Chapter Seven A Meeting for a Meeting
The weekend passed in a Saturday shift at Dollar City and texts to Emerson and a Sunday sideline seat at Maddie’s soccer practice and texts to Emerson and three hours balled up in bed with the Sunday Scaries, trying and failing to do math homework, and texts to Emerson.
Mal had come up with a plan: If the pair of them front-loaded as much prep work as they could now, they would have an easier time actually running the zine later.
There were many docs to create and forms to merge, and if it all meant missing a homework assignment for History in favor of texting Emerson about them, well, Mal probably would have missed it anyway.
A few weeks into the semester always saw them letting a few things slide, and History had never been an important part of The Plan.
Still, they knew there had to be an easier way to do it all, and so on Monday, on the way to the cafeteria, Mal tugged at Maddie’s sweatshirt sleeve and said, “Go ahead, save my seat. I’ll be right there.”
Maddie quirked an eyebrow. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, I just need to find Emerson real quick, before the bell.” Mal shrugged. “Zine things.”
“But you’ll miss the best square pizza slices,” Maddie protested.
This almost convinced Mal; the school’s square pizzas were either their absolute favorite, when they got one of the good pieces with lots of fresh, melty cheese, or the Absolute Worst, when they got stuck with one of the crusty ones left over after all the good ones were taken.
But their phone had been buzzing in their pocket all morning, and so they knew they’d better handle this now.
“It’ll be okay,” they said resolutely. “Nothing a little—or a lot—of hot sauce can’t fix.”
“Mal.” Maddie shook her head, laughing. “Sometimes you are truly vile. It’s a good thing I love you anyway.” And she walked away, headed toward the cafeteria.
Mal never felt particularly comfortable in the bustle of the hall, but they had a mission this time: find Emerson. And they did, spotting her coming out of the girl’s bathroom, just a convenient few steps away.
Mal stopped short in front of her and frowned. “I haven’t read your texts, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, hey, Mal,” Emerson said, taking two blinks to catch up. “Well, I had wondered why you didn’t laugh at my hilarious jokes, but now everything makes sense.”
“I don’t really text at school,” Mal admitted.
“Oh, okay,” said Emerson.
Hurriedly, Mal explained, “I just don’t want to get caught or get my phone taken.”
“It’s cool, Mal.” Emerson shrugged one shoulder casually. “You don’t have to explain.”
Mal cocked their head to the side. They always had to explain.
“Uh. Okay,” they said, stopped short by not having to justify or apologize for their need to follow the rules.
“I was just wondering, since we have so much to get sorted out—should we coordinate calendars so we can get another meeting on the books?” Mal flipped their backpack around, tugged their planner out. “To game-plan, you know.”
“Ooh, smart idea.” Emerson launched into her schedule, ticking off days on her fingers and somehow still managing to wave her hands at the same time. “So, I work Mondays, Tuesdays, and Saturday mornings,” she started. “What about Wednesday?”
“I work on Wednesdays.” Mal shook their head. “But Thursdays are good for me.”
“Oh, this Thursday I have an art-hive thing,” Emerson said. “I could do Friday?” She flapped her hands in dismay. “But that’s so long!”
“Huh,” said Mal. “We need a meeting so we can schedule a meeting.”
“Wow,” Emerson said, smiling. “That’s super type A of you, Mal.”
Mal snorted a graceless laugh. “Oh, I am not type A. I just cosplay as one so I can keep my shit together.”
“Oh, same, though.” Emerson laughed now too. It made her cheeks go round and pretty. “But, like, my costume is a bootleg Dollar City version or something.”
“Hey, I work at Dollar City, you know.” Mal pretended to be offended. “We sell quality merchandise!”
Emerson held up her hands in apology. “My bad, my bad. I guess my type-A costume is just really blah compared to yours, which is obviously, like, from Anthropologie or something.”
Mal didn’t know what that store was, but they liked the idea of Emerson liking them, so they smiled. “You know it. Or, like, maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to get things done and drink coffee with you.”
Mal laughed, a snorty and breathy sound, and then stopped themself short.
They had really said that. Out loud.
More than once over the weekend, they had thought it: that it would be easier, and nicer, to do all this in person with Emerson and her Post-it notes and her too-loud voice and her big, exciting brain page. But wishing they were sitting somewhere with Emerson was different than actually saying it.
Out loud.
To Emerson.
“I—” they started to say, taking it back.
“Okay, yeah,” Emerson said, a little flustered. There was a pink tint to her cheeks and Mal couldn’t tell whether it was from laughing or from what they’d just said. “But if you’re going to flirt with me like that, you have to buy the first round.”
