All Our Worst Ideas

by Vicky Skinner

  “Are you working tomorrow?” she asks once we’re outside. We stand at the end of the sidewalk, and I know that we have to separate, her in one direction and me in the other.

  “Yep.”

  She bites her lip, but it doesn’t hide her smile. “Great. I’ll see you then.” She pauses for a second, rattling the keys in her hand. “Thanks, Oliver.” She turns, and I watch her walk away, the snow falling onto her hair, until she’s completely covered in shadow.

  My truck feels empty when I get back to it, but there’s a scent lingering in the air, some kind of floral perfume.

  In the back seat, my dad coughs and sits up. “What’s going on?” he asks, his eyes fuzzy as he looks out the windshield.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I tell him. “Go back to sleep.”

  OLIVER

  WHEN AMY WALKS into the shop on Saturday night, she walks straight to the counter and hands me a CD. It’s a burned CD, a blank white disc with no writing on it.

  “What’s this?” I ask, my fingers clutching tight to the case.

  “It’s a thank-you gift. For last night.” She taps her fingers on the counter. She bites her lip, and then those dark brown eyes meet mine, finally. “You’re not going to tell anyone about … about all that? Are you? It’s just because this whole situation is a little embarrassing, and I don’t want everyone to know. I didn’t even want you to know, but now you do, so—”

  “Amy.”

  She stops, and her eyes widen, the way they always seem to when I say her name, like she’s surprised I remember it.

  “Who am I going to tell?”

  Her eyes shift, going straight to where Brooke is helping a customer with something in the back of the store.

  “I’m not going to tell Brooke,” I say. What does she care what Brooke thinks anyway? But that’s easy for me to say. I’ve known Brooke for three years. I know she isn’t as tough as her exterior would suggest. I know that she has a soft spot for people and loves Celine Dion as much as she loves the Smashing Pumpkins. She’s a big old softie. But to someone who doesn’t know her, she’s just that badass half of herself. It’s always the hardness that people see first.

  Amy takes a deep breath and nods. And that’s it. She walks away from me, into the office to clock in, and I’m left standing at the front desk, the CD still in my hand.

  We don’t speak for the rest of her shift. She stays behind the register while I stock and help customers, and while normally the shift would have been pretty ideal for me, I’m feeling a little antsy. Amy is trying to be bright and optimistic, but as soon as a customer walks out the door, I see the light in her eyes dim a little, see the way she seems to deflate.

  And then it’s closing time, and the two of us are standing together in the back office, clocking out on Brooke’s computer. I try to keep my eyes off her, focusing only on the click-clacking of her fingers on the keyboard, but in the last three hours, I’ve found it increasingly more difficult not to look at her.

  “Walk you out?” I ask.

  She looks over her shoulder at me, her hand on the doorknob of Brooke’s office. “Yeah,” she says quietly. “Okay.”

  “Night, guys!” Brooke calls to us as we head out of the shop. She locks the door behind us, and then Amy and I are standing on the sidewalk outside, and it’s the first time we’ve ever been completely alone.

  “Did you park across the street?” I ask, pointing at the lot at the end of the shopping center where I always park. She nods. Cars still rush past us, but the shops on either side of Spirits and across the street are completely quiet. In the lot, she smiles at me, her arms crossed and the cold wind making her bangs flutter, her face half blue with shadow. I’m not good at getting to know people or letting them in or being a good friend, but I want to be her friend. I’m also not good at telling people that I want to be their friend.

  “Be safe driving home,” I say. “The road is icy.” I want that to be enough to tell her that I suck at this but that I’m here for her. She just sends me a close-lipped smile and nods.

  “Thanks, Oliver. I’ll see you later.” She turns away from me, walking to her car. I climb into my truck, but I wait until she’s turned on her headlights and pulled out onto the road before I take out the CD she made me and stick it in my CD player.

  The first song is Jeff Buckley’s rendition of “Hallelujah.”

  I press my head to my steering wheel.

  I’ve liked girls before.

