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JosieA Chocolate Cookie Crumble Frappuccino, an Iced Vanilla Latte and the whipped cream from a Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate. Why order it if you’re just gonna scrape it off to the side? Put it into a blender and hey! There’s my lunch on your average Tuesday. Let it go for a couple minutes and dump it into one of the cheap plastic cups. Put more whipped cream on it and shove underneath the cash register whenever you see a customer coming.Oh God.I should be writing camp apps not instructions on how not to waste coffee leftovers.At the very least, I should try and get some homework done. I hate doing homework here, though, because it makes me look completely obnoxious and then everyone feels awkward because they don’t want to interrupt me. People tend to assume I’m grouchy. Not like I blame them or anything. It’s not like most people would trust a fourteen year old running the cash register but according to my employee record, I’m sixteen. I don’t look like I’m sixteen; in fact I look like I’m thirteen. Or at least I would if I didn’t have seven hoops in each ear and one on my nose. If I wasn’t looking for attention, I would get rid of all of them, except the nose ring, I’ve kinda gotten attached to it.My hair is really light brown but I’ve dyed the tips black. I have on tons of eye shadow and eye liner on; I even have on dark lipstick. Personally, I feel ridiculous and so self-conscious. I’m only doing it for attention and it’s certainly working with the customers here. Not so much my targets.But back to the matter at hand, a girl about five years older than me just walked in and she looks mad. I slipped my drink into the shelf under the cash register. She comes in here a lot, normally with her friends who are actually all kind of jerks. She seems to know it, too. Whenever they say something insensitive, she smiles like it was funny and then leans back in her chair with a look that wants to say “What? Nothing bugs me.” But I’ve used it enough times to know that it really means “Gee you guys are a bunch of morons and I should really find some people to talk to who aren’t total meatheads.” My social situations get worse when I actually say those things.I go to a crazy intense high school that is full of idiots. Seriously, 40% of everyone there is failing. I don’t know why the town doesn’t shut it down or something, I guess they need some way of making money. They probably can’t do that anyway, our town can’t even shut down a coffee shop, let alone a school. I live in a highway town, Ashby’s big highway town but still, a highway town. We’re in Massachusetts so it’s got a nice mix of stores that only artsy “I’m supporting small businesses” go to. And then some chains. A Wal-Mart, a CVS, a Subway and guess what?A Starbucks.There’s a college campus 10 miles down the road (the RT-119, but we call it Main Street) and they protested a couple of years ago that they weren’t getting enough caffeine to study so they opened a Starbucks and then last year, I applied for a job. It wasn’t like they were irresponsible enough to hire a teenage girl, they just didn’t know. I sent in my application by email and I got a confirmation back. I sent in a parent’s signature (forged) and then started work a couple of days later. I had to bribe the manager once he saw me but Mr. Schwartz is pretty easy-going. He drops in everyday to have a cup of coffee and everyone around town knows that I’m really fourteen. It’s just the college kids we have to watch out for, they’re not locals and heaven forbid, and they might tell— the mayor. Fat chance that Mayor Greene (my second cousin twice removed) would do anything.That college girl is coming up now to order something. She’s got puffy eyes and lip gloss and she looks like she put a lot of effort into that ponytail.“A grande white hot chocolate, please.” She offered a weak smile and her gaze fell on the display case.“Anything else?” I asked, following her gaze to the cake pops.“No,” She shook her head and laughed a little. She paid the $4.02 and waited off to the side for her drink. When she got it she took it to her table and checked her phone. She stared at it for a second and then put it on the table and pushed it away from her.I don’t understand people like that. They clearly want to be texting someone, if for nothing more than appearances, but they wait for someone to text them. Why don’t you just text them first? I guess social cues aren’t exactly my forte; she seems to know what she’s doing.I discreetly kneel down and grab my chocolate-vanilla-caramel mix. Wow. This one is really, really bad. Needs whipped cream. Whipped cream helps everything, even pizza if you have the right kind. I grab my backpack and drag it over. I pull out a folder and hear a rapping on the counter.“Excuse me?”`I poke my heat up and see the woman with a blazer and a skirt. She has tightly pulled bun and seemed pale and tired.“One black coffee, French roast.”I nod, accept the crisp two dollars in her hand and put it into the cash register. I pick out the change and hold it out with the receipt. She was tapping her foot and looking off to the side so I put it down on the counter and grabbed the pot of coffee. French roast is the most popular drink so I always keep a pot of it brewing.I pour her a cup and hand it to her. She accepts it and nodded. She walks out the door and leaves her receipt on the counter. I crumple it up and dump it into the trash. She comes here every morning, she never says thank you, and she just nods and leaves. Another type of person who I don’t understand. She actually lives on coffee and she goes into her tight little office, sits down in her cubicle and thinks that she’s just being normal. She doesn’t smile. Like, ever. I’ve seen her recognize people and run into the bathroom as I put her cup out for her. She is determined to interact with others as little as possible.Ah, well. The mysteries of other people’s lives.Liz“Dammit!”Come on. Traffic. It’s bad enough that I have to drive ten miles to get a freaking cup of coffee and now it’s gonna take twice as long.Crap. Emotions.I hate it when this happens. I consider hitting the wheel but last time I did that, I got a dirty look from the Ashby policewoman. The singular policewoman in the whole town. The singular policeperson, too. Emotions seem to come whenever I have a test coming up.I give a threatening look to the little horn on the wheel and pull my hood up and over my head. Playing the part of an angry teenager helps give the world the message to shut up and go away or I will release my rage. Or the little dragon I keep in the backseat.Twenty minutes later I pull up in front of Starbucks and turn the engine off. I pull down the mirror and look at myself. Puffy eyes, nothing I can do on short notice. Red cheeks, I poke them and it has no effect. I find some lip gloss and half-heartedly apply it. My hair is in a sloppy ponytail so I take it out and retie it. Twice. Then I take a couple of deep breaths and open the door.I open the door and there’s a little jingle from the bells hung festively above the door. I look up and wonder why I’ve never really noticed them before. I don’t think I’ve ever come here alone.I go up to the counter and look at the girl there. Her name tag says “JOSIE” which is a cute name. She’s not exactly what I would call cute though. She’s got a tough girl vibe, the hoops in her ears and nose help a bit. I offer her a little smile and order.“A grande white hot chocolate, please.” She grabs a cup and writes it down. I look to my side and realize I’m staring at the display case. Not the greatest image considering I look pretty sloppy right now anyway. A sweatshirt seemed appropriate considering the circumstances though.“Anything else?” She sees me eyeing a cake pop and I get the idea she wants me to order one. Weird. I shake my head and tell her no. Man, I must look like such a mess.I plop down into a table by the window and I get a little depressed seeing the empty chair across from me. Mental note: don’t go to a Starbucks alone. I pull out my phone for a little company and tap the screen. I look expectantly at the right hand corner where the little letter is but it’s there with no number. Nada. I harden my gaze at it. Tell me somebody texted me or I will release my dragon. Eventually I drop it and slide it across the table.I’m bored. I really should be studying but that seems almost less appealing than calling Jim up on the phone and asking him to hang out.What total and complete jerk. The sad part is that he doesn’t even see it. He still believes himself to be a loveable teenager. Hello? Wake up! You’re throwing girls’ hearts around! You kinda lose you’re charm and cutesy reputation after a couple of times.Conversations replay themselves and I remind myself that it’ll all blow over and I’ll laugh about it later. I pick up my drink and stir it around, trying to mix in the whipped cream so I won’t get tempted and look like a complete fool trying to eat it with a straw.I take a sip and realize that I’m alone. “JOSIE” has disappeared behind the counter somewhere and there is not a single person here that I could potentially talk to.Yeah, never come to a Starbucks alone.KarenMy hand rests for a second on the curved handle. The menu hand written on the door advertised caffeine filled drinks but I just march in.I always feel guilty coming here when I could get coffee at the office. The truth is though that I know no one there, so having a pre-made cup to sit down with is so much easier. I also have never sat down in a chair here; I just grab the coffee and run. Plain French Roast with a lid and that’s enough to get me through the day in my cubicle. I also don’t have the time to make my own coffee.The store’s surprisingly empty today. Just a miserable-looking girl by herself at a window table. She’s drinking something huge and sugary, no doubt. I feel a twinge of envy and anger that she has the time to sit down and enjoy something and she’s being a grouch about it. People like that bug me. They don’t understand how goo they’ve got it. They just take their college education for granted and don’t consider the possibility of having to drop out so you can support yourself.I head up to the counter and don’t see anyone.“Excuse me?” I look for someone to help me get my coffee and a small head pops up.`“One black coffee, French roast.” I hold out the money that I have waiting in my hand. I have the amount memorized. She takes it and puts it into the register. She puts out my coffee and I take it and don’t bother trying it. I look up and get distracted by a piece of tiling coming off on the ceiling. You notice these things when you’re a salesperson for a major construction. I straighten my skirt and re-button my blazer. I look down and realize that I’m subconsciously tapping my foot on the cheap flooring. I work for Multivista in the northern Massachusetts branch. I’m a salesperson and I try to convince people to pay us to redo their windows. It sucks but it’s a safe job where I do real work. I hate to admit it but I feel safest when I’m alone in my cubicle. I almost cried when I heard that the office was having a mandatory employee dinner because I knew it would force me to actually socialize. I don’t know the names of a single person in my office, not even the people in the cubicles around me. My happiest dreams are when I’ve imagined that I have a soundproof roof on my cubicle. That would be my sad little heaven, where I can work in peaceThe barista sets something down on the counter and I look down after a second and realize that the girl’s gone but my change is there along with a receipt. I pick up the change and dump it into my messy pocketbook. I leave the receipt on the bare counter though.I don’t need another piece of paper to deal with.Mr. SchwartzI’ve never really liked this place.They put me in charge just as I was trying to retire. I had spent 35 years teaching algebra in a high school and when I finally decided to leave, I get a call from my daughter. She’s pretty high up in the Starbucks hierarchy and practically begged me to open this place. I agreed, saying I would only do it until she found someone else.I was retired for three days before I got that call. It was seventy-two hours of complete happiness where I could paint and watch football reruns as I please. I managed to cook five new recipes in that time and sleep for a normal amount of time. Admittedly, I missed my students a bit but it was overwhelmed by the feeling of relaxation. I realized that I had a cat and it’s really a very nice cat.Then my retirement went crashing down when Mandy called and told me to take this job. I couldn’t really say no so I put on an apron and tried to make some coffee. It didn’t work that well, if you take a math teacher and drop him in a coffee shop and tell him to memorize the recipes for two dozen different kinds of coffee, it doesn’t work all that well. I was excellent at handling the budgets but not the grouchy customers or the orders. I posted an ad online and got a couple of responses. The people who wrote back seemed just as inadequate as I had been, except one. Josie Knight seemed responsible and smart but the name was familiar. She said she was sixteen so I asked her so send in a parent consent form.I got it back signed and filled out without any problems. I remembered that I had had a student named Joe Knight four years ago. She came in on her first day of work and the family resemblance was striking. My obvious first thought was to tell her that she was too young and that she shouldn’t be applying for jobs yet. I still don’t know how but she somehow managed to convince me to let her stay but she did and I’ve been secretly letting a fourteen year old run a coffee shop.I’m absolutely insane, I realize that. But Josie’s incredibly responsible and she runs the place like clockwork. I feel slightly guilty not having talked to her parents about it but the opportunity to get back to those three days of retirement was too good to pass up. I go in every day just to say hello and to have a cup of tea. Josie runs the place but I’m there just to supervise and in case my daughter shows up or anyone who could get us in trouble. A health inspector once showed up but she just gave me a call and I snuck in through the back and pretended like I had been there all alone. She managed to pass herself off as a very short sixteen year old and he bought it.The shop isn’t all that busy today. She sits behind the counter trying to get some homework done while serving the customers. She works too hard sometimes, trying to work here, get homework done and get some attention. She never talks about it but she hates all of her piercings. She would rather wear skirts and jeans all the time but she dresses in black so people will notice her. Granted, it isn’t the best social choice but it certainly gets eyes. She wants her parents to listen to her but they’re too busy working to ask her how her day was. She told me they once asked her a question and she didn’t respond but they kept nodding and agreeing.It’s too bad, Josie’s a good kid but sadly, there’s no award for that. There’s also no guarantee that you’ll get parents who talk to you.“Hello, Josie,” I walk in for my daily cup of tea.“Morning, Mr. Schwartz.” She mumbles without looking up. She’s trying to get into an arts camp but her parents refuse to help her with the forms.“Josie?”“Yes, Mr. Schwartz?”“Josie, could I have my tea?” She looks up and drops her pencil and folder.“Sorry, I’ll get that right now. Earl Grey with milk and honey coming up.” She brews the tea and scalds the milk. She pours in honey and stirs it without looking. She pops on a top and pushes it towards me.“Alright, Jo, I’m just going to go drink this with my unicorn friend over there, kay?” I look for a reaction and there’s nothing. I smile, pick up my tea and walk over to a table.She eventually gets frustrated with the form and puts it down. She walks over to my table and sits down. She promptly bursts into tears and then stops before I can react. I reach out a hand to comfort her but she sits up straight and lifts a hand to her ear. She takes out all seven of the hoops and repeats with the other ear. She dumps them into my empty tea cup.“Throw that out for me when you’re done, will you?” She smiles weakly and resumes her post by the register.JosieI reach up and feel my ear. The holes feel funny but it’s nice not having any weight. The nose ring gives me a little comfort so I leave it in. I don’t think my parents will notice either way but since the whole Goth thing did nothing, then I guess it’s time to give it up. Maybe I’ll wear a pair of jeans tomorrow.I look over at Mr. Schwartz and laugh a little when I realize that he’s just sitting there, staring at the paper cup. He gets up and tosses the cup into the trash. I feel happy watching it disappear into the depths of that plastic bag and think about what a nice guy Mr. Schwartz is.He didn’t just kick me out when I tried for this job. I mean, he tried but he actually listened when I told him my argument. My brother’s in college now but I remember him talking about how much fun algebra was sophomore year. Apparently Mr. Schwartz was really cool about grading and deadlines and was always offering extra credit and giving out candy. I’m a good student but I don’t have any teachers like him. It’s too bad he retired right as I came to the high school. Well not really because then I would never have gotten this job. I really like this job. Everyone who lives here and spends time in the town knows to keep that I work here quiet but they’re fine with it because they know I make good coffee. I also bake all of the treats myself; I don’t use any of the packaged stuff they send me.I’m a bit of an eco-geek. I really do care about the planet and I’m always bugging my parents to recycle more or donate to environmental companies but it always goes in one ear and out the other. As a town, Ashby’s okay at recycling but we’re on a highway. People throw trash out their windows all the time and most of us aren’t crazy about picking that up. If I get into camp though, I guess I’ll need to learn about being okay with trash.Boston Summer Theater is offering internship programs and I really want to go. I could be a student teacher in a tap class for five-year-olds and help them get around. I’ve been taking tap for five years now; nothing else gives a person that much joy and releases anger at the same time. Sometimes I just stand in our basement where I put down some wooden boards and tap. I get all of my frustration out and it’s fun. The problem is that Ashby doesn’t have the greatest dance studio and the tap dance class only goes to age twelve. For the past two years, I’ve been getting packages with written out instructions on how to do different steps. It’s definitely not the best way to learn but every so often Sally comes in and she checks to see if I’m doing it right.Sally was a dance for fifteen years. She worked in the Boston Ballet Company and was in the Nutcracker every year. She’s incredible and knows just about every type of dance. Whenever she comes in here she’s always talking about starting a little dance school that’s open to any ages. The Sunny Day Dance School is not the most open, or the best. It’s filled with little brats who really can’t dance but spend all of their time walking around in dance shoes and leotards. The teacher though, Sunny Phillips, is even worse. She thinks that she is really the best dancer in the world and an even better teacher. In total honesty, she’s one of the worst I’ve ever seen and her teaching style is to be completely and totally fake and sweet until someone disagrees with her. Then she goes nuts and refuses to show up to teach the class. It’s kind of funny sometimes.SallyStarbucks is always so warm when it gets cold. My house is freeing because of the studio I’m trying to build. One wall is completely out and they have yet to put the windows back into the other three. Once I have a studio, then I can ask the town about starting a dance studio.Sunny Phillips is an absolutely terrible woman and I’ve seen with kids like Josie, how much dance can help. She used to be angry that her parents were just blind to her but she started tap dancing and now she understands that being angry all the time just wastes energy. She’s good at tapping, too. The only problem is now she’s gotten a bunch of ridiculous hoops in her ear to make people notice her. It makes me want to go and have a word with her parents but she’s made Mr. Schwartz and myself promise not to say anything.“Josie?” I call out as soon as I opened the door. “Oh, hello, Mr. Schwartz,” I wave my hand when I see him sitting at an empty table.“Josie, do you have any pumpkin bread left?”“Yes, Sally, I saved a piece for you.” I head up to the counter and accept the warmed piece of cinnamon-y goodness with just a little bit of whipped cream on the top. I grin at her and take it over to Mr. Schwartz’s table.“Alright, both of you, they’ve taken down a wall in my house and I am freezing. Hopefully, you don’t mind if my time here increases.”“Not at all!” Mr. Schwartz smiles and signals to Josie to come join us. She walks over with a form and a pencil and sits down.“This health form is driving me insane. How am I supposed to know when my last tetanus shot was?” She puts her pencil down and looks up for help.“Sweetie, can’t you get your parents to look through their health forms?”“I mean I could, if they could remember my name to look them up.” She says sarcastically and shakes her head, looking unhappy with the fact that what she had said was fairly accurate. We help her fill out some of it, what we can anyway and she thanks us and then goes back behind the counter.An unfamiliar little girl and her mother come into the shop.“Hi, could we have an apple juice and a chai tea latte?”“Yeah, sure, give me one minute.” Josie accepts the money and gives them their change. She goes to make the drinks and comes back with them. The mother picks both of them up and then sits down at a table. The little girl walks over and picks up her apple juice and then starts walking around.“Lily, come sit down!” Lily comes over quickly and takes a seat.“I was just looking around. This is different than the one at home.”“Yes, well, not every single Starbucks is the same.”“I guess not.” Lily keeps exploring from her chair and smiles shyly at us. I get up and walk over to introduce myself.“Hello and welcome to Ashby! My name is Sally, is there anything I can help you with.” The mother looks startled for a minute.“I’m sorry, hello. I’m just not used to people being so warm. We lived in a city where we didn’t really have a welcoming neighborhood. They weren’t unpleasant or anything, just not friendly. I’m Ann and this is Lily.”“Hello, Lily.” I smile down at her and she hides her face in her hands. “How old are you?”“Four.” She says proudly.“Are you starting kindergarten soon?”“She’s going to the local preschool.” Ann mentions and then adds, “She’s just under the cutoff age so we have to wait another year for kindergarten.”“Well, I just wanted to come over and say hello. Over at that table, that’s Mr. Schwartz and that’s Josie at the counter. Let us know if you need anything.” Ann smiles appreciatively and takes a sip of her chai tea latte.“Thanks, nice to have met you.”I go back to the table and sit down. I try to talk to Mr. Schwartz a bit but he’s engrossed in the football statistics. I eventually give up and finish my pumpkin bread. I take the plate over to the dirty dishes bin.“Goodbye, everyone!” Ann nods her head and Lily waves a little. Mr. Schwartz grunts but doesn’t look up from his newspaper.“Bye, Sally!” Josie calls from the counter. “See you soon.”I wave a little to her and then walk out the door.Back to my icicle of a home.AnnMoving is hard.Not only do you have to sell your house and buy a new one, you need to find a new job, a new school, get all of your belongings into boxes or other people’s houses and then transport the boxes, all within time frames given to you by other people. The realtors want the forms in by tomorrow, the job agency needed a background check yesterday, the school wants an interview, the moving company is booked solid—the list keeps going.I honestly don’t have time for this plus my normal life. I have to maintain the job I have now and get Lily everywhere she has to go. There are a lot of places that a four year old has to go. She needs to get to school, then dance class, then art class and I need to be with her at all times when she’s not at school so I can only be at work for six hours a day. She’s picky about her nap schedule so my work at home time is dominated as well and I can barely balance this without adding more work.Then again, we really have to move. We don’t fit in in Conway. It’s the ultimate suburbia with little white houses and perfectly cut lawns. We’re messy and sloppy and horror of horrors, we eat takeout sometimes. There, everyone is a part of a stereotypical family unit, but we’re not like that. It’s just me and Lily. We get along very well with each other but in Conway the question was always, “What happened to the rest of the unit?”I think that it’s worth all of the boxes as long as it doesn’t go on for too long. We’ve had to move twice already and I really hope that this is the last time. I don’t like corporate jobs, I really want to be a painter but it’s hard when you’re constantly moving. I’m an excellent secretary so I can normally find a job in that but it’s no fun. Fax this, email that, remind me to do something that will actually make a difference. I don’t want to remind people to change the world; I want to change it myself. I just can’t when I’m constantly moving from place to place.Maybe if I stay in Ashby, I can do some real painting. There’s a dance studio for kids here too and I know that Lily would like to be here long enough to be in the recital. Maybe this could work out. The people here are certainly friendly enough. At least in Starbucks, they are. Lily seems to like it here too; she likes the adults, at least. We came up today to scope out the preschools and see if they’re any better than the ones in Conway. Conway preschools are basically middle schools for three-year-olds. Full of social cliques because these kids’ parents force them into groups depending on how well off your family is because that’s who they want their kid to spend time with. It’s ridiculous and exhausting just trying to figure it out, much less trying to fit in.As long as there aren’t any cliques here, we’ll be okay. I like to think that we’re pretty easy-going but apparently not enough to stomach Conway. We moved into an apartment and instead of coming over to welcome us, we had to deal with the looks and the obvious whispers. It just made me mad and I couldn’t go over and yell at them but I didn’t want to just stand there while they made assumptions. It’s infuriating to live in a town where gossip is the main past-time and friendliness is not high on the list of accepted social behaviors.“Mom?” Lily tugs on my hand.“Yes, Lily?”“Where are we gonna stay here?”“I don’t know yet, sweetie, let’s just look around and then we’ll drive home tonight.”“Where’s the preschool?”“Over here.” I steer her towards a brightly painted building and push on the door. We stand in the doorway and look around for signs of human life.“Hi, how can I help you? My name’s Kelly.” A woman came out with a smock on and paint in her hair. She seemed friendly enough.“Hello, I’m Ann and this is Lily. We’re thinking about moving to Ashby but we wanted to check out the preschools and some other things first. Could you maybe show us around?” I ask warily, afraid of her response.“Sure, let me just make sure that everyone’s been picked up.” She disappeared into another room and then popped her head out. “Come on in.”I held Lily’s hand and led her into a colorful room. There was artwork covering the walls and fuzzy carpets. Lily runs over to a bean bag chair and sits down.“Lily,” I call. “Come back over here!”“That’s all right,” Kelly says. “She can hang out over there.” I walked over to where Kelly stood, by the “PAINT STATION”.“So, what do you do during the day here?”“Well, we run your basic preschool and upstairs, my friend Joey runs a kindergarten. We start teaching the kids letters and numbers and then when they get older, and move upstairs then we start putting letters together. Here’s a basic schedule for the week and then every month we take a field trip on the last Friday.”“Wow, thanks, this looks great. Could I just look around a little more?” I walk around a little bit and check out the games and art centers. I thank Kelly and Lily and I leave.“I liked it there,” Lily tells me. “I want to look around more.”“Me too,” I smile and we walk around some more.So far, Ashby seems pretty nice.JosieStarbucks is so much nicer than my house.Sure it’s smaller, it only has one room and its kitchen is smaller than ours but it’s welcoming and cozy. Two words that will never be used to describe the Knight Mansion. Oh, how I wish that the word “mansion” was sarcasm. My parents are such snobs that they actually put a sign out front that says “Knight Mansion” and then you get to the huge driveway. It’s enough to park at least five cars and then a little yard and the house. The big house. Observe how it is literally a large house and my jail. I wish that I could stay in Starbucks all the time but unfortunately I think that my parents would notice at one point.Whenever I come home, I feel silly opening the door and going into my room. No one really wants to live in a highways town so the big houses are less expensive. My parents are pretty successful so they bought this place but never spend any time in it. They’re always in their offices or a dinner parties or the endless meetings.“Jo?” My little sister has radar for whenever I come home. “Jo, are you home?”“Hi, Kimmy,” I start to go upstairs. “How was school today? Did you learn anything new?”“No.” She pushed open the door to her room and let me in.Kimmy’s in fifth grade so she’s old enough to stay by herself for a couple of hours but she has to call me every so often so I can make sure she’s okay. I get out of school at 1:30 because I have a free last block. I usually just go straight to work and come home around five. I work all day Saturday and most of Sunday, too. We’re popular enough for that amount of time to keep up afloat. We’re not making a giant profit but then again, I don’t handle that stuff. Mr. Schwartz actually enjoys the math part of business so he’s happy to take care of it. All I do is sell the coffee and keep the customers happy.“Kim, what did you make for lunch today?”“A sandwich, why does it matter?”“It doesn’t, just wondering so I know what to put on the grocery list.” I pick up a pen from her desk and write bread on my palm. “Any homework you need help with?” I look over at her and she’s lounging on her bed, reading a book.“No, the math is easy and English is boring. What do you expect? I’m in fifth grade; homework is one hour, tops.”