Even so, I’d thought it would change everything. This wasn’t unrealistic. Peyton’s crimes and convictions had skewed the view people had of my entire family. People in the neighborhood either stared or made a point of not looking at us; conversations at the pool or by the community bulletin board stopped when we came into earshot. It was like stepping into a fun house hall of mirrors, only to find you had to stay there. I was the sister of the neighborhood delinquent, drug addict, and now drunk driver. It didn’t matter that I’d done none of these things. With shame, like horseshoes, proximity counts.
But not, apparently, with Layla. Instead of keeping me at arm’s length, she looped me more tightly into her world, which I soon learned was jam-packed as it was. If I was the invisible girl, Layla was the shining star around which her family and friends revolved. We didn’t form a friendship as much as I got sucked into her orbit. And once there, I understood why everyone else was.
“Everyone, this is Sydney,” she’d announced the day after our talk, when I finally gathered up the courage to accept her invitation to join her and her friends at lunch. “She transferred from Perkins Day, drives a sweet car, and likes root beer YumYums.”
I blinked, startled at being summarized in this fashion. But it was better than any of the other labels I could think of, so I took a seat on one of three benches I now knew they staked out each day. Mac was on another, eating from a plastic ziplock bag full of grapes, while Eric, wearing a fedora, strummed his guitar, facing the courtyard.
“We’ve already met, remember?” Mac said.
“She’s met you guys,” she responded. “But not Irv.”
“Who’s Irv?” I asked.
Just then, a shadow came over me. Not a metaphorical or symbolic one, but a real, actual shadow, as in something large had blocked out the sun. I went from squinting to sitting in shade in a matter of seconds. I looked behind me, expecting to see—what? A sudden skyscraper? A wall? Instead, it was the human equivalent: the biggest, broadest, thickest black guy I had ever seen. He was wearing dress pants, a shirt and tie with a Jackson High football jersey over it, and sunglasses. As I stared at him, he held out a huge hand.
“Irving Fearrington,” he said. “Pleasure to meet you.”
My hand looked like a toy wrapped in his. I had the fleeting thought that he could rip my entire arm out of my socket and eat it and I would not be surprised. Somehow, despite this, I managed to say, “Hi.”
“Whatcha got for lunch today, Irv?” Layla said as he lowered his huge girth onto the last open bench. “Anything good?”
“Dunno yet.” He unzipped his backpack—God, his wrists were thicker than my legs—and pulled out a large insulated cooler. As he opened it, I saw it was packed with plastic bags, which he began unloading. One had what looked like chicken legs. Another, some kind of grain. On and on, they kept coming: edamame, a stack of hamburger patties, hard-boiled eggs. And finally, at the very end, there was a bag packed with cookies.
“Score!” Layla said, seeing this. Irv grinned, suddenly looking much less intimidating. Like he might pull out your arm, but not eat it. “Toss those over.”
“I don’t think so.” He wagged a huge finger at her. “You know the rules. Protein first.”
“Irving. For God’s sake. I already have one diet nag in my life.”
“I didn’t say a word,” Mac said, eating another grape.
“Protein,” Irv repeated, waving his hand at his substantial meal. “Your choice.”
“Fine. Give me a couple of eggs.”
He handed over the bag, and she opened it, taking out two, then passed it back. Irving held it to me. “Egg? Whites are the perfect protein.”
“Um, no, thanks,” I said, holding up the grilled cheese I’d gotten. “I’m good.”
“Lucky you,” Layla grumbled, peeling an egg. “If I showed up with one of those, these two would never let me hear the end of it.”
“But you wouldn’t show up with that,” Mac said. “You’d just get fries and call it lunch. And fries aren’t a meal.”
“Fine, Grandma. Just shut up and eat your grapes, would you?”
In response, he threw one at her. It went wide, though, and hit me square in the face. As it bounced off, rolling into the grass, I saw his eyes widen, horrified.
