If Éponine were a good friend, she would text Marius right now.
Marius her best friend. Marius whom she is desperately in love with. Yes, that's good, focus on how desperately in love she is with Marius, Marius and his freckles, Marius and his smile, Marius who's spent the last two weeks sighing infuriatingly about a girl called "Cosette" and giving a scarily accurate description of the blonde angel sitting at the corner table of the deli where Éponine works. The blonde angel who Éponine just happens to recognize from a long, long time ago, and oh my god, it isn't possible that Marius has been swooning all this time over Éponine's parents' old foster kid.
It is even less possible that her parents' skinny, flinching old foster kid grew up to be that.
She's sitting all alone reading a book, and Éponine is just standing there, staring at her, the milk carafe she was supposed to be refilling in her hand. Cosette's forehead is creased in delicate concentration and she's pushing a strand of hair out of her face and she is as radiant as the goddamn dawn and— No! Think of Marius. The Marius you're in love with. If you really loved Marius, you would text him and tell him to come get his dream girl's number. No, wait…
If she was a good friend, she would text him in spite of the fact that she's in love with him. That's it.
…If she were a bad friend, she would go over and try to get Cosette's number herself.
Except she's a good friend, and she's in love with Marius.
Cosette shifts from leaning on her forearms to settling her chin in one hand, and props the book up on its spine to continue reading, so now Éponine can see the cover and oh my god she's reading A Wrinkle in Time and that was one of Éponine's favorite books as a kid and and she should just check to see if Cosette turned out to be a lesbian first, right, just to save Marius the heartache?
"Ponine! Chop chop!" shouts her boss. Éponine is one part terrified Cosette will recognize the name and look up and one part hoping she will, but she doesn't.
"Right! Yes, coming!" She hurries back behind the counter and refills the coffee carafe like she was meant to, and then excuses herself immediately on a smoke break.
Eponine : Hey i think that girl uve been stalking is here at the cafe
Marius : Cosette? How do you know?
Eponine : Some friend of hers called her cosette idk but she looks just like u said
Marius : She there with a friend then? What's she doing?
Eponine : Nah they left shes drinking coffee n readin a book
Marius: What's the book
Eponine : Idk it's a book r u coming or not?
Marius : Would that be creepy of me
Eponine : Fine dont come
She knows Marius too well to hope. He's there in ten minutes, coming through the front door of the deli as nervously as a rabbit venturing out of its hole, ready to dart away again at a moment's notice. Éponine rolls her eyes and scrubs at a dish tensely. Maybe they'll hate each other.
They don't hate each other. Marius hovers for a minute or so before perching on the edge of a chair at an adjacent table, and just sitting there, fiddling with the salt shaker, not ordering any food, not looking directly at Cosette. But when Cosette puts down her book in preparation to go get a refill on her coffee, she sees him and her face lights up. Dammit, dammit, dammit. So much for Marius's claims that Cosette probably didn't even know who he was. She'd wonder how even Marius could be oblivious to someone liking him so much, but… well.
Marius hurries over and sits down at her table, and Éponine can't hear what they're talking about but they're both doing a lot of adorable blushing, and probably stammering on Marius' part, and Éponine is furious with herself. Screw being a good friend. She is never being a good friend to anyone ever again.
But then something interesting happens. Something Éponine, to be honest, probably should have seen coming, and that's that Marius doesn't seem to get past the stammering stage. When Éponine makes the excuse to go over and refill ketchup bottles at nearby tables to eavesdrop, Cosette is being sweet and patient, but it seems the more she smiles and encourages him the more Marius stumbles over his own tongue. Finally he excuses himself hurriedly and just about runs for the door, leaving Cosette disappointed blinking behind him.
Éponine returns to the kitchen for a private victory dance. Sure, they'd gotten along, but they do not, as far as she can tell, have a date, and Éponine still gets to be the good friend.
