Chapter 6: Friend-Zoned

Seeking feedback on my work-in-process novel, Jack and the Beanstalk Cafe.

Start from the beginning: Chapter 1

Previous Chapter: Chapter 5

Where we left off: Jack gets frustrated with Gillian’s distrust and storms off. Gillian looks for him at the British Library and finds him being interrogated by the police.

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Jack

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Jack had been thinking about the waitress’s black eyes– the way she’d stared at him, so interested in his research– when the two police officers entered the room. His heart pounded in his chest.

The taller officer spoke first. “What exactly seems to be the problem here?”

They were in Mr. Wood’s stuffy office, where Jack and a young library assistant had been held hostage for the last few hours while they waited for the police.

“This woman, Elizabeth,” Mr. Wood gestured to the library assistant, “has stolen three of our very old, very important tomes.”

The shorter officer, a woman with a thick Yorkshire accent, tilted her head and pointed to the stack of books on the desk. “These books?”

Mr. Wood nodded.

“How’d she steal ‘em if they’re right here?”

Jack seized the opening. “That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to explain, officer. I’m the one who had them. I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to borrow them. Elizabeth had nothing to do with it.”

“The Reading Room Pass agreement clearly states that the books are not to leave the library! You had a room reserved for one hour,” Mr. Wood exclaimed, his voice rising an octave as he continued. “Elizabeth just handed them over and let him leave!”

“She didn’t know I was taking them,” Jack said, his fingers digging into the rough upholstery of the ancient office chair. “And yes, I know now that I wasn’t supposed to leave the library. I’m truly and genuinely sorry for the misunderstanding.” He tried to look innocent, but wasn’t sure if it worked. “I didn’t realize it meant all books. I’m from Oxford, you know. The Bodleian Library there lets you check out books for studying.”

That was the wrong thing to say, as the little man’s face turned red. “This. Isn’t. Oxford.”

He was a Cambridge man, apparently.

The female officer sighed. “Let’s all calm down. This seems to be an internal library issue, not a police matter.” She gave Mr. Wood a glare at this.

“I want to press charges!” Mr. Wood shouted, pounding on his desk with a tight fist.

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that,” the tall officer added. “Unless they damaged or actually stole property, there really isn’t anything we can do. The books look fine to me.”

Jack closed his eyes and let out a sigh of relief. He wouldn’t be arrested, after all.

Mr. Wood huffed. “Fine. I’ll just fire her and ban this man from the premises.”

The police officers shrugged and left the room, while Mr. Wood glared at Jack and Elizabeth.

“Mr. Wood,” Jack began. “I completely understand that I broke the rules. But I promise you, Elizabeth didn’t know.”

Elizabeth did know. It was Elizabeth’s idea. When she saw Jack pacing in front of the photocopy machine, trying to use his only hour in the library to copy everything he needed, she told him that people always took books home for a few hours and to just come back before her shift ended.

Wait, was she flirting with me? It was not the time to think about that so Jack brushed the thought away as Mr. Wood replied.

“Be that as it may, it is her responsibility to protect the books,” he said. “Elizabeth, hand me your badge.”

Just then, there was a knock at the open door, and a woman entered.

“Sorry to interrupt. You’re Mr. Wood, right?”

It was the waitress from that morning. She looked at Mr. Wood with a mild smile, her eyebrows raised and her hands folded lightly in front of her like a school teacher about to call out the class clown.

What the–?

“The Chief Executive asked me to come down here,” the waitress said. “He said his granddaughter, Elizabeth, works for you but hadn’t come back from her shift yet. Any idea where she might be?”

Mr. Wood’s head swiveled between the waitress and Elizabeth, his already bright red cheeks turning a deeper shade of crimson.

“But– she– I—” Mr. Wood stuttered. “The Chief…?”

“Yes,” said the waitress, nodding with that same, pleasant smile. Although, Jack noticed her knuckles turning white where her fingers were clasped in front of her. “She was expected home quite some time ago. Is this her?”

Jack and Mr. Wood turned to look at Elizabeth, who looked just as confused.

“I’m Elizabeth,” she squeaked.

“Great, come on. Let’s get you home. Your grandfather will be happy to see you,” the waitress said, turning to leave with an almost inaudible sigh.

Elizabeth got up slowly, glancing at Mr. Wood, then hurried out the door with the waitress.

Mr. Wood huffed, then turned on Jack.

“You’re still banned.”

***

Jack stood for a moment in the cool evening air outside the library, not sure what to do next. He had pulled an all-nighter to work on his thesis, and he was exhausted. But he hadn’t planned to spend another night in London.

A soft, female voice pulled him from his thoughts.

“What kind of researcher steals from a library?”

The waitress stepped out of the shadows, arms crossed.

“Are you stalking me?” he asked, smirking.