“Nice, Macaulay Chatham,” his sister said. “Is that part of your game now? Throwing food at pretty girls to get their attention?”
I was pretty now? And then we were both blushing.
“I wasn’t aiming at her,” he said, clearly embarrassed. To me he said, “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I said.
“Although I can see that as the beginning to a great love story,” Layla said.
“Here we go,” Irv groaned, eating half a hamburger patty in one bite.
This Layla ignored, pulling a knee up to her chest. “Seriously. Can’t you just see it? ‘He threw a grape at me on a sunny day, and I just knew it was love.’”
“That,” Mac said, spitting out a seed, “is the stupidest one yet.”
“Which is really saying something,” Irv added.
She made a face, wrinkling her nose, then said to me, “These boys have no sense of romance. I, on the other hand, am a connoisseur.”
“You call yourself a connoisseur of everything,” her brother pointed out.
“Not everything. Just candy, French fries, and love.” She smiled at me. “All the important stuff. Seriously, though, I know the start to a good love story when I hear it. I should. I’ve read hundreds of them.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Really?” On his bench, Mac sighed audibly.
“Oh, yeah. It’s, like, my thing.” She peeled the second egg. “Romance and instruction manuals.”
“But not romance instruction manuals,” Eric, who I hadn’t even thought was listening, added.
“Seriously, though,” Layla continued, “I love reading about how to do things. Even if it’s something that, like, I will never do in a million years, like weave a rug or grout a floor.”
“Wow,” I said.
“I know. I’m, like, a process addict or something.” She ate the egg, chewing thoughtfully, then swallowed and added, “Or, you know, a connoisseur.”
Truth: I was having trouble keeping up. Not just with this conversation, but the people actually having it. I’d spent so much time alone lately that I’d forgotten what it was like to be relaxed in another person’s company. I liked it.
After that first lunch, I began eating with them every day. Once the bell rang, I’d get something to eat from the food trucks, then cross the grass to either join whoever was already there or stake out the benches until they arrived. Foodwise, every day it was the same. Mac and Irving brought their lunches. Eric was partial to a fruit punch and buttery grilled cheese from the cafeteria. And Layla looked for fries.
She hadn’t been kidding about the connoisseur thing. This girl took her frites seriously. It wasn’t enough for them to be potatoes and fried, all that most people, myself included, really cared about. Oh, no. There were specifications. Required seasonings. Rules about everything from temperature and packaging to whether the ketchup was from a packet or a bottle. (This last one had subrules and addendums, as well.) Going to look for fries with Layla was like tagging along with my mom while she perused office supplies, requiring both patience and a substantial time commitment. By the time Layla got what she wanted, I was often finished with my entire lunch, if not already hungry again.
“What’s most important is the shape,” she explained to me the first time I joined her on this quest. “They should be long, not stubby. Decent width, but not thicker than a finger. Only the most basic seasoning, nothing crazy. And served hot.”
“But not too hot?” I asked as she leaned into the window of the DoubleBurger truck and sniffed.
“No such thing,” she
replied. “Hot fries cool down. Cold fries never warm up. Let’s keep walking; I’m not liking the grease smell here today.”
The guy behind the counter just looked at her as she turned, continuing on. I gave him an apologetic shrug and followed. “What about fast food ones?” I asked. “They’re pretty much all the same, right?”
She stopped dead in her tracks. I almost crashed into her. “Sydney,” she said, turning to face me. “That is not true. The next time I do a Trifecta, you’re coming. I’ll show you how wrong you are.”
“A Trifecta?”
“That’s when I get fries from the Big Three,” she explained. She held up her fingers, counting off. “Littles, Bradbury Burger, and Pamlico Grill. None of them are perfect. But if you mix them together, it’s like the paradise of fries. It’s time-consuming, so I only do it on special occasions or when I’m super depressed.”
Hearing this, I had that feeling again, like the conversation was a pack of wild horses pounding out ahead of me, leaving nothing but dust behind. Trifecta? Depression? Grease smell? She was already talking again.
