the city's gonna save her
chapter five:
I
actually helped this customer, and after Colin showed me a few
things with the register, they had sat down outside, and we were
alone once again.
“You’re pretty with it for someone who doesn’t
know what they’re doing.” He commented
“I try my best. I’m not good at not being good
at something.”
“That’s complicated.”
“But it’s true.” I said, and watched him take a
large spoonful of the Birthday cake ice cream into his mouth.
“Yea yea, people are too complicated.” He said, and
walked over to the mix-ins, and grabbed a pretzel and started
munching on it.
“Sorry, I’m starving.” He said, and I laughed
and tried cleaning some more. I didn’t even like to
clean, it just gave me something to do other than to get lost in
Colin’s eyes.
“So who trained you here when you worked last?” Colin
asked.
“Uh, Chris?” I said, and I saw the recognition in his
eyes, and nodded my head. “Yea, it was Chris.”
“Oh Jeez,” he laughed and shook his head.
“He’s, uh, different.” I searched for a neutral
word to not offend him if he and Chris were friends.
“Very uh, different.” He laughed, and leaned back
against the counter. He looked as if he were so natural
here, and I was just an awkward addition.
“He’s brutally honest.” I commented while I was
smoothing over the top of the ice cream. Chris called that
“spading” the ice cream.
“Don’t do that.” Colin said to me.
“Why?”
“It’s a waste of time and it all ends up getting
messed up anyways, we’ll do that at the end of the
night.”
“Oh,” was all I said, as I put the spade back into
the mini sink we had in the front. I twisted it to make
sure all the excess ice cream was off in hopes for another
customer soon.
“It’s okay to be wrong too, you know.”
“What?” I asked, and glanced up at him.
“Let me guess, you don’t like to be wrong
either—“
“—It’s not like I don’t like being
wrong—“
“—you’re used to being right.” He
finished my sentence.
“Kindof.” He smiled with a victory.
“Well if you say people are so complicated, why are you so
good at reading them?”
“Well 1. I’m a psych minor and 2. People’s
temperaments bother me. If someone’s all doom and
gloom, I don’t want to be around them.”
“Oh, so what would you classify me as?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t mind being around you.” I smiled,
“You’re happy, but not too happy or fake happy.
You are genuinely happy and an upbeat person. So
you’ve officially been approved by Colin. “
I laughed, and abruptly stopped, realizing how good I was getting
at pretending to be something I’m
not.
