“Mom,” I say. I don’t want to know about her glory days or whatever. Then I think about it. “You know, that’s really kind of sad. You should get pinched at least once a week.”
“You’d think,” she mutters, and then she laughs and tosses her hair a little.
I set down a roll of silverware and glance at her. “How’s Dad these days?” I ask, tentative. “Any chance he’s ready to unground me yet?”
She laughs again.
“I’m seriously asking you.”
She pulls in a breath and sighs, and then she shakes her head a little, grabbing a new package of napkins and slicing the wrapper open with a little retractable utility blade she keeps in her apron. “Julia,” she says, turning to me, “it’s complicated. And no, I don’t see you getting ungrounded anytime soon.”
I scowl and glance at my lingering guests. “What’s so complicated? You guys are—” I clamp my mouth shut, knowing pointing fingers isn’t going to get me anywhere, especially when I think Mom might be on my side. “Sorry. It’s just frustrating. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything wrong.”
“Whoa. Seriously? Leaving work, stealing the meatball truck and wrecking it, not to mention yourself, seeing a guy you are forbidden to see, and sneaking around with him at two in the morning?”
I try to breathe. “I wouldn’t have to sneak if you guys weren’t so—” Ugh. I catch myself again. “Look,” I say as a customer catches my eye, “I just think the Angotti-Demarco rivalry is so . . . Middle Ages. Or whatever. Shakespearean. Overdramatic. It’s ridiculous that Dad can’t get over it.”
“It would have been a lot of money,” Mom says.
“Only if Dad had the drive to actually manufacture and sell the stinking sauce, like Fortuno did.” I pause. “Or do you mean the money you would have gotten from suing the Angottis over it?” I set down my last roll of silverware hard. “Customer,” I say as I walk off, so she doesn’t think I’m stomping away mad.
“Who knows? Ask your father,” she mutters under her breath. I don’t think she expected me to hear that.
Eight
The weekend is endless. I’m working when Sawyer’s off, he’s working or volunteering when I’m off, and we don’t even manage to connect for a quick phone call. I hate this. Hate not knowing what’s going on, hate that hours and days are ticking away and we’re not doing anything. I’m worried as hell.
The phone vibrating in my hand wakes me at two in the morning. It takes me a second to pull out of my dream and figure out what’s happening. I sit up on one elbow and answer it.
“Hey, are you okay?” I whisper, my voice full of sleep and air.
He doesn’t answer for a second, and I think maybe it’s an accidental rolled-over-on-his-phone-in-the-night call. But then he says in a quiet voice, “Jules, I’m—I’m just—I’m freaking out a little.”
I glance at Rowan and she hasn’t even moved. “What’s happening?” I turn my face away from the door, as if that’ll keep my whispers from slipping under it.
“It’s, well, I had a chance to watch the vision on TV a few times. Like fifty, I mean, and it’s—” I can hear the whir of anxiety in his voice notching up. He takes a breath. “It’s really horrible. It almost made me puke. I swear.”
I press my lids shut with my fingertips. “Oh, God,” I say. There are no other words. “Are you taking notes? Writing it all down?”
“Yeah. Some.”
I think I hear a creak of the hallway floor, but it’s nothing. I pull the blankets over my head. “What can I do? How can I help you?”
I hear the tightness in his throat as he swallows hard, hear the air rush from his nostrils into the phone, a tiny blast of emotion. And then it comes again, and he doesn’t speak, and I know he’s trying to hold it together.
“Shit, I remember this,” I say. My gut twists. “I know how tough it is.” I cringe, thinking I sound like a condescending jerk when what I really mean to say is, It’s okay to cry with me.
It turns out he doesn’t need my permission. After a few minutes of him in not-quite-silent sobs and me staring into the caverns of my blankets, wishing I could be with him, remembering and remembering, he blows out a breath and says, “I don’t think I can do this alone.”
“You’re not alone, Sawyer.”
His silence tells me he feels otherwise, and suddenly I’m furious. Not at him. At my parents, and at his parents. And at the ridiculousness of this. I can’t see or help my friend, my boyfriend, because of something gross my father did.