  Maybe I’ve even loved girls before.

  But relationships? I suck at getting them started and then have no clue what to do once I’m in one. I’ve never been with a girl longer than a month.

  Even after all that, I’ve never felt this before, this tight twisting in my stomach at the thought of her. This feeling like I’m counting the minutes until our next shift together. This feeling like I can’t breathe.

  I sit there in the parking lot, with my heater running high, until the song ends and the next begins. It’s Rufus Wainwright’s version of “Hallelujah.” I scowl and then change to the next song.

  It’s Bon Jovi’s rendition of “Hallelujah.”

  And then Neil Diamond’s.

  And Brandi Carlile’s.

  The CD consists of thirteen different versions of “Hallelujah.”

  FEBRUARY

  AMY

  IT’S THE FIRST of February, which at East High School means it’s time to start selling Valentine-grams, which are really just ugly carnations with a heart-shaped note attached. They sell for a dollar, and on the first of the month, Petra and I are the first ones to run the table during lunch, since we’re president and vice president of the student council.

  I’ve spent half the lunch period selling grams to freshman girls who giggle as they address their sappy “Roses are Red, Violets are Blue” love poems to the seniors on the football team and the cross-country team.

  “Heard you had a shitty weekend,” Petra says, no malice in her voice. She smiles at the girl bent over the table, scribbling away at her heart-shaped paper. I think she might be transcribing one of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

  “You weren’t there?”

  She shrugs. “I have better things to do on a Friday night than go to Jackson’s juvenile birthday party.”

  I don’t know if she means this as a jab at me, but I don’t take it as one. She’s right. We both have better things to do, and Friday night was a complete waste of time. I’m so pissed at Jackson.

  It’s partially his fault that Oliver felt like he had to go into that party and save my ass. All Jackson had to do was stand up to Bryce, and the whole thing would have blown over. Instead, I walked three miles in the freezing cold, in barely there clothing, and was probably only saved from turning into a human Popsicle by Oliver.

  I hadn’t stopped thinking about it all weekend.

  About Jackson, about the party, about Bryce … about Oliver. Oliver, who doesn’t even know me, but who stopped to pick me up on the side of the road and who stood up for me when he had no clue what he was walking into. Jackson and Bryce and his guys could have been violent, for all Oliver knew.

  And just like that, he appears.

  Jackson, not Oliver.

  He’s right across the table from me, standing so close, my skin crawls. “Hey, Ames.”

  Goose bumps break out along my arms. I’m still Ames to him. I’m still the nickname he’s been calling me for the last eleven months. I don’t look up at him. I know I’ll give in to him if I look up into those eyes that I love so much. And I don’t want to give in to Jackson. He’s the one who said it was over between us at the party, so what is he even doing here?

  I don’t look at him, even though I can feel his and Petra’s eyes on me. I focus on rearranging the bills in my lap, turning all the dollar bills the same direction, George Washington staring up at me.

  “Amy, come on. Please talk to me.”

  I don’t. I’m not going to.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I se
e him hand Petra a dollar bill, which she slides over to me. I see him reach for one of the heart-shaped pieces of paper and pick up one of the pens sitting on the bright pink tablecloth. I force myself not to look as he writes something on the paper. Jackson has the worst chicken-scratch handwriting I’ve ever seen. He hands his gram to Petra. She’s in charge of the grams; I’m in charge of the money.

  “You didn’t put a name or homeroom on this,” Petra says, holding the gram out to Jackson, but he doesn’t take it. I can feel the weight of his eyes on me, and Petra takes the gram back. She picks up one of the pens from the table and when I look over, I’m not surprised that she’s writing my name on it: Amaría Richardson, Pearson. I’m not even surprised that Petra knows I have Pearson for homeroom.

  I try to grab the gram back from Petra because I know Jackson is only sending me one because he feels bad for what happened at the party, or maybe he just feels bad for breaking up with me, and I don’t want his gram. But Petra shoves it right into the middle of the stack so that I don’t know which one it is, and I sigh, sending her a death glare.

