Page 3 of With Love, from Cold World
At least now the Keurig machine was working perfectly for her. Lauren filled up her mug, making a face at Kiki while she did so.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m running a little behind this morning. I guess I’m... distracted.”
“Is it about the visit tonight?”
Kiki was the only person Lauren had told about finishing her guardian ad litem training and her appointment to meet the kid she’d been assigned to for the first time. She probably would’ve kept even that information to herself, except she’d had to take an afternoon off to get fingerprinted. Since Lauren never took time off work, Kiki had been worried and texted her. Lauren hadn’t even thought Kiki was on shift that day, but it was kind of nice. To have someone notice, and care.
“I just don’t even know what I’m doing,” Lauren said. “I’m not good with kids. I mean, I haven’t been around many. But I never know what to say. I’m like,How’s school?and then that’s it, I’m tapped out.”
“I still don’t fully know what a guardian whatever is, but you’re responsible and kind. You’re going to kill it.” Kiki’s eyes widened as her own words seemed to sink in. “Itbeing the role, not the kid. Not that you’d call the kid anit. Pretty sure there’s a whole book about that.”
Lauren smiled. “I knew what you meant.” They were walking together back to the ice skating rink, which was flankedby several sets of bleachers that accommodated everyone when they had these rare staff meetings.
Her gaze scanned the twenty or so faces she’d come to know over the last two years. There were more employees, mostly part-time or seasonal, but they weren’t the core group that came to meetings like this one. Asa had taken his spot on the top bleacher, deep in conversation with Saulo, who worked the front ticket counter. Most people had grouped in their cliques—those who worked the stands on Wonderland Walk, those who did maintenance and back-of-house, the front office people who Lauren assumed she would end up sitting with. Including...
She stiffened, and next to her, Kiki sucked her teeth. “Right,” Kiki said. “I was going to warn you...”
There, in the bottom row of the bleachers, was Daniel Alvarez. Dolores’ son, vice president of Cold World, and the target of all Lauren’s stupid, pointless infatuation feelings since the first day she’d set eyes on him.
He looked like he should play a sexy doctor on TV—all dark hair and smoldering eyes and perfect teeth. Although he didn’t actually work on site at Cold World very often, when he did he always wore impeccable button-up shirts, stretched over his muscles and ironed within an inch of their life.
The vice president thing was little more than a title, Lauren knew. She wasn’t even entirely sure what he did—something with investments? She’d never had the chance to ask him because she’d spoken approximately five words to him, and she could remember exactly what they were.
“Oh, I don’t handle payroll.”
He’d stopped by her office because he had some question on the last check he’d received, and after blinking up at him for several awkward moments—during which Lauren hadthe uncomfortable feeling he knewexactlywhy she was rendered so speechless—she’d come up with that brilliant rejoinder.
It was true, though. They contracted payroll to an outside company, which meant at least Lauren wasn’t put in the uncomfortable position of knowing down to the penny what her coworkers made.
She wished she could say she was subtle in her crush, but Kiki at least had noticed. And once, Dolores had made a joke about wondering when her son was going to settle down, and then given Lauren a look of such pity that she’d literally tossed and turned in bed for nights afterward, prickling with the memory. God, she was pathetic.
“It’s fine,” she said now. “You don’t have towarnme anytime he’s on the premises. I can handle—”
In a completely unrelated,not-affected-by-Daniel move, Lauren tripped slightly on the transition to the carpet around the ice rink, sloshing hot coffee over her hand.
“Ow,” she said, switching the mug to the other hand so she could survey the damage.
“Damn, you okay?” To her credit, Kiki immediately defaulted to concern rather than mocking.
Lauren sucked on the sensitive skin between her thumb and her index finger, trying to soothe the burn. It was probably the exact wrong thing to do, but maybe at least she’d get a trace amount of caffeine in her system from her coffee-drenched skin. She almost couldn’t have blamed Kiki if shehadlaughed—it was hilarious, after all, how tied up in knots Lauren could get. If Asa knew about her crush—which,god, she would die—and he’d seen her make this kind of an ass of herself, he definitely would’ve laughed.
Her gaze lifted to the bleachers. Daniel was slouched slightly, typing furiously into his phone with both thumbs. With any luck, that meant he hadn’t seen her clumsy moment. She glanced then at Asa—it was the blue hair, she couldn’tnotnotice him—but he was rubbing the back of his neck, squinting intently at something in the distance. She turned, trying to figure out what he could be looking at, but the only thing she saw was the posted sign with all the ice rink rules.
“Everyone is here—good!” Dolores exclaimed, clapping her hands together. She was a thin, birdlike woman with long black hair streaked with a single, classy line of silver. She’d come over from Cuba when she was a teenager, and worked her way through various service jobs before a well-connected customer had offered to help her start a business. Cold World had been little more than a café with a higher-than-average air-conditioning bill when she started it at twenty-eight, the same age Lauren was now. Thirty years later, she’d built it into a true destination.
One of the best parts of Lauren’s job—her boss was a total badass.
Kiki encouraged her to climb the bleachers and sit up with them, but after already tripping once, Lauren didn’t trust herself to make the journey. She perched on the very edge of the front bleacher at the opposite end from Daniel, sneaking a glance at him. His mother had already launched into her usual speech—the holiday season is our most important, we need all hands on deck, let’s make this a magical time—but he was still on his phone. She supposed he must have important investment-y stuff to stay on top of.
“There is approved overtime from now until Christmas,” Dolores was saying, “but please remember that if you didn’tplace a specific vacation request already, we are unable to accommodate any last-minute changes. See if you can switch shifts with a coworker! Find someone to cover for you! I’m sorry, my babies, but that’s how it has to be.”
Dolores referring to a room full of adults as “babies” should’ve been infantilizing, but somehow she carried it off. Part of it was how dramatic her appearance always was—sparkly jumpsuits, dresses with cinched waists and full skirts and quirky patterns, bright red lipstick. If Lauren tried to pull off any of it—the endearments, the style—she’d look like an awkward try-hard. But Dolores made it all look fabulous.
There were changes to the closing schedule that only came about becausesomeone(everyone looked at Marcus, a college kid who slumped in his seat under the scrutiny) had been starting to mop when there were still guests present. There was the usual reminder that the Cold World sweatshirts were their biggest seller, and if a guest looked underdressed and uncomfortable, staff could gently remind guests that the gift shop was always open.
“Gently,” Dolores emphasized, pushing her hands down like they were all trying to rise up to shill branded merch and she had to physically restrain them.
“Annual passes,” Daniel said, glancing up from his phone. Apparently that was all the reminder Dolores needed, because she went off on another speech about the need to push the annual passes, bonuses available if a staff member sold more than a threshold number. Lauren tuned out—since she wasn’t customer-facing, none of those incentives applied to her. Dolores did this staff meeting each year before the holiday season, and each year Lauren thought that most of it was stuff that could’ve been put in an email.