“So nice of you to remind me.” I reach over to mess up her hair and then go to my own room. Kimmy and I are pretty close, both in sisterly terms and room wise. We have a closet that connects our rooms and when we were little we would have tea parties hidden in there. She’s really smart but some kids think she’s just stuck up. I always got good grades but nothing to award me teacher’s pet or anything like that. Kim’s just really, really smart, especially for a kid in fifth grade.My feet pad across the hallway and I open the door to my room. My room is the only room in the whole house. I love Kimmy but her room is too pink, my brother’s is too sporty and everything else is just too big. Mine in nice and snug and I decorated it myself last year. On my birthday, I just went into town to run some errands and it turned out that I had some birthday gifts to redeem. Everyone was so nice in helping me pick things out and that was my parent’s gift to me. Mr. Schwartz gave me a little Starbucks banner and Sally gave me a poster along with new tap shoes.I open the door and my cat, Freddie, pushes in. He jumps onto my bed and I flop down beside him. He’s a sweet cat. A little bit fat, but sweet and cuddly. He purrs and I scratch his head. I turn on a light and grab my computer. I open it up and check my email. Just a notification reminding me about a three day weekend. Then I pull up a new email and address it to Sally.Dear Sally, Sorry to bother you but I was thinking about the mother and daughter who were in here today. They seemed really nice, what were their names? If they move here, then will you open a dance studio? That woman shouldn’t have to send her daughter to a place like Sunny Day Dance School. It would be nice to have some new people in town.--JosieI feel sometimes like I should be more involved in my high school. I miss taking dance class but Sunny Phillips has managed to take control of the dance department. I could join some clubs but people-watching at the store is a sport of its own. We get some pretty weird people there, once one guy came in and sat at a table for an hour and then left without ordering anything. I didn’t want to bug him so I just let him sit there. After he left, I cracked up but then I felt a bit depressed because I was laughing all by myself. That’s the thing with Starbucks; it’s friendly to everyone except the people who are there all they. They have to be constantly happy and friendly but there’s no guarantee that the customers will be friendly back. My computer dinged and I looked at my email and saw that Sally had written back to me.Dear Josie, Their names were Ann and Lily and yes, they’re very nice. Ann’s considering moving here but they were going to look around the preschool first. Lily’s also very sweet; she’s kind of shy though. If they do move here, make sure and find out what kind of hot chocolate she likes best.--SallySally never takes too long to respond. She doesn’t like to be kept waiting so she emails back as soon as she gets them. Not me, I’m a bit of a procrastinator and if I can’t think of something to say then the message just sits in the inbox. I guess that says something about me as a person. If I can’t fix something immediately then it just sits there. I get bored and frustrated so I don’t do anything to solve the problem. Maybe I’m reading into this but it seems pretty accurate because I have five unfinished knitting projects going on right not. I’ve started one every year for the past five and I’ve never finished a single one. Every single one was a scarf because I only learned one stitch.LizThis Starbucks always seems so lonely; I don’t know why I keep coming back.I used to come here with friends but that’s not really an option anymore. It’s nice to study here but it’s quiet and warm and there’s no one to talk to.“Sorry,” the barista slides into the chair across from me. I’m startled and I set down my pencil. “I really don’t mean to bug you but are you alright?”“What?”“I am so sorry; I live in a tiny town where we’re all really in each other’s business. It’s sort of an instinct to just ask.”“No, that’s okay.” I pause for a second. “No, you know what, I’m not. I’m Liz, by the way.”“I’m Josie.”“Um, I go to college down the road—highway. I used to come here all the time with my friends and now it makes me a little depressed to be alone.” She makes a sympathetic face.“Yeah, I’m the only one who works here and I know how it feels to be by yourself. What are you studying?” She turns the book to face her and skims a couple of paragraphs. “English, is that what you’re majoring in?”“No, I’m majoring in design. I want to be an interior designer.”“Cool.” She looked up and I noticed that she had a bunch of empty holes in her ear. “Well, if you ever need to talk, I’m always at the counter.”“Thanks.”Josie goes back to the counter and turns on the coffee machine. I smile and go back to work. I wish I lived in a town like this one. Where people just say hi and ask you how you are. I must have seen that girl dozens of times and by that time, I would have felt awkward starting a conversation. I tend to overthink social cues until I get stressed out about them and then I just sit there. I never complain, at least not to other people and by the time that there’s a real problem, no one expects me to speak up. I’m always the one who just sits there and goes along with whatever’s happening. It’s not the best strategy, but… it’s really just not the best strategy.When Jim started being a jerk, I went along with it for the longest time. He would say something that he thought was funny, something that was actually just rude and insensitive, and I would laugh along with it. Later I would think to myself, Gee, I really should have said something about that, and I would tell myself that I would say something the next time he was a jerk. I never would so he would get even more egotistical, thinking that he was so funny and he just got worse and worse. Eventually, I didn’t know what to do so I didn’t do anything. Two weeks ago, Jim broke up with me and then all of my friends started ditching me. They found excuses at first and then they stopped trying. They started just blowing me off or cancelling at the last minute until every one of them had ditched me. My roommate is still great and she’s been super nice whenever I start crying but she’s a brainiac and works all day.Man, I wish I had real friends.Mr. SchwartzI think there’s something wrong with the Starbucks.I’ve always handled the money and the balancing but lately, I haven’t been able to find the money to keep this place open.Really, I should be seeing this as a blessing. I never wanted to have this place so now I should be thinking of it as a way to get back to my retirement. But Josie needs this place. Everyone needs this place. People see it as a refugee, Josie especially. Without this place, people would have to spend their time at the Ashby Café, run by a crazy couple. It’s incredibly overpriced and the people are uptight and hover over their customers.People come here to relax and take a break. I’ve been getting a couple of notices from the Starbucks headquarters saying that we need to increase our sales. I didn’t think that they were that serious so I didn’t pay too much attention to them. If this place goes under because I wasn’t paying attention, I will never forgive myself. I should probably tell Josie about this so she can do some more advertising but she’s already so stressed out. I have no idea how I should even start a conversation about possibly shutting Starbucks down. I hate to even say that. So I call Sally, she solves everyone’s problems.“Sally?”“Yes, Mr. Schwartz? What’s wrong?” I took a breath. This was going to be very hard to say.“This is really difficult but it’s about the Starbucks. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been getting emails saying that our profits haven been so good and I’m worried that they’re going to shut us down.” Sally took a breath and let out a high pitched sigh. “I’m so sorry, I should have said something early but I didn’t want to worry Josie.”“Really, you should have told us earlier but there’s nothing we can do about that now. Have you started thinking of ways to increase profit?”“No, I only just considered that we might be closing a couple of days ago.”“Alright, we cannot keep this from Josie. Meet me at the Starbucks in twenty minutes.”“I’m so sorry, I just—““I’ll see you in twenty minutes, Mr. Schwartz.”KarenMy office is so nice.It’s quiet and secluded and I can come in and go straight to my cubicle where no one will bother me. No one can bug me there.I walk into the building and say hello to the security guard. I have no idea what his name is. I’ve worked here for seven years and I have no idea what his name is. He’s been here even longer than I have but we’ve never been introduced, not even on my first day. We say hello every morning and goodbye every day at 5. It’s funny, that’s essentially my relationship with everyone in my building.I push the button for the elevator and will it to go faster. I feel like everyone’s judging me while I stand here. They’re seeing if I slouch, if I’m smiling, what my clothes are like, if my hair’s a mess. I hate it. Everyone stares. At least that what it feels like to me.The elevator finally comes and I push my way in, praying that no one will try and come in. I push my floor and then try to inconspicuously push the door close button. After about ten seconds of me begging the elevator gods to make this thing move, the doors start to shut. I heave a sigh of relief and then someone shoves their briefcase into the rapidly closing doors.He smiles at me and a make a not so happy face. He goes to push his button and then withdraws. Great. He’s on my floor.“Nice weather, huh?” He wants to start a conversation. He must not have worked in the building for too long.“Yup, great.” I rock onto my toes and tap my hand against my skirt. This elevator ride is definitely longer today, I’m not making this up.There’s a jolt.No. No. Crap. No.There are not so reassuring sound that you hear when the power blows. The elevator seems to shake a little bit and then just stops.Not today. Why today?At least Mr. Nice Weather seems as angry about this as I do. His hand tightens on his briefcase and he sets it down.“Sounds like we might be here for a while.” I nod, panicked and terrified. I’m not scared of being trapped in the elevator, that’s the sad part. I’m scared that I won’t be able to reach my cubicle. I stand by the array of buttons and punch the one with the fire-fighter hat on it. Nothing. Nothing to say that the message got through.“Well, the power’s down, too. We have a broken elevator and no power.” I pull on a strand of hair and wait for a response.“Man, this really sucks. No offense, Karen but I have stuff I really need to get done.”“Yeah, I know what you mean.” I pause for a minute and replay what he just said. I look down at my blouse for a nametag. My bag doesn’t say anything either. “I’m so sorry, do I know you?” His face twists into a funny expression.“No, I guess not. I’m Aaron. I work in the cubicle next to you.”“Oh my God, I am so sorry, I’m not that social, I should really know that—““That’s alright; I don’t really expect you to know. We don’t talk or anything, don’t worry, you don’t have amnesia.” I smile weakly and look down at my flats.“How long have you worked here—Aaron?”“I’ve been here longer than you have. I’m not the new guy. You came what, seven years ago? I’ve been here for nine.” I groan a little and rest my head on the side of the elevator.“You must think that I’m an insanely unsocial person but—“I stop myself. “You would be right. I am an extremely unsocial person.”“Yeah, I kind of got that.” He purses his lips. “That sounded incredibly smirky. I guess my social skills aren’t so sharp either.”We stand in an awkward silence for a while. Eventually he sits down on the floor of the elevator and I soon sit down as well.A weird feeling comes over me. Emotion.“Crap.” I start crying and bury my face in my hand.“Whoa, are you okay?”“Yeah.” I look up blearily at him. He looks genuinely concerned. “No. I’m a bit of a wreck. I’ve been here for seven years and I don’t even know the name of the person who works next to me. What does that say about my life? I have no friends, my last boyfriend was in college and I haven’t gotten a promotion—ever. You would think that putting your life on hold—you would think that I had put my life on hold for a reason but it’s not like I’ve moved up in my career. It’s not like I have a great relationship either, I’m stuck. I’m stuck in my career, I’m stuck in my social life and—I’m stuck in an elevator. I’m stuck.”“Yeah, well join the club.” I look up in surprise. I wasn’t expecting sympathy from him. “I really shouldn’t be playing the guilt card. I don’t have a social life. I know a few people’s names in the office but outside, I really have no one.”“We’re flies.” I conclude glumly.“Excuse me?”“Flies,” I explain. “We’re in a web and it seems like we should be able to break though those tiny little webs but no, we’re caught with no escape. We can’t call for help; all we can do is sit and wait.”“What’s the spider in this metaphor? Death?”“No, this metaphor isn’t that morbid. Granted, you could put in death at the end to end the suffering, but I was more thinking about friendship.”“Yeah, that works too.”“You get a friend and escape the web and get another shot at social success, or flying into people’s food.” Aaron laughs and I realize that it’s a pretty sappy metaphor.“I’m a window salesperson. I don’t write the metaphors on the brochures.”“I wish that was a job. I would be really good at the irony.”“M-hm.” I push myself up and face the button panel. I run my finger over the emergency lever but pause. I should try other things first. I push the fire-fighter hat again and when nothing happens, I push every other button on the board. My happy feeling is gone and now I want out.JosieLiz seems nice. Screwed up, but nice. That ex-boyfriend of hers seems like a jerk, though.She has the opposite problem that I do, she overthinks social situations and I don’t think about them at all. I enter a room and don’t notice the tension or really read people’s expressions. Eventually, I start to take the hints but it takes me a while. Liz, on the other hand, walks into a room and immediately has twenty different things that are going on. She worries which one is actually happening and then wonders how she should act because she doesn’t know which of the twenty is real. I think of maybe one thing that could be going on.The shop has been getting quieter and quieter lately. Maybe I’m just imagining things but it seems like we’ve been getting less business over the past couple of months. I mean, I’m sure it’s fine. Mr. S would tell me if this place was doing badly so I could advertise or something. This place means a lot to me. It’s where I’m most comfortable because there’s no judgment, at least not on my part. I can just make coffee, serve it and do my homework behind the counter.The door jingles open and Mr. Schwartz and Sally walk in.“Hi guys, tea, coffee? I baked a cake.”“Not right now, Jo.” Sally says gently she comes over to the counter and pulls me to a table.“What’s going on? Is everything okay?” I look between them to see which one is going to give me the real truth. Sally throws a glare in Mr. Schwartz’s direction so I guess he pulled the unlucky straw.“Mr. Schwartz, tell me what’s happening here.”“Josie, I’m so sorry, I haven’t been totally honest with you. As you know, I handle the books and we’ve been coming up a bit short with our profits. I’ve gotten a couple of notices from the company and it’s not looking so good. If we can’t bring our profits up in the next three month then this place will have to be shut down.”“Please tell me you’re kidding.” I sit down in a chair and put my head in my hand. I sit like that for a minute waiting for the punch line that I know will never come. I give up with my hand and drop my head onto the table. Scratch everything that I thought I knew about this place. Scratch everything I thought I knew about Mr. Schwartz and Sally and my job here. I clearly don’t mean as much here as I thought I did.“Jo, I only just found out and—“Sally tried to put her hand on my head.“Don’t.”I can’t deal with that right now. I push my chair out and get up clumsily from the table. I untie my apron and drop it on my chair and run to the door. I push open the door and the little tinkling bells seem like they’re just laughing at me. It doesn’t seem like they’re laughing at me, they are laughing at me. The bells are like Mr. Schwartz and Sally, they know what they’re letting in but they don’t think to clue me in if it’s good or bad. The bells can see the incoming customers but I can’t. Mr. Schwartz and Sally can see, hmm, my incoming doom but they don’t think to tell me about it.I never got involved in things at school because of this place. I never thought about making really good friends or having a life because I loved working here so much but now, that’s over. Now, I have nothing.SallyWhen Josie collects herself and comes back in, I hand her back her apron. She looks at me hardly and doesn’t put it back on. She very deliberately puts it back down on the chair and then stands woodenly behind the counter.I take Mr. Schwartz’s arm and march him out.“There was a positive way that you could have told her that.” I glare at him a little.“What? You told me that she needed to know.”“Yes, but not like that.” A whine creeps into my voice and I notice my head tilting to the side in an annoying way. “Listen, all I’m saying is that you could have said; “Hey, Josie, profits are a little low, maybe we could step up the advertising!’ Not, ‘This place is going under and there’s no way to stop it so here is the end of your happy adolescent life.’ See my point?”“Fine. But you were the one who insisted that I tell her.”“Yes, but I just assumed that you would do better than that!”“I really don’t think that this is all my fault.”“Well, you are wrong and I couldn’t disagree with you more.”We stand there in the chilly weather for several minutes. We bicker until it doesn’t seem worth it anymore.“Look,” I say in a fierce whisper. “The important thing here is that we save this place, if not for my sake or the town’s, then for Josie’s. She is the glue to the neighborhood and gets along with literally everyone. Without her positive attitude, we will crumble and fall so we are saving this stupid coffee shop, got it?” Mr. Schwartz looks a little startled but he nods slowly and then speeds up until it’s clear that the Starbucks will be saved.“Good, now let’s go convince Josie of that.” We head back in and find Josie shutting down the machines.“Josie?” I call out to her and she doesn’t turn around to face us. “Josie, we have something we need to say to you.” No response. “Really! Josie, you do need to talk to us, we’re trying to help you.”The lid on the cappuccino machine slams down.“Really? That’s what’s going on here? Because it seems a heck of lot like you’re letting this place go. Do you understand what this means to Ashby? Do you have any idea what this means to me? No! Because if you did, you wouldn’t tell me this. You wouldn’t tell me this is you didn’t have a solid plan to save this place. You wouldn’t tell me this at all because you wouldn’t have let this happen. You would have noticed this earlier and done something about it. You wouldn’t have let this happen.”She looks hardly at us both and we just stand there speechless.“Now is when you say that you have some great plan. But you don’t. You don’t have a plan to save this place so it’s going to go out of business and I’m going to be left without any life of any sort. Everyone’s going to be forced to that stupid, corny café down the street and coffee shops will be hated in this town. People won’t be able to relax anywhere and the whole town will eventually come crashing down. Is that what you want?”She whips back to the cappuccino machine and starts furiously cleaning every inch of it. We stand in shock while she finishes cleaning it and then moves on to washing the mugs that weren’t sold. After a while we realize that she’s splashing all of this water around to hide the fact that she’s crying.“We’ve made the toughest little girl in Ashby cry over a coffee shop.” I look over at Mr. Schwartz. “What have we done?”“What we had to do.” He puts on a brave face. “Now we have to get her through this and then push forward and get through this. We need to keep this place open, for Ashby and for Josie.”I nod and we head over to Josie for another try at convincing her that it won’t be so bad.“Hey, Josie?” Mr. Schwartz tries to get her to turn around.“What do you want?” She mumbles into the sink. No one says anything for a little while. The water just runs into the sink and Josie doesn’t make any move to turn it off. I don’t know what I should do, how I should start a conversation. I walk over to her and turn the water off. I grab her shoulders and turn her to face me.“Listen to me.” Her head is down on her chest and I shake her a little bit. She looks up at me and her eyes are a little bit puffy. “We only told you this so you could help us save this place. We aren’t saying that this place is already gone. We have three full months to get Starbucks back on its feet. Now, are we going to spend that time letting this place lose even more and just shut down or are we going to save it?” She hangs her head again. “Well?”“Save it.” She looks up at me and smiles. “Save it.”“That’s right. We’re going to save it.”AnnLily was not happy on the way home. We had only gone for a day trip, which I had told her, but I think she might have liked Ashby. I eventually got her to go to sleep by saying that we could visit again. Admittedly, I really liked Ashby, too but I can’t tell if I like it as a day trip or as a place to live. I think that we need to go back and check out some apartments and see if it would even be possible to live there.Today is a Friday, I picked Lily up from preschool and we hit the road. She’s sitting in the backseat but refuses to stop talking about Ashby. I’m thinking that this might actually work out. A couple of hours later we reach Ashby and get out of the car. We park right by Starbucks and she hops out and runs inside.“Lily, wait up!” I grab my bag and go inside. Josie, Mr. Schwartz and Sally are all standing there and I feel like I’m interrupting a conversation. “I’m so sorry,” I grab Lily’s hand. “We’ll be out of your way immediately.”“No, no,” Sally picks Lily up and sets her down in a chair. “You’re perfectly welcome here.” I kind of melt at that but I look over at Josie to see if it’s okay. She waves at me and goes behind the counter. She wipes her eyes and then then blows her nose, she must have gotten some pretty bad news.“Could I talk to you for a minute?” I motion to Sally to sit down at a table. She looks concerned and comes right over. “I’m seriously thinking about moving here. Lily really likes it and it’s so much nicer than out old neighborhood. People here are friendly and sweet and they actually care about you and how you feel. I hate it where we live.”“Hate it, really? That’s a little strong.” Sally leans back a little in her seat.“I’m so sorry; I don’t mean to dump my life on you. I really don’t like it there and the people there don’t like me either. They don’t support each other in the community. In schools, it’s just constantly about who’s kid is better and it’s a competition. These parents push their kids, not for the kid’s benefit, but for their own bragging rights.”“Classic story, over expectant parents, but an over expecting community of parents? That I’ve never heard.”“Sorry to interrupt,” Josie walks over and smiles a Lily. “I just wanted to know if there’s anything I can get you.”“Hot chocolate!” Lily calls from her spot hiding under the table.“Hot chocolate, what?” I lean down and ask her.“Hot chocolate…please?” Lily looks over at Josie for some help.“One hot chocolate, coming right up, anything for you?” She looks over at me, she gives me a funny look like she’s trying to guess what I’m about to order.“Sure, do you by any chance have any apple cider? Weird request, I know.”“Dang it!” She looks genuinely disappointed. “I was banking on tea but I suppose cider works as a comfort drink as well.” She looks over at Mr. Schwartz who seems pretty pleased with himself.“You guessed didn’t you?” I ask him suspiciously.“Just a little game we play with new customers.” He takes a sip of his own tea and goes back to his newspaper. I think he’s smiling a little, though.I focus back on Sally who’s shaking her head at the exchange. “It’s ridiculous that they even play. Mr. Schwartz always wins and we all know it.”“Do you have new customers often?” I seem to have struck a nerve. The atmosphere gets a little funny and I wonder what I said wrong.“Well, now that you mention it, lately—“Sally leans in confidentially but with a bit of a forced happiness, Josie comes over with the drinks.“Here you go,” She sets down the cider and squats down with the hot chocolate for Lily. “You know you can’t drink it down there, don’t you?”“Of course,” Lily scrambles out and sets herself down at her own table. “May I please have it now?” She looks over at me, clearly very proud of her manners.“Here you go, miss,” Josie puts it down in front of her and bows as she walks away. She glances over at me and I smile and she pulls up a chair at our table.“Again, sorry to bother you both, but Sally when you have a minute, I have some advertising ideas.” Sally beams at her.“But of course! Maybe Ann could help up with that.” I look up, waiting for a new project. “We haven’t been having as high profits as we’d have liked lately—“She is interrupted by Josie snorting.“To put it lightly,” Josie stares at me directly. “This place is going under and we’ve got three months to save it. Wanna help?” Lily stops focusing on her hot chocolate for just a minute and stands up, splashing a little bit onto the table and her dress.“I wanna help! I wanna help!” She pleads with Josie and looks at her imploringly.“Sure, but first we need to figure out a plan. I was thinking that we definitely need to advertise more and tell people that they need to help out if they want this place to stay open. We could also start a bit of a delivery service or a breakfast and brunch catering program. The amount that we can do depends on how much funding we have left.” She drew a worried breath and shut her eyes. “How much funding do we have left?”“Mr. Schwartz?” I call over and he looks up with not the cheerful disposition that I was hoping for.“Not enough for both, maybe for one if we take out a loan. I think that we’re gonna have to do what we have to do. We need to keep this place open.”“Agreed,” Josie looks happy at that reply. These people have their own little bond and it seems like everyone in the community is just as friendly—maybe not as nice, but just as friendly.“What can I do to help?” I blurt out and then realize that I’m probably way overstepping.“Start helping us plan,” Josie runs behind the counter and grabs a notebook and pen which she hands to me. “Number one, advertising,” she starts to tick things off on her fingers.Or maybe I wasn’t overstepping so much.Karen“Look, at least we have our phones.” Aaron tries halfheartedly to find some light in this situation.“Of course!” I explode. “Do you not realize how helpful that is?” He seems far too complacent for the good fortune that has been bestowed on us. I fervently thank the elevator gods and whip out my old, clunky dinosaur.“Aren’t you forgetting something?” He seems a little frustrated; I realize this as I look up from my frantic phone attack.“No! What would I be forgetting?”“Our lacking social lives. We have no friends, no friends equals no phone numbers, and no phone numbers equals no contact. No one to call.” It hits me. I suddenly remember why I never use my phone; I have no one to call. It’s also depressing to use for photos or notes because it’s a constant reminder of my “lack of a social life”. I groan and tilt my head back.THWACK!“OW!” I grab the back of my head and rub it. It really hurts and I wonder if you can bruise your head. Aaron seems fairly amused by the entertainment. “What?” I grumble and glare at him.“Oh nothing,” He recovers my phone which I guess I dropped when I hit my head. “Now, what is today?”“January 75th, weirdo, I’m not concussed.” I snatch my phone away from him and hit the contacts but, desperately praying that I have at least one number. I almost cry when I see that I have one solitary contact. First I’m overcome with joy and then I realize how very sad my single contact is. “No. No, no, no, no, no. My life cannot be that sad.”“No contacts?” Aaron asks sympathetically.“Oh, no, I’ve got a contact. It’s just what the contact is that’s depressing me.”“You’ve got a contact? Great, that’s—hold on, ‘what’ the contact is? Shouldn’t it be who?”“Yes, it really should be, but sadly, it’s not.” I take a breath and look over at him. “Are you ready for this?” He nods, starting to look a bit scared. “Starbucks. Starbucks is my one, singular contact.” I push the phone in his face so he can see the digitized capital letters for himself.“At least it’s a contact?” He offers as weak comfort to my helpless expression. I sit there for a minute, wallowing in my own sadness. “Well?”“What? “ I snap a little. I’m starting to get angry at Starbucks, what did I ever do to it for it to treat me with such torment? All I ever did was buy the cheapest thing on the menu.“Don’t you want to call it?” My mouth twists and I grab the phone away from him yet again.“Fine.” I sigh dramatically and sourly punch “options” and then “call”. I slap the phone against my ear and listen to the ring. It’s so annoying. I couldn’t have put in my mom’s number or my sister’s or something. No, the one number that I bother to put in is for a coffee shop. Why did I even put that in there? It’s not like I call in my coffee order.After two rings, someone picks up.“Hello, this is Josie at Starbucks, how can I help you?”“Josie—“I stop myself. I have no idea what to say. The silence goes on longer that a normal thought pause.“Hello?” I can imagine her looking as the phone; wonder is she’s been prank called or if I’m just being rude.“Josie, sorry,” I take another deep breath and launch into it. “Josie, my name is Karen. I come to your shop every day to get coffee and I have to apologize that I’m not the most cheerful customer.” I glance at Aaron who nods in approval.“Karen, huh?” She speculates thoughtfully. “You’re the one who orders plain French roast every morning and always leaves your receipt on the counter right?”“Guilty, as charged.”“Sorry, didn’t mean to guilt trip you. I just like people watching.”“As flattering and slightly creepy as that is, I have a small—actually, a pretty big—favor to ask of you. My friend and I work in the same building and when we got into the elevator today, we were heading up to our floor when the power went out. The buttons don’t work so—““You have a phone, why are you calling here? Sorry, don’t to be rude or unhelpful or anything. I just want to know the real story.”“Of, course, yes. Here’s where the story gets a little tricky; my friend and I are a little bit lacking in the friend department. We didn’t have anyone else to call.”“Got it. How do you want me to help?”“Um, I don’t really know. Could you maybe come to our building and tell someone to get us out of here?”“Actually, no.”“You can’t? Really?”“Really, I have a store to run and right now is possibly the worst time you could have called to ask this. Normally, you know, I would spring at the chance to get a random customer out of an elevator but I’m incredibly busy. But—““Oh, thank goodness.” I breathe a sigh of relief and look over at Aaron and give him a thumbs-up. He sits up a little straighter.“But,” Josie continues. “I think I can send someone down there to help you. Where do you work?”“Multivista,” I sigh breathlessly. “Multivista at 117 Greenview Lane. Thank you, thank you so, so much!”“Sure, come for a coffee when you’re done.”“Absolutely,” The line goes dead and I drop the phone on the elevator floor.“We’re getting out of here?” Aaron asks hopefully.“We’re getting out of here!”“Thank God!” I shuffle over and sit down beside him.“You know, it’s nice to have finally met the person that I’ve been working beside for seven years.” I hold out my hand and he shakes it.“You know, maybe we should find some friends.” He sounds reluctant but he’s right.“Yeah, maybe,” I pull out my phone again. “Let me see. Did I ever learn how to make a contact? I guess not since I’ve only ever used the function once, someone else probably did it for me, too.” I fiddle around with it for a while until I figure out how to add a contact.