Darkest Fear

  “Thanks.” I should have asked if the manager was nice. I should have asked if she liked working here. I should have asked—

  The hallway was dimly lit. Two bathrooms were on the right. The first doorway on the left was open and seemed to lead into an unused kitchen. The second door was closed, and I knocked on it, feeling like I had a small apple lodged in my throat.

  Someone said, “Come in.”

  Slowly I opened the door, intrigued by the voice. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but somehow I was surprised to see that the manager was a young guy, maybe in his early twenties. Twenty-one? The instant impression he made was that I was looking at the devil—that this coffee shop was managed by a beautiful, angry, seductive dark angel. Seeing his perfect, sculpted profile, I blinked: I hadn’t known that guys came in this format. In the few seconds before he looked up at me, I devoured him with my eyes, picking up on heat, tension, a faint scent of spices, and a complete lack of friendliness. The desk he sat at was old, metal, and covered with papers. Finally he looked up at me, but didn’t smile.

  Had I brushed my hair today? Or even yesterday? I didn’t know.

  “Hi,” he said, his glance flicking over me. “Hayley said you’re here about the job.”

  “Yes,” I said, sounding weirdly breathless. If he smiled, would I see fangs? How did he do on a full moon? “I saw your flyer.” Now what?

  “Okay, why don’t you sit down and fill in this application?” He pushed a clipboard toward me, and I sat in the metal chair next to his desk, trying not to gape at this stunningly attractive person. He looked back at his papers and started entering figures on a large, old-fashioned adding machine that spit out tape. He was a devil consigned to accounting hell. Or something.

  I bent over the clipboard, taking the opportunity to examine him through my eyelashes. He really was unusually good-looking. Almost too good-looking for a normal person. Everyone has a little something wrong with their looks or their hair or their bodies—I have good hair and skin, but my mouth is freakishly wide, so when I laugh it looks like my head is hinged, like a Muppet. And my shoulders are broad, which fits with the whole girl-athlete thing I have going, but my wide hips and too-big chest do not. I’d always envied Jennifer’s slim, narrow frame, and she’d always wanted what she called “the Féliznundo booty.”

  This guy actually seemed to have nothing wrong with him, though he was sitting down and I couldn’t tell if his body was as perfect as his face. I would bet money that it was.

  Busily I wrote my name, Viviana Neves (Vivi), and my birth date, May 28. Matéo had said I could use his address, and I put down my cell-phone number.

  I had no experience. Should I be honest and hope he would give me a chance? Should I lie and then maybe get caught?

  I was tapping the pen against my lip, pondering my integrity, when the manager shifted in his chair and my nose caught an intoxicating scent of . . . coffee? Sandalwood? Cypress? What was his name? Had he said it? Had I already spaced it? Glancing up quickly and, I hoped, surreptitiously, I saw that his hair was a deep, lightless black, straight and quite short on the sides, a little longer on top. Suddenly he met my eyes, and, embarrassed, I went back to work on the application—but not before noticing that his were a fascinating light, clear green with a thin rim of gold around the iris.

  Heat rose in my cheeks, and I pushed the clipboard back to him. This was dumb. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t ready to be around regular people. Being out in the world was making me feel horribly and unexpectedly vulnerable. Matéo’s house was a cocoon that kept me from dwelling on myself. But here I was, applying for a job, and I don’t know why, but it all came roaring back to me right then: My parents were still actually gone, dead, and weren’t ever coming back. My life from here on out would be me applying for jobs, without them, forever. My eyes filled with tears.

  He glanced at my information, his beautifully angled black eyebrows framing those icy green eyes and long black lashes. “You didn’t fill in the ‘experience’ part.”

  “I’m not experienced. I mean, I don’t have any waitressing experience,” I amended lamely, and gave a little hmph to clear my throat. Since he wasn’t looking, I quickly brushed my hand over my eyes to get rid of the tears. Come on, keep it together, Viv.

  “How come you’re applying here?” His nose was thin and straight and arrow-shaped, the nostrils flaring to the sides, and his sharply angled jaw balanced his strong chin. What had he asked me? Oh—why I’m applying for the job.

