“Welcome to Books Beans and Buds. Go, Pioneers. We. Do. Not. Sell. Pot. Here. Can I interest you in a budding beverage?”
“I’m not here for pot, dummy,” Mary said, staring at me.
“Really?” I asked, all innocent. “The twenty you’re going to put in the tip jar says otherwise.”
Mary just crossed her arms over her chest. “Why on earth would I do that?”
“Because I’m your cousin, you love me, and you happen to be in the unique position of knowing how much I get paid.”
Hey, you know how I said that the idea of working in a coffee shop on the campus of the community college you graduated from was really super depressing?
Actually, it’s not that bad. Sure, I have to say the stupid line, and sometimes people look like they recognize me, but then I realize I just had psych class with them or saw them around campus over the summer.
But now that it was the holidays, people kept filtering back in who might recognize me from other things. And might think it’s depressing to be working in the coffee shop on campus.
But hey, all the mochaccinos I can drink.
“Black coffee. And please tell me you’re not really selling pot.”
I just gave her a patented Mary-stare. Of course I wasn’t. But the funny thing was, some of our customers didn’t seem to know that. About once a week or so, someone would come in, put a twenty in the tip jar, and order a small black coffee.
I have to ask Mrs. B what she puts in the house blend.
I’m working here to pump up my savings account, but it (and other things) also helps pass the time. While I wait.
“Are you excited?” Mary asked, as I poured her coffee.
“About your bass rendition of ‘Jingle Bells’ this year? Of course. It’s gonna be epic,” I said, nodding. “Especially since you brought a collaborator.”
“Temper your expectations, please,” Mary said, blushing. Aw, she and Violet have been dating for months now and she’s still blushing. “Vi’s not getting here until tomorrow, so you’ll have to wait. I meant are you excited about NAU?”
My stomach flipped over as she said the letters. “I haven’t heard anything yet.”
“Yeah, but you’re going to get in.”
“We don’t know that.” And this time I’m not getting my hopes up. I mean, yeah, Violet put a good word in for me with her old professor. And Darcy placed a call (even though he’s not a benefactor of NAU), and Bing did, too (he managed to leverage his contacts to get the Teen Crisis Center a write up in the Times, so he figured why not use it for me, too), and Ms. W cold-called their psych department, but I have no idea if it did any good. The only thing that’s going to really get me in are my transcripts (eep) and my application.
And if I don’t, it’s not the end of the world—this time. There would be a plan C. Don’t know what it is yet, obvs, but this time, I know I’ve done absolutely everything I can.
So yeah. Waiting. And making coffee. Because that’s what you do while you’re waiting.
“So did you come straight here or stop at the house?” I asked. “Because Mom was on a present-wrapping binge this morning, and if you walked in on that I fear for your mortal soul.”
“Nah, we knew better and came straight here.”
“We?” My head came up as I was getting Mary’s change (sadly, she had not tipped me a twenty). “I thought you said Violet wasn’t coming until—”
“Hey, sis!” Lizzie’s voice rang through the shop as she walked in. “Good to see you!”
“Lizzie!” I squeed. “You weren’t supposed to come down for two more days!”
“Well, I gave my CFO the time off, so I figured, why couldn’t I take it, too?”
If there wasn’t a refrigerator case full of holiday-themed cake pops in our way, I would have hugged her. As it was, she hopped up on the counter to quasi-strangle me.
“Darcy isn’t going to come through the door, too, is he?” I asked.
“He’s coming down with his sister, Gigi, tomorrow. I need a night to prep Mom—you know, get her to lay off any marriage and kids talk,” Lizzie replied. “So . . . are you excited? NAU?”
“I’m excited for you to order a coffee,” I said, and nodded to the line forming behind my sister.
“Oh, right! Sorry,” she said sheepishly, and put in an order for a peppermint latte—someone was getting in the holiday spirit. Then she stepped aside to let the line progress as I made her drink.
“So . . . have you heard anything? Mom said the admissions office told her that they’d be sending out acceptance or rejection letters this week.”
My mom called the admissions office. And told everyone. Of course. “Nope, haven’t heard,” I replied. “Man, all we need is Bing and Jane and we’ll have hit the worry-button trifecta.”
“Well . . .” Lizzie said, her forehead wrinkling in an attempt to make her look innocent.
“No. Way.”
“They’re getting in tonight. Sorry, we’re just all excited.”
“There’s nothing to be excited about,” I said. Yet, my brain whispered.
Stop it, brain. You’re getting ahead of yourself again.
“At least we can engage in that most Bennet of traditions tonight,” Lizzie offered. “Eating our feelings while watching bad movies. Usually romantic comedies, but you can pick.”
Mary looked at Lizzie, horrified. “Please don’t make me watch a romantic comedy.”
“Can’t tonight,” I said. “I’m on duty.”
“On duty?” Lizzie’s forehead wrinkled. If she kept doing that, there would be sad, sad consequences.
“At the crisis hotline,” I said, and watched Lizzie’s jaw drop.
“Since when have you been working at a crisis hotline?”
I shrugged, super nonchalant. “The past couple of weeks. It’s kinda cool. I like it.”
I did like it. Bing’s boss, Dottie, set me up with them. It’s a national hotline, but it has local centers, so you’re talking to people who are from your same area, and the one I report to is about a half hour away. I had to go through sixty hours of training (seriously, I don’t think I’ve done anything for sixty hours total, unless you count sleep, school, or shopping), and I finally started taking call shifts about two weeks ago.
