Bittersweet

  I order two cocoas with marshmallows, a bag of salt ’n’ vinegar chips, and some Reese’s Pieces. After about four hours the half-asleep concessions guy gives me change and piles everything into a little cardboard flat, which, now that I’ve mastered the fine art of tray-carrying, I can one-hand. I slide it onto my palm, shove the change in my pocket, and turn back toward the stairs that lead to our row.

  But I’m not alone.

  “What are you doing here?” Kara asks, hand on her hip. Red-blond hair spills out from under a baby-blue cable-knit hat, and I want to hate her. I really do. It would be a whole lot easier if she was a cheerleader or something. The all-American bubblegum kind with a prom budget that rivals a celebrity wedding and a red VW Bug convertible with a big pink ribbon dangling from the rearview. It would be easier if her name was Brooklyn or Brianna or Britta or Bree and if she wasn’t president of the math club. If her parents were on the boards of elite charity golf tournaments rather than in the Southtowns Ramblin’ Rollers competitive bowling league. If she didn’t have to endure, perhaps even more tragically than the annual tri-state mathalon, their undying love of Buffalo Sabres lawn decorations.

  It would be easier to hate my ex–best friend if it wasn’t my fault she was my ex in the first place. Ex. Former. No longer.

  “Sorry,” I say, “but I could ask you the same thing. I thought you and Will broke up?”

  Hurt ripples across her face, but she recovers quickly, lips twisting into a scowl. “Unlike some people, I have friends on the team, and I’ve been at every game to support them.”

  “And I’m sure they appreciate it.” I stalk past her, envisioning a mean-girl-style shoulder bump, but the only thing I do is brush her arm, so lightly it might as well be an accident. She doesn’t say anything else, but still, after I turn the corner near the stairs, a shiver passes through me and my neck prickles with guilt, eyes aching from the effort of holding back tears.

  “What took you so long?” Dani asks when I reach our seats. “Stop for a quickie in the penalty box? Have to admit, five-six is smokin’ tonight.”

  “Ha-ha. No, apparently the concessions dude had to take a nap before he could make the hot chocolates. Hard work, you know?” I pass her a cup and the potato chips.

  Back on the rink, Josh, Will, and the rest of my hot little protégés are holding off the Raptors with a combination of strength, intimidation, and a few new tricks for which I’ll take full credit. In the final seconds of the game I cling to Dani’s arm as Josh runs the puck toward the Raptors’ goal, totally unhindered. Closer and closer he gets, Raptors scrambling to reach him as the goalie tries desperately to predict the shot.

  Josh passes to Will …

  Will takes the puck and …

  If Baylor’s Rink were a movie set, everything would melt into slow motion. The seats would be filled with classmates and parents and pro-hockey scouts and other adoring fans, all leaning forward to see the action, and as the buzzer signaled the end of the game, everyone would jump up and spill their drinks and scream and howl and hug the total strangers around them.

  Because Will, confident and controlled, taps that beautiful black puck right into the net.

  Ladies and gentlemen, he shoots. He scores. The buzzer sounds. The Wolves win.

  And the crowd goes …

  To be perfectly honest, the crowd doesn’t go much of anything. For the first time in more than a thousand days, the Watonka Wolves have won a game, and that kind of straight-up, balls-out insanity takes a minute to translate. Even Dodd looks stunned, his mouth hanging open while his brain undoubtedly replays the last five seconds. Dani and I climb down to the edge of the ice where the guys are all hugging and high-fiving, deer-in-headlight grins all around.

  “Did that just happen?” Brad asks.

  “Hell yeah that just happened!” I pull him into a hug. “Congrats. You did it.”

  “Nah, girl. You did it. Did you see those turns? I’ve been working on my crossovers, just like you said.”

  “See what happens when you listen to, wait, what was it again?”

  He covers his face with his hands. “Don’t remind me.”

  “I believe you said something about a homegirl who doesn’t know jack about hockey.”

  “No need to bring up the past, Princess Pink. We’re cool.” He holds up his hand for a high five, but before we connect, two arms wrap around my waist and a pair of very soft, very warm lips brushes the back of my neck.

