Alone at last, for this Summer

by Cackling Moron


Two

Adagio did not come in early.

Surprisingly though she actually came in on time. For this she expected some sort of reward or recognition but what she got instead was Thom actually giving her some work to do, much to her outright despair.

Despite her pleadings and eyelash flutterings and completely convincing arguments Thom remained adamant, which was why Adagio ended up in the back - as per usual - only this time huffing in irritation as she sorted through boxes of stock to see what if anything needed repairing. A thankless task that Thom should clearly have been doing.

She was doing it though. Not just because he’d asked her to, but mostly just to show him that she could do it better than he might have done, to prove the point that she was the only real thing keeping the place together. That would show him.

Meanwhile, Thom did what he always did and sat out front tending to the few customers that appeared. This was normal. What was not normal was the customer who showed up at some point who then, apparently, started talking with Thom at some great length. From the sound of things she was young. And a she.

Adagio paused, holding a book that was falling apart in her hand, and cocked her head as she tried to eavesdrop. Too far to hear anything distinct, but close enough to hear that the tone of the conversation seemed very friendly indeed. 

The customer even laughed. Adagio’s eyes narrowed.

Most of the customers she’d seen or overhead - well, being honest, all of the customers - in her time at the shop had been very firmly on the older end of the scale and not a single one of them had ever so much as spoken loudly, let alone laughed. And yet now there was this one, audible even in the back, plainly young and clearly laughing.

Voice sounded terribly familiar, too. What little of it Adagio could make out...

She wasn’t completely sure why but Adagio felt compelled to go and investigate. Probably because Thom would be needing help. Yes, that would be it. He’d likely be doing something dense and making a fool of himself in front of this customer. How else could the laughter be explained? And Adagio’s timely arrival would smooth over whatever issues he’d have inadvertently caused. 

And he would be appropriately grateful and would apologise for having given her the drudgework in the back and also give her the rest of the day off as the start of his penance. And maybe a raise.

Yes, that tracked.

By the time she came to investigate though whoever it was had gone, and Thom was the only person she could see. And he wasn’t doing anything, just sitting on his stool. As per usual. Amazing this place was still in business, really.

“Who was that?” Adagio asked, emerging from the back but still hanging around just in the doorway, peering into the shop proper as though seeing if anyone might be hiding. No-one was.

“Hmm? Oh, no idea,” Thom said without looking at her even as she emerged more fully to come and stand behind him, hands on her hips, frown on her face. From the tone of his delivery she could tell that he had that dumb smile on his face that he sometimes did. Why would he be smiling? He’d just been talking to some stranger and not to her.

“What did she want?” She asked, stepping closer in towards him. He shrugged.

“A book. Think she wasn’t quite expecting our, heh, variety. Says she’ll come back once she’s more prepared so she can make a day of it. If you can believe that.”

Adagio considered this answer in silence a moment or so before, still frowning but perhaps not quite as much as she had been before, moving in to just lace her arms about his waist. Thom did not react beyond squeaking in surprise. By this point he was rather used to Adagio’s utter lack of respect for his personal space and didn’t give it a whole lot of thought. It was just how she was.

“You two were talking a lot,” she said, popping her chin onto his shoulder. This was the only thing keeping him from shrugging again.

“Bit of banter with the customers is part of the job. Part of the job I like, actually.”

Adagio thought about this a second.

“I heard her laughing,” She then said.

“Well I am a notoriously funny guy. I make you laugh. Or have made you laugh, at least.”

“Hmm,” Adagio said, offering nothing else. 

“You alright?”

“Hmm,” she said again, face pressing into his shoulder this time. Even by Adagio’s standards this was unusual behaviour and Thom tried to twist in place to get a proper look at her. Given that she was clung onto him this didn’t really work.

“Something wrong? You need help in the back?” He asked. Adagio’s eyes flicked up to his and she shot him a look that spoke volumes. “Right, no help, cool. Didn’t think you would. But are you sure you’re okay?”

She went back to staring at nothing in particular just over his shoulder and was quiet for a second and then released her grip on him and stepped back. This allowed Thom to finally swivel around to face her properly, finding her stood there looking very pointedly, deliberately fine and dandy.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it,” she said brightly. Then: “Can we close early today?”

It was barely lunchtime. Indeed, ‘barely lunchtime’ was perhaps being generous.

“Um, no. You could leave, if you want? I can probably manage,” Thom said.

And he could probably manage his father’s arcane system for keeping track of leave, too. Probably. Adagio shook her head.

“No, not like that. I kind of hoped that you and me could do something together.”

“Together? What? Like the coffee?” Thom asked, utterly at a loss. He’d apparently grasped the concept though as Adagio’s face lit up.

“Yes! Exactly like that. But something else. Just us.”

