“I doubt they’re going to offend anyone,” Zoe said. “It’s Valentine’s Day!”
“It offends me,” Jake said.
Zoe handed him a pile of hearts. “As assistant manager,” she said, “I command you to hang these hearts on the brick wall.”
“Fucking power trip,” Jake muttered, reaching for the tape.
“Fuck your broken heart,” Zoe said, laughing.
Jake had started working at Bean in December. His parents had suggested it because he needed something to get him out of the house and help him get over Ted. Also, he wanted to make spending money for college. Keni was the general manager, and she was the one who hired him, but most of his shifts were with Zoe.
Zoe had actually been in his freshman orientation group. Not that she remembered, but Jake forgave her for that. It must have been insane to have a famous mom having a public breakdown and then to randomly show up at Hankinson High School.
But the crazy thing was, he and Zoe instantly hit it off. It was nothing like his friendship with Mona Lisa, where she ordered him around and always had to be the star of the show. Zoe and Jake even had the same swearing habit. Jake also loved Zoe’s other best friend, Anna. She worked across the street and came in on breaks. The three of them called themselves JAZ for Jake-Anna-Zoe. It was a joke on how people named their cliques back in middle school.
“Did you brew the Brazilian blend?” Zoe asked after Jake had finished taping up the hearts.
“Yep.”
“And you inventoried the cakes? You checked red velvet? That’s a big one on Valentine’s Day.”
“Done. Or should I say, Yes, Your Royal Highness?”
Zoe rolled her eyes. “I’m going to get some tea from the supply closet. Need anything?”
“To have today over with,” Jake said.
Once she disappeared, he snatched up a pen and some blank receipt tape. Even art wasn’t cutting it these days.
For Ted
I could spend a July afternoon
sitting next to you
spitting cherry pits
rapid fire
sun dipping
I pucker my lips and inflate my cheeks
bing
smile when you tell me I look like a camel
“A camel?” Zoe leaned over Jake, her palms pressing hard on his shoulders. “Are you writing bad poetry again?”
“Fuck you!” Jake flipped over the paper. “Who said you could read it? And it’s not bad. See how I said cherry and then bing? Get it?”
Zoe groaned. “You should have called it Fro Ted.”
Jake had to laugh. He’d recently admitted to Zoe that Ted’s breakup text had been full of typos.
“Honey,” Zoe said. She took the pen and put the cap back on. “You’re obsessing about someone who broke up with you six months ago. Do I need to call an emergency JAZ summit? When things ended with Dinky, I felt fine within days.”
“That’s because you dumped him,” Jake said. “Also, you guys are hooking up again. Duh.”
“Oh, right.” Zoe fanned her face with her hand. “Silly me.”
“Ted and I had history,” Jake said. “We were in love. This hurts all the time. I never stop thinking about how much this hurts.”
Zoe stretched out her arms and pretended to play a goddamn violin.
Screw her.
An older couple walked through the front door. The woman was carrying a bouquet of roses, and the guy had a cleft in his chin.
“I hate them,” Jake muttered to Zoe. “I bet he’s going to top off the evening with a box of Russell Stover assorted chocolates.”
“Turn that hate to love.” Zoe swiped her card in the register and patted Jake on the back. “Because it’s time to deliver some Valentine’s cheer.”
MIA
MIA SET THE bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. “What do you want to watch?” she asked, holding up the remote.
Sophie was scrolling through pictures on her phone and didn’t look up. “I don’t know . . . whatever.”
“Something Valentines-y?”
“I’m not in the mood for romance.”
“Doctor Who?” Mia asked. “I’m obsessed with it right now.”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “That’s boring, all sci-fi and stuff.”
Don’t mess with the doctor! Mia wanted to say.
She tossed Sophie the remote and said, “You pick. I’m fine with whatever.”
Mia and Sophie hadn’t had a Saturday movie night since last fall and hadn’t even hung out since New Year’s. Mia rationalized it as both of them being busy with senior year, but on some deep level she knew they were growing apart, that their friendship had run its course.