“This is nuts,” I mutter, throwing my blankets off and sitting up on the side of the bed. I can hardly contain the surprise tsunami of anger that floods me. “Where are you?”
“In my room.”
“Do you want me to come over?” I cringe again, imagining the trouble I could get into, but the anger is bigger than that fear, and the boy across town is more important than the man in the next room.
“No. I mean yes, of course, obviously. But no. I’m okay now, and we don’t need any more trouble with the proprietors. I’m just glad . . . ” He trails off for a moment, and his voice goes soft. “I’m just glad you answered. And that you’re there.”
I can hardly stand it. “I’m here. We’ll figure out something. I can’t take this either. I need more than a few minutes at my locker with you.” I don’t think I would have said that if it weren’t for the cover of darkness.
“Oh, God, Jules,” he says, and it sounds like he’s about to break down again. “I miss you like you have no idea. I know I sound like a basket case, and I’m sorry for—jeez, for slobbering all over—but this has been the longest week, and everything’s so . . . fucked up. . . . ”
“Yeah.”
“I need to tell you about it. There’s stuff I haven’t told you.”
I nod. “I want to hear it all. I want to help you. I will be there, helping you. Okay? I mean, do you know when it’s going to happen? Probably not . . . ”
“No idea.”
I close my eyes, feeling defeat. “We’ll get it. I just need to figure out how to get out of here. I’m suffocating.”
“We both are.”
We’re quiet for a minute.
“Stay on the phone with me,” he says. “Please?”
“I will.” I climb back into bed and pull the blankets over me, keeping the phone to my ear. “I’ve never slept with a boy before,” I say.
He laughs a little and it makes me feel better for him. We whisper a little bit, and soon we’re quiet. My eyelids droop.
In an instant, it’s morning.
Nine
“What happened to your face?” Rowan asks as we stand in the bathroom together, putting finishing touches on our makeup.
I glare. “Nothing.” The imprint of the cell phone remains on my cheek, though it’s not nearly as pronounced as when I first got up.
She narrows her eyes at me, suspicious. “You know,” she says, “I don’t mind picking up shifts for you in case you’re, like, feeling a little overtired. Or if you need to go to the library for a project or something. I like money.”
I pause and look at her in the mirror.
“Or maybe you want to, I don’t know, volunteer somewhere on Saturday mornings.”
I set my can of hair spray down. “Hmm.”
“You need to get a little creative is all I’m saying. Don’t you want to join a club after school? Try out for a sport?” She blinks her lashes rapidly and smiles.
I snort. “Yeah,” I say, waving my cast. “Sports.”
“Well, I’m just trying to help.” She puts away her makeup and glances at one of the seventeen clocks—the top one, which actually works—that the hoarder decided would look great piled on the towel rack above the toilet. “Let’s go.”
I nod. “Thanks.”
As we grab our coats and backpacks, I ask her, “What do you do with all your money, anyway?”
“Save it.”
“For what?”
“My trip to N
ew York. Spring break. I’m going to see Charlie.” She patters down the stairs.
My jaw drops, and I follow her. “You’re what?”
She shrugs. “I already have my plane ticket.”
“You—you—” I sputter. We climb into the running car, where Trey is waiting, tapping the steering wheel with an annoyed look on his face. “Mom and Dad are letting you go? I can’t believe it.”
“Letting her go where?” Trey asks. He takes off quickly down the alley and turns onto the street.
Rowan is quiet from the backseat. I turn and look at her, and she’s pressing her lips together.
“Oh my dog,” I say. “You haven’t told them?”
“Told them what?” Trey asks.
“Well,” Rowan says, “since I have you both here, I’m going to need some help covering my shifts. You both owe me plenty.”
“What’s going on?” Trey says in an outdoor voice.
I stare at Rowan. “Do you have any scope of realization of what you are about to unleash upon us all? They’ll call the freaking cops! Report you as a missing person!”
Trey pulls the car over on the side of the road. “What. Is. Happening!” he shouts, eyes ablaze.
