“I can’t take her home like this,” I say. “She’s too upset.”
Jade reclines her seat into my knees. Props her feet up on the dash. “She’s okay. She just needs a minute. Right?” Jade turns to Lauren for affirmation.
My sister nods but won’t make eye contact. She has always found my friends ridiculously cool: especially Jade, with her oversized vintage sweaters and armfuls of bangles and impeccably drawn winged eyeliner.
Jade smiles at Lauren. When she turns back around, Lauren lowers her head onto my lap, crying silently. This is just the culmination of her being stressed out—she’s still upset about Emma’s party, and now she’s spooked from the roof collapse. And embarrassed about losing it in front of my friends.
That’s what I try to tell myself. But I can’t tear my eyes away from Bailey’s knuckles, wrapped around her steering wheel, white as the snow on the hill.
—
I don’t bother falling asleep once I’m back in my room, because I have to be up for work at six. Milk & Sugar, Ashley’s café, opens at seven on the weekends.
Ashley doesn’t look at me funny when she comes to wake me up. Doesn’t say anything about my midnight jaunt. Relief and guilt needle me as I help her chip the ice off the windshield of her SUV and let her prattle on about the storm that’s supposed to hit us tomorrow morning.
My nerves are still frazzled from last night, from not sleeping, which leaves me with little patience for the way Ashley and another car at the end of our road sit deadlocked at a stop sign because they can’t agree who should go first. Because people around here are polite. Like, the type of polite where if there’s one piece of pie left at dessert, the person next to you will give a twenty-minute dissertation on why you should have it.
Just last week, Tom Cornwell, an elderly man who always orders one poached egg over toast, slipped on ice outside Milk & Sugar. I’ve seen people in New York threaten to sue for less, but Tom actually apologized to Ashley and refused the free breakfast she tried to force on him.
According to the radio, it’s a record low of five degrees today, windchill minus twenty-five. I feel it in the joints of my fingers once we get to the café as I get the coffeepots going, in the ice-cold of the toilet seat when I pee quickly before we open.
The energy is off in the café when the regulars start straggling in. We’re not as busy as we usually are on Saturdays, probably because of the weather. The people who do come in grumble over their coffee not being quite right, the heat not coming on fast enough as they wait for their breakfast.
Even old Tom Cornwell is pissy. He must have developed an allergy to gluten in the past few days, because he spends five minutes scolding me for bringing him regular toast. He stops just short of accusing me of trying to kill him and doesn’t drop his change in the tip jar like he always does.
Rob, the cook, screws up whatever orders I manage to get right.
Maybe it’s me. I’m exhausted. The energy I do have leaches out of me; by ten a.m. I’m a puddle on the stool in the kitchen while I work on the plate of scrambled eggs Rob made me for breakfast. I can’t eat without hearing the crack of the barn roof. Without hearing Lauren’s earsplitting scream.
If anyone finds out we were trespassing—that we were there when the roof collapsed—we’re going to be in such deep shit.
At a quarter after, Bailey strides through the front door. I should be relieved, based on how we left things last night, but the sight of her makes me stumble and overcharge the man I’m ringing up.
I feel her eyes on me as I void out what’s on the register and re-ring the order. I hand the man a number to put on his table so I can bring him his omelet when it’s ready. Bailey inches up to the counter as he walks away. Yawns, drags her fingers through the strawberry-blond hair that falls to the middle of her back. Her peacoat is unbuttoned, exposing her work polo. Friendly Drugs is embroidered on the pocket.
“Can Rob make me an egg white and spinach omelet?” she asks around another yawn.
I shoot a glance at the clock. “Yeah, but you might be late for work.”
“It’s fine. I’m only going in so Bridget can leave early again.” Bailey stretches her arms behind her. “She can wait.”
Bridget Gibson is on our Do Not Like list. It’s not because she’s dance team captain and salutatorian and universally feared; it’s because of Cliff Grosso.
Cliff Grosso is a year older than us. Future poster child for brain damage in the NFL. He had a full ride to Ohio State, until he rear-ended an off-duty sheriff’s deputy last spring after he’d been drinking.
Bailey was in the passenger seat. Now, Bridget Gibson is dating Cliff, and whenever his name comes up in the halls of Broken Falls High, she’s quick to point out that Cliff wouldn’t have even been in that car if he hadn’t been about to hook up with Bailey Hammond. Somehow because of this it’s become Bailey’s fault that Cliff was drunk and behind the wheel of a car.
I shout for Rob to make Bailey’s usual and pour her a to-go cup of coffee, black. When she hears the ding of the bell in the kitchen, confirmation that Rob heard me, Bailey jolts a little.
My fingers find the buttons on the sleeve of my shirt and fiddle with them nervously. “Are we okay?”
Bailey lifts her gaze to mine. Her blush is slightly lopsided, like she was in a rush getting ready. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
“I just—Lauren could have gotten us busted, with the screaming—”
Bailey cuts me off. “It’s fine. Stop talking about it.”
The bell over the front door tinkles. Bailey jumps again and turns to see who’s come through the door: a woman pushing a stroller carrying a sleeping newborn, a toddler tugging on her other hand. I lower my voice. “What’s up? You’re so jumpy.”
“It’s called caffeine, Kace. I’ve had like three cups of coffee already.”
Bailey steps aside while I help the woman with the kids, who doesn’t know what she wants and nearly bursts into tears because of it. I want to tell her that Bailey babysits, but Bailey isn’t looking at me.
The harried woman decides on a strong cup of coffee, and the bell dings in the kitchen. Rob passes a take-out container through the kitchen window and grins. “For Bailey Bear.”
She wiggles her fingers at him and flashes him a smile. None of us actually knows how old Rob is, but he’s got five years on us, easily. He grins at Bailey, adjusting the red bandana we all have to wear to hold back our hair.
“Bailey!” Ashley’s voice appears before she does. She emerges from the back room, where her office is, the notebook she uses to make the weekly schedule tucked in the crook of her arm. “I thought I heard a familiar voice.”
“Hey, Mrs. M.” Bailey stands up straighter and brightens, like a switch has been turned on. She’s all apple cheeks and smiles as my stepmother comes over and gives her a hug.