“Unless you’re about to tell me—which I don’t think you’re about to do—that you’re going to turn down the promotion at work...” Abby let the thought hang unfinished. “You just need to enjoy this for what it is, a summer fling and then move to New York when the time comes. Why that’s good is because you’ll be three-thousand miles away which will make it easier for you to get over her. Besides, I’m sure New York has its own Vanessas, probably thousands of them. You just need to find one.”
“I don’t want a New York Vanessa, I want the California Vanessa,” Megan said.
Abby looked at her.
“Too bad,” she said.
Megan crossed her arms and huffed. Abby was right and Megan knew it. She may in fact be in love with Vanessa but she also wasn’t going to turn down the VP job. So, did that mean she really wasn’t in love with Vanessa? No, she decided. It just meant that the universe has a sick sense of humor.
“Just don’t say anything to her about this,” Abby advised. “Vanessa is one of those chicks that women fall in love with, like, instantly.” She snapped her fingers. “Like, they see Vanessa serving up macchiatos or whatever and, boom! ‘Oh, I love her! Oh, I want to marry her! Oh, I want to have babies with her!’”
Despite the seriousness of the conversation, Megan couldn’t stop laughing at the funny, cartoon-girly voice Abby was using.
“Anyway,” Abby went on, “you don’t want Vanessa thinking that you’re some silly little girl who blew a summer fling out of proportion, do you?”
Megan nodded. She definitely did not want that, especially if Vanessa was still considering this just a stupid and meaningless fling. But alarmingly, Megan had almost told Vanessa she loved her today, when Vanessa kissed her goodbye before leaving for La Vida Mocha. The only thing that stopped her was the fear that Vanessa would not say it back and Megan, being Megan, foresaw in an instant how the rest of her day would have developed from that point. Basically, she would have spent the entire afternoon in her room, sequestering herself from the other women here at the beach house, feeling rejected, listening to Adele and trying to come up with a way to text or call Vanessa to say something along the lines of, “Ha-ha, remember when I said ‘I love you’ earlier? Totally kidding! I was just goofing off!”
“I suppose you’re right,” Megan eventually said to Abby.
“So, change of subject,” Abby began. “Have you heard from your parents?”
“Not a peep,” Megan replied. “Actually, I haven’t even thought about it much.”
This was true. Since coming out on her birthday at Marcano’s, things had been such a whirlwind, thanks to Vanessa.
Abby took a long sip of her cocktail.
“You’ll get used to it,” Abby murmured.
Megan reached over to give her friend’s hand a quick squeeze. Abby had come out to her family a few years ago. At the time, Megan was still in New York, at NYU. Late one night, Abby, evidently forgetting the time difference, called Megan and explained that not only had she come out to her folks that day but that her folks had responded by essentially shunning her. And though Abby had tried—in typical Abby fashion—to sound unperturbed by it, Megan could tell, even over the phone, that her best friend was upset. So, Megan had emailed her professors, claimed to have strep throat, caught a flight to San Diego the next morning and spent two rather blurry days getting wasted with Abby before flying back east.
“I think I’m already used to it,” Megan said, thoughtfully. “I mean, seriously, I’m not losing sleep over it. I look at it as their loss if they choose to cut me out of their lives.”
“Same,” Abby said. “Well, same now; back then I was pissed! Now that I’m an old woman of twenty-seven, I’m a lot more mellow about it.”
Nodding, Megan said, “Anyway, Molly and I are meeting up for lunch next week. I feel like by coming out I got my sister back.”
“That’s awesome,” Abby said. “And I’m glad the thing with your parents isn’t fucking with you. It’s like you said, their loss. I just want to make sure you’re doing okay.”
“I am,” Megan stated, giving Abby’s hand another squeeze in gratitude.
Chapter 39
Fuck! What a shitty day!
As she drove from La Vida Mocha to the beach house Saturday night, Vanessa wanted to stop the Jeep, drive onto the nearest beach and walk into the ocean to let the Pacific wash away the hellish day she and Chloë had just endured at the coffeeshop.
They had been slammed as soon as they opened. It was if all of Carlsbad had suddenly decided that today was the day to venture out for lattes and cappuccinos and mochas, and La Vida Mocha was the only place on Earth to get them. Vanessa knew she should be grateful for the business but, goddamn it…when it is just her and Chloë and half of the village comes in it is easy to get frazzled, especially when customers start to get impatient and act as if their coffee order is on par with being on the waiting list for a new kidney and then make faux helpful comments like, “You really should get more help in here, you know.”
It was just one thing after another: parents coming in with ill-behaved children; couples getting into screaming fights with each other; people spilling their drinks; other people taking forever to order…
At one point, a customer approached the counter and asked for an iced mocha. With no chocolate.
“So, you just want an iced coffee?” Vanessa had asked, already annoyed at having to extend the conversation because there was quite a line behind this idiot.
“Nooo,” the customer, a soccer mom type had said, as if talking to a recalcitrant six-year-old. “If I wanted iced coffee, I would have said iced coffee. However, I want an iced mocha, but without the chocolate.”
“Ma’am,” Vanessa had replied, “the only difference between the iced coffee and the iced mocha is that we add chocolate syrup to the iced mocha. So, what you’re asking for is in fact an iced coffee.”