  Because my cousin’s girlfriend told me to.

  “I can do it,” I said, surprising myself. “This is a nice place. I can do the work, and it will be good for me.” I hadn’t meant to say that. Now that I was facing him, I saw that he had beautiful, symmetrical bone structure. High cheekbones like blades, a chiseled mouth. Clear skin, paler than I would have expected for summertime. Maybe he was a vampire. Ha ha ha—that would be crazy, right? Things like that don’t exist! Next we’ll believe that some people can turn into jaguars! I focused on a tiny scar right at the corner of his mouth, a paler curving line like the outline of a nickel. In summary, I was tearing up and gazing at him like he was a hamburger and I was starving. I’d blown this.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I nodded. He hesitated as if he wanted to contradict me, but just said, “What do you mean, good for you?”

  “Good for me to get out,” I said, and sniffled. “Instead of sitting around.” Could I sound stupider? No. I did not think so. I never should have come.

  He flicked his gaze back at the application. “You’re eighteen. Are you going to college here in New Orleans?”

  “No.”

  I was confounding him. I needed this to be over.

  “Have you ever had a job of any kind?”

  “No. Well, babysitting. Working for my parents.” My voice was small. I was trying to control my breathing.

  “Do you live with your parents?”

  “No.” Shuddering breath that I tried to disguise by clearing my throat again. “I . . . live with my cousin.”

  The guy looked at me without blinking, then turned back to his desk. Was I dismissed?

  Swallowing, I wondered if I should stand up and get out. How humiliating, to start crying in the middle of an interview. I hadn’t cried in almost a week. I’d thought I was doing so much better. This gorgeous guy must think I’m nuts. I thought of how my mom had always seemed in control of every situation, was always so gracious and charming, able to talk to anyone, able to do anything. She would have looked stunning, breezed in here, made this guy adore her without even trying, and waltzed out with whatever job she’d come in for.

  I truly was not very much like her.

  “Here’s the schedule,” the guy said, turning back to me. He handed me a sheet of paper while I gaped at him. “I need someone here from five to about one a.m. We close at midnight but there’s cleanup. Does that time work for you?”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Do you want this job?” Perfect eyebrows arching even more perfectly.

  “Yes.”

  “Can you work those hours?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can you start today?”

  “Yes.” My heart was pounding.

  “Okay. Come in at four thirty. I’ll tell Hayley you’ll be in, and either she or Talia will show you the ropes.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you later, then.”

  “Okay. Bye. Thanks.”

  I grabbed my purse and almost raced out of the office and down the hall. I waved good-bye to Hayley and said, “I’ll see you later.”

  She smiled and gave me a thumbs-up.

  Once I was in my car, rolling down the windows to let hot air escape and cranking up the AC, I realized I didn’t know his name, how much the job paid, if I was hired or if this was a trial, how many hours I would be working each week. In short, I knew nothing useful about the job except where the building was, when to show up,
and that the beautiful devil manager would hire weird, inexperienced girls who cried during the interview.

  This should be great.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WHEN I GOT HOME, MATÉO and Aly gave me high fives about my job.

  “That’s awesome!” said Aly. “Good for you! I’m so glad you checked it out. But I can’t believe you’re starting today! We’re going to a concert in Covington tonight and were hoping you would come. A bunch of us are taking Coco’s van. But if you’re starting your shift at five o’clock, that won’t work.” Covington was the town directly across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, about thirty miles away.

  “Oh, no,” I said, trying to look disappointed. There was no way I was ready for loud music and dancing with people I still didn’t know all that well.

  “Okay, we’ll be home by midnight or one or so,” said Matéo. “So we’ll just see you back here later. Congratulations on your job. Glad it worked out for you.”

  “Thanks,” I said, then noticed that Aly was looking at me, her head cocked to one side. “What?”

  “Did you wear that to the interview?” she asked.

  I looked down at the boxy blue T-shirt I’d gotten in the men’s department at Target and my favorite cutoff sweatpant shorts. “Yeah?”