And it’s felt really good. Really . . . right. Which makes me all the more nervous about NAU, because now I know this is the path for me. And of course I’m trying to not think about it, which makes my cousin and sister really, really annoying.
I love them, but . . . annoying.
“That’s so awesome,” Lizzie said, and I could see the telltale sheen of moisture in her eyes that she was going to start sniffling. Oh God.
“Seriously, it’s no big deal.” I rolled my eyes over to Mary . . . but she had a suspicious sheen in her eyes, too.
Thankfully, the guy behind Lizzie cleared his throat, hoping to move the line along.
“Right,” she said. “We’ll just go . . . grab a table. Give Mom time to finish up her wrapping fest.”
I was happy to take the next guy’s order, and the one after that, and the one after that. I find foaming milk to be very soothing. A mindless task, it let me push the nerves down in my stomach, until I almost forgot about them.
Almost.
Hey, heard anything yet? —Milo
My phone buzzed in my back pocket right as I was headed to the back to get more whipped cream for the canisters out of the fridge. So I was semiprivate as I answered his text (you have to be super on the lookout for Mrs. B. She doesn’t like phones while on the job and her spies are everywhere).
Lydia: Oh God, not you too.
Milo: Hey, I just want to know when I should make reservations at your favorite pretzel stand in the park.
I couldn’t help my smile. Since I came back home, Milo and I have been texting. Nothing serious, nothing even romantic. But just . . . friendly. And if I thought about him more than I thought about most of my friends (man, I still owe Denny like seventeen emails) well . . . it’s a possibility.
And I like there being possibilities. I haven’t had possibilities in a while.
Maybe I needed to plan a trip to visit Jane, regardless of any news I may or may not get in the near future.
But when I came out of the back, new whipped cream canisters in hand, I immediately forgot about the phone in my pocket, and the line of customers about to swallow my coworker Harrison whole, because standing in the doorway of Books Beans and Buds were my parents.
That’s right. My mom was standing in the middle of Books Beans and Buds, wearing her favorite Christmas sweater and clutching her purse like she’d walked into a den of thieves and hippies, my dad guiding her by the elbow.
Her face broke into a relieved smile when she saw me, and rushed forward. I came out from behind the counter.
“Mom, Dad, what are you doing here?”
“So this is where you work, honey? Oh, I just had to see it. It’s so . . . earthy.”
She gave a startled little laugh, and my Dad held her steady. “Sorry, peanut, but we couldn’t wait.”
“Wait?” I asked, alarmed. “What’s wrong? Did you have a doctor’s appointment or something?”
“No, no, nothing like that. . . .”
“Mom? Dad?” Lizzie said, coming up behind them. “What are you doing here?”
“Lizzie! Oh my goodness, why are you here? I didn’t expect you until Wednesday, and oh—your room isn’t ready!” Mom said, hugging her.
Perfect, now we were four—no, wait, Mary came, too, so five—people standing in a group in the middle of the coffee shop. Harrison sent me a What the hell is going on? look.
I would like to know that, too, buddy.
“Okay, Mom.” I cleared my throat. “Why are you here?” I doubted she’d had a sudden urge for a book or a flower arrangement.
“Well, honey, we had to come as soon as the mail arrived,” my mom answered.
“The mail . . . ?”
And she reached into her bag, and produced an envelope. An envelope with the return address of New Amsterdam University.
For some reason I couldn’t feel my feet anymore. This wasn’t a huge issue, but just something worthy of note. I took the envelope from her, held it in my hands, felt its weight.
“Wow, real mail,” I said softly. “I thought they would have sent an email.”
Is that a good sign? Like, a real-mail envelope comes with paperwork you need to fill out and send back, right? But then again, an email would do that, too, wouldn’t it? Plus, was this envelope big enough for a bunch of paperwork? Or was it a one-page rejection letter? It was impossible to tell.
“Well?” Lizzie said, leaning over my mom’s shoulder, each with an identical eager expression. “Open it!”
I took a deep breath. Two. Here goes nothing, I thought as I slipped my finger under the flap.
It took me a minute to figure out what the words on the page said.
But it started with “Congratulations.”
“I . . . got in,” I said, finally bringing my eyes up from the page.
The cheers of my family around me deafened me. Probably deafened the entire room. But it was really hard to care. Because come the spring semester, I would be a student at New Amsterdam University. I was going to go start my new life. I was going to get that pretzel from Milo. And it all started now, in this coffee shop surrounded by my family going nuts—seriously, my mom was running from table to table showing people the letter—and a bunch of strangers wondering what the heck was going on, who slowly started clapping their epic congrats.
Which kind of made sense. Everything’s been a total whirlwind in my life, why not have a crazy finale to it all?
But that’s how it is when you’re Lydia Bennet. For better or for worse, just about everything winds up being some kind of adventure. And when all is said and done, I don’t think I’d have it any other way.
I like the person I’m becoming.
I like my family, my friends, my life. My future.
I’m ready now to see what lies ahead. Things haven’t always gone according to plan—actually, they rarely have—and this may not, either. But I think I’m learning to deal with that better. Roll with the flow or whatever. What’s important is putting one foot in front of the other and only looking back to learn from where you’ve been.
And right now, one foot is leading me to New York. And all its possibilities.