“What’s your number?” I turn to Aaron and he seems a little startled. “Sorry, am I being weird? I have horrible social skills as long with my lack of a social life.”“No, no,” He shakes his head. “Ugh, I’m sorry. Yeah, I’m—I’m sorry.” He gives me his number and as I finish putting it in, the phone buzzes.“How do I answer this thing?” I stare at the little buzzing screen and the generic ringtone pouring out of it.“I don’t know! I’m just as clueless about phones as you are!” I flip the phone open and put it against my ear.“Hello? Is there someone there?”“Hi, my name’s Ann.”“How can I help you, Ann?”“You don’t know me, I was sent by Josie to try and get you out of an elevator. This is ridiculous; do I have the right number?”“Yes, yes, please don’t hang up. Could you go talk to the security guard?”“His name’s Dave,” Aaron interjected. I glared at him and carried on with my conversation.“Right, go talk to Dave and tell him that Karen and Aaron are stuck in the elevator. Thank you so much.”“No problem, I call you when I have some more news.” She hung up and I smiled again.“We’re really getting out of here now.”Mr. SchwartzIt’s just me and Josie in the store right now. Sally and Ann left to go rescue someone or other from an elevator a couple of miles away. I feel so guilty for not mentioning the profits earlier but I think that Josie is getting over it.“Mr. Schwartz,” Josie walks over to me with her folder and a teapot in hand.“What can I do for you, Josie?” She pours me another cup of tea and hands me the folder.“These are advertising ideas. I don’t really know much about this kind of stuff but I think we need to print some flyers and just get the word out there. I might be able to organize some sort of fundraiser but you will have to help me with that. There are recipes in there that I was thinking of introducing to the menu and a list of things that we should get rid of.”“That sounds really good,” The door tinkles at some customers walk in. “Why don’t you just go help them and we’ll talk about this later.”“Hi, how can I help you?” Josie waves to them and takes their orders. They order two pastries and coffees and Josie serves them at a window table. I overhear their conversation a little bit.“Does this place usually wait tables?” One woman asks her friend.“No, I don’t think so. It’s pretty cute though. And the coffee’s really good.”“Yeah, these pastries don’t taste packaged.” They talk for a little while and I start to think. If all customers feel this way then why aren’t we doing incredibly? It’s weird but the important thing to do is to save it and prevent this from ever happening again.The women walk out and leave a tip on the table. Josie laughs and says to me, “It’s just a Starbucks!” She walks behind the counter and serves the next few customers that come in. Then Ann, Lily and Sally come back with a relieved looking woman and an uncomfortable looking man.“I am really so sorry to bother all of you.” The woman collapses into a chair and puts her hand into her head.“Really, it was no problem,” Sally tries to console her and we all say good-bye to Ann who wants to go look for an apartment.“I know this is a lot to ask,” Ann looks doubtfully at everyone. “But I was wondering if you could maybe look after Lily for a couple of hours. I’ll be right down the street if you need anything and I’ll be back as soon as I can. It’s fine if you can’t, I just think that Lily would be kind of bored.” Josie leans over the counter.“We’d be happy to!” She yells. “Right, Mr. Schwartz?”“Come help me with my crossword, Lily,” I say to her and Josie brings a chair over for her. Ann leaves and the man who just came in stands uncomfortably in the doorway.“Josie? Sally? Does someone want to introduce me to these two?”“Actually, I haven’t met them myself,” Josie commented. “Sally? Wanna give us a little help?”“This is Karen and this is Aaron. They have a bit of an interesting story. Care to tell it yourselves?” She indicates that the come over and talk to us.“I suppose it might help us get over the trauma,” Karen comes right over but Aaron hesitates for a second. “Well, first off, let me just comment that both of our social lives are in the gutter and the elevator ride was awkward to begin with.” She launches into the full tale where she and Aaron were stuck in an elevator and what not and when it’s over, she laughs a little and elbows Aaron.“Why so quiet, young man?” I tease a little but it just seems to make him feel even more out of place.“I’m sorry,” He stands up abruptly. “I really should get back to work. Thank you all so much but I can’t stay. Karen, do you want to go back to work?” He seems pained and like he has no idea what answer he wants to hear.“Aaron, are you okay?”“Yeah, I just have a lot of work I need to get done.”“Okay, I’m gonna stay here a little while.” She looks over at us. “If that’s okay. Is it?”“Sure,” Josie nods and waves to Aaron as he rushes out.“I’m so sorry about that.” Karen apologizes. “I only really met him today and like I said, we both live in our own private little worlds, except that he actually knows people’s names.”“So you two work together?” I ask, still looking for details on her story.“Yes, we both work at Multivista. I’m a salesperson and he’s—well; I actually don’t know what he does.” She blushes a little.“Wait, advertising?” Josie asks, I can tell she’s formulating a plan.“Well, really sales but, I used to work in advertising. In college, I learned about both.”“Karen,” I warn her. “If you don’t want to be dragged into an enormous project that involves saving this Starbucks, then I would recommend that you back out—now.”“Hold on, this place is shutting down?”“In three months!” I protest and Josie gives me a look.“Yes,” Josie corrects me. “We are shutting down unless we can increase profits. A task that would become much easier if we had the help of a skilled advertiser. Know of any that might be available, hmm, now?”“Let me think,” Karen jokes. “But seriously, this whole elevator thing was a little bit of a wake-up call. If there’s anything that I can do to help you guys. I mean, you did just get me out of a tiny cell of doom, suspended in a shaft; you also supply my necessary morning caffeine. How can I help?”“Looks like we’re building quite the team here.” Sally remarks and Josie beams.“Let’s get started with some flyers.” I suggest, holding up Josie’s folder of ideas.“Perfect.” Karen pulls a laptop out of her bag and starts working furiously. The Save Starbucks Initiative has officially been put into action.LizThe campus is gross. It’s not pretty and it’s not like it makes up for the ugliness in comfort. It’s just disgusting. It’s not the best school, but I didn’t get into too many. It was either Northern Massachusetts University or—or nothing. I’m not very smart, about a lot of things. I’m not intelligent and I’m also pretty socially stupid so where does that leave me? I mean, I always liked to sew and I redecorated or rearranged my room at least twice a year. I used to have a sewing machine, in my parents’ house that I used all the time. I made a bunch of my own clothes and I sewed toys for little kids and stuff but that was about all I knew how to do. I would make myself curtains or a bedspread and when I replaced it, then I would sell the old one. It wasn’t that bad of a set-up.My parents wouldn’t let me take an art class, especially not something like sewing, but I had to do something that wasn’t math or science related so I decided to try design and architecture. Architecture is okay but design’s actually really fun. I know so much more now, I just don’t know what I’m going to do after this. I actually have no plans. I don’t even have friends to comfort me about having new plans. Or a boyfriend.I go down to Starbucks as often as I can. I need to go somewhere and like I said, the campus really isn’t an option. Also, Josie’s really nice. I know she’s like thirteen or whatever, but she makes a lot of sense when she talks about important things. I get depressed at night when I’m just sitting alone in my room. My roommate’s very sweet but she takes crazy hard classes and has real friends. Real friends. She actually has plans that aren’t to go to Starbucks whenever I’m bored.“Hi, Josie,” I sling my bag down onto a table and go over to the counter. “What’s up?”“I need your help.” She walks around from behind the counter and hands me a cup of tea. “Not to stress you out more, but this place might shut down if we don’t get some help.”“Wow.” My really sad and depressing lack of plans is getting even worse. “I will not freak out because I bet you’ve gotten a lot of that already. How do you want me to—what do you want me to do?” I take a sip of the drink and find out that its tea with honey. Yum.“You take design. You know about that kind of stuff, what looks good and what doesn’t. This place is kind of old. Mr. Schwartz decorated before I came and I was so happy to just get the job that I never wanted to suggest that we should redecorate. By now, I am so far out of the realm of knowing about whatever might look good that if I tried to get some new furniture, I would make this place look worse. Help me?”“Totally! This will solve your problem and maybe mine at the same time. We can save the store and I need a project for third semester and plans for my life. Do you want me to start some sketches or maybe rearrange some stuff?”“Yeah, I think that we need some new curtains and we don’t have money to buy new chairs but we can definitely buy material to make chair covers. Can you sew?”“Yes, definitely. I do need a little bit of money to buy fabric but I need this place as much as you do so I’m happy to sew for free.”“Thanks,” She gets up and goes behind the counter. She takes some money out of the cash register. “This is the budget for redecoration. If you go buy material can you also pick up some posters for me? They’re at the print and copy center down the road. The fabric story is a couple of blocks away; could you do that for me?”“I’m on it.” I stuff the money in my pocket and head out. I walk down the street and until I reach the fabric store, it’s called “The Fabric Store”. This town drives me insane sometimes. I go in and realize that it’s bigger than it looks. That and there’s a lot of fabric packed into the space. I start going through the bolts of cloth, looking for soft and colorful things. Starbucks is a very “fall” coffee shop so I’m looking for reds and oranges, things that will liven the place up. I finally find an upholstery weight fabric that’s striped with mostly red and some oranges and yellows. I buy some of that and a couple of yards of plain hunter green cotton for the curtains. They cost way more that Josie thought that they would so I have lot of change.I walk back towards the store and stop at the copy and print store. I think that the name should be pretty obvious by now, but if not; it’s “The Copy and Print Center”. The posters are waiting there and I pay for them and go back to Starbucks.“Josie,” I call when I walk in with my bags. “I’m back and I have good news.” The customers in the store give me some weird expressions. “Sorry,” I make an apologetic expression. “Sorry, sorry.” I inch over to Josie and show her the fabrics.“These, are great, Liz. We need to get these up as soon as we can. Do you have time later today? I don’t mean to be pushy but I have a sewing machine at home and we really should get started on revamping this place. It needs it.”“No, I’m not doing anything today. I can start measuring and cutting now. Can I have a pair of scissors?” She hands them to me and I set myself up at a table. I find myself smiling as I get everything cut out and folded. When Josie closes the shop, I put everything into a bag and carry it while I walk to Josie’s house.“Your house is huge.” I say to her as I stare up in awe at it.“Yeah, sorry,” She looks down at the ground and hurries to go inside.“Yeah,” I mumble as I slowly follow her. “Hold on, sorry? Why sorry?” I walk inside and find that like “The Fabric Store”, it’s bigger than it looks from the outside. There’s a chandelier in the front hall. A chandelier. Like a Phantom of the Opera, mega, boom, in your face chandelier. “Josie, why are you sorry?”“I don’t know.” She seems uncomfortable and I have to admit that she seems so little and out of place in the huge house. “I don’t really like this house. It’s too big; it’s like bragging to the whole neighborhood. It’s like we’re saying ‘Hey, let’s be obnoxious rich people!’ to the entire neighborhood.”“Yeah, I can see your point.” I mumble as I stand underneath the chandelier and stare up at the lights. “But—wow…” She clears her throat and I pull my eyes away from the chandelier and follow her into the finished basement.“Here’s the sewing machine. Mind if I put some music on while you sew?”“No, no, of course!” I set down the bag of fabric and take out the fabric for the curtains. I get to sewing and find out that Josie has really good taste in music. I grew up on musical theater but I also listened to indie and like, two pop songs. She seems to have the same taste in music which is awesome, because she also has an amazing voice. We jam out to some show-tunes until I’ve finished everything. I’m a little disappointed when I’m done and then I have to go back to the dorm.“Do you want to go set this stuff up now?” Josie asks after I’m finished.“Yeah, sure! Let’s surprise Sally and Mr. Schwartz when they come in tomorrow.” We walk to Starbucks in the fading light and set everything up. It’s really fun to put the stuff together and we take down the curtain rods and put on the new curtains. We tie on the chair covers and it looks great when we’re done.“It’s good,” Josie says, as she looks around approvingly. “It’s really, really good.”“Yeah, very festive.”“You know, you could really do this. As like, a job.”“You think? I’ve thought about that before but it’s not something that I really thought would happen. It was just, you know, something that I’d thought about.”“Well, I think that you could really do this.” I smile and straighten out the curtain. Maybe I could do this. I give Josie a ride home and on my way back to campus, life seems less bad.“Hi, Amy.” I walk into my room and say hi to my roommate. She holds up her pointer finger, saying that she needs a minute, and finishes reading a paragraph in her textbook.“Hey, Liz,” She starts tentatively. “How’re you doing?”“Pretty good,” I tell her after a brief pause. “I had a pretty good day, I got to sew some more and you know I told you about how when I was—“I stop because she’s waving her hand. Amy doesn’t like to interrupt people so she just waves her hands until whoever she’s talking to shuts up.“Okay, Liz,” She looks down at the rug. “I really don’t want to kill your buzz and I got that now is not the best time to tell you but I’d hate myself and you’d hate me if I didn’t tell you right now.” My happy-o-meter reading plummets.“No, please don’t—“I stop myself because I know that’s she’s really just trying to help me. “No, you’re right. Tell me now.”“It’s Jim.” She looks up at me to see how I’m holding up so far.“Yeah, I figured.” I try and jock a little but the fake laugh gets caught in my throat and I realize that I can’t be spared from what she’s going to tell me.“Okay, I want to say that she’s a complete bitch and I hate her, too, and I—““Really, Amy. Just say it.”“Lauren.” She says very softly and walks over to me. She sits down next to me and tightly wraps an arm around me.“That—““I know.” She cuts me off so I know that it must be really, really bad.“Lauren was—well, Jim was—I’m so sorry. Jim was cheating on you with Lauren.”“For how long?” I whisper into her shoulder where I immediately buried my face. She stiffens and I tilt my head up to her. “For how long, Amy?”“Sweetie, he was cheating on you the whole time. That’s why he always wanted to leave parties early. When he told you that he had to study then he would drop you off here, then go back to the party to be with Lauren. Honey, I had no idea, you know I don’t go to those things, or I would have told you the second I found out.”“I know,” I reassure her. I put my head back down on her shoulder and she gives me a hug.“Aww, Lizzy,” She squeezes me and I melt into her.“I know,” I mumble before I start crying. It gets harder to hold it back every time.JosieThis place looks really good. I think that Liz did a really nice job; she could definitely make a career out of this. Plus, she seemed to really enjoy it. She actually having fun and that was the happiest that I have ever seen her. She was just sewing and she wasn’t thinking about Jim or those jerks that dumped her. She was having fun and I think that design would be such a good career for her.“What happened here?” Sally walks in the middle of her morning run. “Did you redecorate already?”“Yeah, Liz, that college student who’s here a lot,” I explain. “She’s taking interior design and she can sew so I asked her to rearrange and restyle a bit.”“Well, I love it!” Sally walks over to the windows and feels the curtains. She sits down in a recovered chair and runs her hand over the new fabric. “The colors are so warm and the fabric is so nice and soft.”“Well, thank Liz next time she comes in. She picked it all out and sewed everything. All I did was tell her where the fabric store was.” I start boiling some water for tea and get a pot of coffee brewing. “Sally, while you’re running, could you put up some posters for me? Liz picked them up yesterday and they came out pretty nice, I think. They say that this place is closing and that we’ll be holding a fundraiser in two weeks. Until then, people need to keep coming to this place and supporting us.”“Wow, these look great! You on Liz seem to be on a bit of a roll. I just hope this all works.” Her hand rests lightly on the tabletop and on her way out she pauses to look around. “See you later, Josie!”“Bye, Sally!” She jogs off with ten posters in hand, all of them pre-taped so she can put them up quickly. I hope the posters help get the word around and that the new decorations draw people in. The door jangles and Karen comes in.“Hello, Josie.” Karen comes in slowly and takes her time getting to the counter. I notice that she’s wearing makeup and she put a little more effort into her hair and outfit.“Hi, Karen; you seem nice and relaxed.”“Yeah, I’m working on it. Trying to enjoy myself in case I get stuck in another elevator, or maybe I’ll get caught in the mall with my hand glued to the escalator.”“So, do you want your normal coffee?”“Goodness, no. Ummm, sugar, sugar, what has sugar? I guess I’ll go with a Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino Blended Crème.”“Sounds pretty good; anything else?”“Since you asked, I’ll have a brownie. Make that two, I’ll bring one to Aaron.”“Coming up.” I smile to myself and notice that she doesn’t wait right by the counter for her order to come so she can run out of the door to work. She goes over to a window table and sits down in a chair.“Hey, this place looks nice! What did you do here?” She feels the curtains and examines the fabrics.“Just a little fabric and a friend who knows how to sew. Turns out that it wasn’t as hard as I thought it was—I just couldn’t do it alone. Oh and I printed out those flyers that you made us and Sally’s hanging some around town. Thanks for that, they came out really well and look nice. I think we might really be able to save this place.”“I think so, too.” Karen smiles and I pop her drink and the brownies into a travel tray. I bring it to her table and set it down. “I think—I think that I’ll drink this here for once.” She takes the drink out and takes a long slow sip. “I had forgotten what liquids other that coffee tasted like. They’re really good! Especially with sugar.” She pulls out a book and reads while she drinks and chews on her brownie, that batch was especially chewy. She stays for about a half hour and then realizes that she probably should get to work. She picks up her extra brownie and puts it in her bag. She waves and then gets on the T to go to Multivista. She also seems a lot happier today.Saturday’s always a bit of a slow day. At least in the morning because no one is going to work and everyone is sleeping late. Normally we don’t get many customers until noon but today is getting busier. I think that people are seeing the new flyers and coming in. If this keeps up at a steady pace then maybe we won’t have to shut down. I think that we can save it and I can’t imagine not having a Starbucks to go to. I can’t even think about shutting it down but I don’t want to promise myself that we won’t have to. If I do that and then we can’t keep it open then I’ll really be crushed.I don’t know what to do for a fundraiser. I know that we need to have one and I have one scheduled in two weeks. I just don’t have a place or an idea of what to do that will get people to help out. What can I do that will get people to donate? Mr. Schwartz told me that we should hold a bake sale but I don’t think that that’s enough. We need something that will involve everyone. Something that will get people excited about saving Starbucks and help them do so at the same time.We need to hold an outdoor movie marathon—something that will go on all day, with a movie matinee and then evening showings. We could even do a midnight horror special. We could sell tickets and food and raise a lot of money. I just need to organize the whole thing right now.AnnLily and I are moving to Ashby. I decided on our last visit. The apartments that I looked at were affordable and I looked around for a job. The high school is looking for a new art teacher and I’m going to apply when we get settled. I already know that Lily loves it there so now all we have to do is move. And tell Lily that we’re moving.“Lily?” I go into her room where she’s sitting on her bed. “Lily, I know you like it Ashby so I was wondering, what would you thing about moving there?”“When?” She looks up at me. “Can we go soon?” I sigh and give Lily a hug.“Thank goodness! Yes, we can go soon. As soon as I find an apartment. Okay?”“Okay!”That was much easier than I expected. I guess Lily doesn’t like it here either. Our apartment is messy and was ugly to begin with. Our street is gross and the streetlamps are always flickering which isn’t the most comforting sight. Our neighbors are jerks and no one likes each other. They’re so wrapped up in their own lives that they don’t bother to ask you about yours. I worry that this place is making me bitter sometimes. I feel so selfish sometimes, like I’m not paying attention to the people around me. I wonder sometimes if I’m imagining these people ignoring me or if I’m making it all up and actually ignoring them—if I’m just cold and unfeeling. I pay attention to myself and I try so hard to pay attention to Lily but I don’t think about anything else.I told my landlord that Lily and I would be moving out and I got some cardboard boxes. I’ve started packing our stuff up so the apartment is in an even greater state of distress. We’re living out of boxes and the apartment which is even worse than just one. The apartment is so bad that I might even prefer boxes but both combined is torture. I have no idea where anything is and when I eventually find what I’m looking for, then I just put it back in another place that’s just as random.By the time that I have everything in boxes, I’ve spoken to a landlord. Let it be noted that the landlord in Ashby is much nicer than the one here. I’ve rented an apartment in Ashby for six months. I rent a U-Haul and load our stuff into it. We finally get on the road and it feels so good to be headed somewhere I hope will be good for me and for Lily. Her dad left us a few years ago. For the last couple of months with him, I couldn’t say what I saw or had ever seen in him. We didn’t have much in common but I never expected him to just leave. He didn’t draw it out and make it painful but he didn’t even say goodbye to Lily. That’s what makes me hate him most. He didn’t give a thought to his adorable baby daughter sleeping in the other room. He sat down on the sofa and when I came over to watch TV, he switched it off and told me that he was leaving. He didn’t wait for a conversation; he just told me and then went. I had no time to try and do anything about it. But even if I had had time, I wouldn’t have tried to stop him, I would have just told him to say goodbye to Lily. I couldn’t have done that. I could never say goodbye to Lily.SallyToday, Ann and Lily are moving into their new apartment. It’s Sunday which means that the Starbucks isn’t opening until noon so Josie can come help them unpack. Mr. Schwartz and I are meeting her at the store and then we’re all going over to the apartment.When we get there, Josie marches up to the door and opens it wide.“Ann? Lily?” She calls out and heads up the stairs to their floor. “Hi guys,” We hear her say when she finds them. She runs back down and tells us to come up to the third floor. We walk slowly up and when we get there, we see the three of them and dozens of cardboard boxes.“Hello Sally, Hi Mr. Schwartz,” Ann is wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. She looks tired, probably from driving all night. “We got in at about ten o’clock last night and I woke up early so we can stop living out of cardboard soon. Can you help for a little while?”“We can help all day, if you need us to.” Mr. Schwartz volunteers and Ann hands him a box labeled “Kitchen” and directs him down the little hallway. I get “Lily’s Room” and start organizing her books and stuffed animals. I’m there for a while, fretting over whether or not it actually looks good. Eventually I go back to the hall and grab another box. I join Mr. Schwartz in the kitchen and we try to figure out a system of organization that makes sense. After around an hour, we’re satisfied with the cabinets and drawers and tell Ann that we’re going out to buy a few things.“I think that we should get her a drying rack for her dishes and then go buy some groceries.” I tell Mr. Schwartz and he nods in agreement. We go to a tiny little version of “the Container Store” four blocks away and find a cooling rack. While we’re there, we find a lunchbox and some Tupperware for Lily to take to school with her. Then we head over to the grocery store and buy them some basics. We find spices, conveniently placed in a spice rack, flour, sugar, canned goods and cereals. Then we realize that they might want to eat something that isn’t straight out of the box so we get some fruit, eggs, and get a piece of fish to make for them tonight. We buy as much as we can carry and then walk back.“You know,” I start talking but I realize that my breath supply is a little short seeing as I’m carrying eight bags of groceries. “You know—I think that—I think that Ann and Lily will really—will really fit in here.” I start coughing and when I realize that I can’t stop myself, I stagger to a bench and drop the bags and bend over. I panic and grab my stomach, wondering if I should fall on the bench or something. But I haven’t eaten anything, I’m just coughing and I can’t stop. I just can’t stop and I’m having trouble breathing.“Sally?” Mr. Schwartz rushes over and sets his bags down. “Sally?” He sits down next to me and hits my back. I cough some more but after a couple more thwacks, I eventually calm down. Mr. Schwartz helps me get up and takes over a couple of my bag duties. We walk back to the apartment in silence and make our way into the kitchen without saying anything.“Thank you,” I say quietly into the cooling rack. “For well, you know—for stopping my cough.”“No, no,” He reassures me warmly. “Just basic friend protocol, see your friend drowning, pull them out of the water, see your friend coughing, slap their back a couple of times.”“Well, thanks anyway.” I focus back on the cooling rack and figuring out how to assemble it. The pictures are horrible and the instructions are tiny and when I finally managed to read them, they were poorly worded and unhelpful. I put it together in my own way and hope that it’s still functional. I set it down next to the sink and then start unloading groceries with Mr. Schwartz.“I know I’m old,” I say to him as I alphabetize the cereals. “I’ve long since stopped denying it but it’s still kind of funny to me. I miss dancing. I miss being able to move, I’m too stiff now.”“I understand,” Mr. Schwartz says softly. “It’s unfair that what we love most is taken away from us before we’re ready.”“I just want to be able to go into a split again. To be able to do a pirouette without then regretting it for weeks. I need to do something with dance in it before I can’t move at all. I know that this isn’t the best timing, what with the Starbucks closing and Ann just moving in but I think Lily’s the one who inspired me. She’s so bright and happy and so active, I would hate for her to have to go to a place like the Sunny Dance School. That woman is horrible and I—I want to open a dance school.”“I know,” Mr. Schwartz confirms gently. “Josie does, too. I think that even Ann can tell how bored you are.”“It’s just that—I love the shop and you and Josie, too, but I can’t just sit there all day, drinking tea for the rest of my life.”“That sounds pretty good to me, but you’ve always been more—adventurous than I have. I’m happy to sit down and plug in numbers but you want to get up and actually make a difference.”“I need to do something. I can’t let this little dream of mine get in the way of saving the Starbucks. Starbucks is far more important but I think that I could do both at the same time.”“Do you have a place in mine for the potential school?”“You know how my house is getting some construction done? We’ll I’m going to have a new room that’s nice and big. On a whim, I decided to have mirrors put in along one wall and it’s a perfect studio. It just has no students.”“But you are right in saying that you can do both. We just need to figure out the timing.” Josie comes in holding hands with Lily.“Lily was wondering if she could have a snack,” Josie asks us.“Please?” Lily smiles at her accomplishment and Josie looks proud.“What would you like, Lily? Cereal? Fruit?” Mr. Schwartz tells her options.“Can I have an apple?” Lily says after a moment’s deliberation. Josie sets her up at the table which Ann set up before we came. She grabs an apple and cuts it up, puts it on a plate and sets it down in front of Lily.“Lily, do you like your new room?” I ask hopefully.“Yes,” She tells me with her mouth full of apple. She chews, swallows and picks up another. She crams it into her mouth and starts talking again, obviously I can’t understand her so I wait for her to stop chewing and she repeats herself. “I like where my bed and the drawers are. They’re different from my old room and I like it this way.”“Well, I’m glad.” She nods and stuffs the last couple of pieces of apple into her mouth. Ann walks in, looking tired and sweaty.“How’s everybody doing?” Ann wipes her forehead and sits down next to Lily. “Oh, you got a cooling rack! Thanks so much. And you went grocery shopping?”“Yes, and before we go we thought that we’d just make some fish for you guys.” Mr. Schwartz shows her the canned goods and cereal and all and she looks very pleased.“Thank you all so much, you have no idea how helpful this has been to me.”“Well we’re happy to do it,” I tell her and then get the fish out of the fridge. I find some onions that Mr. Schwartz must have grabbed and I take out a frying pan and start cooking. Pretty soon, the whole apartment smells good and when Mr. Schwartz, Josie, and I leave, Ann and Lily are left with a good dinner and only two more boxes to unpack.We all walk out together and then Josie takes off to go open up the Starbucks. Mr. Schwartz and I walk a bit together.“You know,” Mr. Schwartz starts. “I think that you should open a dance school. I think that it could really work. As a part of the fundraiser, you could hold some free classes to get people to donate and spread the word about a new studio.”