  She shook her head. “No. An employee needs to look tidy and put together. Also, we need to put your hair into a braid or something, so it doesn’t get all over the place.”

  I felt like a kid again, sitting on a chair so that Aly could brush my hair and put it into a French braid that started at the top of my head and ended halfway down my back. Since the most I ever did was scrape it back into a ponytail, the effect was quite striking.

  “Wow, look at your face,” said Aly, meeting my eyes in the mirror.

  “What?”

  She shook her head, a little smile on her lips. “You’re beautiful. It’s just usually your hair is drowning out your face, and you dress . . . extremely casually. But look at you—you’re gorgeous. Your skin and eyes. Do you ever wear makeup?”

  My mom used to beg me to wear at least lip gloss. She was one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, and wore mascara every day of her life. When I thought about how hard I had pushed back, how obnoxiously I had refused to do the slightest thing that she wanted, and not just with makeup, my chest hurt.

  Mutely I shook my head.

  Aly shrugged. “You don’t have to. You’re beautiful.”

  I looked in the mirror, really seeing myself for the first time in ages, and saw barely a trace of the pretty little girl I had once been. I’d lost more weight than I’d realized, and my cheekbones were visible, changing the shape of my face. When I was little, I’d wanted to grow up to look like my mom, and I did mostly look like her and my aunts. But now I saw a bit of my dad in my face—stronger bones, straighter eyebrows. I was also six inches taller than my mom had been, and even in this too-skinny state still outweighed her. She’d been petite, finely boned, feminine. After I’d rejected being haguari, I’d spent a lot of energy trying to be the opposite of my mom. Looked like I got my wish.

  “I don’t see what you see,” I said finally.

  Leaning over, Aly gave me a little hug. “Someday you will, hermana.”

  Hermana. “Sister,” in Spanish. Matéo had told me Aly’s family had originally been from Colombia, but now lived in Ohio. I managed a watery smile.

  Next, Aly rejected every article of clothing I had brought, just as Jennifer had often done, refusing to go out in public with me unless I changed my shirt or wore different shorts. I’d thought it was funny, but it was less funny now. Finally Aly chose a shirt from her own closet, a black tank top that had FEAR BUILDS WALLS on it in huge white letters. It was much smaller than my regular shirts, and fitted me closely. I looked at myself in the mirror uncomfortably—the tank top emphasized my boobs, distorting the letters of “fear.” Feeeeaaaaaarrrrr.

  “Gosh,” Aly said, looking at me. Feeling uncomfortably that she must mean my chest, I picked up a white short-sleeved button-down shirt of mine and put it on, leaving it unbuttoned and tying the ends at my waist. Better.

  “You have no skirts or dresses?”

  “No,” I said.

  “No pants except jeans? No shorts except running shorts and jorts?”

  I really had nothing to say to that.

  “I have a skirt,” said Aly firmly.

  “I’m not really a skirt kind of girl,” I said, almost wincing as I remembered saying that to my mom so many times.

  “Trust me,” said Aly, handing me a flouncy black skirt with an elastic waistband. I held it up to myself. It came several inches above my knees. “In heat like this, skirts and dresses are the only way to go. You should know that, being from Florida. Put that on.” I did. In the mirror I was practically unrecognizable: tidy and girl-like.

  My makeover was interrupted by Jennifer calling, so Aly was thwarted from doing anything else to me. I popped open my computer and clicked Skype, and there was Jen. I knew this had been her first week of classes, and was bummed to see she looked stressed.

  “HD!” I said. “I’m so glad you called. How’s it going? Have you had a class yet?”

  Jennifer nodded. “Intro to pysch. It was okay.”

  “You love psych. How’s your roommate? Lucy, right?” I’d heard about her during Jennifer’s orientation week.

  “She’s fine.” Jennifer seemed distracted.

  “Oh. Well, how’s everything? You look tired.”

  “Yeah—still getting settled.” She pushed her wavy, shoulder-length brown hair behind one ear. “I don’t know,  Viv. I just don’t think I’m going to like it here.”

