to see all chapters of 13:13, click here
fall 1999
Luce had spent as much of the last month as possible not thinking. About a week after Aaron had left, she had finally tried a run. The months of walking had done her good, and one day, she’d stood at the bottom of the hill that led up to Henry’s house and had thought to herself, Today.
It hadn’t been pretty. She’d had to stop three times, gagging and coughing and catching her breath, and when she’d finally reached the top, her face had been flaming red, her bangs had been matted to her forehead, and her legs had been shaking badly. But she’d made it.
She had marked every single one of the last 21 days with a run. She didn’t have much distance yet, but she more than made up for it with sheer force. For Luce was angry.
More than angry. She was incandescent.
Every single person in her entire life had left her, save Henry (and don’t think the fact of the only constant in her life being a grumpy old man didn’t make her head spin), and it filled her with a weighty, venomous, choking rage that she was happy to leave on the road behind her. For the first hour or two after her run every day, she felt light. Almost bouncy.
She didn’t think about the fact that the baby’s due date was only a month away. She didn’t think about the fact that, after Aaron had left, the dry heaves and gagging spells that had finally tapered off had started to come back. She didn’t think about the fact that she couldn’t figure out any way to maintain her sanity. Nor did she think about the fact that Aaron had told her I love you, and that she had reciprocated the only way she knew how.
Instead, right now, she staggered through the front door, breathing hard after her longest run to date—close to two miles!—and thought only about how good it would feel to stretch out her hamstrings and take a shower and eat her breakfast.
Forty-five minutes later, Luce came downstairs in torn blue jeans, a white tank top, and a U-Maine sweatshirt she’d gotten at a nearby Goodwill. Her hair, wet, hung to her waist now and took most of the morning to dry. She’d combed it down; it left dark, wet spots on her back.
“Good run?” Henry asked her from behind a newspaper.
“Hard.” Luce poured herself a glass of water and a cup of coffee and slid an English muffin into the toaster oven. “We need toilet paper. I’ll run to the store later, if you think of anything else.”
“Mm.”
The toaster oven dinged a few moments later. Luce put the two halves of the English muffin on a plate and began to coat them with peanut butter, feeling her mind settle as it soaked into all the nooks and crannies. There was something meditative about it.
Henry waited until she’d sat down across from him before he put the paper down and looked at her. “When you go out, you might want to stop at Maggie’s too.”
Luce froze.
“Maggie’s? Why the hell would I want to stop there?” Even now, hoping: was he back? (Stupid, stupid.)
Henry shrugged, pretending he had no idea why this was such a big deal. “Don’t know. She called while you were out and said she wanted to talk to you.” Back up went the newspaper, and Luce knew that was all the information she’d get out of him.
She was jittery all morning. The last thing she wanted to do was walk into the café; she hadn’t been there since before Aaron had left. The whole place would be crawling with reminders of him. It was bad enough, checking in on Katherine once or twice a week. The armor she’d built up around her mind faltered, and she began playing those last few moments with him over and over. What had she done wrong? She still didn’t know. When Aaron had blurted out all of his unasked-for feelings, she’d been dumbfounded. Love? Weren’t they just hanging out, fooling around? But…ever so subtly, she’d begun to wonder if she wasn’t feeling something similar. Not love, but maybe something on the way to love. And damnit, hadn’t his mouth and his hands just been all over her, making it so she couldn’t concentrate? And hadn’t she felt an ache even Jason had never made her feel? So, okay, maybe she couldn’t say that she loved Aaron. But she did want to make him happy. She knew what guys responded to, what they liked. She’d given him something, hadn’t she? He’d said, “Luce—you gotta give me something,” and she had. And he’d liked it! Any idiot could tell that he’d liked it. Luce might be hopeless at most things, but she was good at that.
So what then? As soon as it was over, she’d felt queasy, like she’d misread the moment and the ease, the contentment, was gone. Poof! Just like that. And the next day, so was he. Just like that.
+++
It was as bad as she feared, walking into the café. Abby was behind the counter with Maggie and a girl Luce hadn’t seen before. As soon as the little bell tinkled over the door, every pair of eyes looked up, and Luce almost turned around and walked out. But she knew Maggie would just keep calling, so she squared her shoulders and walked to the counter.
“Luce—thank you so much for coming,” Maggie breathed.
