Kindred Fate

Chapter Five

"Did you spend your night crying?"

Ben's familiar voice rang in my ears. Today I wasn't in any mood to be joked around with. Yesterday's conversation with my family had placed a heavier load on me. I felt like I was walking around with my own personal dark cloud.

"Please, not today." I said, arranging the sugar shakers on the counter.

"I'm not trying to offend you, I'm just trying to make a new friend," he followed me as I moved down the counter. "Who doesn't part time as the town's verbal tabloids."

"I don't want friends," I moved to the floor with sugar shakers in my hands, "and by the way, we aren't opened yet."

He picked up five more shakers and followed behind me, "I know that. I work here."

I stopped and turned to him infuriated, "You what?" I didn't mean to shout but it just came out.

"Please don't open a bottle of champagne on my account," he said sarcastically walking past me. He placed the shakers on the tables before he went back for more, "I hope you didn't call dibs because it isn't a part of Shauna's work policy."

"Why here?" I asked frustrated.

"There is nowhere else and I need the work," he pulled out his rolled up apron from his back pocket and tied it around his waist. "If you don't want to see me-"

I cut him off, "Please say you are going to quit because I wouldn't mind that one bit." I walked past him, ignoring his stunned look.

"I don't understand why you hate me so much," he said sternly all the humor wiped out of his voice, "I didn't make you cry and I've barely said more than ten words to you." I stared at him speechless. I didn't know what it was but the guy just irritated me. "If you don't want me to say a word to you I won't. Let's just be civil to each other because we both need this job."

"Is there a problem?" We both turned to Shauna's voice.

"No there isn't," Ben moved to stand next to me, "Right Lee?"

I glanced at him before I turned back to Shauna, "Right." And as promised those were the last words he said to me.

After two days of the silent treatment I raised my white flag, I hate being ignored. I didn't like the fact that I was so rude to him, all he was trying to do was be friendly and I just shut him down. I was also beginning to lose my mind having no one to speak to. One friend wouldn't kill me.

I pulled a leaf out of my note pad and wrote the word 'TRUCE' on it then I placed it and a cup cake on the counter in front of him. No one says no to a cup cake. He starred at me harshly for a few seconds and I thought he would stuff the paper in my mouth. Then the crooked smile appeared on his face that quickly grew into a large grin. "These are the conditions..."

"Conditions!" I exclaimed cutting him off, "It's a truce not a German invasion."

"Would you let me speak," he said signaling a zipper over his lips. I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at him with an arched brow. "That's much better. Rule number one, you can't keep biting my head off. Rule number two anything we say to each other is confidential, I can't have my personal life in the local paper."

"We agree on that," not that I was going to share anything personal.

"Rule number three, no more sadness. It doesn't suit you." His voice was gentle almost soothing.

I stared at him in silent pain. Being on cloud nine was something that I didn't see happening any time soon. When Ash left me, I missed him less and less with each passing day because it was easy to pretend that I hated him. But with the roles reversed, I missed him more and more with each passing minute. It was like getting asphyxiated each time I looked at our kids and saw him in their faces.

"Not everyone has a reason to be happy every single minute of the day." I poured out two cups of coffee and placed them in front of the two regulars, "I don't smoke weed."

He laughed, "Just because I choose to smile rather than frown doesn't mean I'm on marijuana." He stopped me before I walked past him again, "all I'm saying is, smiling once in a while, no matter your mood, would help more than harm."

"How many self-help books have you read?" I asked shifting the attention back to him.

"Now you're calling me unstable?" His pitch was raised in fake offence and then he twisted his face in a weird crazy clown face that made me laugh.

"If the shoe fits.... No one can always be happy every second of the day. It has to be one of the two or...." I left the sentence hanging as I shook my head.

"Or what?" he probed bending his knees to look me in the eye with a creased brow.

"Or you are into one of those religions that believe in always being happy and having a good day." I stepped around him to get to the kitchen window. I took two plates and walked to the table areas.

"I am not in a cult," he mouthed to me as I walked back.

"I didn't say cult, I said religion. Don't miss quote me."

Ben picked up the cup cake and bit into it, "You know, this cupcake saved you otherwise I still wouldn't be speaking to you without a proper apology," he stuffed the rest of it in his mouth.

"Choke. Choke," I chanted laughing at his shocked expression as he quickly chewed. His eyes suddenly popped and his hands rose to his neck in a dreadful performance. "Don't take up acting, you are horrible at it."

"Hey!" The word came out muffled by his full mouth.

I laughed, glad the tension was over. "You were the tree or something stiff and quiet in a corner at all your recitals weren't you?"

The light mood was at threat of getting destroyed when Judy walked in. I wanted to duck under the counter or run into the kitchen and hide. I wasn't up for an interrogation.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of her," Ben offered turning to her with a wide smile when she sat at the counter.

"Hi Ben, hi Lee." she sang out, her big flashy green eyes on us. It was so obvious she had new gossip to spill.

"Hi Judy," I said picking two more plates from the window and taking them to Ben's table. He had to deal with Judy the least I could do was cover his tables.

"What can I get you?" Ben asked with a calm tone. I almost laughed noticing the effort he was putting to stay tolerant. He really didn't like her.

"Coffee please," she looked behind at me before she leaned forward, "You do know she's a teenage run away?" She whispered. My eyes widened at the shameless woman's audacity. I was standing right behind her! Ben looked up at me his smile quickly fading away. He was losing his patience with her. "Did you also know she has two kids?"

"It's none of my business, neither is it yours. Now, back to the question I asked, what can I get you apart from coffee?"

She leaned back, sensing the unfriendliness, "I'll have a salad." It only took her thirty seconds before she was at it again, "Why didn't you tell me Phoebe's parents died?"

Ben's eyes shot up at her, hostility registered in them, "That is also none of your business. Take a sit at the table and I'll bring you your salad." He instructed in a much-struggled calm tone.

I saw the change in him once she mentioned his dead relatives. It was quick and I recognized the sadness that he was trying to conceal. I recognized it because I carried it with me every day.

Once Judy had left, I moved to him and whispered. "Smiling once in a while, whatever the mood, will help more than harm." I quoted him and then playfully bumped my shoulder into his.

He smiled, his rigid body easing up, "Okay, there are some holes in that theory."

"Whoever thought about it, didn't anticipate Judy." I joked, which made him laugh. And that, for some weird reason, made me happy. "I'm sorry about your family."

He took a deep breath and then exhaled, his shoulders drooping. "Death is something we all have to face. It just hurts when it's someone you love."

I felt my heart wrench when I thought of my parents, sister and brother. It did hurt a lot, "It's a pain that sticks with you."

"The only thing to do is to accept it, try to move on and celebrate life. Like your two kids, they are something to celebrate."

I smiled, remembering my two angels upstairs, "Yes they are."

He starred to walk away but stopped. "I need to ask, when she said teenager, which side of the legal age are, you?"

I laughed at his feigned concern, "What, you scared of small spaces?" The moment I said those words, I felt like a piece of me had been ripped away. Ash said those words to me the first night we met. I tried to pull myself out of that dark pit before he noticed, putting a fake smile on my face.

"Yes I am. I'll go get motor mouth her salad now." He said, leaving me alone with my current memory.