“These trucks aren’t the best for fries, because mobile fryers just taste different from ones in brick-and-mortar stores. But they do have some cool flavors you can’t get in the traditional places. There’s one place that I really like . . . Oh, they’re here today! Come on.”
In my pocket, I felt my phone buzz. I pulled it out and glanced at the screen. JENN, it said, with a picture of her from her last birthday party, a cheap plastic tiara on her head. I reached for the IGNORE button, feeling a pang of guilt. But not enough to not press it. I’d call her later.
Layla, meanwhile, had walked up to a truck I’d never tried before called Bim Bim Slim’s, which sold some kind of Asian-Creole fusion. The smells coming from it were like nothing I’d ever experienced before. She didn’t even glance at the menu.
“Regular bim fry,” she told the guy. “Actually, make it two orders. No sauce. Just extra ketchup packets.”
“You got it.”
Moments later, he handed over a white bag that smelled heavenly and was already sprouting grease stains. Layla smiled, satisfied. “Perfect. Come on.”
Back at the benches, she nudged Eric off his seat—“Move, I need to set up!”—then sat down, opening the bag and putting her face over the opening. As we all watched, she took a deep breath, eyes closed. Then silence.
“Are we waiting for something?” I whispered to Irv, who was gnawing on a turkey leg.
“The verdict,” he replied, voice equally low.
Finally, Layla opened her eyes. “Okay. These will do.”
What followed was an intricate multistep process that began with the flattening and placement of the bag to turn it into a proper eating surface and ended with three identically sized pools of ketchup, each on its own napkin. To one, she added pepper. The next, salt. And the third, some unidentified substance she pulled from her purse, housed in a test tube.
“I know just what you’re thinking,” Irv said to me. “This has all been a little intense, but now it’s getting weird. I felt the same way my first time.”
“That’s because it is weird to carry your own personalized spice blend around,” Mac said, his eyes still on his history textbook. He was always studying at lunch, I’d noticed, but still listening to everything as well.
Layla ignored them, picking up a fry and dipping an end in one of the ketchups. She took a bite, chewing thoughtfully, then repeated the process with the other two options. When the fry was gone, she wiped her fingers on a napkin, then looked at me.
“Okay. Try one.”
“Me?” I had assumed this was an individual sport.
She nodded, gesturing for me to come over. I did, taking a seat next to one of the ketchup stations, and she pushed the bag/plate toward me. “Take one from the middle. Those are the best. I always eat from the inside out.”
I did as I was told, selecting a thick-but-not-overly-so one. Then I realized that, although I’d been eating fries since before I could talk, this was the first time I’d not been sure how to do it. This was made more awkward by the fact I had an audience.
“One, two, three,” Layla said, pointing at each of the ketchups. “Triple dunk. Then eat half, flip it over, and repeat with other side. That way you avoid the double dip.”
“What’s in that last one?” I asked, still hesitant.
“My own creation. Don’t worry, it’s not spicy or gross. I promise.”
In every friendship, at some point comes a test. Never before in my experience, however, had it involved food. First time for everything, I thought, and followed directions.
I’m not sure what I’d been anticipating. A good fry? Some tangy sauce? It was not, however, the perfection that subsequently unfolded inside my mouth. Considering the intricacy of preparation, maybe this is what I should have been expecting. But the crispness of the outer shell, the mushy, hot softness of the potato within, suddenly tinged with the sweetness of the ketchup mix, was a total surprise. Wow.
“See?” Layla said, smiling at me. “Great, right?”
“It’s amazing,” I said, already turning it over and prepping the next bite.
She clapped her hands, clearly thrilled. “I love a new convert to my process.”
“Welcome to the illness,” Mac said.
“Oh, don’t listen to him, he used to eat his weight in these things. And he was barbaric about it. Just dumped them out, covered them in ketchup, and dove in.” She shuddered. “Ugh.”
