Right when I have that thought, Mary Anne shows up for her shift. She hands Kenna a pair of what look like noise-cancelling headphones. Kenna says, “You’re a lifesaver.”
“I knew I had an extra pair at home,” Mary Anne says. She passes me and says, “Hey, boss,” before heading to the front.
Kenna hangs the headphones around her neck and then ties her apron. The headphones aren’t even attached to anything, and she doesn’t have a phone. I’m confused about how she’s going to listen to music with them.
“What are those for?” I ask her.
“To drown out the music.”
“You don’t want to hear music?”
She faces the sink, but not before I see her expression falter. “I hate music.”
She hates music? Is that even a thing? “Why do you hate music?”
She looks at me over her shoulder. “Because it’s sad.” She covers her ears with the headphones and starts running water in the sink.
Music is the one thing that grounds me. I couldn’t imagine not being able to connect with it, but Kenna is right. Most songs are about love or loss, two things that are probably incredibly difficult for her to absorb in any medium.
I leave her to her duties and head to the front to start on mine. We haven’t opened just yet, so the bar is empty. Mary Anne is unlocking the front door, so I pause next to Roman. “Three what?”
He glances at me. “Huh?”
“You said you put three of something in the fridge for Kenna.”
“Nicole,” he corrects, looking across the room at Mary Anne. “And I was talking about cupcakes. Her landlord can’t have gluten, and she’s trying to stay on her good side.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, something about her electric bill.” Roman side-eyes me and then walks away.
I’m glad she’s getting along with everyone, but there’s also a small part of me that regrets leaving for most of my shift last night. I feel like they all got to know Kenna in a way I don’t know Kenna. I don’t know why that bothers me.
I go to the jukebox to start up a few songs before the crowd arrives, and I analyze each song I choose. It’s a digital jukebox with access to thousands of songs, but I realize it would take me all night to find even a handful that wouldn’t remind Kenna of Scotty or Diem in some way.
She’s right. In the end, if there’s nothing good going on in your life, almost every song becomes depressing, no matter what it’s about.
I put it on shuffle to match my mood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
KENNA
I got a paycheck. It was small, and the way the paydays worked out, it was only for a partial week, but it was enough to finally get a new phone.
I’m sitting on the picnic table outside my apartment browsing apps. I opened at the grocery store today, so I had several hours between that shift and my shift at the bar tonight, so I’m just passing time outside. I try to get as much vitamin D as I can, considering my outdoor time was scheduled and limited for five solid years. I should probably buy vitamin D supplements so my body can catch up.
A car pulls into a parking spot, and I look up in time to see Lady Diana waving wildly at me from the front seat. We work different shifts most days, which is unfortunate. It would be nice to be able to ask her mother for a ride to and from work, but my hours are longer than Lady Diana’s. Ledger has given me rides a handful of times, but I haven’t seen him at all since he dropped me off at my apartment after my second shift last Saturday night.
I’ve never met Lady Diana’s mother. She looks to be a little older than me, maybe midthirties. She smiles and follows Lady Diana across the grass until they reach me. Lady Diana gestures toward the phone in my hand. “She got a phone—why can’t I have a phone?”
Her mother sits next to me. “She’s an adult,” her mother says, glancing at me. “Hi. I’m Adeline.”
I never know how to introduce myself. I’m Nicole at both of my jobs, but I introduced myself as Kenna to Lady Diana the first time, and also as Kenna to the landlord, Ruth. This is going to catch up to me eventually, so I somehow need to figure out a way to make the lie a truth.
“Kenna,” I say. “But I go by Nicole.” That feels okay. It’s kind of a lie. Kind of the truth.
“I got a new boyfriend at work today,” Lady Diana says to me. She’s bouncing on her toes, full of energy. Her mother groans.
“Oh, yeah?”
Lady Diana nods. “His name is Gil, he works with us, he’s the guy with the red hair, he asked me to be his girlfriend. He has Down syndrome like me and he likes video games and I think I’m gonna marry him.”