Joy was in a wretched mood, tired and out of sorts, when Lu, Maggie’s employer, came into the shop. She replayed her fight with Anthony again and again. In romantic comedies, the false start always led to the Big Epiphany, the Grand Declaration. But they’d stopped at the false start.
Because life was not actually a romantic comedy, she reminded herself. Their false start had been a real end.
They sat. Joy listened to everything Lu told her, and then she shook her head and said, “I’m sorry . . .” Her head was all cobwebby; maybe she’d misunderstood. “I’m sorry . . . are you telling me you think Maggie was vaping?”
“I don’t know if she specifically was vaping,” said Lu. “I just know that the kids around her were.”
Joy was not going to admit that she wouldn’t recognize vaping if vaping walked up and tapped her on the top of the head. She’d do Google Images when she got back to her office. “Who was she with?” She felt a panicky feeling rise. “Maggie doesn’t know any kids who do vaping.”
Lu smiled. “It’s just called vaping,” she said. “Not doing vaping. Maggie doesn’t know any kids who vape.” Joy found the smile a touch condescending even as she understood that Lu probably meant for it to be inclusive. “Anyway, I’m sure it’s going to be all right. I didn’t mean for you to get all worked up. I just wanted you to know.”
“I’m not all worked up!” cried Joy, who was feeling very worked up. In her mind she was already texting Holly. Call me, she’d say. Right away.
“It’s just that . . .” Lu leaned forward conspiratorially and put her hands on the table. “When you’re young, it’s easy to make yourself vulnerable. Didn’t you ever make yourself vulnerable when you were young? Especially when you had a crush on someone?”
Ha! Had Joy ever! When she was twenty-two and Dustin was the lead singer of the Chiclets she’d spent fourteen nights straight tossing her hair around at venues up and down New England. Club Babyhead and Lupo’s in Providence. The Paradise in Boston. T.T. the Bear’s in Cambridge. She would have jumped off a bridge for Dustin, off a cliff, out of a moving train. Vulnerable was an understatement. But she’d been twenty-two, not thirteen!
Out of the corner of her eye Joy noticed Olivia Rossi pause in the wiping of the counter, the way you pause when you don’t want to miss a word of what someone around you is saying. “Olivia,” said Joy, in a slightly fake voice, “could you just run into the storage closet and see how many boxes of coffee stirrers we have? I forgot I have to put in my order by four o’clock today.”
Olivia disappeared into the back—was she walking more slowly than she needed to, maybe a little reluctantly?—and Lu said, “And especially when the crush is on someone older . . .”
“Right,” said Joy, because she couldn’t very well say, I don’t know what you’re talking about and I’m worried my daughter likes you and your nuclear family more than she likes me.
“I mean, he’s adorable,” Lu went on. “I don’t blame her. She’s got great taste! But we don’t want her to get her heart broken.”
“Of course not,” said Joy. Her voice was her regular voice, but inside she was roiling. She had forgotten all about the text she’d seen earlier in the summer, but the memory came flooding back to her now. What had it said? Do u rly think I should go 4 it. How could she have forgotten?
The lack of a male role model in the household meant that Maggie was looking to older boys—she shuddered—for affection, and who knew what else. Joy had been distracted this summer, with the business, with Anthony, and she’d taken her eyes off Maggie. And now Maggie was telling Lu things she wasn’t telling Joy.
She let her pride fall to the floor, where it landed with a thud that was almost audible. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I’m not sure I know exactly who you’re talking about.”
“Oh!” said Lu. “Oh. No, I’m sorry, of course I thought if I knew, you’d know. How funny.” It wasn’t funny. Lu felt sorry for Joy, Joy could see it right there on her face. Poor single Joy, couldn’t keep track of the one child she was lucky enough to have. “It’s Hugo! The boy who works at that food truck, the Roving Patisserie? I think his parents must own it. He has floppy brown hair . . . super-cute. Have you tried the salade Niçoise? It’s to die for!”
A clattering sound came from behind them and both Joy and Lu turned to look. Olivia Rossi stood there, with narrowed eyes and a hand on her hip. On the floor in front of her was a small pile of spoons that had been knocked from the counter. Olivia looked stern and disappointed, like an English nanny. Had she heard the conversation? “No backup boxes,” she said. Her expression turned sphinxlike, unknowable. “We’re completely out of stirrers,” she added. Her voice was low and even, giving nothing away.
Just then a shadow fell over the table. Joy looked up to see Maggie turn away from the table. Where had Maggie come from?
“Figures,” Maggie said. “Figures you’d do something like this. I knew I couldn’t trust you.” A flash of yellow Converse, and she was gone.
Joy and Lu sat for a moment in stunned silence. The shop door closed behind Maggie. In the back, they could hear the clattering of pans as Olivia Rossi prepped for that afternoon’s baking.
“Is she mad at me?” asked Lu finally. “Or . . .”
“Or me?” whispered Joy.
“I’m not really sure,” said Lu. “Maybe both?”