Sincerely, Emma

I found myself slightly distracted at the café a few weeks later. Christmas was nearing rapidly, and I still had no clue what I wanted to get for Ian.

It was slightly disappointing to me since I had finally come to terms with the fact that I might possibly like Ian that nothing had happened romantically (ish) between the two of us since that day I was sick. But ever since that day, I found myself more inclined to blush around him. I sighed, wiping down a table.

“Something wrong, Ems?” asked the ever-bubbly twenty-three year old Mallory, my favorite of the people I worked with at the coffee shop. “You seem a little down today.”

“I’ll tell you on break, ‘kay?” I said, shaking my head clear and continuing to work as I should have been doing the entire time. Even when Ian wasn’t here, he could distract me in such an extreme way.

“All right. That’s only ten minutes away,” Mallory supplied, heading off to get the orders of an elderly couple.

I took some dirty dishes to the back of the shop, washing them. I didn’t have anyone at my tables right now. The café wasn’t a super busy place, but it was homey and I really enjoyed working here more than I liked working at Wal-Mart. Ian insisted I’d be overworking myself if I kept up both jobs, but I consistently told him that I would be fine. And I was fine. I would just have preferred a full-time job at this quaint, adorable little corner coffee shop than at any chain store like Wal-Mart.

“Break time!” Mallory called a few minutes later, dumping the dishes into the sink. The other two waitresses had just come back from their lunch breaks, so it was our turn to take our own lunch break. We usually just took the table back in the employee area and stayed at the shop to eat, and today was no different.

We settled down after telling the cook, Gabe, what we wanted and Hannah, one of the other waitresses, punched it in to the cash register and added the employee discount. Before I could even take my money out, Mallory popped out a ten and told Hannah to keep the change and that she was paying for both my lunch and her own before she pulled me back to the table. It was kind of private back here, and I was kind of thankful for that.

“So what’s eating you?” Mallory asked as soon as we settled at the table with our lunches. “You’ve seemed out of it all morning. Is it something to do with your housemate?”
She insisted on saying ‘housemate’ because the word was rarely used, and since I insisted we didn’t share a room she said we weren’t roommates.

I nodded, running a hand through my hair agitatedly.

“Well…?” Mallory prompted, leaning across the table.

“It’s almost Christmas and I have no idea what to get him,” I sighed, looking at her pleadingly. “I don’t think he knows that I like him, you know? And I don’t want to get him something that screams I love you, or anything. Just a sort of, I appreciate you and I don’t know what I’d do without you and I might kind of like you sort of thing.”

I laughed at my own description.

“Well…” she thought for a minute. “It’s not much, but you could get him movie tickets for two. With luck, he’d invite you to come with him, you know? Is there a movie on Christmas that he wants to go see?”

“Well…” I said, and that was all she needed to know.

“Then do it! Get him some advance tickets to the movie so he doesn’t have to wait in line, and then maybe get him just other typical Christmas presents. Buy him an Xbox or something, if you’ve got the money for that. If you don’t already have one. Or a Wii, or a PS3 or something.”

I snorted, rolling my eyes.

“I might do the movie idea. But I’m not sure about the others.”

Mallory laughed, and said, “Well, I’m glad you like at least one of my ideas.”

“Yeah,” I said, starting to finally eat my lunch.

Mallory leaned closer to me then, grinning mischievously.

“So, anyway, Emma,” she said grinningly, “what do you think he’ll get you?”

Aiding the emphasis she put on it, she raised her eyebrows suggestively. I almost choked on my food and cried indignantly, “Mallory!”

She leaned back and started laughing, and the mood of the rest of our lunch break was overall light thanks to her playfulness.