I open my mouth but nothing comes out. The wrapper is suspended, mid-twirl, between his fingers. This feels important. An important moment. I have no idea why.
“Anything else?” I finally ask.
“No thanks,” he says, going back to his rhythmic twirling.
“A box?”
His head swings back and forth like a pendulum, not even looking at the half a slice he has left.
“Another Coke?” He doesn’t respond, like he can’t hear me anymore. The Coke is still three-quarters full. Like always. The wrapper twirls one way, and then the other.
“Chocolate milk?” The wrapper snaps. He looks up at me. He blinks. I don’t know who is more surprised, him or me.
“Yeah,” he says, smiling, like he’s found something he thought he’d lost. “Chocolate milk.” Like he can already taste it.
From behind the counter I watch him smile, rubbing the two pieces of the straw wrapper between his thumb and fingers in both hands. Like he’s reliving something really good, something happy, a good day. Or a good memory. I stir long after all the chocolate syrup is incorporated into the milk, then add just a little bit more to pool on the bottom.
I put the glass down on the table with a fresh straw, the long-handled spoon still in the glass.
He’s staring at the glass with an even bigger smile.
I put down his check and he digs into his pocket and pulls out some bills. He looks at the check and then hands me a twenty. I dig through my apron, count out his change, and put it on the table.
“If you need anything else . . .” But I don’t finish saying it because he shakes his head, dismissing me.
He stares at the glass and then sits up in the booth, pulling it toward him with just his fingertips, like it’s too cold or hot to touch with more of his hands.
“You see the new table?” Nicole asks. “Ray?”
I nod, waving her off.
Kirby turns the glass, looks at it from one side and then the other, and then sips his chocolate milk like it’s the best damn thing he’s ever tasted. One sip. Then another. Then a gulp, from the glass with the straw held out of the way. “Ray!” Federico calls, and then the damn bell.
I deliver the food to the couple in the corner and then take the order from the new table. Nothing to do now until the food is ready to be delivered.
Kirby drinks the rest of the chocolate milk, savoring each sip, and then uses the spoon to sweep the last of the chocolate syrup down into his mouth. He puts the glass down and wipes his mouth with the side of his hand. He stares out the window for a while, and then picks up the coins from his change, sorts them in his hand.
He puts all of the change back on the table except for one coin. He holds it between his thumb and finger, turns it, looks at one side and then the other, rubs his finger over it, and then holds it in his palm. The smile is gone, replaced with a strange calmness. He’s not fidgeting or playing with it. Just sitting there, holding it. I’ve never seen him sit totally still.
“Ray!” The bell in the kitchen dings. I deliver the food.
The door opens—more customers. Nicole shows them to a table in the main area, near the windows. Three couples. Should be a decent check.
I drop off more water to the table with the food and pick up the credit card and check from the couple in the corner.
I need Nicole to ring up the credit card, but she’s still talking to the new table. Smiling. Nodding.
She has a nice smile. And I like her hair, the way the magenta looks like it’s climbing up her dark curls. And the soft hairs at the back of her neck when it’s up in a ponytail.
I like the way she gives the table this one smile, all sweet Italian-girl charm, and how it immediately morphs into something else when she turns back to me, something sharper and more real. I like her face, the way she moves. I like her. More than I like most people.
“You got it?” she asks when I hand her the credit card to run.
“Yeah, thanks.” I try to smile big so she knows I appreciate her asking.
She looks at me a little funny and I tone the smile down.
When I come back to put in the new order, Kirby’s gone.
“Yeah, he left,” Nicole says. “Although I think you can do better. Better than Mr. Coke-no-ice-and-never-smiles over there. I mean, he’s even quieter than you are. You need someone who will carry the conversation.”
“And a girl.” I look at her. “I don’t really care what people think, but . . .” I want her to know. “I like girls.”
“Okay, then,” she says, but I’m not sure she believes me.
After work I walk Nicole to her car. She’s looking at me weird again.
Nicole turns left out of the parking lot toward her subdivision. I turn right, toward home.