  “You rock, you know that?”

  Will.

  Will? Why is Will … What? My skin is on fire, but before my brain can invent a semi-intelligible explanation, he lets go, leaving me with nothing but that notoriously dangerous smile as he disappears inside the fist-bumping, stick-pumping mob of Wolves.

  Dani gives me a gentle elbow to the ribs. “Hey, Josh,” she says to the other captain. The one who has suddenly materialized before us. “Nice game.”

  “Thanks. You’re in my government class,” he says. “Danielle, right?”

  “Yep. But I go by Dani.” She smiles, nudging me forward.

  “Was this game for real?” he asks me.

  “Um, yes.” It’s all I can manage in my current state of hot-little-protégé-induced shock.

  Josh smiles, running a hand over his head in that adorably nervous way he has. “Everyone’s going to Luke’s tonight. Twenty-eight Washington, across from the Laundromat. See you guys there?”

  “I … uh …”

  “Sounds cool.” Dani grabs my hand and leads me toward the exit as the boys hit the locker room. Since I obviously can’t remember how to speak in complete sentences, I follow her without protest.

  The rush of outside air snaps me back to planet Earth, and I turn to her and smile. “What the hell happened in there?”

  “Baby, you are in some serious trouble with these boys. That’s what happened.” She locks her arm in mine, the haze of our laughter turning white under the night sky as we make our way to the Tetanus Taxi.

  We stop at Dani’s house to change and speculate and generally obsess, so by the time we get to Luke’s place, the party’s already jumpin’, retro Redman tracks spilling from two giant, eighties-style speakers in the living room. We toss our coats in a heap on the stairs and melt into the crush, most of the faces recognizable from the halls of Watonka High rather than the spectator seats at Baylor’s.

  In a city where pretty much nothing cool ever happens, I guess good news flies fast.

  “Hudson!” Will shouts from his perch on the kitchen counter and waves me over. I turn back to Dani, but she’s already engrossed in an animated discussion with her photo club friends. I grab a can of orange soda from a cooler on the floor and wander over to Will, hoping he might … I don’t know … explain why he half kissed me on the ice?

  “Hudson, you know what you are?” He leans in close. Oh boy—here comes that expensive eau de Harper, trailed by a faint whiff of whatever liquor he’s working on.

  “What am I?” I ask playfully, knocking into his shoulder. He wobbles before sitting up straight again, bracing himself against the cupboard behind his head. Honestly. This boy probably doesn’t even remember what happened on the ice tonight, let alone why it happened.

  “You,” he whispers, “are truly a secret weapon. A force to be wrecked with.”

  “Looks like one of us is a little more wrecked than the other.” Will laughs as I clink his plastic cup with my soda, and Josh smiles at me from the other side of the kitchen, raising an eyebrow when I meet his eyes. “Be right back.”

  I cross over to Josh. “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself.”

  “Did—”

  “I—”

  “You go.” I nod toward the monstrous speakers in the other room. “I can’t think straight with the music, anyway.”

  “I made something for you.” He presses a black USB drive into my hand. I close my fingers around the device and my heartbeat picks up the pace. How is it that such a little thing can ho
ld so much mystery, so much potential? Anything and everything, or nothing at all. Hope or disappointment. Elation or dread.

  “There’s some Addicts on there,” he says, “but I found some other stuff I think you’ll like, too.”

  “Really?” I so want to say something crazy, like how I can’t wait to go home and listen, memorizing lyrics and dancing with him in my head. But as a general rule, I try to keep my creeper vibe in check, so I slip the drive into my pocket and stay cool. “Awesome. Thanks.”

  “Ever hear Undead Wedding’s ‘Freaktown’?” he asks, leaning in closer so we can talk above the noise. “It’s on there.”

  “No way! I thought that song was an urban legend. Where did you find it?”

  “My cousin has this deejay friend in LA who hooks us up. That song reminds me of Watonka. You’ll see. The part with the paper birds? I always think of those dumb seagulls.”

  “I like that Undead Wedding one about the girl in the window.”