The coffee place had been nice but had in hindsight been perhaps a bit more on the crowded side than Adagio might have liked. That, and she hadn’t really liked the way that barista had waved to them - or more specifically to Thom - on the way out. A little too friendly for her liking.

“Just us?” Thom asked, not on top of the situation at all. Adagio just nodded, hands clasped before her, face on maximum innocence and light, to all appearances the single-most sweet girl on the entire face of the planet. Again, years of practise.

Thom’s simplistic attitude towards Adagio had been that she was the rather cute, usually amusing and pleasant, often infuriating and occasionally patience-trying girl his father had somehow found to help in the shop and who made the days more interesting. 

She was now bleeding into his life beyond the shop - or at least attempting to, on the face of things - and he hadn’t quite settled on how he should feel about this yet.

“I...don’t see why not?” He said, hoping it was the right answer.

Adagio’s smile on hearing this was entirely, absolutely genuine and it showed. Rather like the room lit up, actually. Thom found himself smiling too without really noticing.

“Good. That’s good. After work, then,” said Adagio, with obvious restraint.

“We’re still not friends though, I take it?” Thom asked and Adagio hid a laugh behind her hand. The slightly-giddy, excited kind. It came out of nowhere and took her by surprise.

“No, we’re not,” she said. “But this is the sort of friend-ly behaviour I think should be encouraged. It’s good for you.”

“I should probably be taking notes.”

“You probably should.”

At this point another customer - one of the regulars - appeared and brought the conversation to a halt as Thom swivelled about on his stool to greet them. Adagio, for her part, slunk off to the back again to avoid having to interact with anyone who was not Thom. It was hard enough having to tolerate him, she thought.

In the back, Adagio finished her assigned task far quicker than might have been expected. It was, after all, not especially difficult for her. But since Thom had not explicitly told her what to do afterwards she took the opportunity to kick back and bask in the glow of a job well done. This she did until lunch, whereupon Thom found her lounging about. Not unusual.

Following lunch he had her man the till - under supervision - something which she felt was grossly unfair but which she did anyway. Not that she had to interact with anyone, as it was an especially quiet afternoon. Again, one had to wonder how the place stayed in business.

Adagio was under no illusions as to how simple it would be to interact with customers. She could feign friendliness with the best of them. In fact, she was the best of them. It was just the principle of the thing that galled her, really, and she spent most of her time behind the till glaring at Thom over it while he sat in a corner and smiled benignly.

 And once the day was over what Thom had decided they’d do together was revealed. A film. 

“Oh,” Adagio had said. She had no idea what she’d expected, but she knew she’d expected better. Still, she didn’t have any other ideas and she supposed it did constitute something for the two of them so it was nominally acceptable.

The cinema was still a dumb choice, obviously. All the films were rubbish and Thom’s choice of film in particular was doubly rubbish, it coming as no surprise to Adagio that he should have lacklustre taste. Given what she was going to have to suffer through for the next hour and a bit it was only fair that he should be the one buying the tickets.

All that said she couldn’t deny that it was a damn sight better than going home and it really did mean that it was basically just the two of them - the screen being more-or-less empty, the only person other than them being an incongruously old man who’d sat down right at the front and promptly gone to sleep once the trailers had started.

This left Adagio and Thom - sat right in the back - positively snug. Just as she’d wanted. Nice and quiet, the world kept at bay outside, problems forgotten for a bit. Just her and the pleasantly dense human she was forced to spend time with on account of work commitments. 

If someone held a gun to her head she might admit that it was actually alright. Okay. Acceptable. Adequate.

Still, something nagged at her, even after she raised the arm of the chair separating them so she could better snuggle in to ward off the chill of the air conditioning using Thom - he was useful for heat, at least. As much as she tried to focus on the mindless drivel being projected in front of her, a concern continued to bob up. Eventually she could ignore it no more.

Once one of the more engaging, explosive parts of the film had petered out into yet more tedious dialogue Adagio decided to make use of what was obviously otherwise just going to be wasted time and turned to Thom and asked:

“So what was she like?”

Thom - who had actually been trying to pay attention to what was going on onscreen at that moment on account of its valuable expositional nature - took a second to register that he’d been asked a question.

“Who?” He asked, halfway watching, halfway twisting towards Adagio. She found this splitting of attention deeply rude, but bore it with her characteristic grace and elegance. 

“That customer you were talking to. That girl.”

“Who? Oh, right, her. Uh, I don’t know. Seemed pleasant enough,” Thom said.

“But what was she like?” Adagio pressed, at which point Thom realised she was not going to be letting this go easily. Stifling a sigh he twisted properly this time to look down at her.

“I really don’t know what you want from me here, Adagio.”

“Call me Dagi,” she said, favouring him with a dazzling smile the impact of which was somewhat lost in the dimness of the cinema.

This pet name also sounded awfully clunky to Thom but he wasn’t going to take the chance of arguing.