“I know,” I say. “I was thinking about that, too, and I think that it would help Josie and me both.”“Well, then, we should see when the construction on your house will be over and we should make more flyers. Ones that tell about the classes and whatever new ideas Josie has had.”“I’ll send Josie and email tonight and see what she thinks.”“Alright, then,” We reach the park and I turn left to go home. The town park is nice and big with lots of open space. There’s a community garden and a few flower patches along with a huge open space that kids use to place ultimate Frisbee or have birthday parties. It’s quite lovely and sometimes, when I get bored, I just walk around there or I weed in the garden or just bring a book. It’s nice once in a while but I have been there every day for the past two weeks. I’ve read eight books, all of them over three hundred pages, and de-weeded every inch of the garden. It’s incredibly boring and yet I go back every day. I need something else to keep myself occupied. I’ve people watched far too much and I need at the very least a new hobby. A new dance school would be just the thing for me and the aspiring dancers of Ashby. We need a new dance school. I need a new dance school.JosieSally and Mr. Schwartz are planning something. I know it. When I walked in with Lily to get a snack, they were obviously having a conversation that they didn’t want me to hear about. I don’t mean to sound selfish but I can’t deal with another project happening right now. I’m just too wound up about profits that I can’t handle something else. I need to focus. I’ve been so tired lately. I’ve been staying up late trying to keep up my grades and do some advertising at the same time. I almost fell asleep during math class yesterday and I haven’t been getting too much done in the ads department lately. I just don’t know what else to do. I would love to have a movie marathon but it sounds like too much. I don’t even want to suggest it to Mr. Schwartz and Sally because then they’ll feel obligated to get it done. I just don’t know what I can do to organize something like that; getting a projector and a big screen and convincing the town to let me use the park. Sally spends a lot of time there so she could probably get them to let us do it but I don’t want to put her in that position.Today’s Thursday and I’ve been having less free time to do my homework. The Starbucks is busier which is amazing for business but not great for my education. I close up at five o’clock and then I have at least three hours of homework. It’s normally more than that and then I also spend around two more hours on flyers and thinking of ideas. If it keeps up like this then I may end up just suggesting the movie idea and going with that. Then I wouldn’t spend so much time advertising and I could spend work time on planning that.When five o’ clock comes around, I shake out the curtains and brush off the chairs and lock up. I walk myself home and practically run inside so I don’t have to look at the house too much. I say hi to Kim, pick up my cat and go into my room. I shut the door; dump the cat on my bed and the flop down beside him. I roll over onto my stomach and push my nose into the pillow. I lie there for a couple of minutes while half-heartedly petting my cat. Eventually he decides to get up so he jumps off the bed and runs to the door. He scratches until I force myself up and let him out. He runs out and I leave the door open a crack because I know that if I shut it, he’ll just start scratching again, trying to get in.I sit down on my bed and drag my laptop over. I flip it open and log into my email. There’s an email from Sally waiting which I open up. She probably just had another advertising idea.Dear Josie,I know that this isn’t the best time to give you another idea, but I wanted to run something by you. Don’t worry; it will help with keeping Starbucks open. I wanted to open a dance studio. I hate that Sunny Days Dance Studio, and if would be so nice for kids to have a friendly place to learn how to dance. I remember how much you loved it when you were little and I think that people should have better place to dance than with Ms. I’m-a-horrible-teacher. I think that we can tie it into fundraising if I offer a few free classes. That way we can raise money and I can get the word out about the new studio. I completely understand if you want me to wait to open it. Just let me know!--SallyA new dance studio? Now? I think that it’s a great idea but—now? I suppose that it could help fundraising—why not? It would make Sally really happy. She’s always talking about how bored she is and this would be something great for her to do. But while we’re throwing new ideas into this fundraiser, why not suggest the movie theater? It’s the best idea I’ve had so far and I’ve got nothing to lose.Dear Sally,I actually think that that’s a great idea. You need a new project and this would help a lot of people find something to do. Just promise me that you won’t stop classes at age nine. As long as we can tie it into fundraising then I say go for it now. I don’t mean to sound selfish but I think that we need to prioritize Starbucks because we’re on a deadline and a budget for that. While we’re bringing in new ideas, I was thinking about holding a movie marathon. We can sell tickets and hold it in the town park. We can rent a projector and a screen and just find some popular movies to show. We should also show movies in the afternoon for little kids and then evening and midnight showings. We could also sell concessions and coffee to keep the midnight audience members awake. What do you think?--JosieShe doesn’t respond immediately so she must be out. I work on my homework and realize that I don’t have that much tonight. I go through my backpack just to make sure that I didn’t forget to do anything and I come across a folder that I’d forgotten about.My camp applications. I never did get those health forms filled out. I have a resume and a completed course schedule but no health forms. Maybe if I email them to my parents, they can just fill them out and then print them. I’m feeling adventurous and it’s worth a shot so I send them each a copy and hope for the best. Maybe today I can get two really important things done: saving Starbucks and applying to camp. I do some research for using the park for public events. It turns out that I don’t need to rent it; I just need to get some permits signed by the city. I print out a copy of them and start filling them out, just in case Sally says that it is a good idea. Under description, I say that it’s a Movie Marathon with an admission fee of five dollars per person except for kids under five, who can get in for free. It sounds pretty reasonable to me and I decide what movies to show. I pick out a cartoon for the afternoon, then a romantic comedy right after that, then an action movie and at midnight, a horror movie. People could stay for the whole thing or just come for what they want to see.I look down at my laptop and see an email from my father’s secretary. It tells me that “Mr. Knight” is not available right now but he will get back to me as soon as her can. Yeah, right. I live with the man! Can I not slip in one little form among the thousands that he fills out every day? I’m his daughter for God’s sake. I slam the laptop closed, feeling frustrated and angry about my situation. I open my backpack again and pull out my math homework—just a worksheet, thank goodness. I finish it fairly quickly and hopefully, with some accuracy. Graphing is not my strongest suit but I’m okay at slope and intercept and what not. I shove the paper back into my backpack and pull out my agenda. I tick off the math box and feel a sense of accomplishment. I pull out the science and realize that I won’t be able to check off that box for at least an hour and a half. I shuffle around on my bed until my back is against the wall. I grab a calculator and start finding percentages and ratios about water. How will this help me?Liz“Liz—“I read aloud to Amy. “While your emotions were clear, your structure was lacking and you were missing support for your arguments, please come see me soon. –Professor Johnson.” I look helplessly over at her and she gives me a weak “it’s okay” smile. “They’re all like that, all of my comments, except in design. I managed to scrape by in that with an actually positive response. How’d you do?”“I don’t think that that really—“She shoves her own grades under a textbook and puts another one on top.“C’mon! I don’t want to ruin your glory,” I tease and yank them out from underneath the books. “Wow.” I breathe and look up in admiration. “Amy, these are amazing! Seriously, I am so proud of you!” I give her a huge hug and she relaxes and giggles a little. “You worked so hard and you deserve these! You really do!”“Thanks,” She says, turning a little red and re-reading her own comments. I know that she’s happy but is trying to hold it in for my sake. She’s too modest; she doesn’t want to hurt my feelings.“We’re celebrating,” I declare. “What do you want to do? A movie? There’s a new one with Anne Hathaway in it!”“Yeah,” She says softly and then louder. “Yeah, let’s go! I’ve never actually been to the theater in Ashby.”“Great! Get your coat on!” I pull her out of her chair and find shoes. I quickly check myself in the mirror and tie my hair into yet another ponytail. I put on a little lip gloss and realize that I don’t look too bad. It’s incredible what a difference a couple of seconds work can do.We walk outside into the cold and head to my car. It was a gift from my parents. They were so happy that I even got into a school that they bought me a really cute old one. I love it even though it’s one of the worst cars in the world. It guzzles gas and constantly breaks down but hey, at least it’s a car. We get in a buckle up. The car doesn’t have heating so we just pull our coats tighter and Amy turns on the radio. She plays with it until she finds something upbeat and peppy and we sing along a little bit and laugh at ourselves until we reach Ashby, It’s about a twenty minute drive and then we’re there and standing in the little line in front of the theater. I buy our tickets and inside Amy gets some popcorn. We save our ticket stubs—we have a bulletin board in our room for things like that—and walk into the theater. It’s not too dark yet so we can easily find some seats. We share the popcorn and laugh at how stupid the ads are until the lights finally dim. Some late-comers walk in and I’m bored by the ads so I squint to make out their faces.As it turns out—I don’t have to. I know who they are just by the sound of their voices. Jim. With Lauren. Together. At a movie. On a date. Like a real, honest to God, date.They walk up the aisle to try and find seats and they clearly aren’t as observant as Amy and I—she’s stiffened a little bit, too—because they sit directly in front of us.“I don’t know if I can take this,” I whisper to Amy.“I know, but it’ll be okay. Just watch the movie and don’t pay attention to them.” She pats my hand and offers me some popcorn. I take a huge handful and pop it into my mouth piece by piece.“Don’t pay attention to them,” I mumble quietly and to myself. Yeah, right. My ex friend and boyfriend are sitting directly in front of me. Cuddling. And you tell me “don’t pay attention”? I’d like to see you try. The movie starts and I force myself to look up at the sappy romantic comedy. I find myself absorbed with it for about five minutes and then I look down to find the popcorn and I notice Jim and Lauren again. I’m normally such a movie junkie that I might even find Anne Hathaway more interesting than my own life, but I can’t. I just can’t. I look down at them and find them holding hands. In that stupid little popcorn bucket. It’s so stupid that I can’t deal with it. It’s so incredibly cheesy but I wanted that to happen to me so bad. Just once. Just once, when I had to drag Jim to one of these things, he could have held my hand.Amy pokes me and jolts me out of my creepy stupor. I shake my head to emphasize that I’ll stop and watch the movie. I look up at the screen and see Anne Hathaway discussing her problems with the boy-crazy best friend. It takes me a minute and I figure out the rest of the plot and get bored. I won’t look, I won’t look, I won’t look.I looked.It’s disgusting but I can’t look away and I feel so horrible about myself. I curl up in my seat and put my head down, just listening to the dialogue and imagining what Anne Hathaway’s wearing. When the movie’s over I uncurl myself and stand up. I look at them and see them holding hands. Jim looks around and notices us.“Oh, hey, Amy!” He smiles and waves at her. Her mouth opens a little bit and he walks away. I sit down but she just stands there with her eyes bugging out a little bit. He doesn’t even know who I am. That or he doesn’t care enough to even acknowledge that I exist. I was so broken up over him. I still am. Did I mean that little to him? We dated for three months. I put my hands over my mouth and I feel so sad about myself.Amy, on the other hand, bursts out laughing.“I’m sorry, I am so sorry,” She spits out in between giggles and ends up full out snorting, doubled over in laughter.“Amy!” I start to feel hurt and then I see it. He is such a stupid idiot. I laugh, not as hard as Amy but enough to show that I understand.“What a total—just—who does he think he is?” She looks up at me in disbelief and I shrug and put on my coat.“I think he knows what he is. He knows he’s a total moron who was a jerk to break up with me and now, is too embarrassed to show his face in front of me.” I pull the elastic out of my ponytail, shake my hair out and walk down the stairs with my nose in the air. When I get to the bottom, I can’t hold it in anymore and I turn around to see Amy who is lying across two seats, cracking up.I pick going to a movie with Amy over Jim any day.AnnOur new apartment is so cute! Lily loves her new room and we have a nice little kitchen and I even have a little office. Technically it’s a closet—a very big closet—but, still a closet. It’s big enough to squeeze a little desk in and maybe a file cabinet.Today, I’m going for my interview at the school. I took some art courses in college but never thought that I would make something out of it. It was just a hobby of mine, but I remember more about those classes than about anything else from college. I really want this job.I wake Lily up, help her get ready for her first day in the new preschool, and get her into the car. We drive there and I walk her in, saying hello to Kelly and getting her settled in. Lily seems to be bonding with a girl over at the shaving cream station so I get back into the car and drive to Ashby Elementary.It’s not the huge, towering monster of a building that I’ve been frightening myself with. It’s a small building, with maybe twenty classrooms. I see colorful posters in the windows and feel more hopeful. They can’t be that bad if they have butterflies on their windows.I open the door and go into the front office.“Hello, my name is Ann Lowry. I’m here to interview for—““The art teacher position, right?” The receptionist cuts me off. She looks nice and she hands me a folder with the forms that I sent a couple of weeks ago. “Take this in with you and good luck.”“Oh, I should go in—““Now, yes.” She nods her head and points to which door I should go through. I straighten my skirt and pick at my blouse. I clutch the folder and turn the handle. I walk in cautiously and brace myself for the worst. Just in case.“You must be Ms. Lowry!” A man in a clean suit motions for me to sit down. “I’m Principal Sanders, call me Rick, though.”“Hi, I’m Ann.” I shake his hand and take the empty seat.“So, Ann, I’ve looked through your forms and they’re all in order. But if it’s alright, we like to have trial classes before we hire a new member of the faculty.”“Yes, yes of course.”“It’s our own funny version of an interview. I saw on your resume that you took clay in college so I figured that that would be a good thing to test with.”“Great, yes. I also made up a curriculum schedule if that’s of any help.”“Sure, I’ll take a look. So if you’re ready now, we’ll do the first trial class.” He stands up and looks down at me.“Of course! Wait, first?”“Yes, you’ll do one with the teachers and one with the students.”“Oh, okay.” I get nervous. I get along fine with kids but I worry about the adults judging me. But I pick up my things and follow him out and up the stairs. We go into a big open room with lots of windows and clear tables. I see the receptionist sitting in a chair with a pen and pad of paper.“Ms. Maloney will be taking notes on the class.” He explains. I nod and find an apron in a drawer. I loop it around my head; tie it around my waist, and look up for further instructions. “You’ve got about a half hour to set up. Is that enough time?”“Yes, that’s plenty!” I notice a big block of clay on one of the tables. I find some wooden boards that have clay stains on them already and set one at all of the tables in front of the chairs. I find some wire, too and slice off hunks of clay from the huge piece. I set the little pieces on top of the boards and discover that there’s a smaller table. I assume that it’s for me to demonstrate what to do so I set myself up there with some clay. I hunt around the classroom and easily find some dirty toothbrushes and rolling pins. I set a handful on each table and observe my handiwork. It looks pretty good, but what should I teach?Turns out, I don’t have much time to figure that out. Teachers start filing in and they introduce themselves to me. They all seem pretty nice but I also notice that each table has its own little clique. Some start gossiping, others discussing curriculum and I stand alone at my little table, desperately trying to think of something to do. Then I decide—mugs. Everyone likes mugs! And teachers drink coffee and tea so they can actually use them. I don’t have time to think of something else so I start practicing on my own piece of clay.Principal Sanders—Rick—comes back in and puts on an apron. He finds an empty spot and I start stumbling my way through a lesson.“Hi, everyone. My name is Ann Lowry and I’ll be teaching you all to make mugs out of clay.” I watch for a reaction. I get nothing except for a little scribbling from Ms. Maloney. “Okay, so first of you want to flatten your clay. Grab a rolling pin and start that. Every so often you can flip it around so you even it all out. Once you have it to about a centimeter, you should stop so it doesn’t get too thin.” I leave some time for them to do that and help out the gym teacher who’s struggling to make his piece even. I clap my hands together once and keep going. “Once you have that, you can cut out a rectangle. The bigger the rectangle, the bigger the mug so you can decide what you want.”It takes longer than I expect because teachers kept cutting out rectangles and then deciding that they were too small or too thin and then they would have to start over. After about ten minutes, I have them cut out circles and then test wrapping the rectangle around the circle. Some of them get it immediately and have their pieces ready to go. Once again, some of them are finicky and scrap everything in the hopes of a more perfect mug. When everyone is satisfied, I pass out some slip. Slip is like glue, it’s a mixture of a little bit of clay and water that when used correctly, holds two pieces of clay together. I teach them how to score the sides of the circle and the bottom of the rectangle but making lots of little hash marks. They put slip onto the scored parts and press them together. All of the teachers seem kind of surprised that they actually stay connected and then they patch up the side of the rectangle.I hear the teachers comparing their mugs and I notice how these teachers aren’t too different from the adults in my old town, just nicer. I guess all adults are kind of similar.“Now, this is the fun part.” I pick up the remaining clay on my board and hold it up. “Here’s where you can be creative: the handle. You can design it however you want, as long as it’s comfortable to hold. Or you can make it uncomfortable if you feel like it!” Everyone likes this part. Some people grip the piece of clay so it fits into their hands and then slip and score it on. Others make theirs fancy with curlicues and others just make a basic handle. “Okay, now put your initials on the bottom and I’ll get these fired.” Everyone sets their mugs on a counter and then on their way out, people tell me that they really enjoyed the class. Ms. Maloney is one of the last people to leave.“I wish I could have made a mug.” She blushes a little. “It looks like fun! Good luck!”“Thanks,” I say. It seems like she likes me. “Principal Sanders?”“Ann, first off, call me Rick. Second, that went very well. I can tell that you’d be a good fit with the faculty but we should still have a trial class with the students.”“Of course, when do you want me to do that?”“I probably should have warned you about this but the kindergarteners are coming in for their first day before the rest of the school today. They’re having a look around and I wonder if you could give another class so we can get art classes started as soon as possible.” I not my head to say that that’s fine and I start cutting more pieces of clay. I decide to have the little kids make coil pots, a much simpler project. Half an hour later, Ms. Maloney comes back with her notepad and pencil and takes her seat again. Kindergarteners file in after their teacher, a woman who made a curlicue handle for her mug. She says hello to me and leaves when the kids are in their seats.“Okay,” I say after I’ve gone around the room to ask names. Thank God, they’re all wearing nametags. “Today we’ll be making coil pots. Now to start you want to roll a snake,” I run through a lesson that I’ve gone through hundreds of times with Lily. She loves play-dough and I figure, what kid doesn’t like coil pots?These kids seem to agree with me because they’re all laughing, having little snake fights with each other. Ms. Maloney is writing away on her notebook and gets up to ask some kids a couple of questions. I sit anxiously in my chair, wondering what she’s asking and what they’re saying.“Thank you, Ms. Lowry!” The kids chant as they file out of the classroom.“Thank you, guys!” I give them high fives and smile at their teacher as they leave.“Good job—again.” Ms. Maloney tells me.“Thanks,” She hugs her notepad to her chest and starts out. “Hey, should I start the kiln so I can fire this stuff? Even if I don’t come back, they should still be able to glaze and use their stuff.”“Sure, why not?” She shrugs and motions to the sign that says “KILN” in block letters. “See you around, Ann.”I go into the kiln room and wait for it to heat up. This school has a really nice one so I can fit all of the pieces in. I take off my smock and head downstairs. I stop in the office to talk to Ms. Maloney once more.“Okay, everything’s in the kiln. Before everyone leaves today, just flip it off and then everything will be cooled in the morning.”“Sounds easy enough,” She smiles and waves me out. “We’ll be in touch.”I walk out feeling pretty good about myself. I hop into my car ad go pick up Lily from preschool. She seems very happy and gives the shaving cream girl a hug when I come to get her.“How was your first day?” I ask her.“Good! I met this girl named Ashley,” She launches into a long story retelling every minute of her first day at Ashby preschool.We seem to have had pretty good days. I think that Ashby’s going to be a good fit for Lily and me.KarenI took the stairs today. I looked in Aaron’s cubicle to say hi but he wasn’t there, that or he was just getting some coffee or something.I set my bag down and turned on my computer. I open up my work email and see that I’ve got another email saying that my inbox is too full. In a sudden burst of inspiration and a lack of work to do, I set up folders for all of my different clients and go through all my emails. After I feel like I’ve wasted a sufficient amount of time, I stop for a while and spin around in my chair. I look at my file cabinet and turn my head to the side. It looks very disorganized, even from the outside. I stand up and open up the bottom drawer. It’s got crumpled papers flying everywhere.“How did this happen?” I mumble to myself. I pick up the more bent of the papers and straighten them out. I sit down on the floor and then start unloading all of the files from the bottom drawer. Once I’ve got a giant pile of papers, of course, that’s when someone wants me to do real work. I hear a ding from my computer. It’s something that I programmed while I was organizing, whenever I get an email it’s rings a little pit. I push myself up and sit down in my spinning chair. I click the new email and remember that I accidentally gave Josie the work email instead of my normal one.Dear Karen,I just wanted to tell you that I organized a fundraiser for Starbucks! I want to hold a movie marathon in the town park and once we get the permits cleared, I want to start advertising. Do you think that you put these flyers up around your office and maybe send them around? It’d be really helpful. Thanks!--JosieA movie marathon? When was the last time I saw a movie? In a theater, not by myself at home. It’s sad, the life I’ve been living. Really, I’ve been avoiding family reunions and even contact with my family for months now. I’ve become a hermit but I think that that’s starting to change now. I hope that’s starting to change now.I type her a quick email back saying that I’ll stop and talk to her later about advertising. I kneel down back next to my file cabinet and start working through to folders. I open up each folder and organize its contents by date. Then I alphabetize the folders, give them labels and put them back into the drawer. This takes mean hour and a half. I still have no work to do. Surprise, surprise, no one wants to buy windows today. I open up the next drawer and when I’m halfway through organizing that one, I catch myself. I’m actually enjoying myself. Why have I never realized this? My apartment could be spotless by now? All this time I’ve been being a slob for no reason. Why? Now I know another reason why I like my office more than my apartment. My office is a couple degrees cleaner than my apartment and I guess I like cleanliness.I spend the rest of the day cleaning up my office. I find dozens of sticky notes that turned out to be useless because I dumped piles of paper on top of them. I dump them onto my desk and then sweep them all into the recycling bin. I clear out my desk and by five o’clock, my cubicle is spotless and I can go home to clean up my apartment, too.I stop by Starbucks to talk to Josie about advertising. I’m not used to the new decorations yet but it looks very, very nice. Whoever made the curtains and chair covers did a really good job. I wonder if I could get her to redecorate my cubicle.“Hi, Josie,”“Karen, hi,” She switches on the coffee machine and cleans up couple of the tables. “Let me just close the store up.”“Sure,” I sit myself down and take out my laptop. “I’ll just set up here and we can start sending some flyers out.” Josie walks to the door and turns the sign so t reads “CLOSED” to the outside world.“Okay, so what do you have?”“Um, well, today I was actually working on cleaning up my office. But we can work together on some flyers if you like. I put ones that you made on my USB and they’re really good but we need to change some things.”“That all sounds good, but could you help me with the town permits first?”“Yeah, do you have a copy of them printed out?” She hands me a good sized packet of forms for getting permission to use the park. We work for a half hour until we’ve gotten them all done. “I’ll mail these from my office, if you want.”“Yeah, thanks,” She turns my laptop to face me. “Can we work on this now?”“Okay, for starters, your title is a little bit iffy. We need to make it very clear what this is. Also, you need the location and time to be bigger.” I take her through the problems that I saw and after another half hour, we’ve got a nice looking advertisement. “I’ll print these out at my office, too.” Josie smiles and takes another look at the flyer on my computer. “I should get going; do you want a ride home?”“Actually, could you give me a ride to Sally’s place? I need to talk to her.” Her smile fades and she starts to look worried.“Sure, let’s go.” I drive her home and she waves as she gets out of the car. I’m a little worried about her. She’s a nice kid but she stresses herself out too much. Not that I’m one to judge. Again, unfair of me to comment but she needs to smile more. We should work on that together. I drive myself home and walk into my tiny little kitchen.I’ve got some weird food in my refrigerator and not very much of it. My freezer on the other hand is jam-packed with frozen foods that I can prepare and then go watch TV. I find some potatoes and some frozen sausages. I pour some oil into a pan and uncover an onion. I chop the onion up and dump it into the pan. It starts sizzling and it smells so good. I cut up the potatoes and put them in along with the sausages. After five more minutes, my apartment smells great and I have a semi-non-frozen dinner. Hey, it’s a start!I decide to clean my apartment this weekend and stop buying frozen foods. Maybe that will make me start smiling more.JosieI wave Karen off. It was sweet of her to give me a ride here; it’s been getting really cold lately. I turn around and see the tarp covering part of the house. It must be really cold in there. I knock on the door but when no one answers, I go over to the lawn gnome in her harden and find the hidden key. I let myself in and call out.“Sally? Hey, are you here?”“Hey! Hi, Josie! I’ll be right down.” I walk inside and shut the door behind me. I was right—it is freezing in this house. A few seconds later, Sally comes down the stairs wearing sweatpants, a t-shirt and no shoes. Sally’s always liked to go around barefoot, even in winter. She says that shoes are confining, unless they’re dance shoes and then shoes are helpful—but only then.“Come to help me paint?” Her eyes are twinkling and I know that she’s been up to something.“If we can talk while we paint, sure.” I take the paint can and paint brush she offers me and follows her upstairs.“The students will need a dressing room,” She explains when I wonder aloud what we’re painting. “It’s too cold to just be walking around in simply a leotard so they’ll need to put they’re outer clothing here. We can’t have clothes and bags cluttering the dance floor. It’s unsightly and dangerous, to boot.”“If you say so,” I spread even strokes of paint across one wall. The paint is baby blue, just soft enough for ballerinas to like it, just boyish enough for jazz dancers to not sneer at it.“The construction workers finished putting in the dance floor and if I may say so, it’s quite nice. It doesn’t have those wonderful scuff marks yet, but they will come in time. Do you want to see it?” She clearly wants me to want to go see it.“Let me just finish this wall and then we’ll go down.” I finish up quickly and wipe my hands on the rags she provides. I was too wrapped up in painting that I forgot to put on an apron or something. My jeans are covered in paint; it doesn’t really go along with the old Goth thing. Ah, well, I guess I’m trying to steer myself away from the now. I just need something that feels comfortable. And really, paint-splattered jeans don’t feel half bad to me.I follow Sally down the stairs and I realize that it’s not freezing in here because one of the walls is knocked out; it’s freezing because the windows are all open.“Sally, why are your windows all open?”