When Sophie texted her yesterday to say she’d gotten accepted to a Catholic college in Buffalo, Mia called her right away and invited her over for a celebratory movie tonight. But now that Sophie was here, she couldn’t figure out what on earth they used to talk about.
As Sophie scrolled around Netflix, Mia pulled a pillow against her stomach, hugging it with both hands.
“You have a text, Mia,” Sophie said. “Can’t you hear it?”
Mia grabbed a handful of popcorn and reached for her phone.
Hey, babe, Brock had written. Can you talk?
Hang on, Mia wrote back. Give me a minute.
“I’ll just be a little bit,” Mia said to Sophie as she pushed off the couch. “I have to call a friend.”
“What’s up?” Mia asked, settling on the floor in the kitchen. That was where she often sat during her and Brock’s marathon phone calls, with easy access to the fridge for water or the cupboards for fruit leather and wasabi seaweed.
“Nothing,” Brock said. “I’m lying low. I hate Valentine’s Day.”
“I can’t picture you caring about Valentine’s Day.”
Brock laughed. “Me? Why wouldn’t I care?”
Mia picked at some polish on her toenail. She and Brock talked on the phone so much that, at this point, they could say anything they wanted. “You’ve had girlfriends since, like, second grade. Everyone loves you. You’re immune to all the romance bullshit.”
“Ha. Not true. In fact, will you be my girlfriend?”
Mia shook her head. “You know we’d be terrible together. You’re all popular and I’m—”
“Beautiful and smart and mysteriously cool.”
Mia flushed. “Maybe when we’re thirty.”
“When we’re thirty what?”
“If neither of us has found the one by the time we’re thirty, then we’ll get married.”
“Ah, so I’m your backup plan,” Brock said.
“Something like that.”
From there, Brock played a song for Mia, and Mia told him the plot of a Doctor Who episode that he’d missed and she busted into a bag of SunChips and they were deep into a conversation about which one of them had a sexier voice when Sophie stomped into the kitchen.
“I’m going to go,” she announced.
“Who’s that?” Brock asked.
“Just my friend,” Mia said. “No big deal.”
“That’s what I thought,” Sophie said, sliding her feet into her boots.
“Hang on,” Mia said into the phone. Then to Sophie she said, “I’ll be off in a second. You don’t have to go.”
“So you’re ditching me for your friend,” Brock said, laughing.
“No,” Mia said into the phone. “I mean, yes.”
But before she could hang up, Sophie said, “See you around,” and then walked out.
“Did she storm out?” Brock asked.
“Sort of.”
Mia felt a cold wind as the door closed behind her. So it was true. Their friendship really was over. In a way Mia had been waiting for this moment. She actually felt relieved.
“Good,” said Brock. “Now I get you all to myself.”
MARCH
WHITNEY
EARLY IN THE morning Whitney rolled over in bed, scratched at the tag in her T-s
hirt, and looked out at the graying snowdrifts. She was somewhere between asleep and awake when she realized, I like Gregor Lombard.
He wasn’t her typical type, but that was good. Another good thing—she’d discussed this with Jude—was that it was time for her to pick the guy she liked. In the past she’d always let them come after her.
Whitney walked into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and stripped. Her stomach was flipping like crazy. She couldn’t wait any longer. She was going to tell Gregor today.
GREGOR
THE SKY WAS damp and gray when Gregor woke up. He’d stayed awake past midnight reading his dad’s high school journal. It was Whitney who’d gotten him curious. At first he was just going to skim for her mom’s name, but once he started reading, he couldn’t put it down.
Mostly Gregor’s dad had written about school pranks he’d done with his friends and trails he’d run for cross-country. He also wrote about girls, though not anyone named Lydia Gibson. His dad had had crushes in high school, but he’d never asked a girl out. Instead he put them on pedestals and suffered as they got together with other guys.
