Jen drew again on the e-cig, blowing out a plume of mist into the October chill. “I heard Randall’s going to be pulling people in for performance reviews soon. Guess we got too many complaints this past quarter.”
“I’m not worried about that. Are you?”
“Girrrrl,” Jen said with a grin, “no way. But some of the temps are shaking in their boots. Which is good, because maybe they’ll get fired, and we can get some hours back.”
The previous holiday season, the company had hired on a bunch of temps to handle the extra workload that always happened around Christmas and lasted until just after New Year’s. For whatever reason, four of the temps had been asked to stay on. None of them were any good, none had passed more than the basic level of training and none of them got along with anyone else in the office. Stella was sure two of them spent most of the day getting high in the supply closet, when they weren’t fucking in there. She wouldn’t have minded, if their presence hadn’t meant, as Jen said, a cutback in some of the overtime that they and the other eight people who worked in their department had come to count on over the summer during vacations.
“They’ll just hire more next month anyway,” Stella said.
Jen snorted softly. “True. But different ones. Maybe ones that aren’t assholes.”
Stella laughed at how unlikely that would be. Her coffee had started off bitter, but now it was cold too. She dumped it to the side of the concrete slab and watched it make a stain in the gravel, already thinking ahead to the evening. She was going to dig out her flannel sheets tonight.
“...with me?”
“Sorry, what?” Stella looked up.
“I said, what are you doing tomorrow night? Jared and I are going to hear one of our friends sing at open mic night. Want to come along?”
Stella lifted a suspicious brow. “Are you trying to set me up again?”
“Oh, c’mon. One time. One!” Jen held up a finger. Then another, and after a hesitation, a third. “Okay. Three times. But you have to admit, all three times it was totally legit.”
“Jen. I can’t date guys who are just a few years older than my kid. Anyway, I told you, I’m not interested. Too much effort.” Stella shook her head, looking at the sky, which had gone gray with the promise of rain. Too early for snow, right?
Jen sighed. “How can you not be interested?”
“I’m just not. Boyfriends take up too much time. Too much work.” Stella shrugged. “I don’t want to deal with a guy on a regular basis. I’m happy being alone.”
“Nobody,” Jen said darkly, “really wants to be alone.”
Stella shrugged again. “Not forever. No. But right now I have enough to deal with at home. Tristan goes to college in two years. I’ll have plenty of time to put up with bullshit then.”
“It’s not all bullshit,” Jen said.
“That’s because you’re in looooooove.” Stella grinned and made kissing noises that had Jen ducking her head with laughter. “Things are different when you’re in love. You put up with all kinds of shit you’d never tolerate from someone else. Love makes people lose their minds.”
“So does great peen,” Jen said solemnly.
Stella carefully kept a straight face. “All the more reason to avoid it.”
“If you’re not careful, your vajayjay’s gonna dry up like a tumbleweed and blow away.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Stella said.
CHAPTER FOUR
At birth, Tristan had weighed six pounds, four ounces. He was sixteen inches long. He had no hair, bald as an egg, and had cried nonstop, round the clock, insatiable and inconsolable for the first month and a half of his life.
Sixteen years later he was taller than both his parents, outweighed Stella by about sixty pounds and had the same insatiable appetite, though fortunately he’d replaced the constant screaming with incessant commentary on the world. At least, he used to talk all the time. Now, instead of the hugs and the “love you, Mamas,” Tristan’s conversations had become stilted and intermittent. He’d replaced his formerly goofy sense of humor with a more sarcastic edge that sometimes bordered on cruel but was nevertheless bitingly funny. Stella hated to laugh at him but usually did, especially when he was making fun of his stepmother.
“That’s not nice,” she murmured at his demonstration of how Cynthia’s mouth was always slightly parted. “Eat your grilled cheese.”
She’d made his favorite with thick slices of rye bread and cheddar, along with a few strips of crispy bacon and thinly sliced tomato. Not the healthiest dinner, but Tristan had grown up and stretched out so much she figured he could stand the extra calories, especially with all the running he’d been doing. For herself, she had a grilled chicken and spinach salad.
Tristan looked at the plate, then at her. “Can’t I have what you’re having?”
She paused with her fork ready to stab the spinach. “You love grilled cheese.”
Tristan said nothing. He cut his gaze from hers, looking so much like Jeff it hurt her heart. Tristan pushed the plate with the tips of his fingers. “No, I don’t.”
“Since when?” Stella tried to keep the edge from her voice, too aware how easy it would be for them to slip into an argument. He not only looked like his dad; he had a lot of Jeff’s personality too. All the things that had driven her nuts about her ex-husband were blooming in her son. No matter how much she’d determined Tristan would never be the sort of man who expected the world to hand him a living on a platter, it seemed nature sometimes did win over nurture. She loved her son, always, with every breath inside her. But there’d been a lot of days lately where she found it very difficult to like him.
“Since always.” He muttered something else and moved the plate another half an inch away from him.
Stella stabbed her salad. “What was that?”
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”
“You did,” she said. “I heard it.”
“Nothing. Forget it,” Tristan repeated stubbornly. He got up from the table, leaving the plate. “I’m not hungry, anyway. I’m going out for a run.”
He was already through the kitchen doorway before she called out to him, “Hold up. Put the sandwich away for later and put your plate in the dishwasher.”
He did, dragging his feet and heaving a sigh as if she’d asked him to amputate all his limbs with a rusty carrot peeler.
“I shouldn’t even have to ask you that. C’mon, Tristan.” She managed to keep her voice steady and focus on her salad. “You should know better.”
“Yeah?” he challenged. “Well, so should you!”
Before she could ask him what the hell he meant by that, he’d stomped away. Footsteps pounded up the stairs and down the hall to his room. The door slammed.
Stella’d lost her appetite too but forced herself to eat anyway. When Tristan thundered down the stairs and toward the front door, she called out again, “Where are you going and how long do you think you’ll be gone?”
“For a run, I told you, and I don’t know.”
There was no way for her to force a different answer from him