  Rules, she mouths at me. The gram is paid for and written on. It can’t be taken back.

  “Okay, fine,” Jackson says, but then he presses his hand into the table and leans over it, until I can feel his breath on my face. A line is forming behind him, but he doesn’t seem too concerned about it. “You can ignore me, but I’m just going to talk anyway.”

  I look up at him, and just like I thought it would, my heart starts to thump, losing its determination. His skin is so smooth, so flawless, and I want to cry remembering how it feels under my fingertips.

  “I really fucked up on Friday. I know that. Bryce acted like a dick, and he knows it, too. I know you’re having a hard time, and I’m sorry I made it harder on you. You didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend, okay?”

  “Jackson,” I whisper. I don’t know what I’m going to say. Maybe that I love him, maybe that I don’t think I can forgive him for leaving me alone at that party, maybe that I’m so confused about what I want, so completely overwhelmed by the plan I set for myself, that just looking at him is enough to make me feel lost.

  His eyes fall down to my mouth, and for just a second, I think maybe he’s going to kiss me. Which is completely ridiculous because we’re sitting in the middle of the cafeteria, and if he kisses me right here, in front of everyone, not only will we get detention, but then we’ll both be even more confused.

  Jackson’s lips, those full lips I always loved to feel against mine, part slightly, and I hear him sigh, an odd sound in that moment that I can’t quite decipher.

  He blinks and leans away from me, situating his body fully and entirely on his side of the table.

  It’s like we stepped into a time machine for a second, traveling back to those fleeting moments when we couldn’t take our eyes off each other. But now Jackson is back in the present, where we aren’t together, where I’m alone.

  “You shouldn’t have kissed me,” he says, looking down at the paper and pens in front of him, like he’s just realized where he is. “At the party.”

  I look away, and I finally feel like I can speak. “I know. It won’t happen again.” I’m surprised to find that I mean this. Jackson wants to be done, and I’m not interested in chasing around someone who doesn’t want me.

  So we’re done.

  Jackson holds my eyes for another second, and then he’s gone, and I’m staring at Taylor Morris, who’s excitedly holding out a dollar bill toward me.

  I stuff it in the money bag and try to ignore Petra’s eyes, but I can see her in my periphery anyway.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  Something pokes at me, and I snap, “What the hell do you care anyway?”

  Petra doesn’t speak to me again.

  OLIVER

  “THIS IS LITERALLY the best night of my life,” Brooke says, leaning against the counter beside me.

  I snort. “Dear God, you need to get out more.”

  Brooke pinches me, looking sullen for a mere second before another song starts up on the karaoke machine, and then she lights up again. “Holy shit!” she shouts in my ear. “They’re going to sing Spice Girls!” She’s bouncing up and down, and I’m ready to bop her on the head like a Whac-a-Mole.

  “Yes, I heard Amy announce it. Can you take a fucking chill pill?”

  “Stop being a sourpuss,” she says. “Go help Amy manage the list. Look at the line! This was our best idea yet!”

  Over on the register, Morgan says, “Our idea?”

  Brooke shushes her, and I actually do what she tells me to because Amy looks a little like she’s drowning as she hands around little karaoke CD cases so that people can choose songs from them. She’s been doing this all night, and she doesn’t even look tired, but it’s probably about time for me to relieve her, so I leave Brooke and move over to the sign-up table.

  As soon as Amy sees me, she smiles, and I get that weird feeling in my stomach that I do every time she does that. “Doing okay?” I ask as two girls very loudly and excitedly decide they’re going to sing Queen. They hand the CD they were poring over to me.

  “Sure,” Amy says, her face looking stuck in that position, with her mouth in a wide smile and her eyes alight. “I’ve never listened to most of these,” she says, reaching out for the CD in my hand. I give it to her, and she examines the front of it. “Ace of Base, Oasis, the Cure.”

  “You’ve never heard of the Cure?”

  Amy shrugs. “I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never heard them.”