I turn my attention to Trey. “Rowan has a boyfriend in New York and she’s going to see him over spring break.”
Trey whirls around, eyes bulging. “What?”
Rowan’s gaze settles somewhere to the left of and below Trey’s jaw. She starts biting her lip. “I’m going,” she says weakly.
“You’re fifteen!” he says. “Mom is going to blow a freaking gasket. Who is this loser?”
Rowan gets her courage back. “He’s not a loser! He’s—his name is Charlie.”
“Charles something something Banks,” I interject.
“The third,” Rowan adds, which is news to me. “His parents invited me. They paid for my ticket, but I already told them I’ll pay them back when I get there.” She adjusts her collar. “We met at soccer camp.”
“He has a live-in tutor,” I offer.
“Not live-in,” Rowan says.
“She’s met his parents.”
Trey blinks. And then he shakes his head. “You little creep,” he mutters, checking his mirrors and pulling back onto the road. “Why can’t I ever find a Charles something something the third?”
I face forward. “So you’re okay with this?” I ask him.
He gives a bitter laugh. “Fuck,” he says. “Why the hell not.” He punches the gas a little harder than usual and pulls into the school parking lot. “Why the hell not,” he says again. He parks a few rows from Sawyer’s car and looks over his shoulder at Rowan as he turns off the car and pulls out the keys. “You’re going to be the one who actually survives this family, aren’t you. The only one.”
Rowan just stares at him, and then he’s out and slamming the door, shoulders curved and head bowed to the wind.
We get out. “What was that all about?” she asks as Sawyer gets out of his car, sees me, and heads toward us.
I shrug, but I think I know, because I used to feel it too. Trey’s jealous. “I think maybe he wishes he had something you have,” I say. But I don’t take the time to explain, because Sawyer is standing on my shadow and his ropy lashes are about to lasso me in.
Gag. That was bad.
Ten
Rowan melts into the sea of students and Sawyer is pulling me to the side of the school building. “When,” he says.
“What?”
“When can I see you? I need to see you. After school? Say yes. Say yes. Say yes.”
“I—” I begin, and the rest of the automatic sentence, have to work, drops away. His cheeks are flushed with the cold. “Okay,” I say.
“Okay?” He sounds shocked.
“Yes,” I say, grabbing some of Rowan’s boldness before it dissipates. “I—I’ll join a group. Volunteer.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Alibi. Just thinking out loud. Don’t you have to work?”
“I switched with Kate.”
Kate. The cousin in college. Kate with the funky blond hair whose life I saved. “Right. Excellent. Rowan will cover for me. Okay.” I take a breath and decide specifically not to think about what my father will do to me when I don’t come home. Trey will help. As we walk into school together I start reading posted signs on the walls for the first time in my high school career. “Pep Club? No, no way. Too much Roxie and BFF Sarah. Psych Club . . . a-ha-ha-ha, no comment.” I keep looking. And then I turn to see Sawyer watching me, that little smile on his lips. “Do you play chess?” I ask.
“Um, why? Is this a trick question to determine if I’m too awesome for you?”
“No no no, I’m just looking for a club to join so I have an excuse to see you. I could tell my parents I’m in a chess club, but then I might have to, you know, eventually, um, prove that I know how to play.”
He’s still smiling at me. My brain turns to fuzz.
“Yes,” he says. “I play chess.” We stop at my locker and he says, “In fact, I was thinking about starting an exclusive chess club for offspring of pizza proprietors.”
I grin. “Oh my dogs, I believe I qualify.”
“We’ll have a lot of meetings,” he warns.
“I’ll be there—as often as I can.” I ignore the nervous quake in my gut that taunts, Your parents will find out.
His face is close to mine. “Tonight’s launch meeting is from three to five thirty. I’ll have you back at the restaurant by then. Will that work okay?”
I nod. Whisper, “We’ll get this vision thing figured out, Sawyer. I promise.”
The bell rings. Sawyer’s smile turns reluctant and he caresses my neck, one slick motion that makes my hip sockets burst into flames.