“Oh, I think that the cold feels invigorating!” I shrug and she throws open the door to the dance floor. She was right, it is beautiful. It’s a new, clean dance floor. It makes me want to go dig up my tap shoes and scuff the floor up. It’s like new snow, you always feel that need to go jump in it. I sit down on the small carpeted area before the dance floor begins and I unlace my sneakers and take them off. After a moment of hesitation, I take of my socks to, just to see what it feels like. I walk softly over to the dance floor and it feels cold against my feet. I look over to the door and Sally’s gone. She wanted to let me enjoy the new dance floor on my own.I start tapping away in bare feet, my toes curl in the wrong places and my time-steps are off but it feels so nice to just be tapping again. I stay there for a good half hour, until my ankles start to get sore. I’ll need to tap more so I can tap for longer periods of time. I put my socks back on but leave my sneakers off. I pad back upstairs and find Sally in the soon-to-be dressing room. She’s up on a ladder now and she’s painting the upper parts of the wall that we couldn’t reach.“It sounded nice,” She tells me. “It sounded happy.” I smile to myself in silent gratitude, but I don’t say anything. I think she understand how I feel.My socks feel uncomfortable rubbing against my feet now and I understand how once you try going barefoot, it’s feels natural. I can already tell that I’ll be sad when I have to put my shoes back on. I pick my paintbrush up again and I start the first coat on another wall.“When do you thing you’re going to start classes?”“I don’t know. I’ll do a couple of trial ones as a part of the fundraiser and if everyone hates them, then I guess I’ll just have my own private studio. If people like it then I’ll start some basic classes in the spring and work my way up from there. We’ll just have to wait and see how the people react.”“I’m sure they’ll love it,” I reassure her and we paint in silence for a while. “Karen and I filled out some forms today.”“Oh, yeah? For what?”“We filled out a permit to use the park for our movie marathon. We also worked on some flyers advertising it if we managed to get the city to let us actually create an outdoor movie theater.”“They will, I’m positive of it.”“Nice to know that someone’s sure about it.” I sigh and paint a couple more strokes. “I should probably go home now. I still have a little bit of homework to do.”“Okay, well it was nice of you to come help me and it’s always nice to see you. I’ll be by later to find out about that permit. Let me know!” She climbs off her ladder and walks me to the door. I walk home quickly because it’s cold and getting dark. As a come up to my house, I walk by the mailbox and open it to see if there’s anything there. Normally, all of my family’s mail goes to one of my parents’ houses. Today though, there’s a good sized packet. It’s addressed to me. The return address says “Boston Arts of Academy” and I start to panic.I eventually did get those forms filled out so I could send in an application but I don’t know how great my personal letter or my resume were. A good sized packet could be an acceptance letter with some acceptance information and what I should do. A good sized packet could also be a rejection letter with other potential programs. I go inside and remember that I’m alone. My parents are working—surprising, right? And Kimmy’s off at a sleepover at some friend or other’s. I’m all alone. If it’s bad news, I’ll be sad all alone. If it’s good news, I won’t have anyone to be happy with.I don’t even want to open this letter now.Mr. SchwartzI walk into Starbucks and it seems vaguely unfamiliar. I like the new decorations; I’m just not used to them.“I come bearing good news,” I tell Josie and her friend, Liz, who’s sitting at a window table. Liz waves and then reverts her attention back to the large sketch pad she’s balancing in her lap.“Hold on, Mr. Schwartz. Let me just make sure that Karen mailed the permit.”“I told her not to.” I say, appreciation the slight aura of mystery and the advantage of knowledge that I hold.“What? Why would you do that? Now they won’t get in in time for us to hold the movie marathon! Mr. Schwartz, we’re already a month into our extremely limited time to save this place and now this is just another setback. How do you expect me to save this place if you just keep on—““Wait up, Josie. Look at this before you get too worked up.” I slide a paper in front of her. Her eyes scan over it and she looks up at me with her eyes shining.“How did you do this, Mr. Schwartz? When did you have the time?”“I’m retired. What else should I spend my time doing??”“I don’t know, you could—thank you, Mr. Schwartz.” She runs her hand over the paper and straightens it out. She smiles down at it then her expression changes and she bites her lip.“I have some important papers, too.” She bends down to her backpack and pulls out an unopened packet. “I got this yesterday but I didn’t want to open it alone.”“Lemme see!” Liz jumps out of her chair and grabs it. “May I?” Her hands are poised to tear the envelope open.“Please!” Josie nods her head vigorously and I reach over and squeeze her hand. She looks gratefully at me and I nod sympathetically. The envelope has been pulled apart and Liz is scanning her eyes over the first piece of paper that came out.“Dear Ms. Josie Knight,” She starts in a hushed whisper. “We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to our summer drama program!” As the sentence goes on her voice escalates into a shrill squeal. She starts jumping up and down and hugging Josie who looks flustered. Josie’s trembling hands reach over to take more papers out of the packet and she seems very overwhelmed.“Congrats, kiddo,” I ruffle her hair and she bends over the counter and gives me a hug.“Thank you, Mr. Schwartz.” She straightens up and she and Liz start clamoring over the rest of the packet. I go behind the counter myself and pour a cup of coffee. I pop a travel lid on it and look fondly at the two girls chattering on about who knows what now. They’re not so bad.KarenAaron hasn’t spoken to me in a week. I don’t understand. What did I do? I know, I know. I’m always clueless but this time I’ve gone through everything that I could have potentially done wrong and everything that could have gone wrong. None of them really happened so where does that leave me? As a confused—friend? I don’t know, I thought being stuck in an elevator with someone would bring them together but maybe I’m socially inept about elevator magic as well.“Hi, Aaron?” I offer as he walks into his cubicle. He nods curtly and turns around in his chair to switch his computer on. Okay, well that was just rude. “Aaron, a space shuttle landed in my front yard this morning.” Nothing. Not a chuckle at the attempted joke. Not even the snide correction that I don’t have front yard. Nada. He clicks away at his desktop.“Okay,” I grumble. I stop leaning against the wall separating our cubicles and walk out of mine and into his. “Listen, so I know we’re not life-long friends or whatever and maybe we’ll never really be anything of any importance but,--““Karen, I really have to work.” He cuts me off without even looking in my face.“Yeah, okay, I get it.” Now he’s really getting on my nerves. Before I can tell myself not to, I walk over to his desk and switch his computer off. “Don’t even try and complain to me about losing those two seconds of work, Aaron, especially because you and I know that this company has automatic backup.” I stand back and after a couple of tense moments, he turns his chair around and faces me with a sour expression.“What do you want, Karen?”“Talk to me. You’ve been ignoring me for a week. The only friend I currently have has been ignoring me for a week which doesn’t feel all that nice when you’re trying to make a social comeback. I left you a freaking brownie on your desk. Do the sacred powers of brownies mean nothing to you?” My second attempt at a joke goes over even worse that the first. Not only is there not laughter, there is a decrease in the happiness scale. “Fine. Do you want me to just go retreat back to my cubicle? Do you want me to leave you alone? Fine.”“Karen, that’s really—“I walk out. I’m too frustrated to hear it anymore. I’m sick of the cold glares and the condescending silent treatment. It’s the least he could do to tell me what I did wrong. Well, his loss. I’ll just find other cubicle friends.I sit back down in my chair and try and get some work done. I can’t focus. It just makes me so mad that I have no idea why he’s angry at me. All I did was call some people to get us out of an elevator and then—that’s really it. Maybe I’m throwing thing out of proportion. Maybe we were never really friends, I don’t know. Maybe this is how cubicle friends work. You get each other out of elevators and then don’t speak until the next one breaks down.I pull up my newly organized email and find that I have an email from Josie. I read through it and find her instructions to print the flyer out and send it around to people I know. I start a new email with a flyer PDF and send it to the clients that live near Ashby. I print out thirty copies of the flyer and put a dozen of them up around the office. And just because I’m mad, I go into Aaron’s cubicle and tape on the front of his computer.“Karen,” He swivels around in his chair but I’ve already walked out.My first friend in five years has already bailed on me.LizI feel so much better now. Clearly I don’t have the closure that I would have ideally liked to have had. But I still feel like I know where I stand now. I’m not in a constant state of confusion about why Jim dumped me or what did I do wrong or whatever. His loss, and now I’m getting over it. Well, trying to get over it.As soon as I stopped focusing on Jim, my grades started improving. I’m having a much easier time in my classes now that I’m not moping around all the time, I can pay attention and do my assignments on time. I also had Amy block a few sites on my laptop so I can’t access them for hours at a time. That way, I’m forced to study and I can’t procrastinate. She’s also blocked my online chess. I keep losing and it makes me even more depressed. I’ve brought up my grades in every class and I’m finding the material easier to understand.“Hey, Liz,” Amy walks in and unwinds the scarf from around her neck. “So, I was thinking, we should do something this weekend. I mean the second term’s tests are going to be on Wednesday and Friday so we’ll be super tired after that. Do you have any ideas?”“Yeah,” I pull out one of the flyers that Josie made. “So, I know that we haven’t had the best luck with movies but, there’s a movie marathon in Ashby this weekend. I know I’m not the most popular kid in Ashby but, you have friends and there playing a chick flick, an action movie and a horror movie all in a row. I was thinking that maybe we could get a group together and go together. It’ll be nice, it’s in a park and we could bring food or something. What do you think?”“Sounds like fun, let me call a few people.” She takes out her cell phone and starts dialing. After twenty minutes, she’s convinced five people to come with us to the first movie. She’s been really sweet about who she’s calling. No one who hangs around with Lauren and when she tries to include me, those were the people who I actually got along with.“Alright,” She says, ticking off some names on her list. “We’ve got Cady, Samantha, Erin, Kara and Jordan. They’re all going to come on Saturday for the chick flick and then some of the guys are going to join us for the action and horror.”“Great! It’ll be really fun, I promise.”“I know, and maybe this time, we won’t have any unwelcome additions.”“I certainly hope so,” I smile grimly and she sits down on her bed with a textbook. “Do you want help studying?”“Sure, but I’ve been studying for three hours already in the library. If you want, I can quiz you.”“Yeah, thanks,” I slide my study guide over to her and she starts testing me on my design class material. We study for about an hour and a half.“Okay, I think that I’m actually going to try and get some sleep.” She pushes herself up and goes to brush her teeth.“Mm-hmm, I’m just going to study for a while longer. Do you mind if I leave the light one?”“No, that’s fine.” She goes to sleep and I study for another hour as quietly as I can. After that, I take a break and grab a cup of water from the bathroom. I sit back down at my desk and check the time. Midnight. I decide to study for another hour on a different subject and then go to sleep. My school forces me to take one science class so I study what I don’t understand for a while. Eventually, I feel too tired to concentrate so I set my alarm for 6 A.M. and go to sleep.JosieThe movie marathon is on. It’s really happening and I have so much planning to do. I managed to get the rights to play the movies publicly and they weren’t as expensive as I thought they were. I had a little party when I calculated the total cost because it was way less than I expected it to be. I printed out tickets on colorful paper and cut them all out. I dug up a cash box and now, I’m ready to go for Saturday. I cannot wait.Business has been great lately. When word got around about the movies, people started coming here a lot more. They all had questions about it and when they came to ask them, they figured, “Hey, why not get a cup of coffee?” I think that people had just temporarily forgotten about our little Starbuck. People drop in here and get the comfort that they need, then they move on. But it’s always nice to come back, even if you don’t need the attention. It’s just a place where people know that they’re welcome and always will be.But, if the movie marathon doesn’t go well, then we’re screwed. We don’t have the funds for another project. This is it and if it doesn’t work, then in a month and a half, then we’ll have to close up shop. I don’t even want to think about it. I am so pumped for the marathon and so excited about the idea of this place staying open that it would be absolutely crushing for Starbucks to be shut down.I reach up to my face and touch my nose ring. It seems like so long ago when I had a billion hoops in my ears. My parents never did notice them and I hated having all of those piercings. It felt unnatural and they would always get stuck in my hair. I had to wear it pulled back into a tight ponytail everyday but now I can let it down. It feels nice, especially since it’s getting colder. I hope the weather doesn’t stop the movie marathon.Oh my God. I hadn’t even thought about that. Snow. It’s the middle of December and we haven’t had any snow yet. It has to be coming soon. I was so wrapped up in permits and advertisements that I didn’t even think to check the weather. How freaking stupid am I? I put my hand on my forehead and groan softly. What am I going to do? This place is going to shut down all because of some lame storm and that’s something that I can’t control. No matter what I do, I won’t be able to save an outdoor movie marathon from the weather.I run to the telephone. My hands are shaking but I steady myself and forcefully punch the numbers.“Sally? Sally, I need your help.” I say as soon as she picks the phone up, before she even has a chance for a “Hello,” or a “Who is this?”“Josie?”“Sorry, yes, it’s Josie. Sally, I need help, fast.”“Josie, calm down. It’ll be okay, whatever it is. What is it?”“Saturday,” I wailed. “The weather on Saturday, I never checked it. What am I going to do if it’s raining or snowing or—““Calm down,” She reprimands firmly. “Listen, I’ll check it right now. Stay on the phone and I’ll be right back.” I hear a dull thud as she sets her phone down and I wait anxiously, rocking on the balls of my feet.”“Josie?” She picks the phone back up.“Well?” I whine, scared out of my mind.“I think you should come over so we can figure something out.” The line goes dead. I hold my breath, hoping to death that she’ll call back with something better to say. I stand there, clutching the phone, until a new customer comes in and I am forced to shake myself out of my stupor.“Hi, welcome to Starbucks. How can I help you?” I say dully. My mind is somewhere else and I can’t locate it.“Hello, I would like a brownie and a tall hot chocolate, please.” The customer says in a confused tone. She leans over, as if to check that I can see her and I’m not a complete space case. Sadly, though, her suspicions are confirmed because her barista has gone wacko.“Yes, let me get that for you right away.” I walk away and she checks to make sure that I don’t fall over or absentmindedly drop something or bang into a wall. I manage to grab hold of a brownie and put hot chocolate into a cup and I hand it to her clumsily. “Whoops! Sorry,” I spill a little bit of hot chocolate. “Let me put some more in that cup for you,” I take it back from her.“No, that’s alright, you really don’t have to do that,” She seems reluctant to trust me with her drink after seeing what I’ve already done. But this time, I somehow manage to successfully hand her the drink and the brownie without any spillage.“Enjoy,” I offer weakly. It’s no use; I can’t redeem my barista reputation to her. I’m a hopeless coffee server. Doomed to fail at my meager position forever, trapped in a senseless daze. Oh well, you win some you lose some, right?Wrong.We need all the customers we can get especially if I can’t hold a movie marathon. Now, we’re almost certainly screwed. Profits have been increasing but according to Mr. Schwartz, not fast enough to save us in another month and a half. I cannot believe this is happening.I go through the rest of the day in a similar state of shock, neither happiness, nor sadness ever hits me. I was just surprised and dazed all day. When closing time came around, I locked up and walked quickly to Sally’s house. She still had the tarp covering the new studio, for God knows what reasoning.Tarp.Sally has a large quantity of tarp.Tarp blocks weather.Tarp could save the Starbucks.A stupid, thin, little sheet of plastic is the deciding factor of life or death. For a coffee shop.Oh, my caffeinated God.SallyJosie knocks furiously on my door. I run down the stairs and open it. She stands there, looking like a mad woman who just had an insane idea. Her hair is wild—probably from running here—and she is breathing heavily. Her nose ring glints and makes her look even crazier“Josie,” I start slowly, worried that she’s going to interrupt me.“Sally, I was thinking,” And there it is—the inevitable interruption. “So, you have that tarp over your studio. What is we set up a tarp over the people? So they don’t get rained one, that way we can still have the movie marathon.” She looks hopefully up at me and I feel so horrible about what I have to tell her.“Josie, I’m so sorry. I don’t think that that’s going to work.” She hung her head and trudged inside. I took her jacket and she slipped her sneakers off. I led her upstairs and showed her my computer. “See, the rain is going to start on Friday so the grass will already be wet on Saturday. We can’t tell people that they have to sit on wet ground and still expect them to come.” Josie slumps into a chair and she looks crushed.“Sally, what are we going to do? This was our only shot. This was my only shot, and I blew it. I couldn’t have picked some other weekend? People won’t come if we—““Reschedule.” I finish her sentence. “Why not?”“People have already made plans and they get frustrated and bored with the idea if they have to change from the original plan. It never works to change the date.”“I guess not.” I turn back to the computer and check the weather. Of course, the next weekend has clear skies and no rain. “So, what do you want to do?” She shrugs and buries herself into the chair.“I don’t want to call it off; but, I can’t think of anything else to do. We don’t have enough money to do something new. Profits aren’t increasing fast enough to stay open without a fundraiser and even if they were—after we cancel an event that everyone’s excited about, then they’ll be mad at us. People will stop coming and we’ll go bankrupt before the three months are up.” She puts both hands over her face and leans over. She rocks back and forth. I don’t know what to do because I can’t see a solution, either.“Josie, it’ll be okay. Whatever happens, I’m here for you and so are Mr. Schwartz, Karen, Liz, Ann and Lily. We all care so much about you and you’re going to be fine. If everything happens for the worst and it end up that we have to shut down, and then you can come work here. You can teach the little kids tap every day or we’ll find you a new job.”“It won’t be the same.” She mumbles without taking her face out of her hands.“Hey!” I pry her hands away and hold one of them. Her face is wet and the tears are smudged from being pressed against her hands. “This is not the girl who had fifteen piercings total, one month ago. You may have hated them, but they got attention. We just need to pierce Starbucks, not your ears.”“They didn’t get attention.” She yanks are hand out of mine and put her head on the desk. She wraps her arms around her head and quietly cries. Little sobs run through her body and she shakes ever so slightly.“What are you talking about? That’s all anyone was talking about.” I give up trying to make her sit up so I just put my hand on her back. “Everyone thought that your parents were ridiculous for not noticing them. That was the gossip of the month of June. We all thought that you were beautiful before that and we didn’t know why you picked piercing your gorgeous face.” This got her attention. She picked herself and sniffled. She plucked a tissue from the table and blew her nose loudly. She went through three more tissues and then spoke.“Really?”“Would I lie to you? Especially now?” I shook her by the shoulders. “You are beautiful and absolutely worthy of all the attention given to you. More, because your—pardon me—idiotic parents don’t notice what a great kid you are.” She giggles. Then she stops herself and looks shocked that she laughed at that. “Oh, come on! Enjoy yourself for once! Laugh a little.” She smiles and takes another tissue to wipe her eyes with.“Sally, what are we going to do? My self-esteem is rebuilt but the Starbucks is still closing.”“We can’t reschedule,” I start, not thinking about the words before they come out of my mouth. I’m just hoping and praying that I say something that might work even while I’m not thinking about it. “But, maybe we can relocate.”“Yes, but where?” Josie straightens up and looks interested.“I don’t know,” I wave my hands to stall for time to think with. “Um, the studio is too small, you don’t want all of those people in your house, the Starbucks doesn’t have enough seating—““Yes it does!” She gasps and looks thrilled. “Yes, Sally, yes it does! We can find a bunch of folding chairs in my house, you probably have some and Mr. Schwartz, too. We can just rearrange a little and make a seating area. That’s almost better! Then we can sell food, too! We were even under budget for the outdoor movie stuff so we can buy anything else that we need! Sally! We can use the Starbuck!” I grin. I can’t believe that something I said might actually work.“The Starbucks, huh? Okay, yeah. But we should start telling people now.” I hook up the computer to the printer and Josie and I make a new flyer saying that the movie marathon will be in the Starbucks. We print out a hundred and start going around town. We post them over the old flyers and put them into people’s mailboxes. When we run out of flyers, we ring on people’s doorbells to let them know.“Oh, thank goodness,” One man says. “I was just watching the weather channel and it’s going to be so wet. And I was so excited and everything but this is wonderful!” He seems very excited about the marathon.“Yes, well, thank you and tell everyone you know.” Josie instructs.“Yes, absolutely,” He waves us off and shuts the door.“I hope everyone else is that enthusiastic.” I mention to Josie.“Yeah,” She agrees. “If they are then we’ll have no trouble keeping Starbuck open. We inform people about the change in location for another half hour and then I walk Josie home.“I’ll start looking for chairs tonight.” She promises and I say goodbye. As I’m turning to go, she runs down the steps and gives me a hug.“Thank you, Sally.” I hug her back and plant a kiss on top of her head.Her parents are really missing out.AnnI got the job. I couldn’t believe it. I was so happy and relieved. I didn’t have any other plans if I didn’t get this, but I did so now I don’t have to worry.Lily still loves the new preschool. I was worried that she would get bored soon but she’s still perfectly playing in shaving cream with her friend, Ashley. I’m driving them to the movie marathon on Saturday to see the cartoon. They like to play dress-up so they’re wearing princess dresses to the movie. Somehow, Lily managed to convince me to put make up on them before we leave. Of course, make up for a four year old consists of lip gloss and lotion.I picked up a couple of posters from Josie and put them up in the school, with permission from the principal. I’ve managed to make friends with Mrs. Maloney. Her first name is Jill and she’s engaged to one of the fourth grade teachers. I’ve learned all about the cliques and they’re basically sorted by teaching styles. It wasn’t too hard to break the code. Principal Sanders—Rick—has been very nice. He sits with the vice principal, a third grade teacher and one of the guidance counselors. That was the one group that I couldn’t figure out; I can’t tell what they have in common, except that they all like to talk. I refer to them in my mind as the noisy table.“Are you going to the movie this weekend?” Jill asks me and then takes a bite out of her sandwich.“Yes, I’m taking my daughter and her friend. We’re going to the afternoon cartoon and they’re dressing up as princesses.”“Sounds like fun!” She nods and pauses before she continues on. “Do you think that—well—could I maybe go with you?” She blushes a little and quickly takes another bite of her sandwich.“Of course,” I’m surprised but I realize that that would actually be fun. “Yeah, Lily’s having a sleepover at Ashley’s house so we could even stay for the chick flick.”“Okay, sure. Do you want to meet at the Starbucks?”“Okay, I’ll meet you there and we can get some coffee or something while they watch the cartoon.” The bell rings saying that lunch break is over so I wave to Jill and go back to the art room. I’ve learned that figuring out everyone’s names is really hard. So far, I have the kindergarten, first grade, second grade and third grade memorized. I’m halfway with fourth grade but I’m sort of clueless about the fifth grade.“Hi, guys!” I put my apron back on and the kids all gather on the rug. 3A is one of my louder classes so I brace myself for a stressful 45 minutes. “Okay, today we are going to be painting. I have paints set out on the tables so go to your seats and you should start painting. I want you to paint the flowers on the table and come and tell me when you’re done. You can go to your seats now and get started.” I clap my hands together and the kids jump up and run over to their seats. I monitor what they’re doing. Not to be mean, they’re very pretty abstract paintings, but only a couple of them really look like flowers. They’re all getting really good at mixing colors, though.When the 45 minutes are over, I wave goodbye to the kids and wait for five minutes for the next class to come in. I really like teaching art. I have all of my lesson plans for the year done and the kids seem to be really enjoying them. After two more classes, the day is over and I clean up the room. I grab a sponge and wipe down all of the tables. Today, the teachers are coming back to paint their mugs. I take everything out of the kiln and set them down on the counter.“Hello, everyone,” The teachers smile at me and grab aprons out of the bin. They find their mugs on the counter and sit down in their little cliques. “Okay, so I’m going to go ahead and assume that you all know how to paint. The bottles are on the counter along with paint trays and brushes so you can all go ahead and grab whatever colors you want. Have fun!” I hang around the classroom for another hour. Everyone’s pretty relaxed about their mug and whenever someone finishes, I load it into the kiln. “I’ll drop off these when they come out tomorrow!” The teachers leave and I clean up the room again. I turn the kiln on and start walking home.It’s a nice long walk home. Sometimes I drive but I’m trying to walk when I can because pretty soon it’ll be way too cold to walk. I pick Lily up from preschool. It’s much closer to our house then the elementary school; otherwise I would have to drive because Lily hates to walk.“Hi, Lily, how was your day?”“Good, we got to color with markers today and I colored in the lines for almost the whole time.”“That’s great, sweetie!” I smiled at her and kept asking her questions about her day. She’s made a bunch of new friends and formally declared Ashley as her best friend. Her mom’s very nice. Georgia is a real estate agent, I met her before Ashley and Lily became friends. She helped me find the apartment and I like to think that we would have been friends anyway.When we reach the apartment, we go inside and I get Lily set up at the table with a snack and a coloring book. I pick up the phone and call Sally.“Hi, Sally, it’s Ann.”“How can I help you, Ann?”“Oh, no, I was just calling to see if there’s anything you need me to do before the movie marathon on Saturday. Can I do anything to help?” I hold the phone in between my shoulder and my ear and reach down to the table to cap Lily’s markers.“Actually, yes, there is something that you can do to help. Could you maybe stop by later today and help us set up for it? Josie and I’ve collected a couple dozen chairs to try and set up but were not sure how to do it or where to put the screen.”“Sure, I’ll come down with Lily in about twenty minutes.” As soon as Lily finishes her apple slices, I help her put her coat back on and we drive to Starbucks. It’s darker and colder so I don’t even want to walk.“Hi, everyone,” I say when I push open the door. Lily runs inside and goes behind the counter. She finds something or other to play with and after checking with Josie to make sure that it’s okay, I leave her there to have fun. “What can I do to be useful?”“Um, I guess you can start unfolding the chairs. We also need to get some brownies and cookies baked to sell Saturday.” Sally point towards the stacks of folding chairs and I hoist one off the top of a stack. I push it open with my foot and realize that I have no idea where to put it.“So, how are we going to arrange this place?” I look around; taking in how much space is available.“We’re not sure yet,” Josie explains to me and bites her lip. “I think that we should leave an area up front for the little kids to sit in but fill the rest with chairs. Then when the little kids leave, we can add more chairs for the rest of the movies. I guess we’ll just leave it set up like this for another four days. I don’t want to leave it until Friday and I just want to get it finished now.”“Okay, that sounds good. Maybe we could take the cushions off the normal chairs for the kids to sit on and use as booster seats.” Sally and Josie nod and so I keep unfolding the chairs while they take off the new chair covers and pull up the cushions. Lily keeps playing behind the counter and I set up rows of chairs with an aisle down the middle for people to walk through. There’s enough seating to fit in at least fifty people not including the area in the front and the tables that are still set up in the back.“So, how are you handling tickets?”“I was thinking that we could charge five bucks per person and kids under five get in free. We could also sell and all day movie passes for seventeen bucks so if people want to stay for all five movies then they don’t have to buy a new ticket every time.”“That sounds reasonable to me.” Sally gives her input and I nod to show my agreement.