Cuppa Joe’s lost Hector at the beginning of February — something about his wife getting a job and needing to move to Napa — so Eddie has been working evenings and nights for the past week while Margaret decides if they’re going to hire someone new before Rachel comes back from maternity leave or just shuffle everyone around and make it work. Eddie is voting for hiring someone new. Evening shift is fine, whatever, but Alex and Zoe do not come in during the evening shift, they come in during the morning and afternoon. After seven nights of not seeing either of them, he is so out of the loop it isn’t funny.
So when he finally finds himself back on the afternoon shift and sees Zoe come walking through the door, it’s like a breath of fresh air. He wants to be the one to take Zoe’s order, but Margaret sends him to the fridge for more cream (didn’t he used to be the one in charge on this shift? What is happening to his life?), and by the time he gets back, Zoe’s already sitting at a table, letter in her hand.
And yet, he notices with a frown as he passes the cash register, there is still a letter on the shelf. “Did Alex and Zoe lap each other?” he asks Violet in an undertone, who answers only with a bewildered frown. He has to hold himself back from rolling his eyes. “With the letters,” he clarifies, gesturing to the shelf with an elbow. “Zoe has one at the table, but there’s still one on the shelf.”
“Oh,” she says with dawning comprehension, looking sympathetically out at Zoe in a way that makes Eddie suddenly very nervous. “No, poor thing,” she sighs, like she’s twenty years Zoe’s senior instead of five. “I’m not sure what she’s reading, but it’s nothing I gave her. The letter on the shelf is hers, to Alex, and it’s been there since Monday.”
Eddie stares at her, certain he didn’t hear her correctly. “I’m sorry, are you telling me Alex hasn’t picked up a letter since before Monday?”
“I haven’t even seen him, honestly. Not in ages.”
Eddie barely keeps from losing his cool. “And you didn’t think this was something you should have mentioned when I came in?” he asks in a carefully controlled voice. Before Violet can answer, Margaret interrupts them.
“Eddie, that cream doesn’t do the customers any good in your hands.”
“Right you are, Margaret,” he says with a smile and, whistling, goes to fill up the cream station. He uses the trip across the shop for some mild reconnaissance, and the news isn’t great. Zoe is a far cry from her usual upbeat, smiling self. Her face is drawn, her forehead lined in concerned, the corners of her mouth turned decidedly downward. She has a letter out on the table, a torn-open envelope beside it, but the page, as far as he can tell from his surreptitious glances, is covered in her writing, and she seems to be adding more to the bottom. What is going on?
That’s the very question he asks Violet when he gets back to the counter and she finishes with her current customer. Violet looks a little embarrassed, shifting back and forth slightly on her feet before she answers.
“Apparently, no one told her that her letter was still here; they’ve just been saying there wasn’t anything here for her, and so when I mentioned today that Alex hasn’t picked up her letter yet, it kinda, you know . . .” She trails off, not quite meeting his eye, not finishing the thought.
“What the hell is going on?” he hisses in an undertone so neither Margaret or Zoe can hear. “I move to the night shift for one week, and all communication in this place completely breaks down?”
It catches him off guard, actually, the strength of his reaction, but the idea that they have contributed somehow to whatever is bothering Zoe so intensely right now really sets off his protective side. Before he can unpack that, however, Zoe is at the counter with something like a smile on her face, but Eddie thinks he knows her well enough by now to see the stress underneath the smile.
“Hey,” she says, sounding a little strained. “Do you guys keep tape behind the counter?”
“Yeah,” Eddie says, a bit belated, fishing around on one of the shelves for their beat-up yellow tape dispenser, which he plops on the counter. She thanks him and tapes her envelope closed. “Can you put this on the shelf for Alex? I know he already has a letter he hasn’t, um, picked up yet, but if you could add this? I labeled this one, and if you could add a number one to the envelope already there?”
The words are coming out very quickly, which he’s learned is a sure sign that she’s feeling some level of stress. He tries to give her a friendly smile. “Sure thing,” he says, taking her envelope. “And I’m sure Alex will be in soon to get these, okay?”
She gives a tight smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and she’s definitely more visibly upset than he has ever seen her. She nods, her lips tight together, and says, “Thanks,” in a small voice. She turns and quickly walks out of the store. Eddie watches her go, his own lips pretty tight together.
“Well, shit,” he says on a sigh.
“Eddie,” Margaret calls, not even looking up from her ledger, “workplace appropriate language, please.”
“A thousand apologies, Margaret,” he says automatically, his eyes never leaving the door, and as he watches Zoe head for her car, he makes a split-second decision. “I’m going on break,” he announces, and without waiting for approval or acknowledgement, he’s out the door and crossing the parking lot.
“Hey, Zoe!”
She stops and turns, and he uses the time to jog across the lot to her. “Did I leave something?” she asks.
“No, I –” He stops, suddenly feeling a bit awkward. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
She looks suddenly self-conscious. “Yeah, I’m — I’m fine.” The statement is not at all convincing and he just levels a look at her until she laughs once and runs a hand through her hair, agitated. “Yeah, I didn’t even convince myself on that one.” She heaves a sigh, and he waits to hear her out. “I don’t know what I am,” she eventually says. “I’m confused. I’m worried. I thought he just wasn’t writing, I didn’t know he hadn’t — I don’t even know. Has he been coming in and just been so pissed that he didn’t even pick up my letter? Or has he not been in at all? Or—” She cuts herself off and takes a deep breath. “I just don’t know what kind of worried to be, is all. And that’s very stressful, as it turns out.”