Gregor turned over in bed, his cheek against the pillow. It was six forty. He didn’t have to get in the shower for a few more minutes.
Holy crap.
What his dad did was pretty much what he’d done with Whitney. For all of high school, he’d obsessed about Whitney when, in reality, he’d been too nervous to talk to her. But now they were getting to know each other. And the crazy thing was, Gregor could honestly say he cherished her friendship. Even if they never got together, which was probably the case, he was still happy to know her.
Gregor sat up in bed and reached for his phone. It was time to move on. It was time to make things happen with Nadine. They’d kissed last fall when the marching band was at an away game. It was a little sloppy, but nothing terrible.
Want to go to the senior prom together? he texted her.
Nadine wrote back almost immediately. Yes!
Dinky once told Gregor that if you ask a girl to the prom in March, you’re destined to become a couple by May. Gregor set his phone on his bedside table. He was on his way to having a girlfriend.
APRIL
ZOE
ZOE HELD A brown bag over her mouth. Someone backstage said it would help, but as she inhaled the papery air, she thought she might suffocate. She crumpled up the bag. Anna was puking in the bathroom. Screw the Class Acts talent show.
“You must chill.” Jake kneeled in front of her and steadied her shoulders with his hands. “I command you to chill.”
Zoe nodded weakly. Anna returned from the bathroom and sank into the folding chair next to Zoe. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her face was pale.
“And, you,” Jake said to her, “no more throwing up.”
“I was dry-heaving,” Anna whimpered.
“Your song is good,” Jake said. “Don’t mess it up with all this stage-fright bullshit.”
Zoe nodded again. Their song was called “You, Me, Together.” The lyrics were sweet and soulful. Aunt Jane’s ex-husband, Rich, had helped them compose the melody. It was so catchy that even Jake had been singing it, and he hated love songs.
“Zoe and Anna?” A skinny sophomore girl with an earpiece and a clipboard walked over to them. “You’re next up. About two minutes. Oh my god! You’re Zoe Laybourne!”
As soon as the girl walked away, Zoe moaned, “Fuuuuuck.”
Anna buried her face in her hands. How did she and Anna agree to sing an original song and play piano in front of the entire school? What if their song actually sucked and no one was telling them the truth? What if someone filmed it and posted the clip and everyone commented that Zoe Laybourne was ugly and looked nothing like her mom?
“I told you that you should have done a shot,” Jake said.
“Yeah, right.” Zoe rolled her eyes. “Like being drunk would help.”
Jake grinned. “A shot isn’t going to get you drunk. Duh.”
For months now Jake had been trying to convince Zoe and Anna to try alcohol. He knew they both had issues because of their parents, but he said they needed to let go of that and live like graduating seniors.
Anna hugged the neck of her guitar.
“We never should have signed up for Class Acts,” Zoe said.
“What’s so bad?” Jake said. “You guys will be together onstage. I’ll be in the front row, right near your aunt. Everyone you love is here.”
Zoe bit her lip. She hadn’t told her mom about the show tonight.
Jake squeezed Zoe’s leg. “I mean, there are a lot of people who love you here.”
Zoe nodded. Jake was right. Even Dinky had come. They weren’t officially together again, but they’d decided to go to the prom, and they were fooling around whenever they felt like it. Rich had come too, since he’d helped write the song. He’d taken Zoe and Anna out for blueberry pancakes this morning to wish them luck.
The girl with the clipboard nodded to Zoe. “Sorry about before . . . I was just starstruck . . . uhhh . . . Are you ready to go on?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Zoe said. “You won’t be starstruck when I blow it out there.”
Jake reached for Zoe’s hands and pulled her from the chair. Then he yanked Anna up next.
“I’m going to get you both drunk before graduation,” Jake said as he looped Anna’s rainbow guitar strap over her neck.
“We’ll see about that,” Zoe said.
Jake smiled. “Do you always have to have the fucking—”
“Last word?” Zoe asked, grinning. “Fuck, yeah.”
