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After I can’t see their car anywhere anymore, I get in my own, beyond bewildered.
Maybe she got a stomachache or something,I consider.Or maybe she knows that lady somehow and doesn’t like her and her mood got ruined when she saw her.
I’ll just give her some time to calm down. We all had a really good time with Lolly earlier; we’ve had nothing but good times since we ran into each other at Abby’s party. Liv wouldn’t erase all of that from her memory over some weird thing like this, whatever‘this’even is.
Yeah, I’ll check on her and Rae tomorrow. Maybe I’ll write them another note. That’ll be fun.
Feeling a little better, I turn on some music and start on my way home.
*
“Saturday morning at 8?” I ask Shannon.
“That’s right!” she says as she shifts on her barstool. “Make sure to wear clothes you don’t mind ruining!”
Bill looks away from the register he’s been trying to fix. “Yeah, every room in that building needs paint on the walls. Definitely plan on getting it on yourself.”
I nod. “Will do.”
“Thank you again,” she adds. “Rebuilding that place has been stressful because we’ve been trying to be quick. Every set of hands is so helpful.”
“I’m glad to do it,” I say. “Not a problem at all. I’m just sorry I didn’t join in sooner!”
She waves a hand at me. “Quite all right. We’d appreciate you even if you stepped in at the last minute to hang curtains and sweep the floors!”
Shannon owns a catering company that frequently donates food to the shelters for battered women and the homeless. There was a fire at the former recently and the building was pretty much destroyed, so she’s been working hard to help reconstruct it. I’m late to the game as far as helping structurally, but there’s still interior work to be done. Painting is on the agenda for this weekend.
Even though I’ll have to trade my early work shift for someone else’s late one to make this happen, I’m genuinely excited about it. Since the place is a safe haven for abused women and children, I had to sign some confidentiality stuff saying I won’t give the location to anyone, but other than that very serious aspect of it, it seems fun. I helped Pop do some repainting in our home when I was younger, and it was tedious, but I liked it. That end result looked awesome and I’m sure this one will, too.
With input from Bill and Shannon, I’ve considered different volunteer opportunities, and this is definitely the coolest one to start with. Spending hours at the animal shelter sounded a little silly when compared with helping people, plus I don’t like dogs and there are sure to be a lot of them there. Going through clothes I don’t wear anymore would be a good idea if I had many of them lying around, which I don’t. Donating food to the food bank—well, I’ll do that along with this project, actually. And Shannon said the soup kitchen can always use help with cooking and serving, so I’ll probably try that at least once in the future. I like cooking.
It’s just so great knowing I’m going to do something for somebody who actually needs help. I don’t think I’ve ever been completely selfish, but I haven’t done a lot of giving back to the community, and I’m looking forward to changing that.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and my train of thought is derailed.
Maybe this is Liv replying to the note I left on her door yesterday.
I don’t really know why she’d respond with a text and not a note of her own, but it’s possible, right? I fish my phone out eagerly—
—and see it’s not her.
It’s my cell service provider informing me of some stupid promotion.
I sigh, delete the message, and put my phone away again.
It’s 4 PM on Thursday. It has been almost two full days since Liv, Rae, and I went out for that ice cream, and I haven’t so much as seen them around.
Because of how the night ended, I want to see how they’re doing, but I don’t think it’d be right to drop by for an unplanned visit or abuse the fact that I have Liv’s number, so I went with the note idea yesterday. It’s gone unanswered so far; she didn’t hasten to respond like she did last time.
I’ve tried not to dwell on my growing feeling that something really did go wrong on Tuesday night, but it’s there. It may not seem like there’s much proof since I haven’t directly been told to fuck off, but I remember how Liv looked at me that night. Her sudden distance spoke volumes even if I didn’t understand what exactly it was saying. I spend enough time around people—all kinds of people going through all kinds of things—to know what a shutdown looks like.
Just wish I knew what caused hers.
Maybe there will be a reply to my note when I get home. Maybe she simply didn’t get a chance to write one out between when she saw my note and when I left the house this morning.
‘A positive mind is a healthy mind,’I can hear Lolly saying.
Business picks up soon—the work week is coming to a close and people are acting accordingly. I get many quiet, worn-looking older men and women, some talkative younger people, and one guy who’s already totally wasted because‘funerals suck dick,’as he loudly announces. He’s clearly in mourning, so I feel bad that I have to deny him service, but he can’t stand still for five seconds without falling over. And of course he gets pissed that I won’t cut him some slack, so he ends up having to be escorted out.