“Okay, yeah,” Mal echoed, before they could even do the quick math of how much they had in their bank account. “It’s a deal.”
“If you can get to the Haus by, like, four today, we could do a quick hang-and-coordinate before I start my shift at five?”
Mal nodded. Their cheeks were pleasantly warm. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
“Cool,” said Emerson, but Mal saw it on her lips more than they heard it; she said it just as the bell sounded through the hall. Both of them were now late.
“Cool,” Mal said back, but the sound of that was lost to the bell too.
And they both stood there until the last of the series of bells sounded, smiling and blushing at each other.
“Well, I’ll see you then, okay?” Emerson finally said.
Mal nodded quickly. “Yeah, see you then,” they said, and then they walked back toward the cafeteria, the state of their square pizza barely crossing their mind.
When Mal came through the door of the Haus, its bell twinkling, it was four p.m. exactly. In Mal’s mind, they were already late; they always tried to arrive to things fifteen minutes early. They could never judge what was actually late for other people.
Emerson, at least, wasn’t at the Haus yet, and so Mal milled around, hovering near the coffee bar between the door to what they guessed was the stockroom and a series of shelves and hooks displaying fiber art—felted bags and embroidered hoops and macrame hangings with interesting glass beads.
The same barista was behind the counter: Sam, their hair looking extra curly from the light drizzle of rain that had started on Mal’s walk.
It was apparently the first day of the Haus’s fall coffee menu, and Sam was busy making the usual pumpkin-spiced lattes but also drinks with names like Pumpkin Mocha Breve and Cinnamon Apple Streusel Chai.
The rich, inviting scents of sweet cream, sharp dark chocolate, and rich fall spices had Mal looking at the time on their phone more frequently.
“Hey,” Sam called, checking in between pulling fragrant shots of espresso, “are you sure you don’t want something while you wait? Emerson can be… fashionably late.”
Mal frowned. Not at Sam but at the idea of what fashionably late might mean to Emerson. “No,” they said. “I’m good.”
“Sure thing. Let me know if you change your mind, okay?”
But Mal didn’t change their mind in the five minutes it took for Emerson to actually show up, red-cheeked, her red hair damp and much smaller than usual. Its general poofiness condensed into flat, lumpy waves when it got wet, apparently.
“The rain,” she lamented. “She is a bitch.”
Mal snorted. “Hey, Emerson.”
“Hey, Mal.” She grinned like she wasn’t late and slightly bedraggled, the bottoms of her wide-legged jeans leaving damp spots on the wooden floor. “So, you were going to get me a coffee?”
Something caught in Mal’s throat. “Yeah, I—yes,” they stammered, coughing to clear it. They stepped to the counter. “Hey, Sam? I think we’re ready to order.”
“You know Sam?” Emerson asked.
“Oh yeah,” said Sam, coming over with a friendly smile. “We go all the way back to—last weekend, was it?”
“Yeah,” Mal said. A little thrill went through their chest at being remembered. “That’s right.”
“Mal, right? What can I get you?”
“Just a black coffee,” Mal said.
Sam nodded. “A classic. I can respect that.”
It was also what Mal could afford, especially with Emerson’s order on their tab today. “And whatever Emerson wants too,” they added casually.
Sam’s eyebrows raised, a small smile crossing their lips. “Cool, cool. The usual, Emerson?”
“Yep!” she squeaked.
Mal liked that Emerson had a usual—and that Sam was the sort of barista who remembered those. Maybe one day, they could have a usual too.
Sam poured Mal’s drink into a cardboard cup. But instead of doing the same for Emerson, they turned to the wall, where all the mugs hung on their hooks. From the far left, they plucked a cup—pink and purple, with cat ears.
“Oh,” said Mal, recognizing it. “That’s your cup.”
“Yeah,” Emerson said, then explained, “regulars can bring in mugs to keep behind the counter. It’s like, half to reduce waste, half, like, a secret club. I felt like a god when Sai finally told me I could have a hook of my own. I got a special mug for it and everything.”
“And it’s a mess,” Sam said, sliding both Mal’s disposable cup and Emerson’s cat cup across the smooth, dark wood counter. Mal tapped their card on the machine to pay. Emerson’s order—AMERICANO + CARAMEL + MOCHA + W/ ROOM—was thankfully not as expensive as Mal had feared.
“Yeah, but so am I,” said Emerson, “so it works.”
“You said it, not me,” said Sam, holding their hands up, but they were smiling. “Now go on—ruin your coffee and get your work done. And be on time! I have a date tonight; I can’t cover you.”
“Fine,” Emerson sassed, waving her hands at Sam like she could shoo them away. “Come on, Mal.”
So Mal followed.