She peeks out the porthole in the kitchen door. Cosette is frowning at the door through which Marius disappeared, the prettiest perplexed frown Éponine has ever seen in her life. She can see the blue of Cosette's eyes from here.
Maybe Éponine is only an okay friend.
She strips off her apron and throws it on a hook. "Feuilly, I'm taking my lunch."
"You took a smoke break fifteen minutes ago!" objects the beleaguered cook. Éponine is already out the door.
She walks out to Cosette's table and stands at her elbow for a moment until Cosette looks up from her book and smiles. God, what a smile.
"Hi, I'm a friend of Marius. I think he was just in here?"
"Oh yes!" says Cosette, her smile broadening. "He's in my world history class. We hadn't really talked before. He's very sweet."
"Yeah," says Éponine, a little wistfully in spite of her best efforts. "He is." Cosette starts to look knowing so Éponine coughs and moves on. "Uh, actually, you probably don't remember me…"
"No, I do," says Cosette eagerly. "I mean, I don't, but you look really familiar."
Éponine takes a deep breath. "Yeah, my parents took foster kids." She waits and watches the recognition dawn, as well as the smile that distinctly doesn't come.
"Oh," Cosette says. "Ep… Éponine, right?"
Éponine nods. "Wasn't really the best first impression, I know." "
No, no," says Cosette quickly. "I mean, it was mostly…" She fidgets. "It wasn't so much… mostly it was…"
"My parents?" Éponine supplies. "You don't have to be diplomatic about it. They're terrible people, that's not really a secret. I sure got out of there as fast as I could."
Cosette relaxes. "Yeah, it was mostly them," she says. "I don't really blame you."
"Probably should," says Éponine, stuffing her hands in her pockets. "You look like you did good, though." Cosette does smile at that.
"Yeah, my dad is really great. Won't you sit down?"
Well at least Cosette doesn't hate her enough from back in the day to chase Éponine away immediately. Éponine sits down. "You're at university, right? What're you studying?"
Cosette's smile gets bigger, the smile of someone when you've brought up something they love. It's an even better smile than the first one.
"Social work and education," she says.
Éponine smirks, not unkindly. "Using your own unfortunate experience to bring hope to the other victims of the vicious system?"
"Something like that," Cosette laughs. "How about you? What're you studying, I mean?"
"Oh, I'm not in college," Éponine replies, waving the question off quickly. "Is the book for a class?"
They sit and talk for ten minute past Éponine's half hour break, before another customer comes in an Feuilly sticks his head out of the kitchen.
"Éponine!" She leaps up.
"Right, I gotta get back to work. Uh, before I go, full disclosure I guess."
Cosette's perfect blonde left eyebrow goes up. "Okay…"
"I know Marius was gonna try to ask you out. He totally didn't do it, did he?"
Cosette sighs. "No," she admits.
"Okay, then I'd like to take his missed opportunity." Cosette looks blank. "Uh. Would you like to. Get coffee? Sometime?"
Cosette blinks. "Oh. Oh! I'm, um. I—"
"You're straight, right, yeah. Worth a shot."
"No, I— I mean, I've just never—"
"It's fine, it's okay, forget it. I'm gonna go back to work, it was great catching up."
"No, wait," Cosette insists, and Éponine stops in spite of herself. "Um, can I…?" She gestures to the pen behind Éponine's ear. Éponine hands it to her hesitantly. Cosette takes her whole hand instead of just the pen, and it feels like an electric shock up Éponine's arm. Which is nothing compared to when Cosette uncaps the pen with her teeth and holds out Éponine's arm to write something on it. Something that's a phone number.
"Call me," Cosette adds needlessly, and smiles, and this is definitely the best smile yet. Éponine feels a little dizzy.
"Yeah," she says. "Yeah, totally, I will."
"Éponine! Customer!" shout Feuilly from the kitchen.
Éponine returns to her post, with only one glance over her shoulder on the way. Cosette is still smiling.
Their first date is just two days later, coffee and muffins at a Starbucks. When they've ordered and found their table, Éponine grins over at the other girl.
