Page 13 of Silver Edge
The smell of wet asphalt wasn’t the greeting I had hoped for, but I pulled the hood over my head and trudged through the puddles. Car horns blared, so I slipped my defensive earphones from my pocket. Thank God I’d charged my iPod behind the bar last night. Cranking Beethoven’s “Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major” to the point of drowning external stimuli, I chuckled at the fitting rising intro. The spirit of the melody matched the rushing cars. Beethoven got me. He had to be a distant relative or something, not so much for his music, but his humor. The day I heard his final words, “Friends applaud, the Comedy is over,” I knew we were kindred spirits.
I rounded the street corner and headed toward the path to Bands. A few hundred meters and two turns later a curvy purple sign with the wordCoffeestood out among the brick buildings. I inhaled the welcoming aroma, an improvement over the damp, musty air in my temporary home. Not that I was complaining. Of course, the warehouse didn’t have a shower, but I’d been able to sneak in a few times to the YMCA up the block. Unfortunately, I’d made the mistake of entering during the soccer-mom-only hour. I learned my lesson when one threatened me with a long pointed nail and a curling iron. After that, I timed my visits during Zumba class, saving myself from women showing off their new boobs, listening to them complain about their husbands, and passing out Prozac. They called themselves SAHM. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I guessed Stoned Angry Homicidal Moms.
With a sidestep through the crowd, I tugged the long cuffs of my hoodie sleeves over my hands and wrenched the door open. With money in my pocket, I could splurge. A latte would certainly brighten the rainy, dismal day.
Hawaiian stood in the corner, waving. His plump arm wiggled as if speaking to me. “Hey, Einstein.”
I did the head bob in acknowledgement then snatched the wad of cash from my pocket. “Latte, please.”
The girl behind the counter scribbled something on the cup. “Name?”
A smile crept up the corners of my lips. “Einstein.”
She scribbled on the back of the cup, the gauges in her ears sparkling under the light with the movement of her smile. “Sure. Coming right up.”
A vine tattoo wrapped around her wrist like a boa constrictor. Its tongue ended with an X. I’d always thought the X tattoo was more a Ton initiation than a real Straight Edge thing. This part of town welcomed me with a mischievous wink of social acceptance. Perhaps she’d hook me up with some other Straight Edge people…or not. It would be nice to fit in, know people, but then again, no need to complicate my life. Yet, Ton’s nagging persisted, even at this distance. I needed to call him, if only to tell him I survived the hundred-plus-hour bus ride from New York. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that long, but the little old lady next to me who smelled of Bengay and stuffy perfume had trapped me in an infinite loop of torture.
I scooted around the corner and dared a glance at Hawaiian again. He squeezed into a booth with some other people, all different types, but too many for my comfort level. One with green hair and black-rimmed glasses, another wearing a short white dress with mesh hose, and a guy in a suit.
“Hey, come join us.” His smile shot as if from some invisible adorable gun and pierced my body, tugging me toward his table.
“It’s good to see you.” I dug my nails into the cuffs of my sleeves.Please don’t shake my hand.
Too late. Green-haired girl with glasses abandoned her coffee cake, wiped her hands on the front of her skinny green-and-black pants, and offered her hand. I managed to keep my sleeve mostly over my palm, but her skin still touched mine with a crumbly, leftover-coffee-cake texture.
With a steadying breath, I reciprocated the next two societal expectations of hand shaking. Keeping my eyes moving to avoid being caught in a painful vice of awkwardness, I noticed a black tattoo of some sort of symbol extending from under Suit Guy’s jacket sleeve. “Like your ink.” There. That made up for no eye contact, right?
He rotated his arm as if to discover the markings for the first time. “A youthful indiscretion. I hope to have a tattoo artist alter it somehow. I doubt my congregation will follow me if they see the image of a demonic creature on my arm.”
Hawaiian smacked the man’s shoulder so hard he nudged the table, sloshing beverages about. Ugh, mint tea, black coffee, and some caramel concoction blended into bad horror movie blood, and the odor merged into a perfect chaos of competing smells. “I see you found our coffee oasis. Best coffee in twenty blocks.”
“Einstein,” the barista called.
Thank you, God.I shuffled backward. “It was nice to meet you all.”
“Ha, my name for you stuck.” Hawaiian clapped his hands together once. “I’ll see you at Bands tonight, right? Drake said you’d be working something out with him today.”
I snatched my coffee from the counter. With hands wrapped around the cup, I lifted it to my nose as a shield. The rich aroma provided an escape from the wayward odors of the other patrons. “Yep, I’m going to head there in a bit. I need to make a call first, though. Is there a payphone around?”
“You don’t have a cell?” Hawaiian rounded the table and joined me at the counter. “Here, use mine.”
I held up one hand while keeping the coffee close to my nose with the other. “I don’t want to bother you.”
“No bother.”
I took the phone and forced my gaze to his. “Thanks.” I was rewarded with a huge smile that could con a nun into a night of passion.
Hawaiian took a step back and crossed his arms over a lime green floral print shirt. “Drake’s right.”
I looked down my front, trying to see what he was looking at. “About what?”
“You do have the most beautiful eye color. What is that? Purple?”
Heat flooded my neck, cheeks, and ears. “No, it’s just abnormal. One of my foster sisters said I looked like a mutt from the pound. It’s probably just reflecting the purple highlights I have in my hair.”
“Mutt? She must have liked you. Mutts are the best. They’re loving, friendly, and don’t bite. They’re always loyal, smarter than any purebred, and a man’s best friend.”
An espresso machine revved for a few seconds then quieted.
