Bittersweet

  I run my hand over his head and squeeze him back.

  “Almost time for Hurley’s,” he says. “Mom said I can peel gum off the tables today. Holy cannoli!” He pumps his fist in the air. And then he’s gone.

  He forgets to close the bathroom door.

  I down the rest of my coffee and meet my eyes in the mirror. This is it. The day I’ve been training for all winter. In ten hours I’ll skate in front of a panel of judges for a chance at a fifty-thousand-dollar scholarship. Every one of my nerves stands at attention, my whole body buzzing with equal parts excitement and dread.

  In ten hours, I’ll finally prove myself.

  I’ll nail it.

  I’ll win.

  I’ll—

  “Hurry up, Hudson!” Bug shouts from his bedroom down the hall. “Mom’s waiting for us.”

  “Fifteen minutes!” I call back. I look in the mirror again, one last time before everything changes.

  “Hudson, are all the blinds dusted?” Mom asks, zipping around the Hurley’s kitchen like some kind of cracked-out, nightmare hummingbird.

  “Yep,” I say.

  “Even the ones in the kitchen?” she asks.

  “Did them myself. Twice.”

  “And the tabletops? Did you check for gum and—”

  “Bug’s on gum detail.” I push open the doors to the dining room and point to the booths by the window, where my brother diligently scrapes specimens from table underbellies into a small bucket.

  “What about the walk-in cooler?” Mom asks. “Did you chuck any expired food and make sure everything on the shelves is alphabetized and—”

  “Ma, he’s not the health inspector, and he’s not coming for two more days. You’ve been at this all week—calm down.”

  “Go.” Mom points to the walk-in without further explanation, and thirty seconds later I’m knee-deep in dairy, organizing milk products for the third time this week.

  “Holy meltdown.” Dani ducks into the cooler five minutes later, pulling the door shut behind her. She wraps a sweater around her shoulders and joins me at the shelves. “Girlfriend’s on my last nerve out there.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “The dining room is so clean you could eat off the floor.” Dani picks through a few bricks of butter, separating the salted from the plain. “The guy’s gonna love us.”

  “I wonder what he’s like,” I say, eager to keep our nonargument going. “Like, will he show up with a notebook and tape recorder, all official?”

  Dani laughs. “Testing, testing, this is Bob Barker, reporting live from Hurley’s Homestyle Diner on—”

  “Dude, no. Bob Barker is the guy from The Price Is Right.”

  “When did the Price Is Right guy become a restaurant reviewer?”

  “This year, I guess.” I laugh and check the time on my phone. Just under an hour until I make my escape.

  “Soooo,” she says, stretching it out until it’s so long and loaded I already know what’s coming next.

  “I haven’t spoken to either of them.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  I sniff a recently opened carton of heavy cream and set it back on the shelf, face out. “Josh thinks I conspired to get Will in front of hockey scouts and screw the rest of the team. It’s this whole mess with the coach—he’s Will’s godfather.”

  Dani nods. “Frankie told me that part. But why are they mad at you? You obviously helped the whole team, not just Will.”

  “There’s a lot more to it. I was hanging out with Will, but then Josh and I were supposed to … okay, it’s a crazy long story.”

  She reaches for another stack of butter bricks, checking the dates. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I just thought …”

  “Are you working brunch tomorrow? Maybe we can go to Sharon’s for a late lunch after and talk about stuff?”

  “Lunch tomorrow would be awesome,” she says. “But I’m working a double tonight, so if you want to start filling me in on the basics …”

  I check my phone again. “I can’t.”

  “Why are you so antsy?”

  “I have the … my competition starts in a little while.” I pick up a tub of sour cream and inspect the contents. “The scholarship thing.”

  “That’s tonight? I totally forgot! Why didn’t you remind me?”

  “We haven’t exactly been on speaking terms.”

  “Hudson.” She leans against the metal shelving that holds all the eggs, hands on her hips. “I know things aren’t all lovey-dovey, but that doesn’t mean I’m ditching out on the biggest event of your life.”

