for her, but she seemed completely engrossed in conversation.

“My mom is picking me up,” Wren said, finally shutting down her phone and putting it into her yoga bag.

“Too sweaty and gross for Gray?” I asked.

She chuckled. “No, we're going to the mall to pick up a Kate Spade diaper bag for Brooke's baby shower. Can't be shown up by the in-laws. They're getting some stroller called a Bugaboo or something—it's, like, a bazillion dollars, so we have to, you know, up our game.”

“Kate Spade for crappy diapers? Leave it to your sister. I thought your mom didn't believe in the baby-shower thing.”

“She doesn't, but Pete's mom and sisters do, so they're throwing them a his-and-hers baby shower over Georgetown's spring break. Tropical theme. Can you imagine? My mother's making Josh go too. He said only if there are drinks with umbrellas. At least I get to drag Gray with me. Feel like taking a ride to the mall?”

“As lovely as that sounds, I should probably get some work done on my portfolio for the summer program application. It's due in mid-April and there's nothing impressive about it yet.”

“That's doubtful. Even your stick figures are impressive,” she said.

“Two nonfat chais,” Tanner announced, pushing the cups toward us.

“We need a chamomile tea, too.”

“Oh, right.” He stole a glance at Wren before turning back. She was too nice to glare at him, but she averted her eyes and busied herself by rifling through the pocket of her yoga bag. More people began to gather around the tiny pickup area.

I reached for our cups and handed Wren her drink. They had
Thursday Girls
scrawled in Sharpie across the front. Broody Barista had given us a nickname. Maybe he had noticed more than I thought.

As my lips touched the rim of the cup, I anticipated the spicy sweetness of warm chai but got a gulpful of bitter. My taste buds recoiled.

“Don't drink that,” I said, a second too late. Wren's wrinkled nose told me her drink was off too.

“Hey, yo, dude. There's coffee in these drinks.”

“No there's not,” Tanner said. He placed another to-go cup on the counter. The tag read
Chamomile
; at least he hadn't screwed that up.

“Yes, there is, I can taste it,” I said, putting it on the counter. I took off the lid to show him—the usual creamy tan was a darkish brown. He brought the cup up to his nose and sniffed.

“Ah, so there is. My bad.” He slid the drink back to me. I had the sudden urge to pour it over his head, no matter how strangely endearing his awkward and pervy attempt at macking on Wren had been.

“Dude, we're backed up on drinks. What's the holdup?” Broody Barista joined in. The line that had been near the door now surrounded the pickup area.

“There's coffee in our chais,” I said, meeting his gaze. “Maybe if your coworker wasn't busy checking out my friend's rack, he would have realized he was screwing up our drinks.”

I'd meant it to be funny, but annoyance seeped through. Wren coughed and slunk back. Tanner paled. Some of the people waiting around us shifted. I was aware that Leif and my mother were beside me, still carrying on what must have been the world's most interesting conversation. My nerves sizzled, but I felt vindicated.

“Sorry,” he said. “I'll take care of this.”

He grabbed our cups and whispered something to Tanner, who suddenly lost the clueless glint in his eye. They both worked quickly on the drinks, hammering them out one by one, until Wren, my mother, Leif, and I were the only ones left from the original line. Leif's matcha involved some special brewing method and a whisk. I wasn't sure what was taking so long with our lattes, but standing near Leif was enough to make me forget about the whole thing. He smelled like sandalwood incense.

Wren checked her phone.

“My mom's outside.”

“Here's your chai, Thursday Girls—my apologies, next week is on me.” Broody Barista slid the cups toward us. Wren grabbed her drink and hoisted her yoga bag over her shoulder.

“Sure you don't want to hit the mall?” she asked.

“Nah, have fun perusing the diaper bags,” I said.

“Yeah, right. Thanks for the chai.” She wiggled her fingers at me as she hightailed it out of the café. For a split second, I wanted to change my mind and go with her. Wren complained about her family sometimes, but in the end it was always with a smile. The Caswells were awesome—always something going on, so different from my own family.. Not that I had anything to complain about either. My mother and I were a tight unit of two. Small but fierce.

Broody Barista's eyes were on me. Waiting. I took a sip of the much-improved chai.

“It's great,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Anytime you have a drink emergency, please, consider it handled.” He put a hand over his heart and bowed. Ice broken.

“I'm Madison,” I said.

“Jesse,” he answered.

“So now you don't have to call us Thursday Girls.”