Too many nights I detour through Birdland, the what-ifs nearly choking me. But tonight I turn left on Main, drive through downtown, past the office park and what passes for an “industrial park” around here, across the train tracks, through Little Mexico, and beyond until the grass dwindles and I get to the part of town no one’s trying to gentrify.
There’s no grass at all outside our new place. But it’s a nice apartment in a good building. Mom likes her job and has some friends. She doesn’t worry as much anymore. We’re okay.
Especially tonight. The light is still on, all of the month’s bills are paid, and Federico sent Mom carbonara, which will make her smile for real. Maybe she should just marry the old guy. The carbonara is that good. Then I wouldn’t have to figure out what to do with my life. Waiting tables in your family’s business isn’t pathetic. It’s family.
GROOMING HABITS
Today I narrow my list down to two boys. I write the date, January ninth, and the time, 4:45 p.m., at the top of the paper and slip it into my wallet. With the school year almost half over, it’s time to make a decision. Chad was such a total disappointment. And a complete asshole. This year, I’ll be more selective, more thoughtful, more mindful of what I need, not just opening my legs for any guy who wants me. No, not this year.
Caleb Graham and Kirby Matheson, my two final choices, are both in my seventh-period debate class. Even the quiet ones must talk in debate because you can’t debate with sullen looks and pouty glances. Even though I like both of their pouty glances.
Two or three times a week, early in the morning, I see Kirby huddled at a table in the library pouring over a tattered copy of East of Eden. I’ve spent time quietly observing him: how he peeks through his bangs, how he contemplates the trees outside the window, how the tips of his fingers travel over the seam on his paper coffee cup.
I glance at the clock. It’s later than I usually stay, and I shove my notebook in my bag, swinging it over my shoulder. I’m surprised Mom hasn’t called, and when I glance at my phone I know why. It’s dead.
I walk down the hall, the sound of my boots clicking hollowly, and I see it: the dented blue surface of Caleb’s locker. I pause midstep, listening. In the distance a growling floor polisher grinds across tile, but the school is mostly quiet, almost empty.
Carefully I choose a strand of hair from the right side of my scalp. I twirl it around my index finger. Twirl, twirl, twirl until it’s tight, cutting into my skin, and I angle the hair precisely and tug, hard. Perfect, the hair doesn’t break. The root pops free. I quickly grab another and do it again as I exhale slowly, reining in my nerves.
I look up the hall, down. It’s only me, a flickering fluorescent light, and posters publicizing an upcoming pep rally. The metal is cold on my fingertips, and I lean in close to locker 303, my nose hovering next to the vents, and I take in a deep breath. I recoil in disappointment. It’s vinegary, musty, like sweaty socks. And probably a forgotten moldering sports cup.
Fucking jocks.
Kirby’s locker is close by. This time when I inhale, I bite my lip. It smells like boy: satisfyingly musky, like an overworn sweatshirt—one worn to bed, one worn while watching a movie at midnight, one worn while readi
ng East of Eden burrowed under the covers on a cool night. A scent to be left behind. A scent that could linger in my hair after a kiss. A scent I’d smell as I pull the borrowed sweatshirt over my head and hold it close, replaying his whispers in my ear over and over: I love you. I love you.
I back my way through the heavy side doors and into the parking lot, thinking of ways to make Kirby mine.
Because my list is down to one.
Kirby Matheson.
Smiling to myself, I let the warm afternoon cling to my skin and unlock my car. It beeps.
“Hey.” A deep familiar voice purrs, and my keys drop to the asphalt.
I turn. My eyes dart around the parking lot, briefly resting on the one, two, three, four cars left. My heart pounds in my chest. I’m sure he can hear it.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
Chad’s slow grin sends quivers of anger through my limbs. He has no right to grin at me.
“You look good,” he says, bending down to scoop up my keys. He takes his time standing, scanning my body with a languid inspection. I see it in his eyes as he glances at the car door behind me. He’s remembering the last time we were together, alone in a desolate parking lot. The last time we leaned against this car, my naked back against the dirty window, his thick hands rucking up my skirt, his beer-laced whispers hot on my neck.
