“Thank you.” The constant knot in my chest seems to untangle itself by one loop at least. I try to imagine Will in the same position as Ringo right now. What would he say to me? It’s hard to imagine that he would say anything was cosmically unfair. Will was an eternal optimist. Even when his dad left, sure, he cried, but he was already busy making plans to be nothing like Logan. He wouldn’t have said that anything sucked. Nothing sucked for Will Bryan. Nothing except for dying.
Ringo leads me into Neville’s Coffee Shoppe. On the outside, it’s a simple, run-of-the-mill, strip-mall storefront, but once inside, I find a busy cafe. Round community tables dot the center of the room. Hanging above them are outlet strips where patrons have plugged in their laptop computers and cell phones. There are other seating options too. A nook with loveseats and squishy armchairs. Schoolroom desks. High-top counters. Conspicuously absent is any sign of the beach at all. The decor is all deep gray and crimson without any of the sky blue and white, the coastal colors that businesses in our town typically favor.
I follow Ringo to the coffee bar and the baked goods display. A barista with a tight shirt, tattoos, and a white towel slung over his shoulder greets us. “Ristretto macchiato, dry?” he asks Ringo, already pulling a small cup from underneath the counter.
“Come here much?” I tease. The barista doesn’t linger over Ringo’s split-personality face or glance away.
“And what it’ll be for the missus?” he asks, using the towel to dry the inner rim of the mug he’s already holding.
“Actually, I don’t like coffee,” I say.
The barista raises his eyebrows to Ringo. “What is this, witchcraft?”
“Pure heresy,” Ringo agrees. “How are you running? Battery power?” He arches back as if to look for a pack or an outlet between my shoulder blades.
“All natural, I guess.” I flip up my palms apologetically.
“Ringo’s veins are highly caffeinated,” says the barista.
“We can fix this.” Ringo draws out his wallet and lays a credit card on the counter. “Make it a cup of Neville’s house blend, double-double.”
“But—”
“You’ll like it,” Ringo insists, daring me to challenge him.
When the barista comes back with a sloshing mug and a small cup, both with saucers underneath, he pushes Ringo’s credit card back toward him. “First-timers and their enablers on the house,” he says. Then to me, “We run on the addiction model. When you need your next hit, you’ll know where to find me.” He slaps the towel over the countertop and then heads off to tidy up around the espresso machine.
“This way.” Ringo jerks his head and we both try to balance our overfull cups as we snake our way to a corner of the shop I can’t help but notice is already occupied.
A hunched-over girl with purple cat’s-eye glasses and a curly black ponytail glances up from her keyboard. “Hey, Ringo, didn’t expect you here so early today.”
“Emergency evacuation,” he says, taking a sip of his espresso, then jerking away when it turns out to be too hot.
“Lake, this is my friend Margaret Zee. Margaret, this is Lake.”
“Howdy,” she says, continuing to type at an alarming rate of speed.
“Margaret codes software a few days a week to earn extra cash,” he explains. “Then there’s our proverbial old married couple, Vance and Kai—” Two reedy boys with skin tones on the opposite ends of the spectrum look up and give a short wave and a smile. They are leaning into a single pair of headphones that is plugged into a clear plastic case with a miniature vinyl record spinning inside. “Simone, she works here but is on break; and Duke, as in Ellington, but he’ll answer to his real name too, which is Daljeet.” I take in the list of people rapid-fire. Simone’s blunt-cut bangs frame an angular face where it’s peeking out from a black-and-white magazine featuring a photograph of Frank Sinatra on the cover. And finally: “I’m sorry, who’s Duke Ellington?” I ask.
“Duke’s that guy.” Ringo points over to a tubby Indian boy wearing a black T-shirt with a smiley face on it. “Duke Ellington is a famous jazz musician. No relation unless you count their fantastic taste in music.”
“Right,” I say, rocking back on my heels. “Quite a crew you’ve assembled.” I feel a flush of self-consciousness, realizing how insulated and how homogenous and white St. Theresa’s—the world I’ve been committed to since eighth grade—is.
And then there’s the fact that, of course, I’ve assumed Ringo would be a loner. Why, because of a stupid birthmark on his face? God, I really am a jerk.
“Can we crash here?” Ringo asks Margaret while at the same time pushing a large stack of textbooks from one of the chairs at her table.
“How do you two know each other?” I ask Ringo, but it’s Margaret who answers.
“I used to be an assistant for Professor Littlefield. I sort of adopted Ringo after that.”
“Topic of conversation,” Ringo begins to Margaret, “is how much Lake’s life blows.”
“I’m intrigued,” she says. “Ceiling fan, breeze, or gale force?”
Ringo looks to me for an answer. “Hurricane,” I say. “Category five.”
She frowns, impressed. For the first time, she stops typing, leans in on her elbows, and waits for me to continue.
I chew the inside of my cheek, unsure that I want to spill my guts to Margaret. But Ringo leans back in his chair and takes a long sip from his cup. “Go on, Margaret can be trusted.”
So I do. I catch Margaret up on the car accident, then tell them both about the ambush by Will’s parents, and end with the destruction of the only known note-slash-clue left over from my dead boyfriend, which was destroyed by my older brother. In the process I learn that double-double means double sugar, double cream, and actually start to like the house-blend coffee that Ringo ordered me and the pleasant buzz of energy that seems to help me think more clearly. The only things I don’t tell them are about Matt’s paralysis and my promise to him and, most importantly, about how I’ve already broken it.
“So,” I finish, “I have to resurrect one of them and people at my school are taking bets and the problem is I have no idea what I’m going to do or how I’m going to figure out where Will was trying to send me.”
Margaret finishes listening to my story. She pulls her cheeks in taut and lets out a long low breath. “That…sucks.” She adjusts the glasses on her nose. “Like…an octopus tentacle…or…” She scratches her temple.
“A space vortex,” Ringo says.
“Exactly.” Margaret resumes typing—bang, bang, bang against the keyboard. “Resurrections are…” She glances up from the screen. “Have you told her?”
“Told me what?” I pivot toward Ringo.
“Nothing,” he says, and shoots Margaret a dirty look, which she doesn’t catch since she’s already returned her attention to the glowing blue screen in front of her. “We’re talking about you, your problems,” Ringo continues. “That’s enough ground to cover.” I narrow my eyes, but he presses on. “So draw straws,” he says.
“Be serious.”
“I am.”
I glare at him.
“Fine,” he says.
Kai moves between tables and drops a sheathed record in front of Ringo, who says a quick thank you before Kai returns to his headphones.