Kind of a Big Deal

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  For Rebecca and Jennifer,

  my books- and musicals-loving kindred spirits.

  Les adoro para siempre.

  CHAPTER 1

  It began, predictably, with a dream.

  Josie was walking down the busy hall in her old high school, and everyone was shouting, “Hi, Josie! Hey, Josie!” just the way they used to. After all, she had been a big deal.

  I’m such a cliché, she thought. Dreaming about high school. Just like people always do.

  “Hi, Josie!”

  Josie waved and wondered why, despite the glorious and sincere adoration of her classmates, she felt only dread.

  Wait, was this going to be an anxiety dream? She looked down to see if she was naked, but nope: fully clothed. She entered a classroom, expecting to have to take a test she hadn’t studied for—but the teacher just greeted her with a smile.

  The teacher did look like a purple, toothy octopus, but it was, after all, a dream. And judging by the fear knotting up in her gut, it was going to be a bad one.

  “Something is about to happen,” she said to herself. “It’s going to be a big deal. And I won’t be prepared for it.”

  She sat at a desk, facing the closed classroom door, and waited for whatever would come in.

  “I’m already here,” said Justin, sitting to her left.

  “Oh good,” said Josie. She reached out, and he took her hand.

  “Me too,” said Nina, squeezing her other hand.

  Josie smiled at Nina. What could possibly go wrong as long as she had her safety net, Justin and Nina?

  “I’m here too!” said the octopus, wagging furry octopus eyebrows and waving gorgeous purple tentacles.

  Josie gave the octopus a big thumbs-up. She didn’t want to offend and risk a bad grade. What class was this anyway? She meant to turn to ask Justin, but her focus kept pulling to the door. A bright light, as if from a single bulb, was shining behind the frosted glass window. The light got brighter, piercing through the edges of the door. And then, a shadow. A figure. Somebody.

  Something. About to happen. Energy pulsed behind that thought, pushing forward, the way a speeding car gets louder as it zooms near—building, screeching, screaming …

  And, predictably, Josie woke up.

  A second or two creaked by before she remembered she was not home in Arizona. She also wasn’t on her old futon bed in Queens. She was, randomly, in Montana, sleeping in a foldout couch in the spare room. Josie groaned and rolled over, the springs grinding beneath her, and she bumped into something both hard and furry. A robotic voice said, “I want to be your pal.”

  Josie sat upright, her heart sputtering. She tore back the covers.

  The hard, furry thing was just Mia’s talking bear toy. Its mouth moved up and down with a labored creaking.

  “Read me a story.”

  Mia sometimes had nightmares. Since her mom was out of town, she’d probably crept into Josie’s room for a post-nightmare restorative snuggle and then left the bear behind.

  Josie fumbled for her cell phone from the side table. It was 7:32 a.m. She hesitated to bother Justin when he was probably getting ready for school but then went ahead and texted a photo of the bear.

  JOSIE

  I don’t remember going to bed with this guy last night but I woke up to him this morning

  She stared at the phone. Its blank screen just stared back at her all blankly, so she checked her email while she was waiting for Justin to respond.

  FROM: York Bank Account Services

  TO: Josie Sergakis

  SUBJECT: account past due

  No, no, no … Josie’s stomach folded in on itself in a way that made her glad she hadn’t eaten yet. If she missed a payment, the bank might notify her mother, who’d cosigned on her credit card. And then her mother would know—no, no, no …

  The bulk of Josie’s nanny salary went directly to her credit-card balance. April’s payment should have gone out a couple of weeks ago. Maybe there was a bank error.

  She tried to log in on the bank’s mobile site, but it insisted on a password her phone no longer remembered, so she dialed the bank’s number.

  “All of our customer-service agents are taking other calls. You are TWENTY-FIRST in line.”

  Josie set the phone to speaker and got dressed to the hold music—a synthesized cover of “Welcome to New York.” The T-shirt and sweats she’d slept in were practically clothing, so she brushed her teeth. Washed her face. Pulled her hair into a ponytail. Called it good.

  The clock read 7:43 a.m. Mia was always up by now.

  Josie carefully opened her bedroom door into the family room of the condo.

  “Mia?” she whispered.

  Except for the tinny music squeaking out of her phone, the condo was a monolith of silence. And brownness. Brown granite kitchen countertop. Brown sofa. Brown carpet. If a deer broke in and held really still, Josie wasn’t sure she’d notice.

  She hesitated outside Mia’s door. Josie didn’t want to wake her, but she’d been Mia’s nanny for months and had never known the girl to sleep in. Josie carefully turned the knob to avoid a clicking sound and eased the door open.

  The bed was empty. Her heart started to pound.

  “Mia?” She ran into Mia’s mom’s bedroom. And there, curled up in the center of the king-sized bed, was the five-year-old, her curly black hair over her face.

  The girl roused. “Mommy?” she said.

  “No, it’s Josie. Your mom is still in Nairobi. She’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” said Mia. And that word sounded so brave, it broke Josie’s broken heart a little more.

  “I’m here. I’m not leaving you, I promise,” said Josie.

  “Okay,” said Mia, and both the tightness in her voice and her grip on Josie’s arm lifted.