Despite this inexplicable situation, Jack was… Glad? Relieved? Insane? It felt like something was loosening in his chest when he looked into her glaring eyes. He sure didn’t understand her mood swings, but felt an undeniable pull toward her.

She huffed.

“Oh, come on.” Jack chuckled. “I wasn’t stealing. The better question is why were you there? How do you know the CEO of the library?”

The waitress looked away, rubbing the back of her neck.

“That wasn’t the CEO’s granddaughter, was it?” Jack asked.

She looked back to him then sighed.

“No, she wasn’t,” she said. “I just happened to be at the library and saw you with that girl, so I decided to rescue her.”

Jack crossed his arms.

“You just happened to be at the library?” There was no way this was a coincidence. And how had the waitress even heard what was going on in Mr. Wood’s office?

The waitress looked away again. “Yes. I read. Is that so hard to believe?” She looked back at him. “And why did you need to take the books, anyway? Couldn’t you just come back to the library later?”

“The next available spot was tomorrow, and I only booked a hotel here in London for one night. Coming was a long shot anyway, and I really can’t afford to stay longer.”

Why was he explaining himself to her?

She seemed to think about this for a moment, her eyes roaming around the courtyard. “Are you hungry? Let me buy you dinner.”

Jack’s stomach grumbled at the mention of food. He hesitated. This woman– he didn’t even know her name– had been shouting at him a few hours before, and now was acting super weird.

“You want to buy me dinner? After you practically pushed me out of the coffee shop earlier?” He raised one eyebrow at her.

“I am… sorry about that. I’m just overly protective of the cafe. It’s my home,” she said slowly, as if picking her words carefully. Her arms were crossed again but it looked more like she was hugging herself now. “Look, let’s start over. My name is Gillian.” She held out her hand.

Jack grinned at her use of his words from that morning as he looked into her eyes.

What was the harm in one meal with a beautiful woman, anyway?

“Nice to meet you,” he said, and grasped her outstretched hand. A rush of something he couldn’t name crackled under Jack’s skin where their hands were clasped. He let go with a shaky laugh.

Why did that keep happening?

“So… dinner?” Gillian rubbed her hand on her jeans before pushing it into her pocket.

Huh. I guess she feels it, too.

“Lead the way, Gill.” Since this was her neighborhood, Jack gestured for her to go ahead. She seemed momentarily confused, glancing around until her eyes landed on a busy pub across the roadway.

“It’s Gillian,” she corrected matter-of-factly, and led them to the restaurant.

***

“What was your plan, anyway? Walk back into the library with the stolen books and hope no one would notice?”

Gillian and Jack were seated at a table in the corner of the dimly lit pub, the din of the other patrons echoing off wood-paneled walls. They each had a pint in hand and an order of fish and chips sat in front of Jack.

“I didn’t steal the books. I was only borrowing them for a couple hours. I just didn’t make it back in time before Elizabeth’s shift ended.”

“You didn’t seem to be in a hurry at the cafe. You only left when…” she trailed off and looked away.

Jack reached up to rub the back of his neck, looking anywhere else. “I, um, was distracted, I guess,” he muttered. She didn’t need to know it had been her who had distracted him; at least until she had started yelling at him.

“Earlier you said something…” She paused, like she didn’t know how to continue. “Something about being a disgraced scientist?”

“Ah, that.” Jack’s eyes met Gillian’s briefly before he looked at his half-empty pint. “Basically, the classic Dr. Jekyll situation. Accidentally made myself into a monster.” He looked up at her with a half smile.

“Oh? You go around bludgeoning kindly old men to death?” Gillian said with a smirk.

“Ha! Not quite… Although, the way my colleagues treat me you’d think that was true.” Jack lost his smile and he looked into his ale, thumbing the condensation on the glass.

“Jack...” Gillian began softly. “I know I’m a stranger– some waitress you just met. But I’m a person, too. You can talk to me.” She looked away, her cheeks pink. “If you want.”

Jack let out a breath. Something about her vulnerability made him want to reciprocate. But he’d never talked about this before. He wasn’t sure where to begin.

Will she even believe me?

“Ok, yeah.” Jack took a deep breath before continuing. “So, ever since I was a wee lad, I wanted to be an archeologist. Indiana Jones, you know?” He gave a little laugh. “After university, I worked at a prestigious position on a well-known professor’s project at an excavation in the Agora of Ancient Athens. I was really excited to work with him and, you know, be a part of history.”

Jack smiled, thinking back to the happy, naive kid he’d been back then.

“Everything was grand at first,” he continued. “I still remember my first real find.”

He told her about the funerary urn he found in his first year. Gillian stared at him in that intense way of hers, as though nothing else mattered more than his words.

“Anyway,” he said. “On big dig sites like this one, it’s messy work. There are a lot of little mistakes. You know–labeling a box wrong, putting a record in the wrong file. Happens all the time.” He felt the corner of his mouth pull up into an almost smile before dropping again.