  “‘Good-bye, Ghost Girl’!” He turns to face me now, inching even closer as the crowd continues to squeeze in behind him. “You know that part near the end, when he’s talking about—”

  “The building where they used to live?”

  “Totally!” His eyes light up in response, but I keep watching his lips, wondering what it would feel like to kiss them. Soft, I think. Incredible.

  “Have you ever—”

  “Fifty-six.” Will appears beside us and gives Josh a sloppy punch in the arm. “Abby let you out alone tonight, huh?”

  Abby? My insides feel like the soda in my hand, bubbling up and then going flat. I take another sip to hide the shock that’s probably all over my face. There’s no Abby in our class. If he has a girlfriend from another school, why doesn’t he talk about her? Why wasn’t she at the game tonight? And more importantly, why does she exist in the first place?

  Josh looks at me a moment longer, then stares into his drink, ears turning red. “Something like that.”

  “She here?”

  “Not this time.” Josh’s face changes slightly, his jaw muscles tightening for just a second, and then he smiles. “I told you, she doesn’t like you, seventy-seven.”

  Will strikes a pose, eyelashes fluttering in mock innocence. “What’s not to like?”

  “I can think of at least eight things.” Josh catches my eye and we both smile. “And you know Abby. She’s … particular.”

  “I know. Just bustin’ your balls, man. Nice pass tonight.” Will gives Josh a fist-bump and I go at my soda like Dani on corned beef hash. So Will knows Abby? I don’t know Abby. I don’t want to know Abby. Right now I pretty much hate Abby. And I’d love to say as much for the benefit of the group, but that whole anti-creeper code of ethics gets in the way, so I just stand here like a mime and groove to the nineties rap pounding through the house.

  “I can’t believe we were so tight out there,” Will says, still a little wobbly.

  “They get it on film?” Josh asks. “Maybe we dreamed the whole thing.”

  “No dream. We did it. Thanks mostly to this girl right here.” Well I guess we’re just the Musketeers now, because Will throws his arms around us and squeezes tight, and our little threesome gets a whole lot cozier.

  “How come you never came around before, Hudson?” Will asks, slurring the last part so it’s more like Hud-shon.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That day at Baylor’s was the first time we really hung out.”

  “Pretty much.” Other than those intimate seven minutes in the closet a few years back, but who’s counting?

  “Where did you learn how to skate like that?” Josh asks.

  “Yeah, why aren’t you at the Olympics or something?” Will asks, a baffled expression frozen on his face. Or maybe that’s just the alcohol messing with his reflexes. Either way, he and Josh watch me intently, waiting for my final answer. Where’s my phone-a-friend? I finger the cell in my pocket, but there’s no way I can text Dani without looking like a total clown.

  “I’m definitely not Olympics material. Just took some lessons when I was a kid.”

  “I guess you could teach them now, right?” Josh says.

  “It’s not like that. I just …” I shift my soda to the other hand and take another drink, wondering how much Kara told Will about our on-ice history. Wondering if any of the guys know about my once infamous choke-artistry. “I got busy with stuff. Didn’t really have time for training.”

  Will cocks his head skeptically and I rush to add more. “My parents split up, so priorities changed.”

  “But you’re seriously good,” Josh says. “I don’t know much about figure skating, but whenever I see you at Fillmore … and everything with the team … wow. You’re amazing out there.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What the hell are you still doing in Watonka?” Will asks.

  This makes me laugh, and I take another sip of Orange Crush to hide it. What am I still doing here? Like I’m just waiting around for my scheduled departure, itinerary planned, English-to-French phrase book and first-class ticket to Paris stowed securely in my Louis Vuitton carry-on? S’il vous plaît.

  “Me? What about you guys?”

  “I’m leaving for sure,” Will says. “Right after grad, I’m out.”

  Josh shrugs. “Me too. For real.”

