Page 36 of Just A Little Joy

“Fate, as in you can’t change what will happen, or happy coincidences are cool?” Drew asked.

As a server, he was terrible, but as a sounding board, he was stellar. Right now, he was making butter cups completely wrong. He tried hard, though, and that counted for a lot. Rather than wait for him to keep doing it wrong, I grabbed his stack of steel butter dishes and the container of honey butter.

“Remember it’s a scoop, not a smear.” Drew smiled vaguely, shrugged, and pulled up a chair to watch me do his side work while he pulled my silverware and napkins toward him and did mine. “And somewhere in between?”

“So there’s this cool thing called Taku Waken in the Lakota culture that states that everything is interconnected…like a web, not a string.” Drew paused while he got his thoughts together, like he usually did. “Your fate isn’t prewritten, but the connections are there if you make them.”

“I could get behind that.”

“The Norse have a similar type of thing, but they also believe you can borrow someone else’s fate. You want to borrow mine?”

“I didn’t know it was an option. What are you offering?” Drew’s talents didn’t lie within the service industry. He messed up his prep work and his table drink orders usually had to be taken twice, but he tried hard and people loved him because hewas so sincere. What he was, though, was an artist who created beautiful mixed-media pieces that reminded me of the ones I’d seen in rich people’s galleries.

“Broke but reasonably happy because I finished the piece I’ve been working on.” That explained why he was so scattered today. He probably hadn’t slept more than a few hours over the last couple of days. “You can borrow my luck to finish whatever you need to do.” Drew’s smile went all cryptic on me.

“What makes you think I need to finish something?”

“Is that why you’re always moving somewhere new?” He looked genuinely perplexed at my confusion.

“What?” I moved because I liked to see new places and try new things. It wasn’t about finishing anything.

“What what?”

“Why would you think that?” Drew looked a little uncomfortable, as if he’d said too much. “I’m not mad or anything. Just curious how you see it.”

“I know you genuinely like to see new things. Lots of people do. It’s why people like to travel, but they come home. It’s like you’re searching for your home.”

“Hmm, that’s interesting.”

“What do I know… Did you move around a lot as a kid?”

“Nah, my parents live in the same house I grew up in.”

“And you get along well?”

“Yeah, we’re good. Not super close, but fine. We talk a few times a month. My mom is a secretary at a school, and my dad works in maintenance for the school district.”

“Not for you?”

“Nah, but I know they like the routine of it. Tuesday is church supper and Sunday is a roast.”

“Sounds like my folks, except supper is on Wednesday. Anyway, it was just me running my mouth. It just seems like youare looking for a place to stay. Why else make the connections if you want to leave?”

With that, Drew shoved himself off the stool and wandered into the kitchen. If he planned to finagle a snack from the chef, that would take him a while. I finished the butter cups and put away the silverware he left behind. I’d just finished the last of it when my phone vibrated in my back pocket.

Travis

Hey, you.

Casey

My favorite hockey player.

Uhh, am I actually your favorite, or the only one you know?

Why not both?

Convenient, but I’ll take it anyway.