  “You aren’t ditching. It’s fine. You don’t—”

  “What time does it start? I’ll call Marianne.” She digs the phone out of her apron pocket and flips it open, scrolling through the numbers. “Maybe she’ll switch with me so I can—”

  “Dani, listen to me.” I reach across the small space of the cooler and close her phone. “It’s not you, okay? I know I haven’t been around much and I don’t even deserve your awesomeness, and I totally appreciate that you still want to be there for me. But this event … I just … I can’t really explain it.”

  “Try,” she whispers, eyes shining.

  “I need to go it alone.”

  “Alone. Right.” She wipes fresh tears with her fingertips. “Guess you’ve made that pretty clear, haven’t you?”

  “Dani, wait.” I grab her arm.

  “Let go of me.” She pulls away and stomps out of the cooler. She tries to slam the door, but I catch it and follow her to the big dishwasher at the back of the kitchen.

  “Please listen,” I whisper, keeping an eye out for Mom and Bug. “I’ve been so stressed about this, and the competition is so hard. That scholarship … it’s everything to me. You have no idea how—”

  “No, you have no idea. I’ve been dealing with your multiple personality disorder for months. I kept telling myself, ‘Ease up, she’s having a hard time with her family.’ Then it was, ‘Cut her a break. She’s really busy with hockey and skating stuff.’ Then, ‘Wow, waitressing and baking and school and training—must be tough to balance it all.’” Dani shoves one of my mixing bowls into the dishwasher, followed by a cutting board and a few dinner plates.

  “Dani—”

  “I tried to convince myself that things would get better once you got the hang of serving, or after the Wolves won a few games, or once Christmas break started, or New Year’s, or blah blah blah. But it never happened. Know why? Because there’s always another reason, Hud, and there always will be. Always something to give you a bad day or put you in a funk. Life is hard—I get it. The thing is, best friends don’t use that stuff as an excuse to treat each other like garbage. Best friends don’t make you feel like the slush under your boots.”

  Her eyes are wild and her words hit me like steak knives, but she’s right. I can’t argue a single point, and hearing the entire soundtrack of my horrible behavior set to the tune of her wounded, angry voice kicks me hard in the chest. I hate that I put that edge in her jaw, the angles in her stance, the stain on our formerly unblemished friendship.

  “I totally hear you, Dani. I know I got caught up in my own thing this winter, and I’ve been a mess of a person, but this is my last chance. I need to be in the zone tonight. No distractions—not even well-meaning ones. If I don’t nail this thing, that’s it. I’m stuck in this hole for the rest of my life.”

  Dani slams the dish rack into the machine. “Maybe if you weren’t so busy trying to bail on this ‘hole,’ you’d remember that some people call it home, and that you don’t have it all that bad. Maybe if you stopped trying so hard to escape, you’d see some of the good stuff, too.”

  “For you, sure. You still have both of your parents. You know they’re going to help you, whatever you decide to do. Look around. Look at this place. This is my future. My whole life. Name one good thing—”

  “One and two,” she says, counting on her fingers. “You have a mom
and a little brother who adore you. Three, Trick always has your back. Four, a warm bed. Five, all those friends you made on the hockey team—crushes or breakups or not, those guys adore you. Six, a decent job, when you show up. Seven—”

  “What about you? Do I still have my best friend, or is that just a regional thing? Because it seems you liked me a whole lot better when you thought I’d be stuck in Watonka, working as a Hurley Girl for the rest of my life.”

  Dani moves toward me, anger rising from her lungs, coloring her face. But then she changes directions, breaking for the staff closet. She digs through her bag and pulls out a folder, neat handwriting etched across the tab: PHOTO—FINAL PROJ./PASSION.

  “Seven,” she says, fingers ashen against the plain manila. “Something you love. Something that used to make you smile.”

  “Dani, I—”

  “You forgot who you are, Hudson Avery.” She flings the folder at the prep counter and a few eight-by-tens slip across the metal surface. I recognize them from the shoot we did months ago for the cupcake flyers. We’d just finished taking some close-ups and I was messing around with a bowl of frosting, licking the spoon mock-seductively. I did it to make her laugh—to make both of us laugh.