  “Did you have bad dreams?”

  Mia nodded. “Are you listening to music?”

  “Um … yeah.” Josie held up her phone. “Do you like it?”

  “No,” said Mia.

  “Yeah, me neither.”

  They ate cold cereal at the kitchen counter. The four-chair square table was covered in a week’s worth of crayons and paper, clay creations, used-up watercolors, and dried-up snacks. Josie reminded herself that she’d better clean up before Victoria returned and keep up the facade that she was a responsible girl—woman?—who had her act together.

  Josie had been Mia’s nanny in New York City, coming into the little girl’s life just in time to have a front-row seat to the dissolution of her parents’ marriage. She barely knew Mia’s dad, a my-work-is-sooo-important lawyer at some Manhattan firm. When the divorce was final, Mia’s mom, Victoria, suddenly decided to move with Mia to their summer condo in Missoula, Montana.

  “Montana! A clean start!” Victoria had said. “I’ll raise Mia in the fresh air!” Victoria begged Josie to come with them. Mia was already attached to her, and Victoria would need a
live-in nanny now. She was having to take back up her international business work, with all its travel.

  Josie had figured, Sure, why not move to Montana, where I know nobody and have zero prospects or any future whatsoever? In this life, you either make it or you don’t. And Josie hadn’t made it. Montana seemed like as good a place as any to waste some time.

  “Nope, nope, nope,” Mia said, spooning gobs of sugary cereal from one bowl to the other.

  Mia had two cereal bowls—yellow for eating and red for overflow. Sometimes she had too much cereal. Too Much Cereal had to go to time-out in the red bowl until Mia was prepared to acknowledge it.

  Josie was tidying to the beat of a synthesized “Smells Like Teen Spirit” when her phone buzzed. A text!

  JUSTIN

  ha!

  Ha? That was it? Well, her text hadn’t been jaw-droppingly witty or anything, but maybe it deserved more than a ha? She was trying to come up with something clever to text back when a voice droned on the speaker: “All of our customer-service agents are taking other calls. You are TWENTIETH in line.”

  “Nooooo,” said Josie.

  She tried to strangle her cell but accidentally hung up instead. What if the bank had already contacted Mom? What if Mom knew that at age eighteen, her daughter was already buried under an obscene amount of useless debt? What if the bank forced Mom to get a second mortgage?

  “Uggghh,” said Josie.

  “You’re noisy today,” said Mia.

  Josie raised an eyebrow. She really didn’t need a five-year-old adding color commentary. Mia stared back in that creepy, dead-eyed way she had.

  In robotic teddy voice, Josie said, “Take me with you.”

  “I want to be your pal,” Mia quoted back in monotone. Her imitation of the toy bear was uncanny. Josie laughed.

  “Play with me, Mia, or I will eat your brains.”

  Mia squealed and hopped off her stool, running away. But slowly. Stopping to look back, to make sure Josie was still chasing.

  Josie dutifully shamble-chased Mia around and around the coffee table. Mia giggled, half terrified, half excited, and then finally allowed Josie to grab her.

  Mia wrapped her arms around Josie and squeezed.

  “Aw,” said Josie, surprised how sweet it felt to receive this little girl’s hug. She hadn’t realized that her chest had been feeling a little emptied out, her heart kind of shrunken and rattling around loose in there, till Mia’s affection helped to fill it back up. Josie squeezed her back, wanting in turn to relieve any sadness Mia must be feeling with her mom away.

  The hug lasted about 1.5 seconds, till Mia had had more than enough affection, thank you, and wriggled away.

  Josie’s phone buzzed.

  NINA

  Sorry I didn’t call back last night. Busy now. Finance class, church choir, then work. Later?

  JOSIE

  Yes please

  Nothing to report anyway. Josie’s routine was identical day after day, while her best friend was at the University of Chicago, attending fascinating lectures and dating interesting people. And apparently working somewhere? Josie hadn’t known she’d gotten a job or what the deal was with church choir. As far as Josie knew, Nina didn’t attend any church. Well, she’d get the details later and would just have to hold on emotionally till Nina’s voice could sustain her.

  “What are we doing today?” Mia asked, putting her cereal bowls in the sink.

  “Something fun,” said Josie.

  Mia gasped. “School?” She clasped her hands, her eyes glistening, as if she’d stolen the expression from an old movie about a pure-hearted orphan.

  “Uh … no, not today.” Victoria had signed Mia up for preschool three mornings a week, but for friend-hungry Mia, it wasn’t nearly enough. “I thought we could check out that park by the river!”

  Josie hoped that Mia would be entertained on a playground long enough for Josie to get to caller number one and fix this before her financial house of cards toppled.

  Judging by Mia’s dead-eyed expression, park did not even approach the grandeur of school. In her robotic teddy voice, she said, “Mia is bored. Mia wants friends.”

  “Yes. Friends. There will be friends at the park. Even better friends than you play with in preschool.” Josie slipped into a posh New England accent. “Dah-ling, you shall make the most mah-velous friends.”

  “More,” said Mia.

