I’m fascinated by this glimpse of my family’s history. The dad I knew was a quiet family man. I had no idea about his wild younger days. The thought of him speeding around in a boat with Walt, getting tipsy on cheap beer and needing to be rescued by the coast guard, is actually really entertaining. I make a mental note to ask Walt to tell me more about him and my dad when Mom isn’t around.
“Well, this job does not involve boats or beer, so hopefully we should be okay,” I reassure Mom, ever so slightly tongue in cheek. I’m trying to cover up my niggling concerns about this whole process. What if it’s a bigger job than Walt thinks it is? What if there isn’t enough money after the repair to start my chocolate shop? How will I help bring about my vision if I can’t open my shop before Henry leaves? Speaking of Henry, he hasn’t contacted me since the tea at his place, which is also really bothering me. I feel very stuck. I can’t seem to move forward on anything. I check my watch. Time to head to school.
“Gus?” I call back to the kitchen, then turn and find my son standing silently directly behind me. I jump a little and squeak in surprise. He has a quietly disconcerting way of sneaking up behind people like a ninja.
“Who was that guy?” Gus is chewing the last of his apple. He’s got his little navy blue sweater on, the one Mom knitted for him. It has a colorful depiction of the solar system on it, and it says in felt letters, “Give me some space.”
“A man we’re hiring to fix the leak,” I tell him. “Walt is helping us get the store ready to open again as soon as possible.”
Gus looks from Mom to me doubtfully. He really doesn’t like change, and he’s sensitive to anything that feels threatening or stressful. He’s picking up on my stress and it’s making him anxious. I should have prepped him better about the flood and us having to close the store.
“It’ll be okay, buddy,” I assure him. “Walt is going to get the store open again as soon as he can.”
“Mommy, did you know astronauts have vacuum toilets in space?” Gus asks, seeming to forget about Walt Perkins. He picks up his backpack by the door. “Because they don’t have gravity. And they have to drink their own pee in space. The scientists recycle it into water you can drink. Isn’t that cool?”
“Super cool.” I grimace. I check the time again. “Okay, buddy. Let’s head for school.”
Gus hugs Mom and pats Mr. Butters, then follows me out the door. I cast a last glance back at the building, at theCLOSEDsign, and Mom’s small, bent figure standing at the window. She’s going to go visit with Dot at her shop for the morning.
Pausing for one second, I offer a brief prayer that the remediation will go smoothly, that our money will hold out, and that I’ll be able to move one step closer to that moment I am aiming for, the vision of my life’s purpose. Then I turn and grab Gus’s hand and hurry to the parking lot, hoping we’re not going to be tardy, hoping this hard day takes a turn for the better soon.
Chapter 12
“I just have to stop by the shop for a minute,” I tell Gus later that afternoon after I pick him up from school. “I have to grab some papers from the office.”
“Okay.” He trails me into the store reluctantly. “But then can we go home and keep building the LEGO spaceship?”
I ruffle his hair. “Absolutely. Just give me a minute.”
The storefront is empty, but I hear noise from the bathroom. Someone is playing Nirvana turned down low. I poke my head in the open bathroom door, expecting Walt, and get an eyeful. The bottom half of a long, lean, blue jean–clad male is sticking out from under the sink. That’s a view I could get used to. I appreciate it for a half second before I clear my throat, not wanting to startle him. This must be Walt’s helper. “Hello?” I call over the sound of Kurt Cobain’s raspy vocals.
The man stands up so abruptly he hits his head on the sink, utters a mild swear, and turns to me. When I glimpse his face,my stomach drops. It’s Jakob Kristensen. He’s wearing a T-shirt and blue jeans and holding a large metal wrench. He rubs his head and winces.
“You!” I blurt out, staring up at Jakob. He looks down on me with a vaguely amused expression. “What…what are you doing here?” I ask, feeling off-kilter.
“I’m fixing your leak.” He punches a button on his phone and the music goes silent.
For some reason, the whole scene is disconcerting. I’m pretty sure I’ve had spicy dreams about this exact scenario, although Jakob has never been the romantic lead. I blush bright red thinking of how I just ogled his backside in those snug jeans. I notice Jakob’s shirt, a tight, faded blue tee with our high school mascot, a heavily bearded and mustachioed Viking wearing a purple helmet with horns on it. That shirt takes me back a few years.
Gus is peering around me, staring at Jakob with wide eyes. “Who are you?” he asks cautiously, looking at Jakob like he’s trying to determine if this stranger is the coolest guy he’s ever seen or one of the tricky people who lure children into vans, the ones I’m always warning him about.
“I’m Jakob.” Jakob squats so he’s at eye level with Gus. “Who are you?”
“Gus.”
“Nice to meet you, Gus.” Jakob sticks out his hand. Gus looks at it in surprise, considers for a moment, then shakes it hesitantly.
“You need to put a quarter in the swear-word jar,” he informs Jakob.
Jakob’s mouth twitches upward, and he pulls out a battered wallet and hands Gus a dollar. “Consider this a prepayment for my next three citations,” he says.
Gus narrows his eyes and thinks for a moment, then nods andpockets the dollar. He seems to have decided that Jakob is okay, because he leans in a little and asks confidentially, “Did you know there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches on earth?”
Oh boy. We’ve gone straight to weird space facts. Curious, I watch to see how Jakob handles it.
Without skipping a beat, Jakob nods solemnly. “Actually, I did know that. Pretty wild, huh,” he says. He raises an eyebrow. “Did you know that humans are made up of elements that were formed inside stars and released into the universe when they died?”
Gus looks intrigued. “Really?”