  It worked. I laughed so hard I didn’t even notice she was still clicking away on the camera. And now, staring down at a picture of the former me—the me who only a few months ago could still laugh like that, who still believed a good bowl of icing and a best friend were the keys to happiness—my heart shatters. She’s right. She’s right and I’ve risked everything that ever mattered to me, just for one more impossible chance on the ice.

  But I’ve come too far to walk away from it. After all this, I owe it to myself to try. To go after the one thing I know will make me happy. Skating. Winning that competition. Getting back out there and proving to the judges that yes, Hudson Avery does have what it takes. Knowing that I worked hard for this, no matter who else is standing with me in the kiss-and-cry room when they call out the final scores.

  I scoop the photos into the folder and hand the packet to Dani. “If you still want to come with me—”

  “It’s too late. You made your choice.” Dani marches to the other end of the counter and tears the folder in half, dropping the whole thing into the trash. “Good luck tonight, girl. I hope you win that prize. And I hope it’s everything you dreamed it would be.”

  In the third stall of the ladies’ room, I shed my Hurley Girl dress and slip into jeans and a sweatshirt, my old, slightly too-small skating dress folded neatly beneath the skates at the bottom of my backpack. My eyes are blurry with tears, but I can’t let Dani’s words get to me—not now. I have to focus on the competition. Visualize my routine. The applause. The scores. Everything I worked for all winter, all my life, finally happening.

  I open the stall door, set my bag and Hurley’s uniform on the counter, and splash my face with cold water. I’m okay. I have to be. I have my skates and a passable dress and a date with Parallel Hudson, ready to reclaim the destiny that should’ve been mine all along.

  “Hudson?” Mom sticks her head in the bathroom doorway, face tight and splotchy. “Where’s Dani? She’s not in the kitchen.”

  “Did you check out back?” I tear off a paper towel and blot my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “Just got a call from the newspaper. The reviewer has an assignment in New York on Monday.”

  “He what?” I grab my backpack and the crumpled Hurley Girl dress from the counter and follow her out through the dining room, back into the kitchen. “He’s not coming? But what about—”

  “Tonight, Hudson. He’s coming tonight.” She scans the kitchen, taking inventory. “Nat should be here in fifteen minutes. I called Marianne in, too. See if you can find Dani. Trick? Get those steaks prepped.”

  “Mom, I can’t—”

  “What about me?” Bug asks from under the prep counter. His hair is sticking up in every direction, his glasses smudged. “I got all the gum off the tables. And I even found some other stuff, too. Like—”

  “You can polish all the ketchup bottles,” Mom says. “But first help your sister find Dani.”

  “Right here.” Dani steps in through the smoking lounge door, rubbing her arms. “What’s going on?”

  “Critic’s coming tonight instead of Monday,” Mom says. “Can you two change out the specials for the beef tips, put on fresh coffee, and make sure the menus are spotless?”

  “Ma!” I step in front of her, finally snagging her attention. “I can’t stay tonight. I have plans. It’s … they’re kind of important.”

  “Important?” She laughs. Like, maniacally. “Hudson, this is the most important night in the life of this diner. If we don’t pass this review with flying colors, we’re sunk. I don’t know how to be any more clear than that. Sunk. Do you understand?”

  “But—”

  “I’m sorry. If I had another option, I’d—”

  “You’d take it. Right.” I drop my backpack on the floor, still clutching the dress. Grill smoke fills my lungs and makes me cough. I close my eyes to keep the tears in, but soon my heart is racing, blood pounding in my ears. I think back to that night in November when she told me I’d have to waitress, that she wished so badly she had another option, that she’d try to find another server as soon as she could.

  “Why don’t you and Dani do a quick run-through on the tables,” Mom says. “Make sure the condiments are filled, check underneath for any gum Bug missed, and—”

  “No.”

  Mom glares at me, eyes fixed on the Hurley Girl dress in my hand, and it all comes down to this. All the guilt, the money, the extra work, my little brother, the gas bills, the smell of fryer grease, the dropped skating lessons, my father’s suitcases by the door, the arguing, the crying, the cheetah bra, and the hours of my life, ticking off against the clock on the wall.

