31 Days Chapter One Marcus glanced over the espresso machine when the door chime rang. "Whoa." James looked towards the door. "No kidding, 'whoa.' Do I need to be the bad guy who won't give the street trash change?" "I think I can handle it, James." Marcus wiped his hands and stepped up to the register as the girl arrived in front of it. "What can I... get for you?" He swallowed hard and hoped that she just wanted something easy, like a coffee. She would've been pretty if it she didn't look like she had spent the last week trying not to cry. It made her seem like an abused puppy or one of those refugee kids on TV, the way she radiated misery even though he could tell she was trying to hold it in. Every line of her skull showed starkly through her skin. "Cafe mocha, please," she said without looking up from the floor. Marcus felt his heart twinge. "Uh, that'll be two dollars." She frowned and looked up at him. Puffy skin around her eyes, so she'd been crying after all. "The sign says three dollars..." He forced a smile. "Well, just right now we're having a special sale. Two dollars for the drink of your choice. You wanna add some flavor syrups or something while you're at it? It's all two bucks!" She looked back down at the floor and shook her head. "Just a regular mocha." "You can also get a free pastry-" "No thanks." Marcus shut his mouth and took her money. "James, one regular mocha," he said to the other barista. James gave him a funny look as he grabbed one of the paper cups and squirted chocolate syrup into it. The girl shuffled off to the side, leaving Marcus to stand awkwardly in front of the register. After James made the drink and handed it off, he came up to Marcus and whispered, "What the hell was that, dude?" "I... she just looked like she could use something to pick her up a little." "She looks like she needs medication, not free drinks." Marcus couldn't help but roll his eyes. James's answer to everything was medication. "It's not like it hurt anyone, I just used one of my discounts for today. I'm trying to cut back, anyway." James stared at him. "Yeah, right. What if another customer heard and wanted a 'sale', too? Or would you tell them you only give discounts to sad girls with pretty faces?" "There aren't any other customers in here, James. I'm not an idiot." "Whatever." James shouldered past him to take a pastry out of the case and punch his discount into the register. Marcus grumbled to himself as he walked over to the sink. He started washing cups as an excuse to not help James man the till or make drinks, to give him a reason to stay away from him. He didn't know why he bothered being nice to that guy, anyhow - every time Marcus tried to be nice to a customer, James was breathing down his neck about it. Every time he tried to be nice to James, James turned it into an insult. He glanced through a pastry case and over at the girl, who was scribbling furiously at a sheet of paper, her face drawn and lips pulled tight. Medication? Yeah, right. Something had happened to her, Marcus was sure of it. That was fresh grief on her face that made her stop, stare into space, then cover her eyes with a hand. The chimes sounded and he pretended not to hear them. James greeted the person a little too loudly, but Marcus ignored him and the put upon sigh James made when Marcus didn't rush to his aid. Damn James, anyway! That crack about a pretty face pissed him off. The girl was a kid, maybe fifteen or sixteen, way too young for him. Not like it mattered, James always took personal offense whenever Marcus was nice to a woman - which was always - because unlike some people Marcus's mother had brought him up right. Yeah, sometimes Marcus took extra time talking to the women, because he was a nice person. Apparently this was a federal offense in James-land, maybe because those same women sped through transactions with James as fast as they could manage. Marcus jabbed the scrub brush into a cup rather harder than necessary. It damn well wasn't his fault James got surly because women would smile at Marcus but not at him! He looked over at the girl again but quickly looked away when he noticed that she had a napkin up to her eyes and her shoulders shook slightly. Damn. He didn't offer her a discount because she was pretty. He did it because she was obviously in distress and he thought that maybe he could make her day a little better. Her clothes were pretty ragged and kind of dirty, but they were clothes like his sister had worn. Those weren't clothes that said "someone who cries in the middle of coffee shops," that was for sure, they said "someone who goes to open mic nights and looks at everyone in the audience when she reads her poetry." Something like that. Seeing a girl like his sister be so upset made him want to cry too. He didn't dare look over again, and he didn't want to deal with James, so he kept scrubbing dishes until half an hour later when James's shift ended and Tina came on. It was then that he noticed that the girl wasn't sitting where he had last seen her. Marcus felt his insides drop away as he looked around the shop and didn't see her anywhere. The door to the restroom was