“What’s up?” Luce asked in a wooden voice, avoiding Abby’s gaze.
“Let’s go in the back for a minute.” Maggie put a hand on Abby’s shoulder and said, “Abby, could you keep up with Sam here? Why don’t you test her on espressos, okay?” She waited for some sign that Abby would do as she was told and didn’t move until Abby sighed, slid her emery board into her pocket, and slid over to Sam. Maggie pursed her lips and looked up at the ceiling for a moment before motioning for Luce to follow her to the back.
The tiny alcove off the kitchen that Maggie used for an office was strewn with papers, files, index cards, and Carla detritus. There was one chair, piled high, and a folding table in the same condition. Maggie cleared off the chair, told Luce to sit, and leaned against the edge of the table, letting out a long sigh.
“Sorry about that. I don’t know what I’m going to do if the attitude out there doesn’t improve. It was easier when Aaron was here. At least she tried, if only to make him like her.”
Luce didn’t say anything, but her stomach clenched when she heard his name.
It took Maggie a minute to get her bearings, and then she seemed to remember that Luce was in the room with her. She lifted her head out of her hands, looked Luce in the face, and said, matter-of-factly, “Do you want a job?”
Of all the possible questions Luce had been worried Maggie would ask, this one hadn’t even crossed her mind.
“I know it’s sudden. And I know you might be dealing with a lot of…stuff…right now. And—if you really want to say no, say no. But…Luce, please think it over. I’ll be frank. I’m desperate. I’ve got to get rid of Abby. She’s literally turning customers away. I am at my wits’ end. But if I let her go without someone to replace her, I’m screwed.”
“What about that other girl?”
“I hired her to replace Aaron. He called me last week and said I shouldn’t hold the job for him.” Luce’s eyes flicked to Maggie’s face. Aaron had called her? The absolute jerk. “I need two people on the payroll. It’s just too much for me to handle with fewer than that.”
“Why me?”
“You know what sells. If you like something, I can guarantee it’ll sell. If you don’t, I know I shouldn’t bother because no one else will like it either.” Luce hadn’t known that about herself. “And anyway, I like you. You’re a little rough around the edges, but I like you anyway. And I know you must be going crazy, hanging around with Henry Sullivan day in and day out.”
Luce looked around Maggie’s office, mulling over what had just been said. Aaron had explained some of the work to her in casual conversation, and she’d spent enough time here over the last six months to know that it looked doable. But she’d never had a job before. Jason, or Aaron, or some guy her mother had been with had always taken care of everything. The thought of making money on her own was appealing.
But to work here?
“What would I have to do?” she asked.
“I’d start you back here with the baking, while you get your feet wet. You can move on to mixing drinks and running the register when you’re ready. I’ll pay you five dollars an hour to start. And I can get you on the schedule right away, at maybe 20 hours a week.”
Luce did the math—that meant $400 a month. Four hundred of her own dollars, every month.
But was it worth working here, where Aaron had worked and where, apparently, he had no plan to return?
Maggie was looking at her with wide eyes, beseeching her to say yes.
For all of Luce’s bravado, she had always fought against the feeling that she was fundamentally inadequate. Other girls knew how to do things, how to buy things, how to learn things. Luce didn’t. Jason had always done everything. In an effort to find balance, she had tried not to allow Aaron to do anything. What would it look like if she just did something, without taking any guy into account at all?
She liked Maggie, for what it was worth. She was a little breathy and gushy for Luce’s taste, but she was nice and didn’t get too personal. She’d probably be as good a boss as anyone. And, fond as she was growing of Henry, it was true that she could use a little more excitement than running up a hill and talking with an old man.
Luce took a deep breath and nodded her head. “Okay.”
Maggie let out a big gush of air and clapped her hands together before running her fingers through her hair and letting out a little chuckle of relief. “Thank you,” she said, taking Luce’s hands in hers. “You have no idea how much this helps me. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? We’ll figure out a good day for you to start.”
Now that the business was over, Luce was eager to leave. She threaded her way through the kitchen and the café and back out into the chilly sunshine, wondering at the unexpected turn the day had taken. She searched her mind for her typical anxiety or cynicism or frustration or pessimism but, after a minute, concluded that, for once in her life, it simply wasn’t there. She blinked at the startling revelation, hopped into the driver’s seat of Henry’s truck, and drove to the market to do his errands.