“Then we can sell normal coffee and things off the menu at a slightly reduced price to get people to buy more.” Josie continues on with her ideas for tomorrow. “Then we can also have homemade popcorn, brownies and cookies on sale especially for watching the movie. I’m not crazy about the idea of soda, but we could probably find a way to make slushies or something.”“Yes, Mr. Schwartz bought himself a snow cone machine a couple of months ago that I’ll bet we could use.” Sally interjects and then walks over the phone to ask him. Josie carries on while Sally talks to Mr. Schwartz and she doesn’t seem to be running out of ideas any time soon.“Wow, I say as I arrange the cushions on the floor. “I didn’t realize that you put so much thought to this. If someone told me to organize a movie marathon, then I would have chairs and a movie, no ticket system, no snacks. It would be really boring if I was planning this thing.”“Yeah, well,” She says modestly. “I really care about this place.”“I really hope you can save it, Josie. Honestly, if you can’t I don’t think that anyone can. Truly, I mean that. You basically built this Starbucks and it’s kind of the reason I moved here. Without it, I’ll still love Ashby, but it won’t be the same.” Josie blushes and I don’t press her to say anything. She’s clearly very attached to this place and I don’t want to think what would happen if it does shut down. If she can’t save it, then the town will slowly crumble. The Ashby Starbucks is like glue, even if other people don’t know that yet.KarenI’m still angry. I still don’t understand Aaron and I still don’t have someone to go to the movie marathon on Saturday with. It’s not like I feel a need to find a date or anything, I just think that it would be nice to go with a friend. Apparently, though, Aaron and I are not friends despite being caught in a broken elevator together. God. How much harder do I have to work to make one freaking friend?I walked into the office today at the same time as Aaron. We didn’t say anything to each other and when I headed to take the stairs, he veered off towards the elevator. Seriously? Is my breath that bad?Now, I’m in my neat and tidy cubicle fuming by myself. When I realize that I’m wasting energy by being so mad, I get up and out of my chair and walk to Aaron’s cubicle. I don’t want to fight or post things on his computer or anything. I just want to talk to him. I hesitate and then knock on the wall.“Aaron?” He stops typing and turns around in his chair. His mouth is in a tight line and after a moment, I realize that he’s not going to say anything. I take a deep breath and start again. “Aaron, I need to apologize to you. The way I acted yesterday was completely inappropriate and I shouldn’t have lost my temper. I just go frustrated at you but I’m sorry for raising my voice and being—rude.” I pause again and wait for a reaction that doesn’t come.“But, I also need to say that I think that you owe me an apology as well. I know I’m breaking a billion apology rules here by adding on to my apology, but, whatever. I think that you need to hear this. The way that you have treated me in the past couple of days has really gotten to me. I kind of thought that we were friends. I guess I thought wrong but it’s really the least that you can do to clue me in on that in a more polite way. Giving me the silent treatment, not even acknowledging me when I try and talk to you, I thought that you were better than that. I’m sorry if I’m being rude here, too. I just really had to say that to your face.” When he doesn’t respond immediately, I decide to count to five and then walk away. One. Eye contact, its start, even if his look is verging on a death glare. Two. Breaking eye contact. He’s looking down at his hands and playing with his thumbs. Not so reassuring. Three. Feet are planted on the ground and his shoulders are tense. He makes eye contact again and breaks it just as quickly. Four. He spins his feet and the chair is facing back to the computer.Five.Hands on the keyboard, typing away. Just for good measure, I wait until what would have been six, but I don’t count the number in my head. I bow my head and walk back to my desk.How much of an idiot am I?He clearly just wanted to be left alone and I blew everything out of proportion and ruined what—in time—could have been a really nice friendship between co-workers. Ah, well. That’s never going to happen. I gave it a shot, and it didn’t work. What a great way to throw myself back into a social arena.“Karen,” A voice comes from the entrance to my cubicle. I quickly swivel around in my chair. Aaron’s standing there, with a guilty expression and a movie flyer in his hand.“Do you want to go to this movie thing on Saturday with me?”JillI don’t really belong here. Ashby is a wonderful town with a fine education; I just don’t want to be a secretary here. Or anywhere, for that matter. I’m a very quiet person. I don’t like to hurt other people’s feelings, that’s why I went out with Ronnie in the first place. Ronnie’s my boyfriend and I hate the fact that I didn’t like him at all the first time I met him. I love him now, I guess.I guess.That’s not what I should be saying. I should be pretty in love with him to have been dating him for two years. I’m just not. I can see myself spending the rest of my life with Ronnie. But that life isn’t what I want. With him, I see myself staying in Ashby, being a secretary for at least another ten years until Ronnie gets promoted or he decides that we should move. It doesn’t seem like a life that I would enjoy myself in.I’m twenty-seven. That’s not too old. I don’t need to rushing to get married or anything. It just seems like what everyone wants me to do. But not what I want to do. When we first started dating, everyone was always telling me how good we were together and how they hoped that we would last. I didn’t feel a strong connection but I waited to break it off because I wasn’t sure how awkward it would be. I didn’t want a dramatic situation and I didn’t want all of the teachers to hate me. He’s a very nice person but he’s just, not someone who I want to date. I think that the teachers in the school are very nice people too but I don’t want them involved in my personal life.I really don’t want Ronnie involved in my personal life either.I love Ronnie, but as a friend. And I certainly don’t love him; even enough in that sense, to even consider marrying him. Yet here I am. And I don’t know how to break it off.I’m losing time. No one knows that I’m going to call it off. I’ve made a new friend—Ann and I’ll probably tell her eventually. She seems capable and she could hopefully help me find a way to do this kindly. I don’t even sit with him at lunch. He’s a math specialist and when I tried sitting with him, I didn’t feel comfortable and I found his friends kind of ridiculous.I can’t think about anything else. I sit at the main office, directing parents to classrooms and figuring out mail. I don’t smile anymore. When I do, it feels fake and I feel so guilty for being an un-cheerful secretary. The bell rings for the last time today and I shuffle up some papers on my desk. I open up my email once more and see if the teachers have anything to say. Nothing new, I’ve heard everyone’s complaints before. I shut down my computer and slip some notices into the mailboxes.“Jill?” Ann appears at my desk and sets her hands down with her fingers spread out. I brighten up a little bit and look up at her.“What can I do for you, Ann? Art teacher request? Message to someone on the staff?” She taps her fingers on the desk and smiles.“No, no, I just wanted to come in and say hi. Do you want to go get a cup of coffee? I’ve got some stuff on my mind.” She squishes her lips together and breaks the smile.“I’d love to, let me just get my things together.” I pick up my purse and slip my coat on over my cardigan. I take my mittens out of my pockets and cram my hands into them.“Do you want to say goodbye to Ronnie or anything?” She tilts her head and looks confused when I shake my head.“No, let’s just go,” I hurry out the front door. I can’t explain in the school, too many people who might here. I do need someone to talk to though and Ann is by far the best person in Ashby for that.Ann follows behind me and I slow down so I can walk beside her.“So, where do you want to go?” I ask her. I don’t go out for coffee much.“Starbucks,” Ann says it like it’s obvious. “You’ve been there before, right?”“Yeah, I’m sure I have. I don’t really get out much.”“How long have you lived here?”“Uh, five years? Maybe six?” I don’t really want to know.“And you’ve never been to the Starbucks? That was like the first place I went when I came here. But where do you like to go in Ashby?”“I don’t really know. On weekends, I take mini road trips to other towns in Massachusetts. No offense to Ashby or anything but I don’t really like highway towns.”“No, I get it,” Ann nods and pulls her coat tighter around her. “I wouldn’t have moved here either expect for the people here and the fact that I get to teach art. Why did you move here?”“I can’t really remember. After college, I didn’t want to move back in with my parents and I had to find a place quickly. I didn’t look too hard and I didn’t have too much money for rent so I found an apartment here and moved in. I didn’t think that I would actually live here. I thought that I would find a place in another town soon but I never got around to it. Then I had been a secretary for four years and then I was—dating a math specialist.”“Can I ask you something about that?” She asks cautiously. “I know that I haven’t known you for that long but, we’re friends right.”“Yeah, yeah, we are.”“Okay, so you don’t have to answer if I’m being weird but, what is it with you and Ronnie? I know that you two are dating but you don’t even sit together at lunch.”“I know.” We walk in silence the rest of the way to Starbucks and when we go inside, Ann says hi to the barista and an older man drinking tea in the corner with a newspaper. I guess she comes here pretty often.“Hey, Josie, could I have an apple cider and a chocolate donut?”“Sure, Ann,” The barista—Josie, I guess—nods and writes something down on a cup. “How can I help you?” She turns to me and smiles.“Um, can I have a hot chocolate and a chocolate chip cookie?” Josie nods and I thank her. Ann and I sit down at a table and in a minute, Josie brings the drinks and baked goods over.“So, you come here a lot?” I ask Ann and take a sip of the hot chocolate.“Yeah, it’s so nice here. And isn’t the hot chocolate good?” I nod and look around and who’s in the shop. The man in the corner is intently focusing on a crossword puzzle and Josie is filling out a paper. “Don’t worry, it’s safe.” Ann teases and I don’t understand. “You can talk here,” she explains. “You don’t have to make stupid small talk; you can say what you feel.” I take a deep breath and jump into it.“I don't like Ronnie, like, at all.” I say slowly and when the words come out, my brain is clearer. It’s like I have a huge weight taken off my chest and I can think again.“Wow,” Ann breathes. “I guess you haven’t talked to many people about this. Have you?”“No, you’re the first person I’ve told. I don’t know how I got myself into this. I was so afraid of it turning into an awkward situation that I never broke up with him. It went for so long that eventually we have been dating for two years. I never liked him, even when we started dating but now I have spent two years of my life with him.““Alright, slow down.” Ann motioned with her hands for me to calm down. “Take a deep breath.” I inhaled through my nose and slowly let it out through my mouth. “You need to take a minute and think about this. Are you sure?”I don’t hesitate, I just nod. It’s not a question that I need to think about. I know that I am not in love with Ronnie.“I’ve known since I started dating him that I wasn’t, and would never be, in love with Ronnie. I just never felt the connection.”“And that’s okay; you just need to figure out how to break up with him gently.”“I know, I know. I just don’t know how to say it.”“Just tell him—that would be the easiest. Don’t go through a whole process; just say it and then you can figure things out.” My phone buzzed.“It’s Ronnie,” I clutch the phone and look to Ann for advice.“Pick it up.” She instructs and so I do. I flip it open and hesitantly press it to my ear.“Hi, Ronnie,”“Jill, I think we need to talk. Can you meet me in the park in ten minutes?”“Yeah, sure, I go right over.” I close the phone and look over at Ann. “We’ll it seems like now’s the time.”“Good luck.”Josie“A screen! Dammit, Liz, I forgot a screen!” I scream into the phone before Liz even has a chance to say anything. “What are we going to do without a screen, Liz?”“Josie?” She sounds sleepy. “Josie, is that you?”“Yes, Liz,” I slow down and take a deep breath. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”“Yeah, yeah, but that’s okay.” She yawns loudly and mumbles something to her room-mate. “Josie, give me a second, I need to move into another room so Amy can sleep.” I hear some footsteps and a door clicking shut. “What’s wrong, Josie?”“I’m so sorry, what time is it? I just woke up and I freaked out and didn’t think or anything.”“That’s alright, it’s seven-thirty which on a normal day, would be when I wake up. Amy and I just had a bunch of tests yesterday, though, so classes are pretty light.”“Oh, okay,” I feel horrible. I should let her sleep but I really need help. “Do you want to go back to sleep?” I cringe when I ask this. I feel like such a bad person, I want her to say no so much. She needs sleep but I need help.“No,” I can hear the reluctance in her voice but I’m relieved anyway.“Okay, thank you. I really need help. The marathon is in two days and I don’t have a projector. And even if I did have a projector, I don’t have something to project the movie onto.” A wail creeps into my voice and I rack my brains for a plan.“It’ll be okay.” She takes a deep breath and sighs loudly. “Listen, Josie, it’s going to take me about an hour to find a projector. The screen itself I can help you right now. Go find a plain white sheet and through it in the washer to make sure that it’s really clean. Then you have to put up a string up in Starbucks and attach the sheet to it with clothespins or something.” I grab a piece of paper and dutifully write down her instructions. I’m so nervous that I’m afraid I’ll forget them.“And about the projector, I’m sure that one of my professors has one that they’re not using today. I’ll go try and ask one. If I can’t do that, then we’ll have to figure something out.” Liz sighs again and I hear another thud. It sounds like she’s leaning her head back on the wall.“I’m so sorry, Liz, I really didn’t mean to mess this up.”“I know you didn’t, Josie,” She says gently and I can hear her trying not to get frustrated. “But we’ll just have to wait and see if it works out. If I can get a projector that hooks up to a laptop, do you have one that we can use?”“Yes, of course,” I say, relieved that I can say that we can check something off the ever growing to-do list.“Okay, I’ll call you back in an hour and tell you how it’s going.”“Thank you so much, Liz.”“It’s okay, Josie. I need that Starbucks almost as much as you do.” The line goes dead and my cell phone start blinking to tell me that the call is over.What did she mean by that? “I need this place almost as much as you do.” I know I’m attached to the Starbucks but I never thought about myself needing it.Before the piercings and Goth clothing, I went through various other phases. That’s probably why I never made any real friends in school. I was too busy changing myself into what I thought my parents would notice. I never actually looked for a group that I fit into. I flitted between groups depending on how I looked or what I was pretending to be interested. I never actually hung out with the other tap kids or the history kids. The people who I stayed away from were probably the ones who I would have gotten along with best.That idea has been lurking with me for years. I was always uncomfortable in school. I didn’t have that much trouble with the actual academics but the social aspect always put me on edge. When I went to Starbucks—and I hate to be this sappy—it clicked.I fit in there. I didn’t have to pretend. Of course, I kept pretending, trying to get attention, but it mattered less to me. I stopped depending on my fake personalities and I focused on dancing. Then I lost dance when I had to stop taking classes and I just had Starbucks.I picked up my cell phone and checked the time. 7:35.I yawned and grabbed a pair of jeans. Our house is huge so I have my own bathroom. I walk into the bathroom and grab a toothbrush. I squeeze an inordinate amount of toothpaste onto it and stick it into my mouth. I half-heartedly brush away and I don’t bother brushing my hair, it’ll be messy anyway.I pull on my jeans and dig out a t-shirt from my hamper. I quietly go into the hallway and switch on the light. Everyone’s doors are closed so I don’t worry about waking them up. I find the linen cabinet and root around until I find a big white sheet. I walk down the stairs in my fuzzy socks and throw the sheet into the washer. I go into the kitchen.“Hi, Mom,” I say as cheerfully as I can.“Hello, Jo-Jo,” I wince a little bit when she calls me that. I’ve stopped bothering trying to tell her that I hate being called that. My full name is Josephine and I hate that, too. Jo, yeah, sure, okay. Josie, even better. Jo-Jo? I am not a Dr. Seuss character, thank you very much. And to me, it sounds kind of derogatory. Little Women? Can you imagine Josephine March being called Jo-Jo? It just doesn’t work.“Mom, uh, what are you doing on Saturday?”“I’m busy, I have and all day meeting in Connecticut and your father is driving me there.” She takes a sip of her decaffeinated coffee. I don’t understand why she drinks it. Most people don’t really like the taste of coffee but they drink it for the caffeine. Really, those people should be drinking tea which has caffeine and a better taste. Not my mom, she drinks plain, dark roast, black coffee. No half-and-half, no sugar. Nothing. I don’t think even she likes the taste.She already has her suit on. Her hair is pulled into a tight bun and sprayed with half a can of hairspray. She has large dangling earrings that sway whenever she talks. It’s really distracting and I always find myself focusing on them instead of what she says. The earrings are kind of intimidating. They sway precariously but she doesn’t seem to notice them, not even when they slam against her cheeks.“Mom?”“What is, Josie? I have to finish this by ten o’clock.” She tears her eyes away from the large stack of papers neatly covering the table. It sounds impossible to be “neatly covering” something but she does it. She has four perfect stacks lined up next to each other that seem to take up the entire table. They really only cover about a quarter of the table but it doesn’t seem like there’s room for me to sit down.“Okay, well,” I don’t even finish the sentence. She’s too wrapped up in the papers. I turn around and fill a mug with cereal.I am a firm believer that people should eat most of their meals out of mugs. It’s much more efficient. With a mug, you can have your food in one hand and do something else in the other. It’s great, because I like to read while I eat.I pour some milk into the mug and dump a spoon into it. I hear a beep so I go back downstairs and check on the machine. I pull out the sheet and shove it into the dryer. The dryer starts buzzing and vibrating.I go back upstairs and look into the supply closet. I pull some boxes out and look around for some string and clothespins. I find paper clips and a stapler. Not quite the same thing. I sigh softly to myself and trudge back up to the kitchen. I know asking won’t do anything but I mean, maybe one of these times will be different and I’ll get some help from people who aren’t in Starbucks.“Mom?” She looks up and tilts her head in a very irritated way. “Do we have any string and clothespins?”“I don’t know, Josie, ask your sister.” I don’t want to wake Kimmy up so I just go back to the supply closet.This time wasn’t different.LizI take a deep breath. The door reads “PROFESSOR ADAMS”—my design teacher.I knock crisply on the hard wood.“Come in,” A voice calls out.“Professor Adams?” I turn the knob and push in. “Hi, I’m Liz Johnson; I’m a freshman in your design class.” Professor Adams nods and reaches out to shake my hand. I clumsily shake and then there’s an awkward silence.“So, Johnson, what can I do for you?” She smiles and I relax a little bit.“I am so sorry to impose on you like this; do you have any classes on Saturday?”“No, why do you ask?”“Really, I am so sorry to ask you this,” I start and she leans back in her chair and cocks her head.“What is it? You don’t know that I’ll say no until you ask.” She has a point so I try again.“Right, so, I was wondering if I could borrow your projector on Saturday.” I should have eased my way into it slower.“Sit down, Liz,” She motions to the chair on the other side of her desk. “Why would you want to borrow your design teacher’s projector on a Saturday?”“It’s a bit of a long story,” I really do not want to tell my life story to a teacher who never calls on me in class. She’s not one for hands, she likes surprise questions.“I’ve got time; tests are over so I don’t have anything to do.” She looks at me expectantly and I realize that she’s serious.“Really?” I settle into my chair.“Go on,” I hesitate and then launch in.“So, there’s a Starbucks in a town near here, Ashby.”“Yes, I’ve been there a couple of times.” I wait to see if she has something more to say. “Sorry, I’ll stop interrupting now.”“So, there’s this Starbucks that’s closing down. The people in Ashby really care about it but the profits haven’t been doing so well,” I go through the whole story. I cut out some of the details about my personal life. I would have included them had this been a full blown rant but this was just a plea to my professor to let me borrow a projector.“So, let me just summarize this so I can make sure that I’ve got it right.” Professor Adams waves her hands for emphasis while she says this. “Your boyfriend broke up with you, so you started going to Starbucks, you got attached to it and now it is shutting down and you want to save it—with my projector.”“Yeah, that sounds about right.” I laugh a little. It sounds ridiculous hearing someone else say it. “It’s really silly, but if you’re not using it then, would it be okay if I borrowed it?“Of course,” She smiles when she says this and I do, too. “But only on two conditions. One, you need to start participating in class. You’re doing very well on assignments but you need to participate more. Two, you get me a flyer with the information for this movie marathon.” She looks very pleased with herself.“Thank you so, so much. I reach into my bag and pull out an extra flyer. I hung them around the campus but I didn’t use all of them. “Here is the information. Could I pick up the projector on Saturday morning?”“Yes, of course! See you in class, Johnson,” She puts her glasses on and picks up a pen.“Thank you, Professor Adams,” I wave and walk out the door. I walk across the campus and into my dorm. I go up the stairs and into my room.“Hey, Amy, sorry for waking you up.” She’s sitting on her bed with her laptop.‘No, that’s okay; I should get up and be productive, anyway.”“Alright, so the movie marathon is all figured out. You’ve invited people and they’re coming, right? I just want to make sure that we actually have a, you know, a plan.”“Yeah, we’re all meeting at the Starbucks for the chick flick and staying for the horror movie.”“Great, thanks so much for organizing all of that.”“Yeah, sure, it’ll be fun! I want you to meet, you know, new friends.”“Yeah,” I say quietly. My successful feeling slips away as I think about Lauren and Jim.“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring that up.” She makes an apologetic face and I force myself to think that it’s okay.“That’s alright, let’s move on.” I check the time and realize that I need to call Josie back. “I need to make a call; I’ll be back in a second.” I take out my cell phone and find Josie in my contacts.“Liz? What happened? Did you get the projector?” Josie starts talking loud and fast and I wait for a minute until she slows down so I can get a word in.“Josie, it’s okay. I talked to my design teacher and she’s totally cool with letting us use the projector on Saturday.”“That’s great, that’s really—“ I hear a beeping noise and Josie stops talking. “Oh, sorry, that’s the sheet. I need to get it out of the dryer. Thank you so much, Liz! That’s really great and that makes me feel so much better.”“What time do you want me to drop it off on Saturday?”“As early as you can, maybe around nine?”“Yeah, sure, do you want me to stop by on Friday? I can help you bake some cookies and stuff.”“Thank you, so much, that would be great.”“Alright, Josie, I’ll talk to you later.”“Bye, Liz! Thanks so much!” I snap the phone shut and breathe a sigh of relief.Crisis averted.Mr. SchwartzI took a walk down by the high school today. I felt a certain nostalgic feeling that I wasn’t expecting. I guess I kind of miss teaching. It’s not like I haven’t been busy enough lately. What with the Starbucks being shut down and all, I’ve had plenty to do these past couple of months.When I retired, I enjoyed the few days, but it felt like a vacation. Not something that was permanent. I think if I had been sitting around for more than two weeks, then I would have gotten horribly bored. I needed a job to do; I just didn’t want it to be at a coffee shop. Josie has done great things with the place but I couldn’t spend all day there. Sure, it’s great for a cup of coffee and a newspaper but not for a steady job.I think that I want to go back to teaching. Maybe not teaching, but something involving teaching. Maybe I could be a math tutor. That way, I could spend half the day being retired and then have a job for the rest of the day. I think it could be fun and I wouldn’t have to grade papers or attend staff meetings or anything.I pick up my sketchbook—yes, I have and carry a sketchbook—and go out the door. I walk by the park and back to the high school. It’s about three o’clock so the kids are out of school but the teachers are probably still there.“Hey, Mr. Schwartz,” The receptionist, Mrs. Logan, says hello and I wave to her.“Hello, Mrs. Logan,” I greet her and look around the familiar lobby. “I was wondering if I could have a word with Principal Meyers. Could that be arranged?”“Of course, let me just call him up.” She picks up the phone and dials a number. “John? Mr. Schwartz is here and wants to say hello.” I hear a faint mumbling and Mrs. Logan nods her head. She sets the phone down and gives me the okay to go into his office. I thank her and turn the handle on the door labeled “PRINCIPAL”.“Billy! Long time no see!”“Hey, John,” I shake his hand and sit down in a chair. “So how are you doing, Principal Meyers?” I settle into the leather cushioning and fold my hands over my stomach.“I’m all right, the school is doing well but we’re having a little trouble finding a new math teacher.” He smiles at me and takes his own seat.“You’re just saying that,” I know that Ashby isn’t crawling with math teachers but I’m sure that they found a perfectly suitable replacement. “But, thanks, anyway.”“Yeah, well, we were sad to see you go, Bill. How’s your retirement going? After the whole Starbucks thing, we weren’t sure how the relaxation plans were going to work out.”“I’m doing alright. But that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve been missing teaching math a little bit lately, so I was thinking about tutoring kids. What do you think?”“Tell me more,” He seems interested to I keep talking.“I know a lot of my students could have benefitted from a little bit of extra attention outside of class. I thought that we could set it up through the school so that the students and teachers know that I’m available to help. I think that it would be good for the kids in this school.”“Well, I’ll see what I can do, Billy.”“Thanks, Joe.”SallyToday is Friday. The day of my own little personal project. The one that I didn’t let Josie get involved in.Today, I’m offering classes in my dance studio.I’ve been advertising it for the past week or so, I haven’t been getting in Josie’s way or anything. I left the movie marathon to her because I knew she could do it, and I’m focusing on what I should teach in my dance classes.I stand in front of the mirror. I’m all prepared in a leotard and dance capris. There’s a sign on a door telling people to come inside and the first class is in ten minutes, at twelve. I go through the ballet combination one more time, anxiously watching myself in the mirror. I haven’t danced in a while and I am so worried that I’m going to mess up the combination. I need to give the impression that I am a capable teacher so that students will want to come back and take classes here.I pick up my computer and make sure that I have the music lined up. I sit down on the dance floor and warm up for another five minutes. I’ve already been stretching for half an hour.“Hi, is this the ballet class?” A girl who looks to be around two years younger than Josie walks in with a duffel bag.“Yes, hi, I’m Sally. Nice to meet you…?”“I’m Delia, nice to meet you, too. Where should I change?” She gestures to her duffel bag.“Oh, right up the stairs and go to the first door on the left. There’s a changing room there where you can leave your stuff.”“Okay, thanks,” She hurries upstairs and three more girls come in. I point them all to the dressing room and by noon, I have a class of fifteen girls.“Hello, everyone,” I have them all gather on the floor in a circle to give some sort of an introduction. “My name is Sally, and this is a trial class for Ashby’s new studio. I hope you like it and if you do, I’ll be offering weekly classes starting in January. Okay?” I see some nodding heads. “Great, let’ get started!”The girls set themselves up at the barre and begin warming up. I lead them through some stretches and after twenty minutes, we do some across the floor work. It’s fun and the girls seem to be enjoying the class. I quiz them on some vocab to find out what they know and I find that it’s a pretty advanced class.“Have all of you girls taken a ballet class before?” They all nod. “Could you tell me where?” Delia raises her hand and I call on her.“At the Sunny Days Dance School. I think that most of us were in classes there for the past few years.” The rest of the girls bob their heads in agreement.“But you’re looking to try something new?” I ask them. This is exactly why I wanted to start a new dance school for the people in this town.“You could say that,” Delia says grimly and the rest of the girls giggle guiltily. “I think that we were also looking for a more advanced class.”“Got it,” I give a knowing smile and keep the class going. “Now, let’s learn the combination so we can run it with the music before class is over.”The girls catch on very quickly and we have time to run it with the music twice and then learn a few more sections to it.“Thanks girls! Hope to see you all again!” They clap at the end of the class and then race up to the dressing room. I can tell that they didn’t hate it which gives me a certain feeling of accomplishment.Delia stops by before she walks out the door.“Thanks Sally!” I wave goodbye to her and start preparing for the jazz class that starts in half an hour. The phone rings and I walk into the kitchen to pick it up.“Hello? Who is this?” I ask while I drink from a glass of water.“Sally? It’s Mr. Schwartz,” The voice comes through but faint and there’s a lot of static.“Mr. Schwartz? Where are you? I can’t hear you very well,” I move around in the kitchen to try and get a better connection.“Sorry, I’m taking a walk through the park and you know that the city council refused to put phone lines in here.”