Josie was tidying to the beat of a synthesized “Smells Like Teen Spirit” when her phone buzzed. A text!
JUSTIN
ha!
Ha? That was it? Well, her text hadn’t been jaw-droppingly witty or anything, but maybe it deserved more than a ha? She was trying to come up with something clever to text back when a voice droned on the speaker: “All of our customer-service agents are taking other calls. You are TWENTIETH in line.”
“Nooooo,” said Josie.
She tried to strangle her cell but accidentally hung up instead. What if the bank had already contacted Mom? What if Mom knew that at age eighteen, her daughter was already buried under an obscene amount of useless debt? What if the bank forced Mom to get a second mortgage?
“Uggghh,” said Josie.
“You’re noisy today,” said Mia.
Josie raised an eyebrow. She really didn’t need a five-year-old adding color commentary. Mia stared back in that creepy, dead-eyed way she had.
In robotic teddy voice, Josie said, “Take me with you.”
“I want to be your pal,” Mia quoted back in monotone. Her imitation of the toy bear was uncanny. Josie laughed.
“Play with me, Mia, or I will eat your brains.”
Mia squealed and hopped off her stool, running away. But slowly. Stopping to look back, to make sure Josie was still chasing.
Josie dutifully shamble-chased Mia around and around the coffee table. Mia giggled, half terrified, half excited, and then finally allowed Josie to grab her.
Mia wrapped her arms around Josie and squeezed.
“Aw,” said Josie, surprised how sweet it felt to receive this little girl’s hug. She hadn’t realized that her chest had been feeling a little emptied out, her heart kind of shrunken and rattling around loose in there, till Mia’s affection helped to fill it back up. Josie squeezed her back, wanting in turn to relieve any sadness Mia must be feeling with her mom away.
The hug lasted about 1.5 seconds, till Mia had had more than enough affection, thank you, and wriggled away.
Josie’s phone buzzed.
NINA
Sorry I didn’t call back last night. Busy now. Finance class, church choir, then work. Later?
JOSIE
Yes please
Nothing to report anyway. Josie’s routine was identical day after day, while her best friend was at the University of Chicago, attending fascinating lectures and dating interesting people. And apparently working somewhere? Josie hadn’t known she’d gotten a job or what the deal was with church choir. As far as Josie knew, Nina didn’t attend any church. Well, she’d get the details later and would just have to hold on emotionally till Nina’s voice could sustain her.
“What are we doing today?” Mia asked, putting her cereal bowls in the sink.
“Something fun,” said Josie.
Mia gasped. “School?” She clasped her hands, her eyes glistening, as if she’d stolen the expression from an old movie about a pure-hearted orphan.
“Uh … no, not today.” Victoria had signed Mia up for preschool three mornings a week, but for friend-hungry Mia, it wasn’t nearly enough. “I thought we could check out that park by the river!”
Josie hoped that Mia would be entertained on a playground long enough for Josie to get to caller number one and fix this before her financial house of cards toppled.
Judging by Mia’s dead-eyed expression, park did not even approach the grandeur of school. In her robotic teddy voice, she said, “Mia is bored. Mia wants friends.”
“Yes. Friends. There will be friends at the park. Even better friends than you play with in preschool.” Josie slipped into a posh New England accent. “Dah-ling, you shall make the most mah-velous friends.”
“More,” said Mia.
So Josie chattered in a Russian accent, in an American Southern accent, and in her grandmother’s Greek accent as they slipped on shoes. They automatically went for their coats before Josie remembered, once again, with rapturous joy, that it was May. Boldly, she stepped out the front door with nothing more than a zip-up hoodie.
A hoodie in May. The Arizona girl inside Josie shook her head in disbelief.
They crossed the street and headed toward Missoula’s cozy downtown. Josie’s familiarity with Missoula was mostly limited to the stretch between the condo and the grocery store. Josie didn’t have a driver’s license, so when Victoria was out of town, she had to do all errands on foot. And why do any excessive errands in tiny, two-horse Missoula when she could curl up in bed instead and obsessively read Broadway news and scan through old text-message chains?
But May … Josie reluctantly had to admit that May in Montana wasn’t half bad. Air so clean you could drink it like water. That famously big sky arching its back, stretching wide and strong. Everywhere, life was just about to happen.
Their pace was slow enough to allow Mia her frequent need to hop over cracks, and Josie found herself singing not unhappily as they passed a Methodist church, a bar, a vegan restaurant, a yoga studio, another bar, an art gallery, a bar …
A small storefront scrunched between two buildings advertised:
COFFEE
YOUR ENTIRELY PUN-FREE SOURCE OF HOT BEVERAGES
The man out front setting up sidewalk tables was wearing all denim: shirt, jacket, and pants tucked into cowboy boots. He had golden brown skin and a head so bald it was shiny.
“Good morning, songbird!” he said.
Josie startled, briefly forgetting that outside New York City, strangers spoke to each other. There was so much room in Montana, people didn’t have to pretend to be alone in public. Here, privacy leaked from the rocks and fertilized the wildflowers and sang like wind chimes in the breeze: All the privacy you want! And all you don’t want! Isolation for free, free, free!
“You have a lovely singing voice,” he said.
“Oh, thanks.” Embarrassed, she looked down from his face. The name tag pinned to his collar said BRUCE. “I’m not a professional or anything, though I was going to be, and actually I was kind of a big deal in high school…”
Had she really just said that? Josie swallowed.
“Uh…” She pointed at the sign, desperate to change the subject. “No puns, huh?”
“We take our coffee seriously.”
“So you named your shop Coffee when you could’ve named it something like, uh … Brewed Awakening.”
“Brew-Ha-Ha,” he offered.
“Thanks a Latte,” she said, trying to remember past coffee shops. “Espresso Yourself.”
“Java the Hut. They are pretty funny…” He gave her a mirthless expression. “For five minutes. I plan to stay in business longer than that.”
Josie offered a polite laugh.
“So, can I get you anything?” Bruce asked.
“Um…” After her awkward lingering, she knew she should get something, but money talk made Josie sweaty. After dropping out of high school, she’d survived in New York City by paying all her expenses with her now-shredded credit card. If she kept putting almost all of her nanny salary toward the balance, she could pay it off in a little over a year. But Mia would start kindergarten this fall. Surely Victoria wouldn’t keep Josie on full-time if Mia was in school half the day. Josie was just treading water.
She glanced at the laminated menu affixed to the front door. Civility demanded she purchase something after all the lingering.