Page 23 of Lose You to Find Me

My new boss happily says, “I trust you can handle this customer? His order hasn’t changed, so you’ll be fine.”

Fine.Why does it feel like I’m going to have a heart attack then?

Caleb stops in front of the cash register that I’m frozen at. “You work here now?”

He sounds as off as I feel. Fidgeting with the little apron that Elena helped me tie around my waist, I nod. “Bea offered me a job the day I got back to town.”

The day I saw you at the hardware store.

Clearing his throat, he dips his chin and grabs his brown leather wallet, an old one of his father’s, from his back pocket. “That was nice of her to do.”

Niceseems so clinical. I’m not sure what to say right away, so the awkwardness between us grows. “Yeah…” Watching him pull out a ten-dollar bill, I manage to ask, “Same coffee? Regular with eight milks and no sugar?”

He peeks up at me through his lashes before giving me another nod. “Yes.” There’s a pause before a mumbled “Please.”

We stand there exchanging money and change before I handle the order. I can feel his eyes on my back as I grab a cup and the coffeepot before counting out the milk shots. He never liked his coffee too dark and hates sugar in it because he’s never had much of a sweet tooth, unlike me who’s always kept a stash of Milk Duds and other sweets in the glove compartment of my car and inside each of my bags to pull out whenever I want them.

Once I set the cup down on the counter and tighten the to-go lid on the top, I ask, “How is your dad doing?”

Anybody would want to know, I reason. It’s not out of line for me to ask about somebody I saw as family. I still do, even if I have no right.

Caleb shifts on his feet, wrapping those long, tan fingers around the Styrofoam cup before pulling it toward him. “He’s…Dad. Too stubborn to act like anything’s wrong.”

We fall back into silence, save whatever Bea is doing in the kitchen. Pots rattle, and a curse sounds as something loud bangs against the floor. Then water runs and a heavy sigh comes from the older woman giving me a little too much time with her customer.

I wait for Caleb to say something, watching as his lips part and then close, but nothing but tension fills the space between us.

“Hey,” I say quickly. “About the other day—”

“Raine, I can’t. I just can’t.” He picks up the coffee, lifts it toward Elena, and then leaves before I can try bringing anything up.

The teenager behind me says, “Damn. That was awkward.”

Then I hear a smack, a high-pitched whine, and a grumble as the blunt teen is yanked into the kitchen by her grandmother while I stand defeatedly at the register with a heaviness in my heart.

*

The kitchen ofmy childhood home smells like burnt sugar and something else that makes my nose scrunch, causing me to open a window near the sink and examine the mess covering the countertops.

“Mom?” I call out cautiously, picking up one of the pans on the stove that has something burnt and black caked on the bottom. “Did somebody break in and try cooking?”

Setting my backpack down on the table off to the side, I walk into the living room and listen for any sign of life. It isn’t like Mom to experiment in the kitchen. That was Dad’s thing.

“Mom?” When I hear rustling coming from her tiny craft room off the den, I poke my head in to see her at her sewing machine. “Hey. What happened in the kitchen? It looks like a tornado went off in there.”

She lifts her head up, removing a pin from where she was holding it with her mouth and placing it into the fabric she’s working on. “I didn’t even hear you come home. I was going to clean up before you got back.”

My eyebrows go up. “Last time you tried cooking, the fire department came and you blamed me for it because you figured they wouldn’t judge a twelve-year-old for learning how to make her own food.”

Mom laughs. “I forgot about that. It’s a wonder you’re becoming a therapist instead of searching for one.” She pushes back from the desk and removes her tape measure from where it’s draped across her neck. “I was trying to make caramel kettle corn. I saw a recipe online that looked easy enough to recreate. But then the caramel started burning and the smoke detectors started going off and everything was smoky. I’m surprised Mr. Applebee next door didn’t call the fire department on me.”

I’m ninety-nine percent sure he doesn’t have his hearing aids turned on most of the time. It must be nice to drown things out without a care in the world. “You should probably soak the pan. That way, it’s easier to clean.”

She frowns. “Maybe we should just get new pans. I mean, we don’t cook that much anyway, unless eggs count.”

We do eat a lot of eggs. “Or maybe,” I propose, following her into the kitchen, “we should learn how to cook so we’re not spending our paychecks on takeout. We relied on Dad way too much.”

If it wasn’t Dad cooking all our meals, it was Caleb who was making things for me. I got so used to it, I never thought much about the obvious skill set that I should have started learning years ago.

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