  So Josie chattered in a Russian accent, in an American Southern accent, and in her grandmother’s Greek accent as they slipped on shoes. They automatically went for their coats before Josie remembered, once again, with rapturous joy, that it was May. Boldly, she stepped out the front door with nothing more than a zip-up hoodie.

  A hoodie in May. The Arizona girl inside Josie shook her head in disbelief.

  They crossed the street and headed toward Missoula’s cozy downtown. Josie’s familiarity with Missoula was mostly limited to the stretch between the condo and the grocery store. Josie didn’t have a driver’s license, so when Victoria was out of town, she had to do all errands on foot. And why do any excessive errands in tiny, two-horse Missoula when she could curl up in bed instead and obsessively read Broadway news and scan through old text-message chains?

  But May … Josie reluctantly had to admit that May in Montana wasn’t half bad. Air so clean you could drink it like water. That famously big sky arching its back, stretching wide and strong. Everywhere, life was just about to happen.

  Their pace was slow enough to allow Mia her frequent need to hop over cracks, and Josie found herself singing not unhappily as they passed a Methodist church, a bar, a vegan restaurant, a yoga studio, another bar, an art gallery, a bar …

  A small storefront scrunched between two buildings advertised:

  COFFEE

  YOUR ENTIRELY PUN-FREE SOURCE OF HOT BEVERAGES

  The man out front setting up sidewalk tables was wearing all denim: shirt, jacket, and pants tucked into cowboy boots. He had golden brown skin and a head so bald it was shiny.

  “Good morning, songbird!” he said.

  Josie startled, briefly forgetting that outside New York City, strangers spoke to each other. There was so much room in Montana, people didn’t have to pretend to be alone in public. Here, privacy leaked from the rocks and fertilized the wildflowers and sang like wind chimes in the breeze: All the privacy you want! And all you don’t want! Isolation for free, free, free!

  “You have a lovely singing voice,” he said.

  “Oh, thanks.” Embarrassed, she looked down from his face. The name tag pinned to his collar said BRUCE. “I’m not a professional or anything, though I was going to be, and actually I was kind of a big deal in high school…”

  Had she really just said that? Josie swallowed.

  “Uh…” She pointed at the sign, desperate to change the subject. “No puns, huh?”

  “We take our coffee seriously.”

  “So you named your shop Coffee when you could’ve named it something like, uh … Brewed Awakening.”

  “Brew-Ha-Ha,” he offered.

  “Thanks a Latte,” she said, trying to remember past coffee shops. “Espresso Yourself.”

  “Java the Hut. They are pretty funny…” He gave her a mirthless expression. “For five minutes. I plan to stay in business longer than that.”

  Josie offered a polite laugh.

  “So, can I get you anything?” Bruce asked.

  “Um…” After her awkward lingering, she knew she should get something, but money talk made Josie sweaty. After dropping out of high school, she’d survived in New York City by paying all her expenses with her now-shredded credit card. If she kept putting almost all of her nanny salary toward the balance, she could pay it off in a little over a year. But Mia would start kindergarten this fall. Surely Victoria wouldn’t keep Josie on full-time if Mia was in school half the day. Josie was just treading water.

  She glanced at the laminated menu affixed to the front door. Civility demanded she purchase somethi
ng after all the lingering.

  “A … small tea.”

  “Lemon? Cream? Sugar?” he asked.

  “Do they cost extra?”

  He came back with a recyclable to-go cup of hot water and a peppermint tea bag, a packet of sugar balanced atop. “It’s on the house.”

  “Thank you, Bruce!”

  He winked. Not in a creepy way. But like he knew. Like he’d also once run away from his supposedly bright prospects and into an unknown place to play hide-and-seek with himself too. Or something.

  “Look, a bookstore,” said Mia, tugging Josie toward the shop next door. The front window display held books on wires as if they were birds in flight. “It’s bad luck to see a bookstore and not go in.”

  Mia had a long list of bad-luck things, and when they were unavoidable, she had to do a great deal of hopping to protect herself and Josie from the bad luck.

  “I’ve never heard that one.”

  “That’s how it feels,” said Mia, tugging harder.

  A little bell rang as they opened the door. A flush of warm air rushed out, plucking at Josie’s hair. Her breath caught; her arms prickled with goose bumps. There, on the threshold of the bookstore, she felt an unexpected lightning bolt of certainty, as she had in her cliché of a dream: Something was about to change.

  CHAPTER 2

  Natural light from the shop’s windows slashed across wooden bookcases, the beams dancing with dust specks. Exposed wood rafters still boasted their bark. A quote was painted high on a wall in silver-outlined yellow:

  “Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”

  ~Thoreau

  Customers wandered from book to book like honeybees over flowering sage. Josie marveled that everyone seemed at home, as if the labyrinth of bookcases created a clear pattern, as if the thousands of different book covers weren’t at all intimidating.

  “Mia, why don’t we go—” Josie started.

  But Mia had spotted a toy-train table in the kids’ section and run off.

  “May I help you find something?” The bookseller wore a red apron embroidered with the name WALKING SHADOW BOOKS. That was as high as Josie’s glance reached. She was afraid if she made eye contact, he would detect that she didn’t belong there.