I glanced over at Mac, who was eating an apple. He saw me and rolled his eyes, and I quickly looked away. In the next beat, like always, I regretted this, but there was something about him that made me so nervous. From someone that good-looking, even the smallest bit of attention was like the brightest of lights focused on me.
I knew this reaction well, because I’d seen it from the other side in girls when they were around my brother. He and Mac had the same dark, intense looks, that identical way of drawing attention just by existing. But while Peyton had long been aware of it, I had the feeling Mac wasn’t. He didn’t carry himself like he knew he was attractive. And sometimes, when he did catch me watching him, he seemed surprised.
But I shouldn’t have even been thinking like this, and not just because Mac would never be interested in me in the first place. I’d only been hanging out with Layla for a week or so, but certain rules, spoken and unsaid, were already clear. You weren’t barbaric with fries. You didn’t take the bubble gum or cotton candy YumYums. And you never even thought about dating her brother. Just ask Kimmie Crandall.
I’d first heard this name during a typical fast-paced lunch conversation. It began with a discussion about milk and how people either really liked it or really didn’t: there was no in between. Then it shifted to other things that people hated, which segued into a speed round during which Layla, Eric, and Irv tried to come up with the most awful combination ever.
“Someone you truly dislike eating with their mouth open,” Eric offered. “And something gross. Like egg salad.”
“What’s wrong with egg salad?” Irv asked.
“Just play the game,” Layla told him.
Irv thought for a second. “Someone you truly dislike eating egg salad with their mouth open while wearing a sweater that smells like wet dog.”
My turn. “Um,” I said. “Someone you truly dislike eating egg salad openmouthed in a wet-dog sweater while telling a boring story with no point.”
“Nice,” Layla said appreciatively. “I hate that. You’re up, Mac.”
Mac, who was continuing his run of various fruits at lunch with a handful of blackberries, said, “Everything you guys said plus golf.”
Layla sighed. “You’re supposed to repeat the whole sentence. God, you never play right.”
“Then exclude me. I’ll be fine, I promise,” h
e said, turning another page in his chem textbook.
“Party pooper,” Irv said. Mac threw a blackberry at him, this time connecting. “Watch it, fatty.”
“Nice mouth,” Mac replied, but he hardly seemed bothered. Not to mention fat. There was a lot I wasn’t privy to yet, clearly.
Layla sat up straight, holding up her hands. “Okay. This: Kimmie Crandall, eating egg salad with her mouth full, wearing a sweater that smells like wet dog, while telling a boring story with no point about golf.”
“Sold!” Eric said. “You win!”
“Hands down,” Irv agreed. “Still the champion.”
Mac turned to look across the courtyard, adding nothing to this. I said, “Who’s Kimmie Crandall?”
Silence. Then Layla said, “Mac’s ex-girlfriend. And my former best friend.”
“Oh.” That explained the quiet. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. We’re both much better off without her.”
Mac got up then, balling his lunch stuff up and starting over to the trash cans. As he walked away, Irv said, “Still too soon?”
“It’s been three months.” Layla sat back. “There has to be a statute of limitations on pretending someone doesn’t exist.”
“Maybe it’s different when that person was your girlfriend,” Eric said.
“She broke the friendship code. That means I can make fun of her whenever I want.” Turning to me, she said, “She totally started hanging out with me just to get to Mac. I was friendless and desperate and couldn’t see. Then she hooked him in, stomped on his heart, and proceeded to talk smack about us to anyone who would listen.”
“That’s awful,” I said, looking at Mac. He was walking back toward us now, running a hand through his hair. “Does she go here?”
She shook her head. “The Fountain School. She was a mean hippie. Who even knew such a thing existed? Bitch.”
This was the harshest thing I’d ever heard her say, and it stunned me into silence for a second. Obviously, for all the nagging and fruit throwing, there was a loyalty there that ran deep. Once I was aware of it, I saw proof of it again and again. I couldn’t really relate, as by the time Peyton got into dating, he was already slipping away from us. I could, however, take note. So I did.