“A few years into the project, I was tasked with cataloging some of the recent finds. I found a piece that looked like it might be the other half of a broken lead tablet we found my second year. So, I dug back into the archives to see if I could make the connection… but there was no record of that artifact anywhere. I went to the professor and he brushed it off, saying I must’ve been mistaken. But I know it was real because it was such a big deal for the project when we discovered it.”

Jack sighed heavily and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“I guess that opened my eyes to things, and I started to notice more and more inconsistencies. Eventually, I found proof that the professor was stealing the artifacts.”

Gillian’s eyes widened and she leaned forward, her gaze locked on his.

“The things we find are a part of history. They belong in museums, they shouldn’t be sold to the highest bidder.” Jack heard his voice getting louder as his emotions got the better of him. He took a deep, steadying breath.

“I confronted the professor. But he brushed me off again, so I went to the board of the research project. But the professor got to them first. Claimed that I– That it was me who was the one stealing. It was his word against mine.” He sighed again, his chest tightening. The memories of that day flooded his mind, the way the men had stared at him as if he was nothing more than an annoying bug to be squashed under their heel. He clenched his fists and released them, trying to push away the memory.

“They fired me and spread the rumors to all their contacts. No reputable projects would hire me after that…I’ve been struggling to find any paid work. But then, a few years ago, my old mentor at Oxford reached out to me. Said he and a few of his colleagues believed my story– that they hadn’t trusted the professor for years but he was protected by the board.” He rubbed a hand over his face.

“But that’s not fair,” Gillian argued, a crease forming between her brows.

“Yeah, I agree.” Jack huffed. “I love researching, but all the stupid politics in the industry are so frustrating.”

It was one thing that Jack hadn’t been expecting when he started his dream job. So much behind-the-scenes drama to contend with, when he just wanted to focus on the research.

“Anyway,” Jack continued. “My mentor got me a spot in the PhD program. It’s my last chance to have a meaningful career, so I really need to prove myself with this dissertation.”

He leaned back and rested his hands on the table. “So, there you have it. You’re having drinks with the disgraced Mr. Hyde,” he tried to joke again.

Gillian didn’t laugh. She just gazed into his eyes with a look of… it wasn’t pity. But it wasn’t disgust, either. Jack wasn’t sure what it was. But he found himself lost in her fathomless black eyes.

He’d never seen eyes so dark. Something about them both unnerved and fascinated him. He felt like she was seeing into the deep recesses of his mind or heart, where a soul might be lurking.

Jack blinked a few times to bring himself back to the conversation. That was weird.

“I’m sure everyone will believe you, now. That professor will have his day of reckoning,” Gillian said, her voice sure and a look of determination on her face.

“I hope you’re right.” He reached out to give Gillian’s hand a squeeze.

The electricity that flowed when their skin touched was muted this time. More like a gentle trickle than a geyser. Jack kept his hand over hers– her fingers were so cold. Then, he looked up and saw she was staring at their clasped hands with her eyebrows drawn.

Jack quickly pulled his hand away as a pink flush bloomed across Gillian’s cheeks. She looked down and took a sip of her beer.

“So… what will you do about your research now that you don’t have access to the books you need?” she asked.

Jack’s face lit up. “Actually, I got everything I needed. I have a Latin definition for most of the symbols. So now, I’ll only need to decode the images from the cave. I’ll have answers soon.”

Jack could have sworn a look of panic crossed Gillian’s face, but it was gone a second later, replaced with a bright smile.

“That’s great! Maybe I could help. I’m good with stuff like that,” Gillian said.

Jack smiled. He could really use the assistance if he wanted to finish his thesis on time, but he wasn’t really sure if a cafe waitress would be much help. Besides, he had to return to Oxford, and Gillian lived in London. A sudden thought hit Jack.

“I need to go,” he said, checking the time. “The last train back to Oxford leaves in less than ten minutes.” He stood and took one last gulp of his beer. Gillian had that panicked look again.

Is she… sad I’m leaving?

“Maybe I could get your number and call you sometime?” he asked.

“What? Oh, yeah, sure, of course. I have the cafe’s number written down somewhere,” she said, patting her pockets.

Jack’s shoulders sagged. Just when he thought he understood this woman, she was confusing him again.

She wanted to give him her work number? That had to be worse than friend-zoned, right?

“Don’t worry about it.” He hoped he sounded cool. “I’ll, uh, see you around.”

He couldn’t believe it was really ending like this. As much as this woman had infuriated him all day, he didn’t want to walk away.

He hesitated, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. But Gillian continued to pat her pockets with a look of intense concentration.

She was going to hurt herself doing all those mental gymnastics– clearly trying to come up with some excuse to not give him her number. Jack figured he’d put her out of her misery.

“Thanks for dinner,” he said as he turned around and walked out of her life– feeling a sudden chill, like the end of a much-needed hug cut too short.

Next chapter: Chapter 7