ajar, so she couldn't be in there - she must have left without him noticing. He walked over to Tina. "Hey, lady." "What's up, Marcus?" "Did you see a girl leave the shop? She was wearing a weird sweatshirt with striped arms and looked like the world was about to end." Tina looked puzzled. "Didn't see anyone like that when I came in, why?" "Oh... well, no big deal. Thanks, Tina." "Yeah..." He ignored the strange look Tina gave him and went to take his turn at the till. Why did the girl's disappearance before he could talk to her upset him so much? She could be upset because her dog just died, or even one of her parents, and while that was sad she would heal from it someday. Well, maybe. Cissy hadn't healed from losing their parents, and now she was gone too. He kept turning the thought over in his mind until he got so distracted he had to ask a customer to repeat his order. When he finished the drink, Marcus made himself get out some rags so he could start cleaning the counters for distraction. Getting all melancholy over some girl that reminded him of his sister wasn't going to make his day any better, especially since he knew he'd just get stupid and weepy if he started thinking of Cissy. Stop it, he told himself, just stop it. You only keep thinking about the girl because she reminded you of your sister, and you're still upset Cissy disappeared. The girl isn't a big deal. Tina is starting to look at you funny, and if she mentions it to the boss you've really fucked up because she actually likes you. Marcus managed to keep the girl out of his mind until after close, when he and Tina started clean-up. When he swept under the tables, something made a crackling noise. As he leaned over to investigate he realized that this was the table that the girl had been sitting at, and sure enough, he saw a rather crumpled piece of paper covered with writing under the table. He grabbed it and immediately thought to himself, throw it away. You don't need to look at it, you don't need to see it, you don't need to think about it. Just throw it away and forget about it. The first thing he did was put the broom aside so that he could smooth out the paper. Then he squinted at the writing, which was nearly illegible, having obviously been written at some speed and with a shaky hand. It didn't make much sense at first, either, as it looked like the first lines were in the middle of a sentence that had started on a previous page. Marcus had just about figured what the first sentence was about when Tina called, "You about done, over there? I need to get home, I have an assload of homework tonight!" He jumped and immediately shoved the paper into his pocket. "Uh, yeah, just had some random trash I had to get from under the table. Give me a few minutes, okay?" "Yeah, okay, but hurry it up!" He did indeed hurry it up, and less than ten minutes later he was locking the front door behind him. Tina waited for him, stamping her feet from the cold and looking at the gusts of vapor she was puffing out. "Fucking cold tonight!" "I think they broke the climate control again when they tried to make upgrades." The girl popped into his mind again. The sweatshirt she had been wearing hadn't looked very thick. She probably didn't live in the Inner Ward, and if it was cold here it would be much colder outside of the dome... he hoped she had a place to stay. Distracted by this train of thought, he dropped his keys. "God damn it..." "Man, Marcus, your head is totally someplace else today! What the hell is up?" He picked up his keys and finished locking the door. "I dunno, just stuff." They started walking towards the tram stop. Tina looked over at him after a moment. "James said you went moony over some weepy chick that came in earlier today." "James's a fuckhead, Tina." "No kidding, but don't change the subject. She someone you know?" "Never seen her in my life." That was true enough, he would have remembered her if she had. "So..." He shrugged. "I don't know, Tina. When she came in, she looked like the world had just came crashing down on her head. Like something really horrible had happened to her. I just..." He almost mentioned how the girl reminded him of his sister, but stopped himself. "She didn't even want a free shot of syrup in her drink." "There are a lot of sad people in this city, Marcus. If you're going to get all funny every time one comes in, the boss is going to get on your ass about it." He clenched his jaw to keep from snapping at Tina. It wasn't her fault he sounded stupid. If he could bring himself to talk about Cissy to her, say that the girl had reminded him of his missing sister, maybe she'd get it - or maybe she'd wonder just what kind of sibling he was to have let his little sister go to parties in the Church Flats. "Yeah, I know, Tina. Look, don't worry about it, I'm just having an off day today, I think it's the cold or something. I'll be fine tomorrow. For one thing, I won't have to work with James." She laughed, and after a few minutes they started chatting about something else entirely. Marcus couldn't get the girl out of his head, though, and in the back of his mind he kept wondering where she was that night. |
