Thirteen & Counting

Have a beautiful day. The letters on the napkin are bleeding from the too-tight grip of a sweaty palm, and there are holes in some where a pen pressed too hard. Olivia shoves it into her pocket as her young customer steps up to the counter, so near, she can see swirls of grey in blue eyes, soft against the glow of honey-brown skin. No amount of late night scrolling on Facebook could’ve prepared her for the thudding of her heart as though it might tear through her apron, or the trembling of her hands as she holds out steaming hot chocolate and small fingers brush against hers.

Ayana is thirteen today and Olivia wishes more than anything she could shout Happy birthday! at the top of her lungs or be the mother sticking the candle into the blueberry muffin, smiling brightly at her little girl—not so little anymore. She’d buy her a café breakfast and then spend a month's paycheck on ice cream, manicures, shopping, and cake. They would talk about the cute boys at school, which ones wear cologne and which ones still can’t tie their shoes right, and Olivia would always and forever remind her to be careful. Pregnant at seventeen is no fun.

“Excuse me! I’m ready to order.”

A tall man in a navy suit is drumming his fingers on the counter, his hair slicked back to showcase handsome features, which are currently twisted in annoyance. The Starbucks app is open and waiting on his phone, and his jaw is clenched with the exasperation of someone on a tight schedule who didn’t allot for a wistful barista.

“Sorry about that.” Olivia grips the rag in her hand, wiping down the milk steamer and pointlessly trying to make it look like she wasn’t just staring longingly at someone else’s daughter. “What can I get for you, sir?” she says, voice heavy with exhaustion.

She can’t find it in her to flash her typical flirtatious grin, or deliver his cold brew with the side of Olivia’s digits:) that a man with his dark eyes and strong build might have received any other day. He gets his drink and is out the door in four long strides, a frazzled mother, with three kids in tow, stepping up to his spot at the counter.

Customers come and go: a sea of businessmen, Lululemon-clad bikers, and little girls with far too much makeup on. Ayana and her mother are lost in the current. She’s gone, and Olivia feels as though she’s gotten a bitter taste of her own medicine. The napkin sits crumpled in her pocket, undelivered.

***

“So,” Paislie-May draws the word out long, “are you going to ask him?”

Two girls lean in towards Ayana over untouched homework, long hair brushing the tops of seven-dollar drinks and eyes pleading for a level of boldness she has never possessed.

“I mean,” her voice falters as she picks at a cuticle. “I just got here, I haven’t even known Hudson that long…so no?”

It’s a question. She shouldn’t. Right? He doesn’t even like her. Right? The petals on her inner daisy are wearing dangerously thin.

Lannie rolls her eyes. “The Jingle Ball is in a week, you need a date, and Hudson’s very cute—glasses aside, of course.”

Her face flushes hot. She’s never questioned whether or not Hudson was cute, only if she was cute enough for Hudson.

“Ugh. I wish I could go,” whines Paislie-May.

“One more year, babe,” Lannie assures her, before turning back to Ayana who’s toying with the paper wrapper from her straw.

“I don’t mind his glasses,” she offers.

“Although,” Paislie-May loud-whispers over her, eyebrows knitting together in concern. “We don’t really know what type of girl Hudson likes, do we? I heard he didn’t go out with Danika because he thought her hair was too frizzy.”

Did he tell her that? To her face—in front of people? Ayana’s fingers reach for shoulder length waves, soft and freshly washed. They’re not frizzy thanks to handfuls of product, but still her chest tightens, and her breaths are getting shorter. She wishes whichever biological parent had shared their curl pattern might’ve backed off a bit in the gene department. She chews on her thumbnail and it starts to bleed.

“Don’t worry, Ayana.” Lannie smiles, kindly. “I’m sure we can straighten your hair.”

“Okay,” she blurts. But her head is pounding, and her eyes begin to sting. She scoots back, chair screeching, and darts for the washroom. The door swings open, and a barista mopping inside startles.

“Oh, sorry,” Ayana says, brushing away the tears that are now overflowing. “I’ll just go.”

Olivia, as her name tag reads, straightens up. Her eyes flit up and down Ayana and her surprised expression crumples in sympathy. “Are you okay?” she breathes.

“Yeah,” Ayana sniffs and turns back to the door. “My bad, I’ll leave you to it.”

She prays her eyes and nose aren’t too red, picturing Lannie’s and Paislie-May’s reactions to her panicked escape. She knows they were only trying to help.

“Hey, wait,” Olivia calls, and then they’re facing each other again for a moment before she continues. “I’m just about done here,” she says, with a small smile. “Go ahead.”

She picks up her mop and bucket, and Ayana nods in thanks, shutting herself in the nearest stall and sinking down to cold tile. Her mother has been teaching her how to regulate since she was little, when nightmares of being lost in the grocery store or forgotten at a gas station left her sobbing in sweaty hysteria, swallowed in her sheets. Head between the knees and deep breaths, Ayana. I’ve got you.

***

The last time this number lit up Rory’s screen, he had a flip phone, pierced ears, and a catastrophically large ego.

“Hello?” he says, the tremor in his voice matching the crackle on the other line. He must be remembering wrong—it’s just a co-worker he never bothered to make a contact for, or another banking scam from a different country.

“Hi,” she says.