  I purse my lips, trying to measure my words. “I guess a lot of people only know the music of their lifetime.”

  Amy freezes, her eyes on the screens against the back wall that are scrolling through the multicolored lyrics of “Wannabe.”

  She turns, slowly, narrowing her eyes at me. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  I put my hands up. “It’s not an insult. The Cure put out their first album in ’79. No one expects you to listen to them.”

  Amy scoffs. “I know music before my time. Um, hello. The Beatles, Elvis, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin—”

  She breaks off when the song comes to an end, and the girl who was singing steps off the makeshift platform. She hands Amy the mic, and Amy consults the clipboard sitting on the edge of the table next to us. “Okay, next up, we have Will, singing ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ by Bill Withers. Everybody in the store, give him a big round of applause!”

  When the applause borders on thunderous, I’m surprised to find that even more people have crammed in the door. It’s not that big of a shop, but karaoke seems to have the people excited. I’m suddenly concerned that this might not be a one-time deal.

  When the guy on the stage, wearing glasses and sandals even though it’s on the verge of snowing outside, starts a surprisingly good rendition, I can’t help myself. I lean down to Amy and ask, “Do you know this song?”

  She scowls up at me. “Are you going to ask me that every time a song comes on?”

  I have to look away because I don’t want her to see me smile. I shrug. I like that she’s gotten defensive; I like that she doesn’t mind arguing; I like that her cheeks have flushed just a little, which means I’m getting to her.

  “Fine,” she says. “You think you know good music? You give me your best, I’ll give you mine, and the first person to cave to the other’s musical genius loses.”

  I cross my arms, trying to look intense, like this is a serious matter, because Amy looks serious, and honestly, that just makes me like her even more. Because she takes everything seriously, and now that she’s standing beside me, I definitely can’t avoid it anymore. I like her. A lot.

  “What does the winner get?”

  She tosses her hands in the air, while up on the stage, the guy, Will, is getting really into the song, which is acceptable. It’s the kind of song you get into. There’s a girl in the crowd pointing her phone at him, and he winks at it as the son
g moves closer to the end.

  “Bragging rights,” Amy says. “Good enough for you?”

  I shrug. “Sure thing.” And without thinking, I reach out my hand. She looks down at it for a second, and then she shakes it. I make a point not to notice the way it sends tingles all the way up my arm.

  I risk a glance at her and find that she’s watching me, an odd expression on her face. “You’re passionate about something. Who would have known?” Her voice has a strangely reverent quality to it that makes me uncomfortable.

  And then, in an attempt to avoid her comment and because I have completely lost my mind, I pick up her clipboard and scribble my name at the very top. I’m allowed to do that because I’m an employee, right? I look over to see if Brooke is paying attention, but she’s not, so I keep going even though I’ve just now really processed what I’m doing and my stomach is in knots. I can’t believe I’m doing this just to entertain a girl.

  When I push the clipboard into her hand, Amy just stares at it for a second, and I see her eyes moving back and forth over the top of the page, like she’s reading my name once, twice, and then three times. Like she has to do that to believe it. And then she grins up at me.

  Will’s song comes to an end, and he passes the mic to Amy, and she looks like a kid about to blow out her birthday candles as she says, “Next up, our very own Oliver York, singing ‘Friday I’m in Love’ by the Cure!”

  Because I know what I’m going to see, I turn and look at Brooke. She’s standing completely still behind the counter, her eyes wide as saucers. And just as the music for the song starts, I see her mouth, Holy shit. Morgan, still ringing up customers, whoops loudly.

  And then it hits me what an absolutely awful idea this is, because Amy is watching me, and she’s smiling really big, and I can’t decide if I love it or hate it, but it’s too late to make up my mind because now I have to sing.

  I chose “Friday I’m in Love” because it happens to be the most iconic Cure song, and also my favorite. But I also like it because it requires very little vocal talent. I definitely don’t think I have an awful voice, but best not to push it when I have this many eyes on me, when I have Amy’s eyes on me.