"All right, now that we're here you can admit it. You're straight, aren't you?"
"No!" says Cosette, frowning, but seeing the laughter in Éponine's eyes she smiles. "No, I just… have never been asked out by a girl. That's not the same thing."
"No, it's not," agrees Éponine, hiding her smirk behind her coffee.
"And I wasn't exactly expecting it," Cosette adds. "Even with the 'full disclosure' preface, which I still don't entirely understand."
"Well, you know. I was aware Marius wanted to ask you out, so that makes me kind of a terrible friend." (It's okay, she's come to terms with 'terrible.') "That seemed like something you should know before coffee."
Cosette bites her lip in consideration, but ends up shaking her head. "No, you let him try first," she says. "I think that's fair."
Éponine grins again. "The usual line is 'All's fair,'" she points out.
Cosette sticks out her chin. "Well, all isn't," she says. "But I think this is."
"So what's your story since I last saw you, anyway?" says Éponine. "What came between the skinny foster kid and glowing social work major stages of your life? You said you ended up with a nice dad, right?"
"Oh yeah, he's wonderful. He knew my mom, I guess? Although she'd died by the time he adopted me and he doesn't talk about her much. Then we moved here pretty straightaway. We live out in the suburbs. Dad's kind of a homebody. I dunno. That's kind of it, that's my story. Nothing very dramatic." She shrugs and grins and breaks a piece off her muffin. "I sketch, I golf, when I was little I wanted to be an Olympic gymnast and save the rainforest."
"Now, here's where my real questions start," Éponine says. "The Olympic gymnast thing and the saving of the rainforest, did those go together? Was doing one gonna help you do the other? Or maybe you were going to do both at the same time, go to South America and do your balance beam routine on the branch of an endangered tree? Or is it just that every gymnast needs a hobby?"
Cosette is laughing again as Éponine takes a bite of her muffin. "Clearly the gymnastics would have been my hobby. Saving rainforests is full-time work."
"I wouldn't know, I've never saved one," Éponine admits, brushing muffin crumbs from her chin. "I defer to your expertise. Hey, did you finish Wrinkle?"
"Not yet," says Cosette. "Too much schoolwork. I'm to Aunt Beast, though. I like her so much."
"I used to pretend I had an Aunt Beast," smiles Éponine. "When I was little. My mom had this holey old fur cape thing, and I used to steal it and curl up against it and close my eyes and imagine it was her."
Cosette is smiling back in a small, quiet, sympathetic way that makes Éponine realize for the first time how pathetic that sounds when she says it out loud. She clamps her mouth shut and glues her eyes to her coffee cup. But when, after a moment, Cosette speaks, it's not in a tone Éponine's expecting and she looks up again.
"When I was little I could have used a Charles Wallace most," says Cosette, looking down at her own coffee. "I always wished I had a brother or sister, but I think my dad kind of fell into adopting me, he wasn't up for another."
"I bet you had plenty of friends, though," says Éponine.
"Not really," says Cosette. "Dad's a loner and therefore so was I. It was mostly just me and him. I never really got the knack for making friends," she shrugs with a smile. Éponine pauses and frowns over her muffin.
"Never got the hang of it? Wait, but surely now you're, like, the PR chair of your sorority and the secretary of your chapter of Young Professionals or whatever, right?"
Cosette giggles and ducks her head. "Do I give that impression? No, I'm actually pretty quiet. I mean, I know people—from my classes and things—but I don't really have a lot of friends." They're quiet for a moment. "I mean," she says, tentative, "I guess we're friends now, right?"
"Ouch," says Éponine amiably.
Cosette's eyes widen. "No, no, I didn't mean—I want to do this again, definitely. I just mean… well, we can be both, can't we? We can be friends and… and dating," she says, coloring.
"Yeah," smirks Éponine. "Yeah, I think we can do that."
Cosette holds her coffee with both hands, and smiles one of the happiest smiles Éponine has ever seen.