“Um...okay. I really don’t know what you want from me here, Dagi,” he said. She started to lightly walk two fingers up his leg, which was an alarming development in Thom’s book.

“I’m just curious about her. Since the two of you seemed to be getting on so well.”

Thom took delicate hold of her hand before he headed further North than he might have been comfortable with and just as delicately put it back where it had been before, not on his leg. Adagio pouted.

“She and I just had a chat, that’s all. Customer comes in, we talked. Were you listening in or something?” He asked.

Adagio flinched on having been caught out like that but rode it off smooth.

“I overheard. Quite unprofessional, being so loud. Some of us were trying to work.”

A pause.

“So you can’t tell me anything about her?”

Thom groaned and rubbed his face. This was exhausting. Mostly because he had no idea what it actually was.

“Likes books. She also had glasses. That good enough for you?” He asked.

Adagio tried to think of anyone she knew with glasses and came up empty. Not that it made her feel a whole lot better anyway. This unknown quantity remaining a mysterious unknown quantity just meant there was more things to worry about.

Though, that said, why was she worrying again?

...there was probably a good reason. She just couldn’t remember.

“It’ll do for now,” she said, taking hold of Thom’s arm and draping it across her shoulder so she could get more comfortable as the film started getting fractionally more interesting again, things once more exploding for threadbare reasons. 

Thom, baffled beyond reason, took what respite from questioning he could get and got back to watching now having thoroughly lost the plot. Not that this really held him back as far as enjoying the thing went. He was able to figure out most of the important parts.

There was no more talking from Adagio after this, as she was too absorbed in thought about who this unwanted, over-friendly customer might be, whether she knew who they might be and what she should do in order to ward her off and make her go away. 

For Thom’s own good, obviously. The girl was plainly up to mischief, wanting to come back and just distract him and disrupt business activity. Some people were just like that, unfortunately. Luckily for Thom he had Adagio on hand to look after his best interests.

It was something she was going to have to think about.

“Film’s over, Dagi,” Thom said and Adagio blinked. The light in the screen were back on and the old man at the front had disappeared. She was still cuddled up into Thom and didn’t seem in a particular hurry to change this.

“It ended?” She asked, blearily, having halfway gone to sleep in the midst of all her thinking.

“It did,” Thom said.

“Who won?” She asked, yawning and stretching and sitting up. It was an unusually cute and humanising thing to see her do, or at least Thom thought so.

“The good guys,” he said and Adagio shook her head sadly.

“How unlike real life…” she said.

She then made to try and settle back down again but Thom held her off, much to her obvious, furious consternation.

“We should probably go so they can clean the place. And won’t your sisters be worrying where you are?” Thom asked.

This was an unpleasantly sour note of reality but it did do the job of getting Adagio to sit up properly and move away from him. She’d managed to quite forget all about those two up until that point.

“Ugh. Yeah. Probably destroyed the place without me there...guess I should go back…”

For the tiniest of tiny moment Adagio had the sudden, desperate hope that Thom would come up with some vapid, unconvincing excuse to try and get her to stay with him. Or, alternatively, some vapid, unconvincing reason for why he might have to come back with her. The notion made her belly lurch.

But then it passed. And he didn’t come through anyway. Idiot.

“After you,” he said, standing and holding an arm out for her down the row of seats towards the stairs. Adagio sighed, rose, and exited.

Outside on the pavement in the dark - for it had got dark - things got only the slightest bit awkward. Adagio was awkward because she was still fighting the inexplicable urge to not leave, Thom was awkward because Adagio was awkward and he wasn’t really sure how to read her behaviour. 

“So...see you tomorrow, then?” He asked. She nodded but said nothing, just standing there with unreadable body language, chewing on her lip and staring at the pavement.

Thom took a chance and went in for a goodbye hug. Adagio took a sharp step back.

“What are you doing?” She asked, brows a thin line of consternation. Thom remained standing there like a sinking pudding, arms outstretched. 

“I was - I thought - goodbye hug?”

Adagio eyed his arms warily and took another half step backwards.

“Since when were we on hugs?” She asked.

“You fell asleep on me?”

“So?”

Thom couldn’t really argue with this. Further awkwardness. He lowered his arms. 

“Well,” he said, shrugging. “Alright. See you tomorrow then, Adagio.”

She said nothing, chewed her lip some more and then, without warning, lunged forward and hugged Thom with some considerable force. By the time he’d recovered from the shock of this enough to consider hugging back she’d already broken it off.

“See you tomorrow,” she said, beating a hasty retreat down the street and around the corner.

“The fuck…” Thom said, picking one of her hairs off his sleeve and dangling it briefly before letting the breeze take care of it. He squinted at the corner she’d disappeared around. “Can’t get a read on her at all. Man, I don’t know.”

He then looked around.

“And why am I talking to myself? I’m going home.”