“Okay, well, what can I do for you? I need to get ready for my jazz class.” I take another sip of water and sit down at the kitchen table.“I’ll let you get right back to that. I just wanted to ask you how the first class went. How did it go?” I smile, thankful that I have someone to talk to.“I think it went very well, thanks for asking. But, I guess we’ll find out when I offer class applications.”“Yes, well, I’m sure that it went great.”“I’ll talk to you later, Mr. Schwartz; the students will be coming in soon.”“Bye, Sally,” I hang up the phone and set it back in its holder. I go back into the studio and find the jazz music. I take off my ballet slippers and roll up my convertible tights.I am going to be so sore tonight.JosieI’ve been panicking all week. It took me an hour to go to sleep last night and I woke up in the middle of the night anyway. I have been so stressed out lately.The sheet came out perfectly clean and once I found string and clothespins, I managed to securely hang it up in Starbucks. It actually wasn’t that hard to get it hanging up there. But now customers think that it’s really weird to have a giant sheet and a bunch of chairs in the middle of the store. I’ve been selling movie tickets in advance and a lot of people are buying them. I made sure to have a set number of tickets for each movie so we don’t oversell and then not have enough space. I’m closing early today so Liz and I can make sure that everything is completely and totally ready for tomorrow.It’s three-thirty and the last couple of customers are trickling in.“Hi, welcome to Starbucks. How can I help you?” I smile at the customers and wait for their orders.“Hi, we’re actually here to ask about the movie marathon. Is that still happening? Or, did it get called off because of the rain?”“No, it is still happening. We’re just holding it here in the Starbucks instead of in the park. Also, you can buy your tickets now instead of tomorrow if you like.”“Okay, sure. Can I get two all day tickets?” The man asks me and holds out the money.“Of course, let me just get you change.” I reach into the cash register and hand him the money along with two of the all-day tickets. “See you tomorrow!”“Thanks, and while we’re here can I get a decaf green tea?” He holds out some of the change I just gave him.“Yes, do you want that hot, iced or in a smoothie?” I pick up a Sharpie and hold it over a cup, ready to write down the order.“Iced would be great. Thanks,” I pour hot water and put a tea bag into the cup. I hand it to him and he slips a dollar bill into the tips jar.“Thanks so much!” I wave him out and immediately take the dollar out of the tip jar and put it into the cash register. I’d rather have it go to the Starbucks fund than my chocolate addiction.The mailman comes by with a couple of letters which he drops off at the counter. I thank him and he gets a steaming cup of coffee to drink while he walks around in the cold. I rifle through the letter and find one stamped “URGENT” in big red letters.My heart stops for a second.I try to open it neatly, but I mangle the envelope trying to reach the papers inside.It’s an eviction notice. We’re so far behind on profits that we can’t even pay the rent for this place.No one else comes in in the next twenty minutes except Liz. She walks in at four and then I close up shop so we can clean up a little bit. I clutch the letter to my heart and quickly decide not to tell her about it.“Okay, here are the disinfectant wipes and the window cleaner.” I hand them to her along with a big wad of paper towels.“Great, but, why are we cleaning windows if the curtains are going to be closed?” She looks puzzled and I see that it doesn’t really make sense.“I don’t know, so it looks nice from the outside or something.”“Okay, then.” She spritzed some window cleaner onto the glass door and tears off a paper towel. She methodically works her way around to all of the windows and then shakes out the curtains so that they aren’t dusty. I yank a disinfectant wipe from the plastic container and vigorously rub the tables until they are shiny and clean. I get some of my stress out on the now sparkly clean tables.“So, we still have to bake some cookies and stuff, don’t we?” Liz asks after we’ve cleaned up a bit. She ties her hair back into a ponytail and looks around once more.“Yeah, and we should also clean up the kitchen a bit.” Liz starts to assemble chocolate chip cookie ingredients and while she makes the dough, I do the dishes and clean up. I lean over and preheat the oven and she starts dropping teaspoons of sugary goodness onto a baking tray.I reach over to the bowl and stick my finger in. I scoop out a bit of cookie dough and pop it into my mouth.“Mmmmm…” I groan in appreciation. “That’s really good, Liz.”“Thanks, but no more stealing batter!” She teases me and then shields the bowl with her hands to prevent anymore cookie theft. “Do you want me to make cupcakes, too?”“Yeah, if it won’t take do long.”“We can do it pretty quickly. Why don’t you get started on the batter and I’ll grease the muffin tins. That way, you can put the batter right in when you’re done and I can start the frosting.” She uses her hands to demonstrate and I nod along with everything she says.“Sounds like a pretty good plan, why don’t we get started.” She claps her hands and finds the shortening in the fridge. She takes another paper towel and generously distributes it into each section of the tin. I put the flour, salt and baking powder into one bowl and mix it together and then make a wet mix. I combine the two along with some milk and then taste it to make sure that it’s okay. If the batter doesn’t taste good, then the baked cupcakes, definitely won’t. It’s sugary and light so I spoon it into the tins and pop that in the oven.While I was working on that, Liz took the cookies out of the oven and now they’re almost cooled. Liz grabs a spatula and slides the cookies off of the tray.“You know,” She speculates. “I never really understood why you don’t have to grease the cookie tray when you bake cookies.”“I don’t know,” I shrug in response. “Maybe the butter in the dough keeps it from sticking or something.”“Yeah, but by that logic, then wouldn’t you not have to grease cake tins? And you definitely have to grease cake tins, believe me, I know from experience.” I laugh, remembering one time when I tried to bake a carrot cake. I didn’t make the carrot shavings fine enough so the cake wasn’t smooth and I forgot to put shortening on the pan. By the time I remembered that I should have greased it, the cake had been baking for ten minutes so I couldn’t take it out. I scraped the whole mess out with a spoon and put it into a bowl. I put some blueberries in and a little whipped cream on the top. It tasted great, but it looked like I had put it through a meat grinder.“Well,” I reply to her reasoning. “Cake batters are wetter than cookie dough and they don’t hold together as much.”“But if cookie dough holds so well, why doesn’t it hold to the baking tray?” She lifts off a perfect golden brown cookie with melted, oozing chocolate chips. She breaks it in half and pops part of it in her mouth. The other half, she offers to me. I grab it from her and cram the whole thing into my mouth.I realize that in passing, my science teacher had actually mentioned this. She had gotten sidetracked one day when she tried to ask us about our weekends and some kid kept going on and on about baking powder. She had tried to explain it to him and somehow she got to talking about ungreased cookie trays.“Oh! I know,” I exclaim and wave my hands around excitedly. “My science teacher was talking about this. The cookies don’t stick because—“ I pause and try to remember the conversation. It was only last week but I was so tired that day that I can’t even remember what she said. “I forgot, sorry, Liz. I thought I knew but completely and totally blanked.”“I guess we’ll never know.” Liz sighs dramatically and turns on the little electric hand mixer to beat together some cream cheese and confectioner’s sugar. She splashes in a couple of drops of food coloring and turns the whole thing into a nice light purple.“Hey, should we try piping these on in pretty designs?” I ask her and pull out a plastic bag. “We can reinforce the end with tape and then cut out a star tip.”“Sure, let’s be adventurous!” I grab some tape and cut out a design. We fill the bag with frosting and then take the cupcakes out of the oven. We let them cool for ten minutes and then pop them out of the pan. Then we open the fridge door and let them sit inside for another ten minutes.“Alright, how should we do this?” The first victim sits on the counter and Liz stands over it with the piping bag in her hand like a sword.“I don’t know,” I shrug and stand back. “Just go for it, I guess.” She pushes the frosting out of the bag and it comes out looking really nice on top of the cupcake.“Hey, that looks nice!” We admire the cupcake for a minute and Liz gets better and better at it over the next twenty-three of them. We put the cupcakes back into the fridge so they say nice and so the frosting can set.“Liz?” I wipe my hands on my jeans and poke Liz on the arm.“Yeah? What is it?” She turns around and licks some frosting off of her finger. “Oh, wow.”The kitchen is a mess. From the frosting and the cupcake batter, everything is incredibly messy.“How did that happen?” I ask her and hold out a disinfectant wipe. “I guess that we should just wipe everything down.”“Okay,” She starts cleaning the counter and it takes us longer to clean the kitchen than it did to bake the cookies and cupcakes. “Should we bake more tomorrow morning?”“Yes, we can, I also have all of the normal things that we normally sell here. Also, Ann is bringing some more brownies or something.”“Great, well,” She sighs. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll give you a ride home.”“Thanks, let me just get my things together.” I put on my coat and we hurry to the car. I see the eviction letter on the counter and stuff it into my pocket.“Man, it’s cold,” She shivers and practically dives into the car. She shoves the key in and starts the car. I reach over and crank up the heat. “Oh,” Liz tells me. “Don’t bother, it won’t work. This car is really, really old.”“How do you survive? It’s freezing and it’s just going to get colder.” I huddle into my seat and rub my hands together. My voice comes out shaky and emotional. I can’t stop thinking about the horrible document being crushed in my fist.“Great, thanks for the heads up, Josie.” Liz says sarcastically, either she didn’t hear or she just chooses to ignore my tone. We drive along for a couple of minutes in silence. I can’t think of whether I should tell her or keep it a secret until after the movie marathon. And then there’s a red light. A couple is crossing across the street and Liz freaks out.“Dammit!” She leans over and hides her head.“What, Liz? What are you doing?” I lean down to try and talk to her. The car behind us honks and I look up.“Are they gone?” She whispers.“What? Liz, what are you talking about?”“The people crossing the street, the guy was Jim. Are they gone yet?” The car behind us honks again and I check to see if the couple is gone. The light is green and Jim and the girl he was with are gone.“Yeah, Liz, they’re gone. We’ve got to drive, the people behind us are waiting!” She sits back up and puts her hands on the wheel.“Sorry, I won’t stop again.” She starts driving and goes to my house. She stops the car but I don’t get out immediately.“Hey, Liz?”“Mm-hm?” She looks at me with an unhappy expression.“Are you gonna be okay? I don’t know if you’ve talked to Jim at all, but it kind of seems like you should. You can’t freak out every time you see him for the next three years. I mean, it’s not worth leaving college over a guy and you certainly can’t just drop everything every time you see him.”“I know.” Her eyes well up and a couple of tears spill out. “I know, and I seriously thought that I was over all that. I guess I’m not and it’s worse than I thought it was. I don’t understand. I don’t like Jim, I really don’t. And yet, I have this crazy need to know what he thinks of me and I keep expecting some kind of confrontation or apology or something. It’s never going to happen. I know that it is never going to happen but I keep waiting for it.” She leans her head on the wheel and I reach out and awkward hand and pat her hair. She reaches over and in an uncomfortable flurry of keys and puffy down coats, she gives me a hug. She holds on tightly and I wrap my arms around her.“I am so sorry, Liz. I know that this is really hard for you.” She clings on and I pat her back. She leans her face on my shoulder and I melt. “I know how it feels, Liz. Not with guys but, I know how it feels to expect attention that never comes. It’s tough, but we’re going to be okay. Really, we’ll be just fine.” She sniffles a little bit and then unlatches herself. She gives me a brave smile and runs her hands through her hair. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Liz.” I unbuckle my seatbelt and let myself out of the car. I wave through the window and she gives me a small wave back to let me know that she heard me.Liz will be okay, she’s tough. And even if she’s not as tough as I think she is, then she will be after this. She drives away and I let myself into the house.“Hi, Kelly!” I call out and hear a loud mumble in response. She’s probably reading a book or using her computer or something that she doesn’t want to be distracted from.I walk up to my room and dump my coat on my bed.“Hey, Freddie,” I rub my purring kitty in between his ears. “How was your day?” I sit down on the bed and Freddie curls up next to me. He rubs his head against my hands and then uncurls himself and stretches out. “Good boy,” He climbs into my lap and promptly falls asleep. Trying my best not to disturb him, I reach over to my laptop sitting on the other side of the bed. I pull it open and check my email.Nothing.I think that everyone is trying to leave me alone so I don’t stress out. It’s not working; I stress myself out enough anyway. I open up my computer’s chess game and play a couple rounds. I lose all but two of them and the victory feels almost meaningless. Normally, I get pretty excited when I win a chess game. Not today. I’ll be excited when I have it written on a piece of paper that the Starbucks won’t be shut down.I pull the letter out of my jacket pocket and read it all the way through. The first time, I saw the word eviction and panicked.It says that if we can’t come up with the money in four days, then we will have to leave the premises. Tears come to my eyes. No one told me that we were doing this badly; I thought that Mr. Schwartz had said that we were going to be okay.My hand quivers as I reach out to my phone. I jerk back; I need to keep this to myself. Maybe Mr. Schwartz doesn’t know yet. There’s no reason to get everyone else all worried. I just need to make the movie marathon a success and then this stupid letter won’t matter.Five thousand dollars. That’s what we need to keep this place open for another two months. Starbucks pays most of the rent but each individual branch has to cough up something. That kind of money isn’t going to come from a movie marathon. Maybe ten movie marathons; but not just one. We need to set up a donation box, find a donor, something new because my current plan just went down the tubes. I have no idea what kind of profits we have right now.I put my hands over my mouth and look around at my overly extravagant room. I look at my laptop and feel an overwhelming sense of hatred. Why do I have all of this stupid stuff while the Starbucks is about to be shut down?I feel like such a horrible person. We need some kind of beneficiary to save us now.KarenI freak out before I go into work on Friday. I walk around my incredibly neat apartment stressing out about what I should wear. I wonder if I should try or if I should put in my normal amount of effort.I end up just putting on my normal skirt and a nice blouse that I didn’t dig out of the hamper. My apartment may be crazy neat but I have yet to figure out my laundry system. I know, I know, how hard can it be? Trust me. It’s surprising how hard it is to work out a system for washing clothes.I keep my fuzzy socks on for as long as I can. I’m trying not to turn on my heat for as long as I can. After I put on my stockings I slip them back on and then pad into the bathroom.I squeeze toothpaste onto my toothbrush and pop it into my mouth. I half-heartedly brush at my teeth and then leave the toothbrush hanging out of my mouth. I grab a comb and rake it through my hair. I work on a rat’s nest in my hair and then when finally get through it; I set it back down on the sink. I grab onto my toothbrush again and vigorously brush for about thirty seconds. I give up after a while and then spit into the sink. I wipe the excess toothpaste off of my mouth—gross I know.I look into the mirror and groan at what I see. I run my hands over my messy hair and grab a brush. I comb a little bit at my hair and then just snap it into a ponytail. I open the mirror cupboard and discover some cover-up that I lost a couple of months ago. I apply it to some red skin and then poke it under my eyes. I smudge it around a little bit and it makes the dark bags disappear a little bit.I walk into the kitchen and find a piece of bread. I pop it into a toaster and when it comes, I find some raspberry jam. I clean out the remains of the jar and scrape it onto the toast. I eat it while pulling off my fuzzy socks and trying to keep my blouse clean. I only get one little spot of jam on the collar and I quickly grab a sponge and dab at the shirt with it. I get it off and then I go to find shoes.Flats? Maybe? I don’t know. Maybe, not. Am I giving effort here?I find the shortest—and only—heels I have and slide them on.“Dang it!” With the first step I take, my foot bends and my ankle twists. “Ouch,” I rub my ankle and keep walking, hoping that the minor pain will go away soon.I walk out the door, wobbling slightly on my unsteady new shoes. I manage to get down the stairs of my apartment building and I hobble over to my car.I drive to the Multivista building and say hi to Dave on my way up to my floor. I decide to take the elevator; I’ll be adventurous for once. I get up to my floor with no break downs or power outages and walk over to my cubicle.I sit down in my swivel chair and turn my computer on.“Hey, Karen,” Aaron comes into my cubicle and I turn around to face him“Hi, what’s up?” He hands me a cup of coffee which I take a sip of and then set down on my desk. “Are we still going to the movie marathon tomorrow?”“Yeah, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Which ones do you want to go to?”“I mean, I don’t know. I won’t force you to go to the romantic comedy, partially because I don’t really want to go to it.”“Not surprised at all,” He shakes his head and I laugh a little bit.“Yeah, well,” I shrug a little and take another sip of coffee. “So, you’re good with going to the action movie, right?”“Sure, and can we stay for the horror.”“No, Aaron, I’m going to suffer through and hour and a half of an action movie and then leave before the horror movie that I may or may not have already seen—“ I cough a little bit for added sarcasm. “You know, four times.”“Aright, then,” He stands up and starts to walk out. “Action and horror it is. I’ll pick you up at seven thirty, okay?” I nod and he smiles and leaves.Man, I am going to need to work so much harder on Saturday.I start an email to Josie. She’s probably almost as helpless as I am, but maybe she has some friends who could give me some advice.Hi, Josie,Okay, so that guy who I got stuck in the elevator with, Aaron, asked me to go to the movie marathon with him. I’m going with him but I haven’t been on a date in three years but you’re in high school. You probably have to go through this stupid social stuff every day—no offense. Help me? Or find someone else who can? Please? And again, no offence.--LizI punch send and then sort the new letters in my inbox. I wait for Josie to respond and then I dig around until I found a pocket mirror. I check out my hair in the mirror and it looks even worse than when I left in the morning. I put my fingers though it and I even spit on my hands a little bit and smooth my hair down.“I’m not in Grease.” I mumble to myself and then pop the mirror back into my bag. I shake my head and start to do some actual work. I can’t concentrate. All I can think about is what I should wear tomorrow and weird, little, middle school details about a date. I’ve had a conversation with this guy before so it won’t be that awkward. Right? It’s won’t be like I’m going out to lunch with him after only seeing him once at some stupid school attempt at a social gathering at which I didn’t really talk to him. Man. I was stuck in the elevator with him, not pushed into slow dancing with him by my giggling group of friends who are watching like spies from the table.It’s just a date. Just a date. Which I haven’t been on in three years.It’s wrong that I’m more stressed out about this than I am about my real job, isn’t it?LizI’m actually looking forward to this. I’m going to be in Ashby twice today. I’m going in early to help Josie make popcorn and bake some more stuff and then I’m going back later for the actual movies.I picked up and dropped of the projector at Starbucks yesterday. Professor Adams was really nice about it, again. She told me to have it back to her by Monday and I promised Sunday afternoon at the latest. As a minor little thank you, I bought her an all-day movie ticket which she was very excited about. I think that she’s taking her grand-daughter to the cartoon and going to the rest of them with various members of her family. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she stayed for the horror movie.I shake a bottle of nail polish and just as a start the first finger, my phone buzzes.“Hey, Amy, could you?” She hops off her bed and picks up the phone for me. “Thanks,” She nods and flips it open before it stops vibrating.“Hey, Josie,” Amy holds the phone up to my ear while I sloppily spread nail polish to try and hide the fact that I’ve slowly nibbled my cuticles away. I paint a light pink over them that matches the outfit that Amy picked out for me. “Sorry, I missed your call. What’s up? Oh, and Amy’s going to come with me to help bake some stuff, is that okay?”“Yeah, sure,” She says impatiently. “I apologize in advance for when I snap and have a total meltdown. I’m already super snippy, sorry for that. It’s totally fine if Amy comes and I was just calling to make sure that you were coming early. I may need help with a special project.”“Ooh, sounds fun!” Amy explains. I realize that she can hear the whole conversation, not that I mind or anything.“Just, put it on speaker.” I tell her and she sets it down on the floor and pushes a button that lets Josie’s voice project out of the little cell phone. “Hey, Josie, I’m back. You’re on speaker, now, say hi to Amy.”“Hi, Amy,” She sighs. “I’m sure you’re a perfectly nice person, but I am not in the most relaxed place now so, next time I see you, please ignore any impressions that I give today.”“Got it, nice to meet you, Josie.” Amy waves and then catches herself and giggles a little bit. “What’s the special project? Now I’m all excited!”“What do you need help with, Josie?” I cut to the point. I’m sure Josie doesn’t need more question to deal with right now.“Okay, so besides the whole basic plan a movie marathon thing. And the fact that I need to supply these people with food and keep them happy and sell tickets and what not—“ She stops herself and takes a deep breath. “Sorry, so you know my friend Liz? The one we had to get out of an elevator?”“Yeah, sure,” I wave a polished hand at Amy who looks incredibly puzzled. “Long story, I’ll explain later. Go on, Josie,” I say into the phone sitting on the floor.“Okay, so she got a date for tonight and she’s been kind of, how do I put this kindly? She basically hasn’t gone on a date in three years. Not that I’m one to judge, I am a socially awkward high schooler, and so—sorry, that needs no more explanation.” Amy laughs a little again.“Makeover? Please, please, say makeover, Josie!” Amy claps her hands together and looks like she just got invited to live in a cupcake store. “I’ll love you even more than I love Liz!”“When did you get all girly?” I look at Amy in surprise and she shrugs.“You can’t read books about science all the time. I slip in the occasional fashion magazine here and there.” I poke her with a clean finger and then quickly apply polish to it.“Guys?” Josie asks from her place on the plush carpet. “Problem at hand, please. So, can you please come like, half an hour early so we can get Karen ready and get everything else finished, too?”“Mm-hm,” I mumble as I reach down to get my big toe. “Yeah, Josie, we’ll be there.”“You can count on us!” Amy chimes in as she grabs a comb and starts trying to braid my hair. I carefully push the end button on the phone and then glance over at the bed where my outfit is lying, carefully spread out.“This is hopeless, isn’t it?” She sighs and drops the comb. I grunt in agreement and she settles for attempting to volumize my hair.“Yeah, that’s not going to work, either, hon.” I say in a sarcastic voice and blow on my drying fingernails.“Fine,” She hands me a ponytail holder which I carefully use, being careful not to smudge my fingernail. “Here you go, go back to the ponytail and lip gloss.”“I will thank you very much.” I grab a tube of the shimmery stuff off of my desk and smear it onto my lips. “Hey, you should just be happy that you convinced me to wear a dress.” I look again at the bed where it’s lying. “Are you sure I won’t be cold?”“No,” She tells me honestly.“Great,” I mumble and flop onto my back.“But, it is a sweater dress—emphasis on the word sweater—and you’ll be wearing tights—which are very warm—and, wait for it--a scarf.” She reaches into the closet and pulls a piece of silky fabric out with a flourish.“Ooh, shiny,” I reach out my hands and pinch the air with imaginary crab claws to show that she should hand it over.“Nope, your nails are still wet,” She smiles and sets it down on the bed with the dress and tights. I have to admit, she can put outfits together pretty darn well. “And, you’re borrowing my boots to wear with this.” When I open my mouth to protest, she cuts me off by raising one finger. “I don’t freaking care if they pinch your toes. So help me God, you are going to look nice tonight.” She throws her head back in a very dramatic fashion and when she looks up for applause, I stick my tongue out at her. She grins and flips the scarf around her neck.Amy proceeds to prance around the apartment until her phone rings. She picks it up and looks at whose calling. The smile melts off her face and she looks up at me, panicked.“What is it? What’s wrong?”“Lauren’s calling me. Really, I have no idea why.”“I know, Amy. I know you wouldn’t do that to me.” I smile bravely at her and she looks very relieved. “Well,” after fifteen seconds passed and neither of us have done anything to end the bright and cheery ringtone from blaring out. “You should at least pick it up, don’t you think?”“I guess so,” She looks nervous and then quickly opens the phone like she’s taking off a Band-Aid. “Hello? This is Amy.” Her voice comes out cold and unfriendly. I almost laugh, it’s seems funny to hear such a non-bubbly tone coming out of Amy.“Hi, Lauren,” She continues with a serious face on. I actually start giggling and Amy looks over at me incredulously. “No, sorry, I can’t. I already have plans. Yeah, bye.” She shuts the phone and looks at me with a smile on her face. “What was that?”I lean back on the floor and laugh out loud.“Have you gone psycho?” She leans down so she’s face to face with me. “Hello? Liz? Are you there?” For some reason, I find that hysterical, too and I keep laughing until Amy gives up trying to get a response out of me. “Oy vey, Liz, you have gone insane.”“I know,” I snort, which sets me off laughing again. I can’t even remember why I started and then I realize that I want to know why Lauren was calling Amy. “Hey, not to pry or anything, but what did Lauren want?”“Oh,” Amy shrugs it off. “Nothing, she wanted me to go to the chick flick with her but, clearly, I passed. Even if she wasn’t a back-stabbing liar, I’d still rather go with you.” She leans down from her place on her bed and messes with my hair.“Watch it!” I scold playfully and stand up to go fix my hair with a mirror.“Oh, whoops,” She says sarcastically. “I guess you’ll just have to put it into another ponytail.”I turn away from the mirror and pick up a pillow.No one messes with my ponytails.Mr. SchwartzI’ve so far removed myself from saving the Starbucks that I don’t even know what’s going on. Honestly, I do feel guilty, but not quite guilty enough to get involved. It may sound selfish but, I do think that Josie would have—and has—done better at this job if I was not involved. I’ll help is she asks me too, but I’m more of a silent background guy who delivers news.I have been checking up on profits. I figured out that to keep Starbuck open, we need to increase our profits by fifty percent and then keep building that. The movie marathon will hopefully give us a little boost; at least enough to keep this place open a few more months. We need to buy ourselves some more time until we can keep our income steady and high. We have been steadily increasing profits; we’ve made around four and a half thousand dollars in the past couple of weeks. If the movie marathon boosts up a little then we can definitely keep it open for a couple more months. But without that money, we’re dead and goneI’ve stopped even visiting the Starbucks because I’m afraid I’ll mess something up. As a teacher and a student, I was horrible at anything creative. I stuck to the basic subjects that could be explained with logic and just tried my best in art and English. I scraped by with passing grades but I always found math and science—particularly math—more interesting than the more creative subjects. I wasn’t interested in writing essays about emotions or pulling apart poems to find the hidden meanings. If you want to write a poem about an apple, then write a poem about an apple. If you want to write a poem about life, then write a poem about life. Why bother with metaphors or similes or whatever else you want to throw in to make it sound nice?I would honestly rather talk about graphing and explain the Pythagorean Theorem to someone than paint a picture of the ocean. I try and and be artistic but, suffice it to say, that art is not my strong suit.The phone rings. I hoist myself up from the chair where I am sitting with a book. I set The Catcher in the Rye down and take my time getting over to the phone. I think that I may have set it on an endless ring, because I have never once seen it go to voicemail. That’s actually not such a bad thing; it means I don’t have to deal with pesky messages and returning people’s calls and other things that I would really rather not do.“Hello? This is Alfred Schwartz speaking. Who is this?” I say it all in one breath and then inhale deeply as the caller responds.“Mr. Schwartz? You don’t really know me; I’m a friend of Josie’s. My name’s Liz and Josie asked me to go to the Starbucks early to help her set up and everything. I was wondering, Josie’s been very stressed out lately, so I thought maybe you could come over and help take off some of the work load. So, all we have to is check to make sure that the chairs are all set up and sell tickets.”Lifting up chairs and making change for people sounds like something I could really do. I mean, minor manual labor and mental math.“Of course I can help out,” I tell Lisa, or whatever her name was. “What do you need me to do?” I grab a pen and a piece of paper in case I have to go out and buy groceries or something.