  For sure. For real. Everyone talks about leaving here, for sure and for real. My father used to say it, too—way before the divorce, he was talking about bigger cities, better opportunities. Even the old people who sit at the counter at Hurley’s complain about this place, every day dunking bits of bread into black coffee for a thousand years before now and a thousand years after. We’re all gonna leave, right? Today, tomorrow, the next day, one day. Sometimes I imagine the great and final exodus, all of us wrapped in scarves and mittens and puffy coats, piling onto the Erie Atlantic with two suitcases apiece, dousing the place in gasoline and tossing a match, hitting the tracks and never looking back.

  But there’s something about Watonka, they say. Something that pulls us back, the electromagnet that holds all the metal in place. It’s the food, they say, or the chicken wings or the sports teams or the people or the way the air over the Skyway smells like Cheerios on account of the old General Mills plant. None of that stuff brought my father back. And what good are all of those bits of nostalgia when your family—the one thing that truly holds you to a place, the one thing that really makes it home over any other dot on the map—crumbles?

  “Oh, what up!” It’s Luke, our generous host, clomping up from the basement with a full bottle of something the color of honey, pumping it over his head in time with the beats. A few other guys squeeze in closer, and on the table next to us, Luke lines up a row of plastic cups, sloshing some liquid into each.

  “To the Wolves!” Will shouts, followed quickly by Amir’s signature how-oooo.

  “And to our secret weapon,” Will adds. “Hudson Avery.”

  “The most ass-kicking princess I ever met.” Luke clinks his cup to mine and downs his shot as the other boys whistle and catcall.

  “That’s my girl!” Dani emerges from a crowd in the front hall, but Frankie Torres grabs her hand and pulls her into the living room for a dance. She giggles and falls in step against his chest, cheering when he spins her around. Amir howls again and calls for Ellie and someone turns up Redman, bass rattling the foundation, all the framed pictures of Luke’s childhood threatening to jump off the walls.

  Get down with the irrelevant funk to make ya jump …

  Will kills another shot and slips his arms around me, pulling me into the mix, a tangle of players and fans and hockey wives clapping and moving en masse. I look back to Josh, but his eyes are already on his phone, fingers texting away as if the entire party is happening on that little screen. Before I can get his attention and wave him over, Will drags me deeper into the crowd. He presses closer, throwing his hands up with the beat, and Josh is still texting Abby and what difference does it
make because Will’s so loose and fun and he smells so amazing and this warm rush comes over me, like we’re all in this giant snow globe together, a perfect moment captured under the glass, all histories and futures forgotten. It doesn’t matter that Josh has a girlfriend or that Will doesn’t remember our kiss in the closet all those summers ago. It doesn’t matter that I screwed up at Luby Arena or that I’m working crazy hours at Mom’s diner or that this whole town sucks. Because maybe Watonka was only ever supposed to be a temporary stopover, and maybe I will chase that train over the hill, and maybe we’re all destined to leave this place, for sure, for real, together or alone. But for right now, we’re here. I’m back on the ice and the boys are back in the game and all of us are laughing and bouncing and rockin’ out, and for a little while, everything is just fine.

  … until Kara walks into the room.

  And sees me enveloped by her ex.

  And drops her drink.

  Again.

  Press rewind. Press rewind. Press rewind if I haven’t blown your mind …

  Chapter Eleven

  Shoulda-Coulda-Woulda Cakes

  Miniature banana cupcakes smeared with a thin layer of honey vanilla icing

  The halls of Watonka High are buzzing with the news of this weekend’s win. No one’s volunteering to don a giant wolf head as team mascot, but by Monday morning, everyone at least knows we have a varsity hockey team. Baby steps, right?

  “Bienvenue, étudiants,” Madame Fromme trills as we settle into our seats for another excruciating conversation about nothing. “Mademoiselle Avery, comment s’est passé votre week-end? Avez-vous cuit beaucoup de petits gâteaux?”

  “Non, Madame. Je …” and then, because I forget the French words for “hockey” and “party” and “ex–best friend awkwardness,” I revise. “Oui, Madame. Lots—I mean, beaucoup de petits gâteaux.”

  I try to smile en français, but then I remember the stack of cupcake flyers in my locker—another of Mom’s brilliant advertising plans—and I’m not sure the smile translates. She moves on to her next victim and, after a bit of forced banter, hands out the test.