  “I can’t stay,” I say. “I’ll come back in a few hours to help, but I have to go now.”

  She grabs my arm and drags me to the walk-in cooler, fingers digging into my muscle. “Open it.”

  I do as she says and she pushes us both inside, slamming the door behind us. The skin on my arms prickles, but I’m not cold; adrenaline rushes through my body and warms me all over.

  “You’re skating on thin ice, Hudson Marissa. Very thin ice. This is serious. This is our whole life.”

  “But it isn’t our whole life.” I shake my head, voice soft but certain. Unwavering. “I don’t want to stay here forever, Ma. Not in Hurley’s and not in Watonka.”

  “Since when did home stop being good enough?”

  “That’s what you want for me? Good enough? Whatever happened to aim high? Reach for the stars and all that crap parents are supposed to say to their kids?”

  “Do you have any idea what it takes just to keep us fed and housed? To keep this place going?” Mom slams her hand against the metal egg shelf, sending one of the cartons to the floor. “We can’t afford the stars.”

  The yolks soak the cardboard, darkening the edges. The balled-up Hurley Girl dress slips through my fingers and lands on the floor. “It’s not fair.”

  “You’re absolutely right.” She ignores the eggs, but bends down to retrieve the dress, shaking it out and pulling it against her chest like it’s some precious thing. “It’s not fair that you have to work so much and take care of your brother. It’s not fair that I had to move you guys to a cramped apartment. It’s not fair that your father was sleeping with other women during our marriage. So what do you want me to do? Tell me how to make things fair. How to make it work.”

  Her hand clutches the lavender fabric of the dress, all knobs and angles and bones poking up against the skin, and it reminds me of when she used to dress me for a day out in the snow, tugging my hands into mittens, guiding my feet into boots lined with plastic bread bags to keep out the slush. How much time has passed since my parents took us to Bluebird Park in the winter? Since they pulled me along the path in a sled, Bug wrapped up
in a snowsuit in my arms, all of us laughing as the branches shook and dropped snowflakes on our heads?

  I look intently at her face, all the lines deeper in the blue glow of the cooler. “I wish I never showed you that bra.”

  Mom shakes her head and stands down, turning the handle and pushing open the cooler door. As she steps out into the warm light of the kitchen, her voice goes so low I barely catch her words.

  “Some days,” she whispers, still clutching the dress, “so do I.”

  I slip past her through the doorway, everyone waiting silently for the final outcome. Their eyes are on me; Dani shakes her head and Trick’s gaze burns my skin from all the way across the room. Bug sits at the prep counter with his head in his hands, face crumpled, glasses sliding down his nose.

  My cheeks burn and I can’t meet their eyes—the people who’ve been my family for so long, related or not.

  “Hudson?” Bug says softly, tugging the sleeves over his hands. “Can I help you check the tables now?”

  “Sorry,” I whisper to my brother. To all of them. To none of them. I scoop up my backpack from the floor, grab my jacket from the staff closet, and head out into the ice-cold February air.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Liar, Liar, Cakes on Fire

  Chocolate cayenne cupcakes topped with cinnamon cream cheese frosting and heart-shaped cinnamon Red Hots

  One hour—that’s it. Three twenties. Twelve fives. Sixty one-minute intervals borrowed from the clock on the scoreboard, all that stands between me and my final, don’t-look-back golden ticket out of here. A chance to see the world. A chance to finally live. Because if I don’t, it’s back to the diner to claim my family legacy, all the unchosen things vanishing, all the lines in my mother’s face passed down with the deed to Hurley’s Homestyle Diner in Watonka, New York.

  We can’t afford the stars.

  Skaters fill the locker room at the Buffalo Skate Club, each stationed at her own mirror, mothers and sisters and coaches applying a final coat of glitter gel or lip gloss. I recognize two of them from my own club days, former Bisonettes, inseparable friends from the west side of Buffalo who were like the brunette versions of me and Kara. I brace myself for the sneers, the who does she think she is showing her face around here whispers. But the girls remain silent. Focused. They don’t remember me, or maybe they don’t care enough to cause any drama.