“If you could pick up some water bottles and some boxes of soda cans. Oh, and also some more sugar and flour, I think that that’s all Josie said that she needed. Is that okay?”“Yes, I think I can do that,” I hold the phone between my shoulder and my ear as I hurry to scrawl down whatever-her-name-is just said. “How soon do you want me to be there by?”“As soon as you can; the faster the better. Thanks so much, Mr. Schwartz.” I hit the end button and set the phone back in its holder. I read over my list again and fold it up. I stick it into my pocket and grab my coat. Before I leave, I pick up the phone again. I punch in some numbers and listen to the ringing.“Hello? Who is this?” A tired voice asks into the phone.“Sally? Hi, it’s Mr. Schwartz.”“What time is it?” She sounds much more awake and a little bit nervous now.“It’s ten-thirty,” I look down and check my watch. “Why? What’s wrong?”“Oh, nothing, I was worried that I had overslept. I promised Josie that I would be there to help out at noon and I’m so tired after yesterday that I wouldn’t be surprised if I had slept until twelve. I’m glad you called. I’m—ouch—I’m really sorry, I’m so sore. I forgot about how sore I get from a full day of dance.” I hear a loud crack in the background and I cringe as she stretches out her neck and fingers.“I’m sure that it was worth it,”“Oh, of course,” She exclaims. “Well, are you going over to Starbuck now?”“Yes, I was about to leave and I wanted to know if you wanted me to pick you up.” I trail off and wait for a response.“Thanks, but clearly, I need to wake up a little more. You go ahead over and tell Josie that I’ll be over by noon or earlier if I can. Remember, the first movie starts at one and then there are a couple of hours in between that and the romantic comedy. Oh, Josie probably told you to pick up soda, really you should be getting some juice for the little kids, but get a lot of that and soda, too because we don’t need people falling asleep.” She lists a couple more errands for me to run and when I hang up, I take the shopping list out of my pocket. I add the new chores and go outside into the cold air.I get into my car; I have too many groceries to pick up and it’s too cold for walking. I drive to the Stop and Shop—one of the few chain stores we have here in Ashby—and practically run inside to get out of the cold.I walk into one of the four aisles; it’s a very small Starbucks. I grab three boxes of little apple juice containers along with some grape and orange juice containers. I load them into a cart and go to find soda. I find the brightly labeled containers and I feel very overwhelmed all of a sudden. I don’t drink this stuff and I don’t know which ones are good.Coke! There’s something familiar. I grab three boxes of that, something called Sprite and some other weird brands that I’m not sure how to pronounce.I wheel my cart to aisle number 2 and look for baking products. I grab the flour and sugar, and on an impulse, a bag of Kit-Kats. Everyone likes chocolate wafers, right?Is this enough proof of why I was not put in charge of saving the Starbucks?JillWednesday was one of the most awkward situations that I had ever been in.Ronnie was in the park, just like he said he would be. It was awful; I wanted to find out why he had asked me there before I said anything about breaking up.“I was scared to death that he was going to propose,” I tell Ann as we sit in the back of the Starbucks. Lily and her friend are sitting up close by the screen but Ann and I are just sitting in the back in the last couple of chairs with tables. Everything else has been cleared away to make room for what looks like seating for eighty.“I can imagine,” She rests her elbow on the table and cups the side of her face in one hand. She’s a good friend; I know she’s already heard this story at least a dozen times from various members of the staff.“I didn’t know what I was going to say, except that I would have to turn it down.” Ann nods as she brings her cup of coffee up for a sip. “Anyway, we went on this excruciatingly painful walk that was incredibly weird because Ronnie was acting really strange. Anyway, so after half an hour, he stops and we sit down on that weird park bench in the middle of nowhere.”“And he breaks up with you,” She smiles at me teasingly.“Was it that obvious? I was so relieved, I almost cried. I stopped myself, I mean; I didn’t want him thinking that I was crying over our relationship or whatever. It was just that, I came in here and I saw how well you got along with people here, and I realized that I wanted a relationship that I was comfortable. I had known for a long time that I had to break up with him but, I guess it turned out that I didn’t have to.”“Save by the—park bench?” Ann offers and I laugh. I look over at the cartoon playing on the sheet. It’s strung up with clothespins but it seems to be holding up pretty well.“Lame,” I chastise her joke. “But, anyway, back to harping about my breakup. It was like middle school, he was talking to his friends and I was talking to mine and it all ended in a horribly awkward mess.” I shake my head in disbelief.“It’s not that bad,” Ann comforts me but I stop her.“Yes, yes it really is.” I tell her happily. “But this is good; it’s made sure of something.”“Do tell!” I take a deep breath and then spit it out.“I’m moving,” I grin and then stop when Ann’s face melts. “What? What is it?”“You’re moving?” She looks at me in disbelief.“Oh, God, not far or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.” I smile at her again and she looks relieved.“Thank goodness, I mean, I haven’t known you that long, but you’re kind of my only friend here.” She smiles and turns a little pink.“Same goes for you, but I cannot live in Ashby anymore. I think that it is physically impossible for me to be sicker of this place. I’m moving three towns over, to Manchester.”“New Hampshire?”“Yup,” I smile proudly. “I’ve already found an apartment and rented it for three months. I mean, a new state. That’s an improvement, right?”“If that’s what you want, then, yeah, sure.” Ann looks shocked. “But, why?”“I don’t know. I never loved this place, at least not the way you do. I picked here in such a hurry that I never got a chance to examine any other options. You know? I just wanted to get out and in the moment, it didn’t matter where.”“But what about your job and everything?”“Oh, I’ve already resigned, they know I’m leaving. I’ve found a new job, too. I’m still a secretary, but in a law firm. Isn’t that great?”“Yes, Jill, that’s really great. I’m so happy for you.” I beam at her and she looks very amused at my over the top happiness.“Well, when are you moving?”“Soon, in a week or two, I mean whenever you have the time to help. I can’t cart all of my stuff over there by myself.”“Got it,” I smile, happy that Ann’s on my side. “How about next weekend?”“Great! The sooner the better,” Ann nods and we turn and watch the end of the cartoon. Lily comes over and says bye to Ann, Lily’s going to a sleep over at her friends.Ann walks over to the counter and tries to comfort the very depressed looking barista. By the end of the conversation, by some process of osmosis, Ann has transmitted some joy into the girl’s face but taken on some grief of her own.“Oh, God,” She sits down in the seat. “This place isn’t going to last if today doesn’t go well.”“Well, how is it going so far?”“I don’t know, so far, we’ve got almost five hundred dollars,”“That’s really good, isn’t it?” I say encouragingly.“Yeah,” A spark of light brightens Ann’s face. “Hey, there are two hours between now and the next show. What do you say we go get some sponsors?”I grin and put my coat on.KarenI look ridiculous.I brought half of my wardrobe with me to the Starbucks and spent the hour before the cartoon started parading around modeling various outfits. Eventually, the college girls critiquing me settled on some jeans that I’ve never worn and a nice V-neck. I keep fussing with it, pulling it down and then pinching it back up. Eventually, I just force myself to sit down. I sit by myself through the cartoon because I have nothing else to do. I see a woman that Josie knows and her friend get up to leave and I figure, hey, what have I got to lose?“Excuse me?” I slip out of the door and run to catch up with them. “I’m so sorry; I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation about donors. You’re right; the Starbucks needs them to stay alive.” The two of them looks startled and don’t say a word so I plow on. “I work in a big business that would probably like to get credited for helping little business, good press, you know? I was thinking that I could help you bring in a little bit more money for this place.” I stick my gloved hands into my coat pockets and rock on the balls of my feet, waiting for a response.“Okay,” The less familiar of the two says bluntly. “I’m Jill,” She sticks out her hand which I shake, grateful for the ice-breaker.“I’m Ann,” The other woman smiles at me and shakes my hand, as well. “Let’s go,” We spend the next two hours driving and walking around to various business and shops. I manage to dig a clipboard and a piece of paper out of my car—don’t ask me why they were there. We run around Ashby, getting people to give donations. We have them write down their names, their email, their business and donation and people are pretty willing to help out their local coffee shop.At the end of the first hour, we’ve gotten almost every small business in the neighborhood to sign on. We had a harder time convincing the chain stores because they have weird policies, but a couple of the employed ended up donating a little bit by themselves. Whenever a business pledges a donation, we promise to put up their name on a sign telling people to support the businesses that are helping the Starbucks.We look pretty silly as we parade around town. I’m hunched over my clipboard, trying to do some addition in my head. Jill and Ann are carrying a big piece of poster board that we bought and the write down the names of the businesses that have donated.“Okay, I think we’ve covered everything,” Ann says and breathes on her hands to warm them up. We’re huddled up in my car, trying to figure out where we should go next.“I don’t want to say how much I think we’ve made, just in case my math skills are off, but I think—think, not know—that we’re going to be able to do this.” Jill and Ann break out into smiles and I crack a grin as well. “But, we’ve got one more stop—Multivista. That’s where I work and I’m almost positive that we could get them to give some money.”“Okay,” Jill draws out the word. “But, it’s a Saturday. Will anyone even be there?” Ann looks disappointed and I can feel the momentum slipping.“No, no see we put in windows in people’s houses. Most people can only get their windows put in over the weekend because they’re too busy during the week.” I cut myself off, they don’t need to learn how Multivista works, and they just need to know one thing. “Basically, there are people working there today because we need them to be there when people put in windows in case anything goes wrong. Okay?” They nod fervently. “Okay!” I jam the key into the slot and twist it ferociously. “Let’s go!” I drive along a speed that’s faster than it probably should be but I don’t notice that until we’re two blocks away from the building.I park the car and we sprint out and into the heated lobby. “Hi, Dave!” I shout as we run to the elevator.“Karen?” He calls and leans out and over his desk to see the three insane people practically flying into the elevator.“Can’t talk now, Dave! Gotta run!” We crowd in and I punch my floor’s button twice and then I hit the door close button repeatedly. “Come one, come on, come on,” I mumble under my breath. The doors finally shut and I check my watch. “Half an hour, guys, we can do this.” Ann and Jill gasp and then nod their heads furiously. The elevator dings as we reach the floor and we pile out. I manage a hello to the secretary—man, I should learn her name—and then collect myself before I go on.Thank God, there’s a name plate.“Ms. Edwards,” I read off of the piece of metal on her desk. “Ms. Edwards, My name is Karen Fields; I work here during the week. I am trying to keep open a local Starbucks that has been struggling lately. Do you think that it would be possible for Multivista to consider making a donation?” She taps her finger on her mouth and thinks for a minute.“Let me check on that,” She picks up the phone and dials a number. “Just one minute,” I nod and we all step away from the counter to give her a little privacy. It takes me a minute to move away, Ann has to tug at my arm to remind me not to be breathing down her neck.I move away and Ann slides one hand into mine and the other into Jill’s hand. With my other hand, I anxiously tap my fingers on the side of my leg and wait for Ms. Edwards to say something.“Okay, sure, I’ll tell them.” She says in her pleasant, light voice. Surely, a voice like that won’t bring bad news. She sets the phone down, not in its holder but face-up on her desk. “Mr. Holden, Karen Fields is here about a donation question. Would you like to explain what you’re asking, Ms. Fields?” She gestures to me to talk to Mr. Holden—my boss.“Hi, Mr. Schwartz, I work here during the week.” I start tentatively. “I was looking to help support a local branch of Starbucks in Ashby. I’m sure that it you would consider making a donation, the people of Ashby would be much more likely to consider you as their window and other home furnishings supplier.”“Will we be advertised?” A mechanical voice comes out from the speaker phone.“Yes, we’re holding a movie marathon and the Multivista logo will be prominently advertised on our poster of sponsors.” I hold my breath and tighten my grip on Ann’s hand. She squeezes back quickly for encouragement and I resist shutting my eyes.“Alright,” The voice says mechanically. “I suppose we could make a donation. I’ll have Ms. Edwards come in to get the check.”“Thank you,” I choke out, just as the dial tone comes on. I release my grip on Ann’s hand but my hand stays frozen in that position. As soon as Ms. Edwards is gone, one of us speaks.“Oh, my God.” Jill whispers. “We got them! We got it; we got a real company to support us.”“Don’t get too excited yet,” I caution them, not allowing myself to get my hopes up. We stand in silence until Ms. Edwards comes back.“Here you go, good luck,” She slides back into her seat and hands us an envelope.“Thank you, thank you so much.” She smiles and nods. I hand the envelope to Ann; I’m so worried that I’ll drop it. I break away from the other two and go back to the desk. “Would you by any chance want a ticket to go to the movie marathon tonight? We’d love to see you there.” She looks flustered and then nods.“Yes, yes, I would like that.” I dig out my own ticket and hand it to her. “Thank you,” She says softly and picks up the ticket softly.“We’ll see you later.” I wave and join Jill and Ann in the elevator. “Does anyone have a ticket with them?” I ask abruptly.“Yeah, I have mine.” Ann pulls hers out.“Could I have it?” She hands it to me hesitantly and I try and explain. “I’ll buy you a new one; I want to give this one to the security guard, Dave.”“Okay, yeah, sure.” When we reach the lobby, I march up to the security desk and hand Dave a ticket. He thanks me and says that he’ll be there. I see him slip it into his pocket and I say goodbye.“Sorry,” I say to Ann. “I’ll get you a new one when we get back to the Starbucks.”“Yeah, no, don’t worry about it. As many tickets as we can sell—or you know, get rid of and then buy new ones—the better.”“Okay, yeah, the more people the better.”“Exactly,” Jill throws in and we get into the car and drive back to the Starbucks.“Josie!” Ann calls out and waves the poster. It has the newly added Multivista logo in the center with at least twenty other businesses written around it. “Look! We got sponsors!”“What?” Josie looks up quickly and I see her hand fly to her eye. She flicks a tear away and then rubs her eyes. She looks up guiltily and takes her hand away.“Josie, we got sponsors for the Starbucks.” I say softly. “Look,” I hand her the clipboard and she reads it over and doesn’t look up. “See, we got all of these businesses to donate along with some random people, too.” She doesn’t look up yet and I look worriedly at her. “Hey, are you okay?”“You guys did this?” She looks up in disbelief, without a smile on her face. “Could I have a calculator, please?” I go behind the counter and look in one of the drawers. I find a calculator and hand it to her. Jill and Ann find a table and sit down, keeping an eye on the two of us.I wait anxiously as she punches numbers into it and punches them together.“Thanks, guys,” She says without any emotion in her voice. “I really appreciate you doing this but I don’t think that this is enough. It’s close, but it doesn’t quite cut it.”“Hold on,” I reach into my pocket and pull out the envelope. “None of us have seen what’s in here yet. You can open it if you want; it’s the donation from Multivista.” She tears it open and pulls out the check inside.“Yeah, this will do it.” She breaks into a smile and Ann gives a little cheer. Jill sighs in relief and I slam my hand on the counter. “Yeah, guys, this is it. This is all that we needed.”I pull it out of her hand and read the amount. One thousand dollars; enough for another two months.“You know, I bet we could convince them to make a monthly donation it we keep advertising.” I gesture to the poster with the Multivista logo right smack in the middle of the sign.“We could probably get all of these businesses to make monthly donations, I mean, the advertising is great.” Jill pipes up and Ann nods to support her.“Yeah, I bet we could,” Josie says softly, still staring at the check in my hand. She starts crying again and this time, she doesn’t try and hide it. “Thanks you guys,” She smiles through her tears and honestly, it’s not pretty, but I know how she feels. It doesn’t matter if it’s pretty, the Starbucks is saved, and that’s all that matters. I sigh and reach out and hug Josie. She hugs me back and her head falls on my shoulder. I pat her back and she laughs a little bit. She leans back and smiles. “Let’s get this place ready for the next movie,” She claps her hands together and starts straightening up the chairs.“Now, that’s more like it!” I call and grab a packet of popcorn. I throw it into the microwave and punch a couple of buttons.” I crank out a few packets and then package them in little plastic bags that we’ve been selling for fifty cents apiece. Josie fixes up the chairs and sorts out the money that was made in the cartoon.The chick flick movie starts and Ann and Jill move up into the seats to watch it. I help Josie man the ticket table; a lot of people want to see this thing. It’s something sappy with Julia Roberts and a generic title. After a while, the names of these things kind of start to blend together for me. The movie’s two hours long and in the end—guess what? The gorgeous female protagonist gets the guy.“Well, now we can all enjoy the action movie, right?” Jill says cheerfully.“Yeah, easy for you to say,” I snort. “You don’t have a date in, dang it—twenty minutes. I’m going to go use the bathroom.” I run inside with my handbag, loaded with goodies supplied by Liz and her friend.I go inside and put my bag down on the counter. I fish around and dig out a tube of lip gloss; not really my thing but, I’ll work with what I’ve got. I cautiously apply it, to my top and bottom lip and then smear them together. I open my lips and realize that I was way too enthusiastic with the smearing, I’ve got lip gloss all over my face. I grab a paper towel and wipe it off. I try again, smudging more cautiously this time. It comes out looking okay and so I move onto my eyes which before today, I considered to be hopeless. I find the mascara loaned to me and cringe as I try to put it on. I was given a little tutorial this morning because I never really understood how I was supposed to put this stuff on.I poke my eye at least four times and I end up with some clumps that I have to pull out with my fingers. I scrape out the bit that I got on my cheek—I don’t even know how I got that there. I hastily clean myself up and check myself out one last time. Not perfect—but a definite improvement from two weeks ago.I hear a knock on the door.“Karen?” Liz appears, looking happy and like a girl with a secret. “I think you might want to come out now.” She giggles and disappears from the doorway.“Okay,” I whisper to myself. I zip my bag shut and push the door open. People have started to gather for the chick flick and I search the room for a familiar face. It’s pretty crowded and I don’t see him. I take a guess and save two seats in the last row—perfect for a couple of wallflowers.I sit down, but I don’t lean back, I can’t even pretend to be nonchalant. I sit upright with my hands clasped in my lap.“Hey, Karen,” Aaron slides into the seat next to me and does something unexpected.My hand flies up to my cheek and I blush, I wasn’t expecting that kiss.I lean back a little in my chair, and find my hand reaching over to slide into Aaron’s. The mascara doesn’t matter anymore.SallyI went to Starbucks and left within a half hour. Josie, Liz, Karen and Ann seemed to have everything covered so I went back home to lie down on my couch and not move a muscle. It’s going to take me a while to get used to dancing again.With my somewhat relaxing day, I used my computer to set up a website for my new dance studio. It’s really happening. It turns out that the kids did want to sign up, so I’m figuring out a schedule. I think I’ll do four or five classes a day, some drop in and others to sign up for at the beginning of the year. It’s too late to plan for a recital now, but I can start teaching the kids some basic skills in the spring.I created a calendar for when the classes will be and a little blurb to describe what each one will be like. The only requirements are for hair to be out of their faces, no dress codes or anything; the leotard removes the comfort so desperately needed by some dancers.After a couple hours, I have a solid schedule and the website looks nice, if obviously homemade by a sore woman on her couch. I finish up in time to have some dinner before I go to see the action movie. I was never a fan of Julia Roberts so I couldn’t bring myself to go to the romantic comedy.I hobble into the kitchen and find some lettuce and other veggies. I chop them up half-heartedly and throw them into a bowl with some store-bought balsamic vinegar. I eat my salad while reading a neglected newspaper that was delivered this morning.When, the movie is over, I decide to get going. I don’t even look in a mirror before I leave; all I’ll be doing is sitting in a dark coffee shop. Who cares what I look like? I sit in my car and painfully try and find a comfortable position. I get out of the car when I reach Starbucks and open the door to find a full house. I buy a ticket from and slide into an empty seat. I look around me and see Karen sitting with that man she got stuck in an elevator with. They’re holding hands and both of them have smiles on their faces.Josie looks pleased and I smile at that. I think that she did it. I’m confident that this place is saved. She catches my eye and bobs her head cautiously, just to tell me that it’s all okay. I smile at her and turn my head to the screen serving as a sheet. It’s all working out well. I look around the audience and a latecomer comes in.Mr. Schwartz takes his hat off and resumes his spot in the corner of the store at his little table that only he seems to ever sit at. It’s all normal, except for the eighty people stuffed into the little store. I look around at the audience and see Liz and a girl who I think is her roommate sitting together with some snacks in between them. They’re giggling and whispering about the actors in the movie and every so often, Liz throws a disgusted look at a couple a few rows away from them.I settle into my chair and a cup of tea appears at my side with a hand attached to it.“Oh, thank you, Josie,” I whisper and pat her hand. I accept the tea and take a sip. I turn my attention to the action movie and spend the next two hours trying to figure out who blew up whose car and why is there a car chase scene right there?JosieIt happened. The movie marathon happened. And it worked. It saved the Starbucks. People have remembered about their local Starbucks, and they remember why they love it. The Starbucks in Ashby is safe, at least for as long as I have a say I it. I put my elbows up on the counter and rest my head in my hands. I drowsily look up at the action movie and try and pay attention to whatever Tom Hanks is up to. There are too many explosions to count and the bad guy changes too often for me to keep track of. I look around, at Mr. Schwartz in his corner; he’s managing to do his crossword, even while the lights are turned off. He’s hunched over and squinting, but he refuses to miss a crossword. I smile and look at Karen and Aaron. They make a cute couple, they have very similar characteristics but they’re still very different people, it that makes any sense. They’re holding hands and trying to hide it a little bit, but that doesn’t work so well when they’re constantly smiling at each other.Liz looks happy, too, sitting with Amy and a bunch of other people who seem to be nice to her. A lot better than the girls she used to hang out with, at least. I noticed earlier that Jim came in with his new girl-friend; I was very cold to him when he bought his ticket. I know that she’s seen him. She looked at him with Laura, or whatever her name is, and her mouth twisted up. Then one of her new “friends” said something to her and she snapped out of it. She seems pretty pleased to just hang out and watch some movies now. I look at Ann and Jill, they don’t strike me as action movie people, but they seem to be hanging on to every word if the limited dialogue. I guess they like the change from watching chick flicks at home. I mean, an action movie in a coffee shop is certainly a change.I grab the clipboard and run my eyes over the list of people who supported this place. It makes me feel good to know that the people in this town do know that we exist. I look around at all of the people who worked so hard to help this place and—I know it sounds conceited—and help me. They all cared enough about this place and about me to put in the effort to save it. It means more than I know how to say that I have that kind of people in my life. I pick up my own personal mug from the sink and fill it with some hot chocolate. I walk over softly to Mr. Schwartz’s table and sit myself down in the empty seat. I quietly slurp at my hot chocolate, if that’s even possible. Everyone’s absorbed in the movie and no one seems to need anything. I settle into my chair and I look at Mr. Schwartz and his crossword.I read the clues upside down and I can’t figure out a single one of them. Mr. Schwartz has about half of it figured out. I’m positive that he’s figured out some way to block out all noise, because he doesn’t seem to know that there are eighty people in the same room as him. I try and focus on the movie but my eyes keep drifting around the store. I look around at the corners and at the painted walls; I don’t need to worry about them anymore. I don’t need to worry about the walls being repainted in some ugly shade of beige, and I don’t need to think about the store being shut down or knocked down to use the space for something else.I smile and bring my feet up in the chair. I hug my knees happily and rest my head on top of them. I smile contentedly and close my eyes. I hear an explosion in the movie and smile a little bit. I keep my eyes shut for at least ten minutes, listening to the people in the store and the sounds in the movie. I count another three explosions and then I open my eyes. I watch for a few minutes and then unfold myself from the chair and stand up. I quietly tiptoe over to the door and let myself out. I step outside and take in a deep breath. I look up at the sky and examine the stars. The crescent moon has a faint glow and I spend about five minutes looking for some constellations. The window in my room faces out to the backyard. It has a great view of the sky and I never pull down the curtain so I can watch the sky. I have a little sign tacked up on my wall that tells me which constellations are which. I stand by myself for a while, I lose track of time and then I hear people clapping. I glance inside and see the credits rolling. People get up and start milling around. I open the door and go back to the counter. No one leaves; they all want to stay for the horror movie.“Hi,” Liz comes up the counter. “What are you doing?”“Nothing, just internally celebrating.” I smile and get her a cup of hot chocolate. I don’t put a lid on top so I can pile the whipped cream up. I hand it to her and she smiles at the mountain of whipped cream. She sticks her tongue into the center of it and eats the creamy goodness. She waves and joins her friends.“Josie!” Sally hobbles over and leans on the counter.“Hi, Sally, how did the dance classes in the new studio go?”“Oh, you remembered! You are really the sweetest person. And you know, the dance classes went wonderfully, I honestly think that people are going to sign up for them. There was this one girl, Delia, she reminded me of you, she was very hard working and she picked up the combinations so quickly. When I used to teach you little tap steps, you would stand around practicing them all the time until you could do them perfectly.” She smiles reminiscently and then she clasps her hands together and looks pleased. She pats my cheek and resumes her seat. I smile and look at Mr. Schwartz, still intently focused on his crossword puzzle. Jill and Ann are chatting away in their seats and I look over at Karen and Aaron. All of the stress in Karen’s face seems to have melted away. She looks happy and completely comfortable. I go up on my tiptoes to check and smile when I see that they’re still holding hands. He’s telling her a story and using his free hand for emphasis and she’s laughing at whatever he’s saying. He keeps talking and I put off starting the next movie so that they can continue their conversation for a little while longer. I check the clock on the wall which reads that it’s nine-thirty. I hold out for another ten minutes so that they can keep gabbing for a little bit and then I yell a little to get everyone’s attention so I can make an announcement.“Hello! Hi everyone!” I wave my arms and wait for people to quiet down. “Hi, I hope you’re enjoying the movie marathon.” I hear some sounds of approval and I smile at the positive reactions. “Great, so if you’re staying for the horror movie, it’s going to start in another fifteen minutes. Concessions are being sold right here at the counter and if you haven’t bought a ticket for the horror movie, please come get those now.” I end my little speech and give a small wave. People go back to talking with their friends and walking around. I sell some more popcorn and I see a lot of people yawning. I see the surprise on their faces when they look around and remember that they’re in a coffee shop. There’s tons of caffeine surrounding them. People come over to the counter and I realize that I should have prepared a lot more coffee ahead of time. People are streaming over to buy huge cups of coffee and cans of soda. A line forms and everyone tells me how much they’re enjoying the movie marathon. I smile and thank them each. I look at my friends and see how happy each of them is. They’re all smiling their faces off and I can’t help grinning at how happy they are. And how happy I am. I leave the line of people and look for some plastic and paper cups, the supply that I keep by the counter is almost out and people are ordering like crazy.It’s time to brew some coffee. ................
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