Just For Glory | COMPLETED

Back to School...Again

Piper came back in the café about one month later on an unseasonably cold August day. As always, she was sitting in one of the corner armchairs with her legs tucked up and crossed, which further fueled my suspicion that she found it difficult to sit with her feet firmly on the ground.

To my surprise, the moment Piper walked in, both Jane and Lila hailed her joyfully. She beamed at them but made her way towards the corner regardless only to have Lila bring over a bagel and a Coke a couple minutes later. She stayed by Piper for a while, talking easily. I observed this all from behind the counter, where I had been stuck by Jane because the low number of customers meant we didn't need all three of us out at the tables.

When Lila came back, she was still smiling a little. Then she walked behind the counter, gestured towards Piper, and said, "Go sit with your friend, Donovan!" I glared at her and bit the inside of my cheek. It wasn't the same case it had been a month before—I had seen Piper reasonably often since the day in Michaels. We weren't hanging out every day, but I saw her at least twice a week.

Basically, I wasn't exactly in need of talking to her as much as I was in need of money. I opened my mouth to say that, but Lila ran right over my words. "No arguments, man! You've been working for six straight hours, and Jane needs extra shifts more than you. Go, Piper needs entertainment anyways. No book today," she declared, nodding knowingly.

I sighed, but Lila pushed past me to work the register, so I took the green apron that made up the only real "uniform" and stowed it beneath the counter. Piper didn't even look up when I sat down across from her; she was frowning at her peace sign Converse thoughtfully. "I want to paint my room," she said, and I wasn't actually one hundred percent sure that she was talking to me.

When she glanced up at me, I shrugged carelessly. "That's nice, but Pipe, your room's already painted. Green, I believe it is," I said sarcastically, nodding at her like I was explaining things to a little kid.

"No, really? I'm just saying that the light green is bugging me. I'm thinking maybe...blue? Purple? Oh, red!" I stared at her blankly, so she sighed and waved a hand dismissively. "Sorry, that's besides the point. I came to give you...this!" She pulled Catcher in the Rye out from behind her with a "ta-da!" and a flourish.

I raised an eyebrow. "Gee thanks, a book," I muttered as I took it, but she didn't reply. "Hey wait a second, Lila said that you didn't have a book today."

Piper grinned. "Yeah, I had to find some way to get you over here. I couldn't tell her that I was here to give you the summer reading book—which, by the way, I cannot believe you don't own—so I went for a guilt-trip via Lila. Poor little Piper, all alone in the world with no book to keep her company! Did it work?"

"Not really." Piper shrugged slightly as if she were expecting that. "How do you know Lila so well?" I asked, changing directions since I knew that random tangents always went smoothly with Piper—she was a pro.

"Well, two reasons: she used to baby-sit me and Andrew, I baby-sat her dog for a week or two. Plus she's in here a lot more than you, and I happen to very much enjoy these bagels," she said, picking up said pastry for emphasis.

"Okay, so you're in here enough for both Jane and Lila to know you? What are you, a regular?" I slid the paperback into my back pocket as I made a mental note to read it again before school started. It wasn't as if I'd never read Catcher in the Rye, but the last copy had been one that I'd taken from a library and had been returned three years overdue by my mother when she found it in my room.

Picking at a small hole in the knee of her jeans, Piper shrugged once more. We seemed to be doing a lot of that. "Yeah, well, I'm down here a lot." By "here" I assumed she meant the area in town, so I watched her steadily and waited for her to go on. "Andrew's..." she started before turning her face to the window and quietly finishing, "Andrew has to see a therapist a couple times a week—Dad's orders. It started with me just going with him to the building to make sure he'd, well, go, but now I drive him there. I need somewhere to hang out, and this place...it's better than that creepy and somewhat sleazy diner across the street."