Then she and Anna pushed through the curtain and stepped onto the stage.
MIA
Dear Jeremiah,
We just kissed good-bye. You’re also in the Philadelphia airport. I’m waving to you over in Terminal F. Do you see me in Terminal B? I’m the dork wearing the Swarthmore sweatshirt, carrying the Swarthmore tote bag. Oh yeah, so are you. (Yay, Admitted Students Weekend!)
We only spent two days together, and yet it feels strange to be apart. I’m counting the months until we can move into the dorms. I can’t believe we both love DuPont Science Hall even though everyone else thinks it’s ugly. And last night. I can’t believe last night.
Oops! My plane in boarding. Back in a few minutes.
Here I am. I just got your text that your plane is taking off. I’m looking out my oval window, waving as you zoom down the runway. I still can’t believe we were both at IMLI two summers ago and never hung out. That’s my fault. I will make it up to you.
I’m in my seat now, by the way.
Last night when we talked on the lawn outside Parrish Hall, I felt like I could be myself for the first time in my life. And then we lay on the grass and watched the sky change from blue to black and you tucked my bare feet under your legs to keep them warm and we kissed. I’m sorry if this is cheesy, but I have to say it was amazing. And then you took that fortune cookie paper of your wallet and read it to me with the light from your phone. “There is no fear in love for love cast away all fear.” And you know what I thought when you read that? I realized that for my whole life, I’ve lived with so much fear. But I’m not scared anymore.
See you in four months.
Love,
Mia
MAY
GREGOR
A FEW DAYS before the prom Nadine called Gregor. He was sitting on the back deck, running the circulation system on the pool and waiting for the pool woman to come check the pH and chlorine levels. His mom had asked him to handle opening the pool this summer.
“I don’t think it’s working,” Nadine said. “I mean . . . us.”
Gregor held his phone against his ear and kicked at a dead spider, sending it into the grass. He’d been feeling the same way, but he was waiting until after the prom to end things.
Nadine sighed. “We should break up before the prom so we can both have fun.”
Maybe he was a wimp, but Gregor was relieved that Nadine was doin
g it instead of him. “Probably a good idea.”
He and Nadine had been attempting the boyfriend-girlfriend thing for two months, but it felt like they were buddies who happened to be fooling around. Not to mention that Nadine drank way too much. She always got plastered when they went out at night, which was getting old.
“What do you want to do about the prom?” Nadine asked. “I’m thinking it’d be easier if we still go together.”
“Yeah. We don’t want to have to figure out dates and limo stuff.”
“Exactly,” Nadine said.
“Good,” Gregor said.
“So you’ll get me the lily corsage from Vine?”
“Yeah . . . of course.”
They chatted for a few more minutes and then, when the pool woman pulled into the driveway, Gregor got off the phone.
Three days later they were in a limo heading toward the Hilton. It was him, Nadine, Dinky, Zoe Laybourne, Jake Rodriguez, and Anna Kimball. Gregor was trying to get into the prom thing, but he was feeling melancholy. He kept thinking about his mom and how she’d taken pictures of them on the front lawn before they left. It was moments like those when he felt like his dad should have been there taking pictures too, that it wasn’t right not to have his dad there.
Nadine and Dinky were swigging from a bottle of spiked Dr Pepper, and occasionally they’d pass it over to Jake, the senior class president. Jake was going to the prom with Anna. Anna and Jake were best friends with Zoe, Sierra Laybourne’s daughter, who was together with Dinky. When Dinky had first started going out with Zoe, everyone acted awkward around her because of her famous mom, but after a while they’d gotten used to it.
“Holy fuck!” Jake said, pulling Gregor out of his thoughts.
“What?” Zoe asked. She was wearing a low-cut violet dress and a diamond necklace.
Jake gestured at Gregor and Zoe. “I just realized that all three of us were in the same freshman orientation group.”
Gregor nodded. That was so long ago he could barely even remember it.