the others.
There was silence for a minute. “Well, that sure grumped him out,” Ashley said. “I knew it was just going to make him mad.”
“I told you,” Tim said, “we didn’t need him to agree with us. We’ve pissed him off. Now Wonder Boy is going to be all mad and pouty on the job, and not Employee of the Month. It’ll totally have the same effect.”
“Well, you’ve had an effect already,” Heathen said. “Now the rest of you can bloody well help me finish closing. Tim, you’re doing floors.”
• • •
Heathen’s phone was ringing as soon as she got in the door at home. Oh, shit. He started to rant before she even got “Hello” all the way out.
“It’s my fucking job, Heathen. How many times do I have to tell you that? It’s what I live on. This isn’t a game for me. It’s not a sport.” She heard the extra emphasis on that last word, a special dig for her.
“I chewed them out,” she said.
“You joined in with them,” Dag said. “Is this because you didn’t like your name in the blog?”
Heathen winced. Not exactly, but she could see how it looked that way to him. “I wish I hadn’t joined in.”
He wasn’t done. “Some friend you turned out to be. Don’t you know people are supposed to work hard at their jobs? Fuck,I knew that when I was five. I watched my mom.”
He was totally right. “We were tools,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She paused. “And I’m sorry I’ve been kind of pissy lately.”
“You’ve been extremely pissy,” Dag said. But he sounded like he still had some mad to get out. Sure enough: “Fucking Derek,” he went on. “‘You do everything but juggle for them,’” he mimicked. “If they don’t think they can keep up with me now, they can watch out. I’ll fucking learn to juggle now.”
• • •
What does the Hero have to say to his Teeming Masses about this? Well, what the fuck do you think he’d say?
• • •
Maria was on with Heathen and Dag when Heathen suddenly stared out the window. “Oh, hell,” she said. “What are they doing here?”
Dag and Maria both looked. “What?” they both said. Maria didn’t see anything unusual, just the usual boring Whistler crowd out there.
“Jefferoo’s heading in with the rest of his crew,” Heathen said.
This meant nothing to Maria, but she now saw a group of four guys with snowboards right in front of the shop. Dag’s expression changed, too. “Crap,” he said, softly enough that Maria barely heard it.
“I think I’m due for a smoke break,” Heathen said. “You and Maria can cover.”
“Heathen!” Dag said. “What if they hang out for an hour? You can’t stay out that whole time.” He looked like he wanted to bail himself.
“What’s the problem?” Maria asked as Heathen ditched her apron, grabbed her bag and hightailed it out the back way.
“The one in front,” Dag said. “He’s her ex-boyfriend.”
The four guys plowed in, filling the quiet shop with sudden noise and chatter. They were in high spirits and self-congratulatory, totally stoked over something. It looked like they’d been having a blast. Three of them hung around in front, checking out the free papers in the reading rack while the tallest of them made a beeline for the restroom. If they knew Dag, they didn’t seem to notice him, or Maria right away.
“Can I help you guys?” Maria said from the cash. They finally seemed to suddenly realize there were other people around.
“Sorry,” said the one who’d been in front. She assumed he was Jefferoo. “I guess we should get some coffees. Regular?” He looked around at the other two. They were eyeing the price board dubiously and nodded. Maria knew why. Snowboarders were always short of cash. That’s why she didn’t date them.
“For here or to go?”
“Is he going to be quick in there?” Jefferoo asked one of the others, who was missing some front teeth. He shrugged.
“How about I give you to-go cups, but you can drink ’em here all the same if you want,” Maria said.
“EGGsalad!” Jeff said. Maria got it after a second. His version of “Excellent!” “You are a goddess,” he added.
“I do what I can,” Maria said.
Dag was already pouring large coffees and lining them up on the counter. Whatever his under-the-breath comment meant, he seemed to be friendly to them. “Here you go, dudes. No worries, they’re on the house.”
“Dude!” Jefferoo said in surprise. “‘Waaaasabiiii?!! What the great white fuck are you doing in a trendoid situation like this? Dudes!” he said to his friends. “Check it out.” He reached over to tap fists with Dag and caught sight of the apron. “Whoa. Is it Halloween? This your costume?”
“I work here,” Dag said. The other two crowded around. “Hey, Adam. Hey, Kai,” he said.
“Dude,” they chorused in disbelief.
“Oh, man.” Jeff looked sympathetic. “That is so totally wack. You never said. Since when?”
“Like, two months now.” Dag looked over at Maria sort of uncomfortably, but with no customers to serve, Maria was paying attention to every word. She always paid attention to Dag.
“No way! You never said!”
“Way. What are you guys doing here? Why aren’t you at Breadspreads?”
Jeff pointed to the washroom, and presumably, the guy who’d dashed inside. “We just poached ourselves a surgical strike of a huckfest over on the bunny hill for something to do. Jared got a wicked attack of the shits on the way back. Said he couldn’t make it to the other side of the village.”
“We shouldn’t have let him stop, dude,” Adam said.
“If he’d dropped a load in his pants, we could so rag on him for, like, ever.”
“You think he isn’t going to be Pooper Scooper now, anyway?” Jeff said. The three of them had a laugh and high-fived each other some more.
Oh, god. Maria was one of the small minority of people who were actually born in Whistler, and at sixteen, she was intent on getting out of the mountains the instant she finished high school. She usually feigned only enough interest in snowsports to make chitchat with the customers when they came in,
