and hand over my chalk to Micki, along with my apron. “Try not to spell cappuccino wrong, boss.”
Outside, the day is almost chilly. It’s that time between the late summer and the early fall and in the coffee shop we have gone from using the air conditioner to turning on the furnace in the morning. I was too fuzzy headed this morning to grab a jacket so I pull my sleeves down around my hands and hug my arms to my chest as we walk.
“Couldn’t you have brought your mum’s car?” I ask, pretending to have chattering teeth.
“You really are in a mood, aren’t you?” Emme retorts. “You know I don’t drive that killing machine. It could chop me up four ways from Sunday. I hate automobiles,” she shivers.
“Well, I love them! And I can drive,” I say proudly. “I pinched Israel’s car the other day. It’s easy! And I love, love, love driving.”
“You are feeling brave, aren’t you?” Emme looks suitably impressed. “I bet Israel wasn’t too pleased though.”
I shrug, remembering when he came home and bawled me out. And I looked so nice and everything! I could wear a bird on my head and he wouldn’t notice. Unless I was wearing the bird as I drove off in his car; now there’s a thought.
“He wasn’t. He’s been awfully crabby these days anyway. I can’t do anything right.” I hug myself tighter.
“He’s just focused, that’s all. He takes life seriously.”
“And I don’t?”
“Calm down, Miss Tragedy,” Emme laughs. “Quit being so prickly. What put this bee in your bonnet?”
I sigh in frustration. “I’m just tired and stressed out, I guess. I keep seeing or feeling Rose all around me but I can’t find her. My dad was brought home by a cop last night. Half my house walked out on me.” I am feeling glummer by the minute here. Aren’t best friends supposed to cheer you up?
“Aww, come ‘ere, my little fashion disaster!” Emme pulls me into an embrace, right there in public. She’s such a short little thing that my chin nestles in her strawberry colored curly bun atop her head as she squeezes me. “From what I can tell, being eighteen is rarely a picnic, no matter what day and age you’re living in. This too shall pass, isn’t that what they say?”
“Eighteen wasn’t a bed of roses for you either?” I don’t like to pry in Emme’s past.
She snorts. “You have no idea.”
Given Emme’s line of work and the stories she could probably tell if she were so inclined, I don’t want to know anymore. Nevertheless, she keeps talking.
“Joe was not even one year and we were living in some God- forsaken Norwegian village. He was born there. He was always such a sickly thing, croup and pneumonia and all sorts of illnesses those first couple years. Kept thinkin’ I shouldn’t get attached to him. Didn’t want to grieve too much if we lost him altogether. I swear, we should have just had a live in nurse with us. There was this old granny who’d come by and give him herbs and tinctures and things, and he finally started getting a little better that year. Still coughs a lot though, even now.” I had noticed that actually. “And he’s a little undersized for six. ‘Course, being us and being what we are, who the heck knows what his real age is anyway.” She sighs. “I’d keep him little if I could, so I probably shouldn’t complain. Anyway, that village was tiny and let me just say, business was slow and not very varied!” I roll my eyes. “I wasn’t exactly Miss Popularity with the village ladies. That old granny was about the only one who’d have anything to do with me.” She pauses, remembering.
“And your mum?”
“Hmm? Oh yes, Mum was there, helping out with Joe and taking care of the house. Planting a garden, though of course we ended up travelin’ on before it ever sprouted. Someone in that village ate a lot of turnips that next year.”
“Helping out with Joe?” I repeat. I’m starting to put two and two together and I don’t like the sum much.
Emme looks at me sideways. Her nose is pink from the cold. She wears a brightly knit turquoise scarf around her neck, and as we do a strange dance of watching each other sideways as we walk in a straight line, she unwinds it and pulls it over her head and ears. I suddenly have the feeling she is blocking