  “Maybe it’ll be better than you think,” I said. “Your courses should be good. Maybe you’ll meet some hot chick who’ll make it all worthwhile.”

  She didn’t even smile—just nodded, looking off to the side. Then she looked back into the camera and bit her lip. “I wish you had come home to see me,” she said, sounding like she was about to cry.

  Oh, no. I let out a deep breath. “I know. I’m sorry. I was dying to see you. Just . . . leaving here, going back home—I couldn’t face it.”

  “I know. I just miss you.” She gave me a trembly smile.

  “I miss you too.”

  “I like your hair like that,” she said.

  “Get this—it’s for work! I actually got a job. In a coffee shop. I’ll probably last about two hours, if I’m lucky.”

  “You got a job?”

  I gave a rueful laugh. “Yeah—can you believe it? It just seemed like it was ti—”

  “Vivi! You’re not staying there!” Jennifer said, staring into the camera. “What do you need a job for? You’re going home any day now, right?”

  “Well, no, I’m not staying here for good, of course,” I said quickly. “This is just temporary. But there’s no reason for me to go back home, especially if you’re not there. I might . . . I might stay here a couple more weeks. I thought a job would help keep me busy, you know. Keep my mind off things.”

  Jennifer bit her lip. “Vivi—promise me you’re not staying there. Promise me you’ll be home at Christmas when I come back. I have to do Thanksgiving up here with my aunt, but I’ll be home in mid-December.”

  That was easy. No way would I still be here at Christmas. “Absolutely,” I assured her. “I’ll be home long before then. I’ll be so happy to see you at Christmas. It’ll be great.”

  She didn’t say anything, just looked at me through the computer screen. “Okay, I have to go. I have a weird bio lab. On a Saturday.”

  “Ew,” I said sympathetically. “Okay. Have a good lab. Talk to you soon.”

  “ ’Kay.” She shut her computer, leaving me feeling unsettled. But it was time to head to Ro’s, and I couldn’t dwell on it right now.

  As I drove, I wondered if I was a wuss for agreeing to wear what Aly had picked out. Why had I let her dictate my clothes but not my mom? Maybe . . . Aly was trying
to change the way I looked. With my mom I’d felt that she was trying to change me. Had I been wrong? I would never know. I sniffled and turned left on Jackson Avenue.

  I arrived fifteen minutes early. Hayley, the girl with the nose ring, was really friendly, and started showing me everything right away. It felt weird, wearing a skirt. I was very aware of it swishing around my legs, but Aly was right—it was a lot cooler than shorts. It was comfortable and I didn’t feel vulnerable, which was what I usually feared from skirts and dresses.

  “Okay, got it, I think,” I said, after Hayley showed me where all the teas were kept and how to use the hot-water urn. I realized I hadn’t seen the guy, the manager, and said, “You know, I don’t even know the manager’s name.”

  Hayley laughed, showing her tongue stud. That had to hurt. “His name is Rafe—Rafael Marquez.”

  Rafael. Rafael Marquez. I said it silently a couple times, trying it out.

  “He’s getting his degree at Tulane, studying art,” Hayley said. “Look—those portraits were part of his junior-year portfolio.” She pointed to the right-hand wall, past the hallway, and I saw a drawing of Hayley and more drawings of people I didn’t know. We walked over to them.

  “Aren’t they amazing?” Hayley asked proudly, and they were.

  “Yes,” I said, hardly able to believe that the guy who had hired me had done this. The portrait of Hayley was a charcoal drawing, or at least mostly black pencil, but small parts were colored in, like her eyes and her lips. In real life Hayley was cute but not gorgeous, and she was heavier than modern standards of beauty, the way I was when I wasn’t carved out by grief. But this drawing, unmistakably Hayley, somehow drew out the best parts of her—her small, perfect nose, the smile in her eyes, the pretty bow of her upper lip—and made her look beautiful.

  “These are all people who work here or used to work here,” Hayley said, waving at the other drawings. “But let me show you how to work the espresso machine.”

  I watched carefully as Hayley measured finely ground coffee into the little handled thingy, and saw how she tamped it down firmly.