“I came up with that.” Tanner poked his head out from behind Jesse as he put Leif's tea on the counter. Leif broke away from my mom to get his drink. I turned to see her take out her phone and
tap, tap, tap
something into it. What in the world were they talking about?

Tanner touched my shoulder. “So your friend . . .”

I swallowed back a grumble.
Really?
“Is very involved,” I replied.

“How involved?” he asked. For a moment I felt bad for him; his eyes were so hopeful. He was sort of cute, in that messy, guy-who-doesn't-know-how-to-take-care-of-himself kind of a way. Sort of a fixer-upper.

“Like, soul mate–involved.”

At this Jesse let out a derisive pop of a laugh.

“Ah, soul mates. I guess that means she'll be available in a month,” he said, resuming his post at the register to help someone who'd just wandered in. It might have been funny if there hadn't been an edge to his voice. Maybe
soul mates
was overstating it, but did he have to be so freaking dismissive? Tanner put both hands on the counter and leaned toward me. His nails were bitten to the quick.

“Okay, well, um, what about you?”

I stepped back. “Dude, you did not just ask me that.”

His face got twitchy. “Wait, no, I didn't mean—”

“Look, I can still tolerate you at this point, so before you say anything else, let's forget about this convo, 'kay?” I grabbed my mother's tea and turned my back to him.

“I hope you wanted this iced,” I said. My mother smiled, and tucked her phone into her bag.

“Oh, Mads, I forgot, thanks,” she said, taking it from me.

“I'll meet you out front.”

“No, wait, we're done here.” She wrangled her black hole of a purse open again, and took out her keys. “Leif, thanks, I'll be sure to check those out.”

“Let me know if you need anything else, Dana.”

They're on a first-name basis now?

I walked toward the front door, willing myself not to turn around, but in the reflection of the glass I could see Tanner making exaggerated hand motions at Jesse, who just shook his head . . . and smiled. Like, a real one, teeth and all. I was too irked by what had gone down to say good-bye. As I pushed out through the front door, I wondered if he'd remember his offer to buy our chai lattes next week. My money was on
probably not
.

“So what were you and Hot Yogi talking about?” I asked my mother as she cut the wheel yet another time before finally pulling out of the parking spot. Parallel parking had never been her strong suit, and it took her almost as long to get out of the space as it had to negotiate getting into it in the first place. Once she straightened out the car, she sped down the side street.

“Madison.
Hot Yogi?
His name is Leif.” There was an amused lilt in her voice.

“C'mon, he knew your name. You guys were chatting; just wondering, you know—if you're into him.”

She made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a laugh. “Into him? I'm old enough to be his mother.”

My mom was going through a major dating dry spell. The better word was probably
drought
. The last more-than-one-date boyfriend/man-friend/suitor I remember her having was when I was ten.
You and me against the world, Mads
, she'd say, whenever I joked about it. Mom prided herself on being self-made, and it was great but sometimes I wondered if she was waiting for me to go off to school before really hooking up with someone. Not that she needed anyone, but didn't everyone need a little fun now and then?

“But you can't deny his hotness.”

We stopped at the red light and she raised her hands in surrender. “Fine, you win, I can't deny his hotness, but I can forget about it when I'm talking to him.”

“Okay—how? Because I can't.”

“Simple,” she said, reaching for her chamomile. “I can compartmentalize. Leif's not dating material but he's got more experience than me in yoga, so I'm attracted to his brain.”

I snorted. “His brain? Why?”

She sipped her tea as we sat at the light.

“I'm . . . well . . . I'm thinking of becoming a yoga instructor.”

I couldn't hide my surprise. “Wow, instead of hair?”

“No, mostly as a supplement, but I don't want to be in the salon forever. Standing up all day, holding my body at weird angles is taking its toll on me. Once we started practicing yoga, I felt better, had more energy. My nerves aren't as frazzled at the end of the day—you know, I feel
even
.”

“And Leif is going to help you?”

My mother fiddled with her cup until it was back in the holder. The light turned green. She eased through the intersection, absentmindedly playing with her hair as she drove the five blocks home.

“We were talking about programs, turns out the studio is starting up a teacher training session in a few weeks. He gave me some book titles, websites—I'm still just thinking about it. With classes and materials . . . it's not cheap.”

“Oh.” Money. The Grim Reaper of dreams.

“But it's not
un
doable, either. I can take on some clients at home again, if necessary. You know, we'll see. I have some time to think about it,” she said, pulling into our steep, narrow driveway and cutting the engine.