“I know.” I snag the keys and hug my bag over my middle. Waning sunlight reaches over the school’s flat roof, haloing his golden head and throwing his eyes into darkness. I don’t need to see his eyes. I know what they hold. Lust. Arrogance. Pity. “Why aren’t you at school? Didn’t classes start more than a month ago?”
He shrugs. “College isn’t my thing. I dropped out.”
I shift, moving closer to my car. Away from him. He takes a small step forward. Light spills across his chest and the Muskrat insignia on his letterman jacket looks a little too victorious. Chad graduated last spring, yet still wears his high school football jacket. I try to ignore the sadness burdening my chest at the sight of it.
“And what do your parents have to say about that?” I ask.
“I’m eighteen. I can do what I want,” he says as he steps closer. “And who I want.”
“I have to go,” I say, reaching behind me to open the door.
He places a hand on the window, pushing the door closed. “I want to see you,” he says, and his breath feathers across my cheek.
“No,” I whisper, gathering the strength to send him away. “Not after what you did.”
“Come on, Abby.”
“You showed all your friends.”
“It’s not like your face was in it.” He moves forward, reaching out to touch my hip. “Only the hottest parts of you,” he whispers.
That familiar burn of bile creeps in, clawing at the back of my throat. I shift away from him. “Go away, Chad.” I straighten, meeting his gaze. “I’ve moved on.”
He stiffens, stepping back. “Oh, is that why you won’t return my texts or calls? The new year’s fresh and you got a new guy to go along with it?”
Soon. “Yes.” I open my car door with a flourish.
He shakes his head. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do!” I sound too petulant and moody. I lengthen my spine, trying to appear stronger than I feel. “People move on. I’ve moved on.”
“You already found another—” he starts, but I cut him off.
“I’m done with this, Chad. Good-bye.”
“Really? You’re really done with this?” he asks, swirling a finger in the space between us. “You think you can replace me?”
“Yes,” I say. My pounding heart skips. Kirby isn’t mine . . . yet. But if I lose confidence, I lose Kirby.
“You think you can, but you can’t.”
I try to hide my limbs, shaking as I slip into the car. “You should go back to school,” I say before closing the door.
As I start the car, he growls, “Slut. I should tell—” But I rev the engine to bury the rest of his sentence.
Our eyes meet through the glass. He shakes his head, slowly and deliberately, backing away. I hold his gaze, trying to appear undaunted, but I can barely keep tears from brimming. I throw the car into reverse and drive away, my wet face drying in the air blowing from the vents.
Kirby would never treat me like this. Kirby isn’t a jock. Kirby isn’t always surrounded by his dudes, isn’t always first-bumping greetings and high-fiving victories. Kirby doesn’t whisper dirty jokes to girls on their way to class in the hallways. Kirby has the fathomless eyes of an artist, not the vacant stare of a football lemming.
With a shaking hand, I peel off the fake lash strip from my right eye and carefully place it on my thigh. I use my index finger and thumbnails to single out the longest lash I can tweeze, and tug and tug and tug until I feel the satisfying pop of the root escaping my skin. I let out a long breath as I drop the eyelash.
I rustle through notebooks and scrabble across the bottom of my bag to fish out my phone, trying to plug it into the car charger. I narrowly miss a curb and earn a honk from the car behind me. I give my rearview mirror a shrug and a wave, swerving to pull into the Trader Joe’s parking lot.
I drop my forehead onto the steering wheel, scoop up the strip of fake eyelashes, and, with practiced fingers, press it back onto my lash line. Opening the window, I take the arid evening air into my lungs, trying to shove away the panic. Chad wanted to scare me. He’s jealous, and while a part of me—and not a small part—loves that he is, I’ve trusted him with my secrets. Secrets that could bury me alive.
After a couple of moments I lift my head, defeat hunching my shoulders so far forward I feel as if I could shrivel up like a parched flower. A car pulls into the space next to me with a tin-can exterior and beady Mardi Gras necklaces swinging from the rearview mirror. I peer through the reflections of clouds on the glass and see a waving hand, a Cheshire cat smile, and the window drops.