And the last thirteen years melt away. He’s back in high school, flirting with three girls at once, his arm slung casually around Olivia’s shoulder as though it weren’t the most precious thing in the world.

“Hi,” he says back, his face beginning to feel numb and his phone growing heavy in his hand.

“You already said that,” she snaps.

“Sorry.”

And he’s apologizing again. Desperate again already to measure up to her need for control. It’s been thirteen years since he’s felt this pressure, and he’s hit with a strong desire to hang up the phone. He feels his chest constricting and he remembers why this couldn’t have worked.

Rory could never fit into the little checkboxes Liv used to organize her whole life. Neither could his daughter—although she wasn’t given the chance.

“Can I help you?” he asks, his tone turning chilly.

There’s a long silence on her end, and he wonders if she’s hung up. But then she says, “I saw Ayana today.” His breath catches in his throat but before he can compose himself, she continues awkwardly, “for the second time. Twice now. In real life.”

“Where?” is all he can think to say.

“Starbucks. I work there. She comes in with her family or her friends. She’s beautiful.”

He’s seen her, of course. Too many times to count in the last two months. She’ll come for a sleepover or to help Paislie-May with homework. Rory only knew one other person who could make friends like that one week into a new school, and each time she knocks on the front door, his shock shifts to sadness before settling into resentment. He hates Liv so much for taking her away from him—but he can’t hate her, because she’s woven into Ayana. At a glance, the resemblance is faint at best. But then there’s the way she bites her fingernails when there’s a silence, or the scrunch of her nose when she smiles, and she’s Liv all over.

“She’s just like you,” he whispers. It must be too quiet for her to hear, because there’s no reply. “I should go,” he finally says.

“Okay.”

Rory’s thumb hovers over the red end call button for a moment before he hangs up. He sets the phone on his desk as there’s a rap on his office door.

“Hey, love,” he says as Paislie-May sticks her head in. “What’s up?”

“Time for dinner, Dad.”

“Just give me a minute. I’ll be there.”

***

“When does your shift end, dear?” Juliana asks the woman passing her chai over the counter. “You look like you could use some caffeine yourself, and maybe some company?”

Juliana Rochester has spent seventy-six years on this Earth. She is the middle child of nine siblings, a wife of fifty-one years, a mother to three, and a grandmother to five. She’s felt the unbearable weight of loss as she stared into a sea of black, a squealing microphone projecting each choked syllable of a eulogy. She’s looked through blurry tears into the cold, unblinking eyes of her sister, her mother, her father, and her treasured Mr. Rochester—the lights of her life, all of them flickered out. She’s seen more grief-stricken faces than she cares to remember, and she doesn’t need her reading glasses to recognize the expression of someone who is missing a piece of themselves and doesn’t know how to get it back.

“Not for another two hours,” the barista says, already working on prepping her next drink.

Juliana smiles. “I have some time.”

***

As Olivia pulls into her car port, she feels as though she’s just driven out of a fever dream. Her mind is flooded with Juliana’s warm smile, brown eyes crinkling at the corners, and her even warmer words.

“Have a beautiful day, love,” she’d said, after nearly an hour of conversation.

That phrase had made Olivia’s heart skip a beat. Even from the lips of a stranger, it felt so comforting. So genuine.

She pulls the key from the ignition but doesn’t move to leave her car. She reaches for her sweats pocket, where she’d shoved the napkin she’d written those same words on. It’s long gone now, thrown in the garbage nearly three weeks ago, but her leg is still burning from where it had sat, saying so little, but carrying everything. At thirty years old, Olivia is no better at opening her heart to her daughter than she was at seventeen. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t see her.

Olivia had picked up an emptiness, that day in the bathroom, in Ayana’s hollow expression as tears streamed down her face. It felt like looking in a mirror at her own heart, and the last thing she wanted was for her daughter to be a reflection of herself.

The tiny woman with silver hair and a kind soul hadn’t known Olivia, and didn’t owe her anything, but she had filled the smallest bit of that emptiness. It hadn’t taken history or explanations and maybe it wouldn’t for Ayana. Olivia will never be a mother to her, but she can be like Juliana. A stranger who offers a tiny bit of healing.

The next day, her hand is steady as she grips the pen. Unlike the first time she wrote this note, she’s sure of herself. The words are simple, but the simplicity feels refreshing in the midst of the mess that is Olivia. She tucks the paper into her apron pocket.

It’s another two weeks before Ayana comes back at Starbucks. Two weeks of Olivia’s heart fluttering with each chime of the door, anxiously awaiting her arrival. When she does come she’s accompanied by a boy with red-brown hair and a splash of freckles across his nose.

“Can I get a name for that?”

“For Hudson, please,” he says, smiling brightly. Ayana’s wearing a matching grin as she looks up at him.

“Thank you,” she says, when Olivia’s directed them to the other counter for their drinks.

“Of course.”

Olivia prepares their drinks with care, adding an extra pump of caramel and carefully swirled whip cream on top. When she’s finished, she slides them both across the counter, pulling the note from her apron and slipping it beneath Ayana’s drink.

“For Hudson!” she calls.

The two of them step up to the counter, laughing at something Olivia will never know. But she doesn’t need to know. Ayana’s laughter—Ayana's joy is enough.