• • •
Trey promises to tell Mom that I joined a chess club (dot-com, he says wickedly, so I have to kick him), and that I’ll be home by five thirty. And that I would have called her myself but I still don’t have a cell phone. Not one she knows of, anyway.
I load up my backpack more slowly than usual, letting the halls clear around me. Sawyer saunters up to me and we walk down the hallway together. Ever so casually he takes my hand, entwining his fingers with mine. And then my eyes get all misty. Stupid, I know, but you know what? I remember thinking there would never be a time when I’d hold a boy’s hand in the hallway at school, much less the love of my life’s. It’s all a little emotional there for a second, because here I am, and it feels even better than it looks. I squeeze his hand and he squeezes back and looks sidelong at me, and I am so in love.
He opens the car door for me, which feels so incredibly awkward that I hurriedly ask him not to do that again, unless I’m, like, carrying a six-foot sheet cake or something. And then we set out for somewhere, I’m not sure where. He takes my hand again and puts it on the stick shift with his. When he pushes in the clutch I change gears for him, and we’re flying out of town, away from Melrose Park, away from people who frown at us for stupid reasons. After a few minutes Sawyer pulls into a community college parking lot and parks by the gymnasium. Without a word we get out and he pulls me through the snow to the side of the building. There are a few cubbyholes in the wall and I can hear fans running. I catch a whiff of chlorine and feel a blast of humid air on my cheeks.
Sawyer and I duck inside one of the indents and suddenly it’s warm. “Pool fan,” he says, facing me. “My brothers told me about this trick.”
I stare at him. We are alone.
At last, at last.
I lunge for his coat, unbuttoning it, and I slide my hands to his neck, pull his head toward mine, trying not to scrape him with my clunky cast. His hands suspend in the air for a second, and then he buries them in my hair and we’re kissing and panting and touching each other, starving and lusty and steamy hot, and soon he’s wrenching my coat off and pulling off his own, and he presses against me, his chest against my chest, our feet finding spaces every other, and his thighs squeezing mine. And s
uddenly I realize that what’s pressing against me is not all thigh, and I am secretly amazed and a little shocked by it being there, doing that. He moans and drags his lips to my neck, and my hands flounder at his hips and slide over them into his back pockets, like my fingers are someone else’s expert sexy fingers and I’m the lucky one who gets to feel through them, because dog knows I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m just going with it, intoxicated by his fervor and the overwhelming electric, psychedelic aching in my loins.
“Oh my God,” he whispers after a few minutes, breathing hard, and he lifts heavy hands one by one and slaps them against the wall behind me, pushing away, forcing space between us. He leans forward, arching his back, and rests his forehead on my shoulder, panting. “Shit. You are dangerous.”
I pet the back of his head, my lips tingling. “Are you okay?”
He lifts his head and looks at me, and it’s a look I don’t recognize. Desire and heat and I don’t know what else. “My God,” he says again, shaking his head a little. “What the heck was I thinking all those years?” He mops his face with a hand and looks at the coats on the cement pad at our feet. “I mean, it’s—” He looks around, distracted, like he forgot where we are. “It’s not just the this stuff, but the this is . . . probably . . . ” He nods to himself. “Yeah. It’s going to kill me. For sure.”
I am intrigued by his random candidness, and I think how funny it is that I can make ball jokes until I’m blue in the face (dot-com) but I’m sooo inexperienced in the actual this of things, that I’m not quite sure what should or should not be happening on what I’m starting to think of as our first date. Which is also my first date ever. I’m pretty sure coats on the ground is far enough, though.
I reach up and kiss him again, lightly this time, and then turn my head and rest it on his shoulder, holding him. But those last words from him ring in my ears. Yeah. It’s going to kill me. For sure. And that reminds me of something else entirely unsexy, which makes my stomach clutch. I glance at my phone to check the time, and my brain totally changes gears. “Sit with me,” I say. I slide down the wall and sit, enveloped in the warmth from the swimming pool circulation fan. He hesitates and eases down to sit too. And then, together, we sigh. The fun is over, and we turn our attention to the urgent matter of the vision that is taking over Sawyer’s life.