The rain has downgraded to a drizzle, leaving the air refreshingly cool. I open the door to the café, book in hand, and I’m greeted with the uplifting scent of coffee and flaky croissant. Ella is already here, sitting on the same stool in the window where I first dumped coffee on her. And like last time, she’s immersed in her computer.
I order a black coffee, triple check the lid is on tight, and slide into the empty seat next to Ella.
This time, instead of ignoring me, she turns. “Whoa,” she says, eyeing the coffee. “Ten-foot rule.”
I smile. “Is that a thing?”
“Oh, it’s a thing. There’s a mandatory safety radius for clumsy dudes carrying hot drinks.”
“And what about clumsy girls?” I ask. “Or elbows. Clumsy elbows?”
She rolls her eyes, her wavy hair falling over her bare tanned shoulder and her lips pulling up slightly at the corners. Disdain and humor, humor and disdain—a complicated marriage of emotions that I’m more familiar with than I care to admit.
She takes a sip of her drink, something frothy and sugared, and returns to typing.
“Contrary to popular belief, raindrops aren’t shaped like teardrops,” I say, accessing some of the random knowledge I’ve acquired while doing these cases. A guy last summer was meteorology obsessed.
Ella stops typing. “Cool, but I’m trying to work.”
“They start out round,” I say, but still she doesn’t look at me.
“Fingers typing on keyboard. Very important blog deadline.”
“And because of the resistance of the air, as they fall, the raindrops end up looking like jelly beans the closer they get to the ground,” I continue.
“Not relevant.”
“I beg to differ.”
“You can’t differ,” she says. “You don’t even know what I’m working on.”
“You just said. You’re writing your astrology blog,” I counter. “I read it last night. There was a reader’s note on the home page about how you were almost finished with the monthly horoscopes.”
Now she turns to look at me. “No, I will not sign your boobs. Please move along, sir.”
I laugh. “Ouch. Is that how all famous bloggers address their fans?”
She returns to her computer. “Yup.”
“So the thing about these raindrops—” I continue, but she cuts me off.
“It’s weird how you look like a normal person, but then you start talking and it turns out you’re a pest of the worst kind.”
I give her a knowing smile. “You think in your mind that you know exactly what raindrops are, that you’ve seen them your whole life—they’re predictable. But then you find out about the jelly bean bit and it feels wrong, annoying even. Teardrops are sexy. Jelly beans are goofy. So you ignore the idea, and you go back to thinking of them as teardrops.”
“So the moral of your story is to deny raindrops their shape?”
“When things or people, especially people, don’t look or act the way we envision them in our head, we ignore their truth, reimagining them as something better suited to our image.” I pause. “You said in your introduction on your blog that you write both the good and the bad, and that may not be for everyone. That a lot of people want the good and the sugarcoated bad. But that’s not people, and you write people. Just thought you’d appreciate that the raindrops agree with you.”
For a moment she just stares at me, her brown eyes taking me in. “Hmmm.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I didn’t say thank you.”
“No, but it’s exactly the type of thing you could use in your write-ups.”
She lifts a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “So not only did you read my blog, but you spent time thinking about what might be useful to me? Why?”
“Because I’m passionate about astrology.”
“Right.” She laughs and tilts her head. Her hair slides across her back, and I get a whiff of her shampoo—coconut and vanilla.
“Well then, I guess my job here is done,” I say in a satisfied tone.
“So that’s it?” she says, amused. “You just came here to tell me about raindrops?”
“I came here to grab a coffee.” I slide off my stool, lifting my cup as evidence. “See you around.” I turn.
Three . . . two . . . one . . .
“Hey, Holden?” she says, and I stop. “A group of us are going to the carnival tomorrow night. You and Mia should join.”
“Maybe we will, Scorpio. Maybe we will.” And I leave.