“Yeah, I can imagine. Do you want me to call Rachel and see if I can find anything out? I mean, she’s on maternity leave and has threatened us with dismemberment if we interrupt it with anything short of the building blowing up, but if you want me to call her, I will.”
The offer is genuine. After that rambling speech, he’s worried about Alex, too, because that kid has it bad and to not come in is not like him. For the umpteenth time, he curses Hector’s wife and Margaret’s choice to move him to nights this week, because if he’d been working his usual shift, he would have noticed and things wouldn’t have gone this far. But there’s nothing he can do but move forward, and if Zoe wants him to call Rachel, it gives him an excuse to find something out.
But Zoe just stares at him like she can’t quite figure him out. “Why do you care so much?” she asks, a question that catches him off guard.
“What do you mean?”
“We’re just a couple of kids who come to your coffee shop. Why are you so invested?”
Because you two stand to win me $178 at the moment and that can’t happen if one of you disappears is the first answer that pops into his head, but obviously he can’t say that. And honestly, it’s not the real reason. Not anymore. He’s really come to care about Zoe, and Alex too, but he has to find a way to say that without coming across as creepy.
“You remind me of my sister,” is what comes out. And while it’s not untrue, he’s about as surprised as she is by the statement.
“You have a sister?” she asks. He smiles.
“Yeah. Summer. She’s fifteen. She’s cheerful, just like you. Sunny. Bubbly. And if someone or something dampened her . . .” He searches for the right word. “. . . sparkle, I would do just about anything to bring it back.”
Zoe blushes and looks down. “You sound like a really great big brother,” she says, words that bring an all-too-familiar rush of guilt sweeping over him.
“I’m really not,” he says honestly, rubbing at the back of his neck. “We were really close, when I was still in Colorado with my folks, but then I moved out here and . . . I haven’t talked to her since Christmas. I don’t keep in touch very well, so I’m really not that great a big brother. Not nearly as good as I want to be, at least.”
“So . . . be better.”
He freezes, then laughs. “Someone’s been spending too much time with Alex Carter,” he says. “His bluntness is rubbing off on you.” She laughs, looking for a moment like the old Zoe, but then her face falls, and he knows she’s gone back to worrying about Alex. “I’m sure he’s fine, Zoe.”
She bites her lip, then shakes her head. “I hope so,” is all she says. He’s sure she wants to say more, but he doesn’t know how to coax it out of her, and it’s sure not going to happen in the middle of the parking lot. “Will you — I know it’s against your non-interference policy, or whatever–” For a moment, his heart plunges into his shoes, thinking she’s found out about the bet, until he remembers that they had a different policy of non-interference back in the beginning. “But could you . . .”
“Someone will let you know as soon as he comes in,” Eddie says gently. Zoe offers him a grateful smile.
“Thanks, Eddie.”
“Well, isn’t this an interesting pow-wow.” Eddie bites back a sigh as Andi appears beside him.
“Andrea,” he says cordially.
“What’s going on?” she asks, voice pointed.
“Nothing,” he says, and though she narrows her eyes, she doesn’t fight it.
“My shift is starting soon, so I have to take off,” Zoe says. “But . . . thanks, Eddie. Really.”
“Hey,” he says with half a shrug. “Any time.”
They watch her pull away, and before Eddie can head back inside, Andi grabs his elbow. “Eddie.”
“Alex hasn’t picked up a letter in over a week.”
In a split second, she goes from vaguely accusatory to incredulous. “What?” she asks, sounding shocked. “You’re kidding me.”
“No. Zoe has had a letter sitting waiting for him since Monday. You didn’t know?”
Andi shakes her head. “I’ve had rehearsal all week, this is my first shift since Saturday. How did it get past you?”
“I’ve been on nights since Hector left. I’ve seen the envelope on the shelf, but since they don’t come in nights, I didn’t pay super close attention to whether or not it was a different envelope, especially since no one told me anything was wrong. We need to have a major conversation with everyone, but it can’t get back to Rachel.”
She nods, looking as displeased as he feels. “I’ll do it on Twitter tonight. But please tell me you’re back on afternoons.”
“I seem to be. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a phone call I need to make before I head back in.”
The comment brings back her suspicion. “You wouldn’t be cheating with this phone call, would you, Eddie? You wouldn’t be, maybe, calling our boss and checking in on a certain someone?”
“Yeah, I like my head where it is, thanks,” he responds drily. “No, this is completely unrelated to the bet. I swear. But it’s important.”
She watches him for a moment, then nods and heads inside while he pulls up a contact in his phone and stares at it for a second before hitting “Call.”
“Gillespie Family Ski Lodge and Resort,” comes a cheerful voice a moment later, and as always, it puts an automatic smile on his face. “How can I help you today?”
“They have you answering phones now, Nugget?” he says, and is met with a delighted squeal.
“Eddie? Is that you?” The joy in her voice is infectious. He laughs.
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s me. I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve called.”
“No, no, I’ve got so much to tell you! Just let me transfer you to the phone in the back room, okay? Do you have time?”
He glances up and sees Margaret through the window, probably about to do that thing where she looks at her watch significantly, but then Andi appears and distracts her with something that apparently needs her physical attention. As she ushers Margaret toward the back, Andi looks over her shoulder and makes eye contact with him, making a shooing motion with her fingers. He smiles. Good old Andi.
“Yeah,” he says into the phone. “I’ve got time.”