“Abby! Hey there!” The voice is like an unreachable itch. She comes around the front of her car, hefting an overstuffed plastic purse on one bare shoulder. “How you doing, honey?”
“Hi, Mrs. Fawnee.” I force a smile. Skin stings at the corners my eyes. Too many forced smiles in one week. “I’m okay. You?”
“Oh, you know,” she says, pink lipstick clinging to her front tooth. “Sometimes I wish my gun would go off while I’m cleaning it and hit Orrin in the ass.” She laughs, lifting a leathery bare shoulder, but sobers quickly. “Now, Abby,” she says, placing a manicured hand on my door, fingers straining beneath glittering rings. “How’s your mama doing? I thought I saw an ambulance at your place the other day.”
I sit back, subtly checking my shirtsleeve to make sure it’s covering the bandage. “Oh, that was nothing,” I say. “She’s fine. Staying healthy. Active, even.”
“Well, good to hear.” She levers sunglasses back over her ash-colored hair. “You coming or going, sweetie?”
“Huh?”
She twitches her head at the store. “You going in?”
“No, I—” It’s then, out of the corner of my eye, that I see a guy saunter through the glass doors into the store. A tremor of excitement blooms in my chest. “I mean, yeah, I am, just trying to remember what I need.” Before I realize I’ve done it, I’m out of the car and walking beside Mrs. Fawnee toward the store. She’s chattering about how gloomy Sundays are without football, but she’ll always have Bud Light. I absently offer up basketball as an alternative, and she glares at me like I’d asked her what brand of sunscreen she uses.
Kirby is standing in the cereal aisle, a loaf of bread hanging from his fist. His dark hair is tousled, as if he’s spent the last few minutes burrowing his fingers through it. He wears a dark blue sweatshirt and jeans, sneakers that are high-topped and, frankly, monumentally big. I suspect the sweatshirt smells wonderful. Shoppers steer carts around him as he remains motionless, staring at a box.
Mrs. Fawnee is still talking incessantly when I excuse myself. She
calls after me, “Say hello to your mama!” as I grab a hand basket and hurry up the aisle parallel to Kirby’s. I come out the other end and peer around the corner. Kirby scans the fronts of other cereal boxes, like he’s looking for something more significant than nutritional content. I love the focus in his dark eyes. Singular. Specific. Lost to everything else except his mission. One day I’ll be on the other end of that focus, and a deep chill of exhilaration passes through me.
Without warning he stalks off, stuffing the bread between cereal boxes on a shelf. I follow, still with the basket, tossing a random item or two inside. I side-glance the cereals. I can’t determine which one he focused on exactly. One offers a cartoony superhero figurine inside, another a box-top sweepstakes for a coin collection.
I spot him leaving the store. I ditch my basket next to a display of browning pomegranates and try not to rush out the doors behind him. I stop short, seeing myself in the door’s reflection. My hair has escaped the ponytail I so carefully constructed this morning, and I quickly reposition the clip-in extensions I added to cover the bald spot. I check myself one more time and go outside.
But he’s not out front. I scan right and left but see no sign of him. Then I hear it, a busted tailpipe or maybe a broken muffler. A blue car rounds the corner, louder than it is fast, and I recognize it from the parking lot at school. Kirby.
Jittering anxiety propels me forward. I’m not thinking; I’m just moving unconsciously. As if I am watching it all play out on a video. It’s not until I’m in the car, speeding through a yellow light to keep up with Kirby, that I wonder what I’m doing, wonder what I’m hoping to accomplish.
I have to be smarter about this. Boys don’t like frantic, needy girls. I need to be less frantic. Less needy. More mysterious.
Desirable.
I snag my charging phone from the passenger’s seat. Sixteen missed calls from Mom. The sun slips below the buildings in my rearview mirror and I realize how late it is. Chad kept me late. Mrs. Fawnee kept me later.
And Kirby. Kirby could keep me as long as he wanted.