The next time she sees Marius, it's Thursday and she's humming as she mops up the deli floor. He bounds across the room with his signature Marius puppiness and gives her a hug. Proof positive, she thinks yet again, that the girl-shy Marius doesn't see her as anything remotely female.
"Hi, 'Ponine," he says cheerily. "Sorry I haven't been in lately. How've you been?"
"Oh, I'm fine, just been busy," she says. She can hardly look him in the eye, especially when she sees him do a quick scan of the room.
"Has Cosette come in at all?"
"Yeah. No. I dunno, maybe. I haven't really been paying attention." She mops more intently.
"I didn't manage to ask her out last time," he confides. "I chickened out. I'm gonna do it next time I see her though, I've made up my mind!"
"Don't you see her twice a week in class?" she says. Marius ducks his head sheepishly. "Yeah, well, we leave the classroom at different times a lot, and she's got people she talks to as she leaves, and I dunno, there's… just never a good moment," he explains.
"Yeah, and you don't want her to think you're stalking her, especially after you met her in here," Éponine agrees. Marius's eyes widen.
"Oh god, do you think she thinks I'm stalking her?"
"How should I know?" she snaps.
"Right, sorry." He rubs a hand through his hair in distress. Éponine resists the urge to reach up and smooth it back down. "I just don't want her to think I'm weird."
Éponine sighs. "No, I'm sorry," she says. "I'm sure she thinks you're lovely." Just one more addition to the impressive assortment of awfuls in her stomach is the fact that she knows Cosette thinks he's lovely and if he does manage to ask her out, Éponine can't be sure she won't be out in the cold. (All's fair.)
Marius smiles. "Thanks Éponine. Will you text me if she comes in?"
"Uh, I. I dunno. I mean, sure. But I'm not working much here this week."
"Oh no, are they cutting your hours again?"
"No, no, it's just, uh. A temporary thing. It's just this week."
"Still, that sucks, you need the money. You need to tell them so. Remind them about Gavroche."
"I do. I mean, I'll tell them again," says Éponine, keeping her eyes on the little puddle of dirty water she's pushing around on the floor. "Thanks, Marius."
He gives her another quick hug. "I gotta go, I was just dropping in. I'll see you soon. He heads for the door. "Don't forget to text me if Cosette comes in!" he calls over his shoulder, and she smiles feebly and waves goodbye.
As soon as he is gone she drops the mop and runs into the kitchen. There's nobody there but Feuilly, cleaning up in preparation for the end of his shift.
"Where's the boss? I gotta reduce my hours this week," she says. He looks up and frowns.
"He's not in yet. Why? You can't afford to reduce your hours."
"I know! I mean, I'll be fine. I mean, can I work in the back for a week?"
"Don't ask me. What's all this about, what's wrong?"
She flops against a wall, groaning. "I promised Marius I'd text him if Cosette came in."
"Cosette… that isn't that girl you've been seeing?" Éponine nods miserably. Feuilly shuts off the sink and reaches for a rag, wearing an expression of great concentration as he attempts to understand. "Okay. And you're texting him so that he can…"
"Ask her out."
"And this is… the Marius you're in love with."
"Yeah."
He squints at her for a moment, then shakes his head, throwing the rag back on its hook. "Nope. You've finally succeeded in turning your life into an over-complicated romantic comedy and I'm not even gonna try to figure it out."
"I don't want to turn my life into a romantic comedy!" she protests. "Or anyway, I never wanted a complicated one!"
"Well, don't reduce your work hours for goodness sake," Feuilly says, rolling his eyes. "Just, I don't know. Lose your phone or something."Éponine's eyes light up as Feuilly shakes his head. "That's how I know you're in trouble. Normally you're the tricky one."
"Yeah, well, love makes me stupid," Éponine admits. "Thanks. Go get some sleep."
"Four blissful hours and then off to push boxes around," he sighs, pulling off his apron.
"And class in the morning," Éponine points out cheerfully. Feuilly groans and throws the apron at her head.