She hadn’t moved from where she’d been standing near the sink. “That was something.” For the person closest to the point of impact, she didn’t seem as shaken up as Heathen would have thought.
“Something totally uncalled-for,” Heathen said. “I’m not cleaning that up, and don’t you, either,” she added, as Maria started to pick broken pieces of mug off the counter.
“But if he’s really gone…?” Maria said. There was disappointment in her tone.
“Oh, he’ll be back.” Actually, Heathen wasn’t entirely certain, but it was a good rationale for putting off cleaning up his mess.
Maria brightened up. “You think so?”
Heathen rolled her eyes. “Maria, do not tell me that you’re attracted to him now, just because he’s had a tantrum!”
Maria shrugged but blushed at the same time. “I didn’t know he had an edgy side before.”
Heathen groaned. “No! Maria! You hate snowboarders!”
“Dag’s not a snowboarder any more,” Maria said. “I saw him with those other guys. He’s totally different. He’s not all goofball like them.” Customers were coming in, a couple of pairs, but enough to keep them from any more private conversation for a few minutes. Next lull, Heathen was on it again though, because with all the women Dag got, she didn’t think he needed teenaged Maria mooning after him, too.
“So he dropped the slang,” she said. “Don’t let the absence of a few ‘wacks’ and ‘dudes’ in his conversation fool you. Because A) next to Jeff, anybody looks good, and B) just because he doesn’t get on a board any more doesn’t mean he’s given up their attitudes. And it’s the attitude you hate. Right? That ‘ride hard, play hard’ crap they use as an excuse to throw themselves down the hill or the pipe all day, party and throw alcohol in their bodies all evening, and then throw themselves into bed with anybody who’s around to finish off the night.”
Maria was looking at her with her head cocked to one side. “That sounds like it might be, like, more your issue than mine? Do you know what goes on with high school kids these days?”
Now it was Heathen’s turn to feel her face redden. “Maria Di Filippo, are you saying that you’re into these rainbow parties and Friends With Benefits things?”
Maria shrugged. “I’m just saying I’m not all bitter and resentful about casual sex going on, which, it sounds like you maybe are. You used to go out with that Jeff guy, right?”
Burn! It was like she knew that Heathen and Jeff had broken up over the whole fuckbuddy system in the snowboard scene. Way to come across as a big prude, she thought to herself. “Hey, casual sex is fine,” she said, as casually as she could, “unless you’re supposed to be in a relationship.”
“Well, I don’t see Dag in a relationship,” Maria said, turning that one neatly back on itself to give Heathen the double burn.
Before Heathen could come back with a snappy retort, Dag came back in. Without a word, he went straight to the sink and started picking up broken crockery. Heathen glanced at the clock on the cash register. Exactly fifteen minutes from when he’d stomped out. Some edge. He’d taken his regulation break, not a minute more, and was now cleaning up his mess. She turned to snot something at Maria, only to find Maria back over by the sink, helping herself to a squirt of whipped cream from the dispenser and licking it off her finger as she leaned in to talk to Dag.
“I think I have to go check the bathrooms,” Heathen said. It wasn’t her turn, but it was as good a place as any to be nauseous.
Once inside, she took her time picking up crumpled paper towels off the floor and giving the sink a wipe. She imagined Maria thinking, maybe even asking out loud, “What’s up with her?” And it was a good question, with only one real answer. Though she wouldn’t admit it to anyone but herself, Heathen knew what the feeling was. Jealousy. And it pissed her off to be jealous, because she’d told herself right on day one (okay, night one) that she didn’t want Dag. He wasn’t to be desired sexually or romantically, and she’d kept up her end of that. Why the hell didn’t anyone else? Why did every other female think he was the Swedish Johnny Depp? It was making Heathen re-think her decision, and she didn’t like that, because, as appealing as Dag was, Heathen didn’t want to want someone who thought the way the Hero of the Teeming Masses thought. If it was even him, which she still didn’t entirely believe. If he wasn’t the Hero, then maybe it was okay to be attracted to him, but now she’d probably missed her chance. And then there was Mohammed. Heathen knew there was something there, if only he would just move on it.
Heathen finished up in the bathroom every bit as conflicted as before.
The next day, they were all on again. At the end of shift, Heathen was still at her locker when Dag and Maria came back to get their jackets. When Maria took off her apron, she was wearing some pretty non-standard blacks—low-rise jeans way below her hipbones and a crop top that couldn’t help but show a significant strip of her belly. Mohammed wouldn’t have allowed it if he’d been in today. Heathen couldn’t help but notice how Maria was loitering around, trying to catch Dag’s eye. She got both of them, and he wasn’t any subtler about noticing Maria’s getup. No hardbody, Maria’s was a soft, squishy middle, probably from a few too many whipped cream indulgences on shift. Dag said something to her that Heathen couldn’t hear. Maria’s eyes widened, and she grabbed her coat and quickly scuttled out of the back area. Heathen was impressed at the abruptness of the brush-off.
She stuffed her own apron in the hamper and put her jacket on, feeling a bit vindicated. So, maybe being a soft girly girl wasn’t everything after all. Turning to leave, she saw Maria, back at Dag’s locker again. Grinning, she was showing him that she’d cached the spare stainless steel whipped cream dispenser under her jacket. “It’s cold,” she said with a giggle.
Dag led her out. “I’ll warm you up.”
Heathen shut her locker with a slam.
Eight
Mohammed was counting on the day, before too long, when he would leave the corporate yoke behind to open an independent coffee shop, Iraqi-style, with a cozy, earthy atmosphere, woven wall hangings muffling outside sounds and the mud-thick, bitter coffee he knew from home. Of all the chains, BlackArts had the reputation for the bitterest beverage, which is why he’d gravitated to it to earn his investment, but it was a pale shadow of what he made himself at home. He had enough money saved now to start his own place, but the political climate wasn’t quite right yet. Another couple of years, after the Olympics, and all the paranoia masquerading as security awareness would be on the wane. For a little while longer, Mohammed would have to be a reluctant slave to the BlackArts oppressors as much as the frontline types he supervised.
Mohammed had talked to Heathen the night before and warned her to be nice to Dag when he came in. He got in himself half an hour after their morning shift had started and called Dag into the back office. Dag followed him in, looking set for trouble, no doubt having rehearsed the “what I do with my own time is my own business” speech. Which was pretty much true. But despite the fact that Heathen had finked on him, Mohammed wasn’t there to play hardball over that. No, Dag was about to be blindsided by something he hadn’t anticipated at all, and it wasn’t going to be easy for Mohammed to crap all over his favourite employee.
“I wanted to tell you myself,” Mohammed said when Dag was sitting. He didn’t mince words. “Heather’s been
