“Thanks,” Dag sighed. He didn’t sound grateful, but Mohammed understood.
“And before you go taking anything out on Heather,” Mohammed added, “you need to know two things. One, it wasn’t her who told me about the whipped cream. It was Carol from the bike and board rental place. She saw you leaving with Maria. I gather there was something on a personal level between you and Carol that didn’t end entirely to her satisfaction, and she felt like tattling.”
“Oh,” Dag said. His sheepish tone told Mohammed that was true.
“Two,” Mohammed said, “I wasn’t going to tell you this unless I needed to, but I guess I do. Heather wasn’t looking for a promotion, and I wasn’t looking to give her one. What she asked for from Head Office, and I know, because I wrote a letter in support, was athletic sponsorship. You know, they kick in some money every month, she wears the company logo when she competes—”
Dag nodded: yeah, yeah.
“And this was what they told me to do for her instead.” It was Mohammed’s turn to sigh. “I honestly don’t know what gets into them at Corporate sometimes. Hundreds of stores, expansion, millions of dollars in profit—” He shook his head, then rose from his chair. “Anyway, I think we’re done here for now, right?”
“Oh, yeah,” Dag said, “I’m definitely done.”
Mohammed didn’t like the finality of that as his star barista walked out of his office.
• • •
The Hero says unto you: Paramjeet Singh’s boss is gunning for him. If any of the Teeming Masses know Paramjeet in YVR, he could probably use a heads-up.
Nine
The November schedule was posted. As usual, Mohammed couldn’t keep up with the shift preferences of the staff, so as usual, Dag was immediately the most popular guy in the store. Being behind the counter working with him, Heathen got the unspoken first crack. But there was Ginette, off-duty, but hanging right at the end of the bar, lurking like a vulture, waiting her turn.
“Hey, Dag, I have an aerials clinic on November fifteenth,” Heathen said. “Can you swap shifts?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, so I’ll—what?” Heathen did a double-take. “Did you say ‘No’?” Dag never said no. Everybody counted on that.
“I would if I was going to be here,” he said matter-of-factly, “but by then, I expect to be moved down to Vancouver.”
Heathen gaped at him. “What! To do what?”
“This,” he said, bending close and scrubbing at a blob of dried-on chocolate syrup.
“What ‘this’?”
“This this.” He straightened up and made a sweeping gesture with his rag. “BlackArts. The java jive.”
Heathen was perplexed. “Did they transfer you or something?”
“I asked to be transferred.”
“How do you know there’ll be a job for you?”
He laughed. “Heathen, this is BlackArts. You know what the turnover’s like, even here. And there’s one every two blocks in Vancouver. One of them’s going to need somebody.”
“Yeah, but why do you need to go there? If you’re just going to pour lattes, why the hell would anyone in their right mind do it in a big ugly city when they could be doing it in the mountains and fresh air?”
“I’ve been to Vancouver. It’s not ugly.”
“It’s uglier than here.”
“It’s a nice city,” he said.
“All your friends are here.”
This time he looked up, with an expression she couldn’t quite figure out. “Heathen, you’re ‘all my friends’, and you’re crabby at me for god-knows-what half the time. You want to stay in touch, we’ll stay in touch. And it’s only two hours away. You’ll come through on the way to and from the airport for your out-of-town meets. But you probably won’t.”
God, he was serious. “Did I do something to piss you off?” she asked. She knew it would be the shift supervisor thing.
“Let’s not talk about it here, okay?”
Well, there it was. Heathen spent the rest of the shift feeling like shit for having gotten up his nose from time to time. But he had to know he was her best work bud, the first one she went to with all her ski news and results, and if he couldn’t see that, then screw him. She was sure she paid her share of rounds when they went for beers. Maybe she asked him to take a few of her shifts once in a while, but he got extra cash out of that. He had no right to make her feel bad. By the end of the afternoon, Heathen’s mopey mood had turned quite resentful. So resentful, she turned down his invite to go have a beer on the patio at Shredder Steve’s when they did the handover to the early evening crew.
“Heathen, you’ve been slamming cups around all afternoon. Stop being a bitch and come for a damn drink already,” he said.
“Gee,” she said, “I don’t know how I can turn down an invitation like that.” She turned back to counting the coins out of the tip jar. A second later, without warning, she was grabbed from behind. She shrieked and coins went flying as she was grabbed around the legs and turned upside down.
“Take care of those for us, would you, Mo?” Dag’s voice came from somewhere out of her view. “I’m taking Heathen for a beer.” He had her knees over his shoulder, the rest of her hanging down his back. “Somebody hand me her purse from the cupboard. See ya later.”
“Jesus Christ, Dag!” Heathen kicked and struggled. Customers were laughing as he pushed the door open and strode outside. “You’re going to drop me on my head.”
“No, I won’t,” he said.
“Put me down!”
“If I do, will you come quietly?”
“NO!”
“Then you’re coming like this. And quit fussing. You do aerials, you should be used to being upside-down.” She could hear him greeting people pleasantly as she bobbed along, still wriggling. “Hi, how’ya doin’? Nice day. Welcome to Whistler.” Her apron was flapping down over her face, but when the breeze puffed it away, she could see them from her upside-down perspective, turning to stare and laugh. “She does freestyle,” he said to someone. “This is training.”
“Stop! You can’t do this to me!”
“Apparently I can,” he said. And he was right. He was strong. She was got but good and had to bear it, protesting embarrassedly half the length of the village complex down to Steve’s, until he arrived at the patio. “I’ll have a Corona,” she heard him say. He reached back with his free hand and poked her ribs. “What do you want?”
“Don’t poke me!”
“Kokanee it is. Steve, Heathen will have a Kokanee.” He finally bent over to plunk her into a chair and plopped into another opposite, grinning at her.
“For god’s sake, Heathen,” he said, “take your apron off. You look ridiculous.”
Heathen finger-combed her hair, looking around furtively to see how many of her friends she’d been mortified in front of. ‘All of them’