“Pssst!” I look out into the hallway, and there’s Ava standing by the door, trying to get my attention. She makes a miming motion like she’s talking on the phone. I guess she means for me to check mine.
I reach into my bag and pull it out. Three new texts.
All from Ava.
“Meet me in the bathroom” the first one says. “Where r u?” says the second one. And then, “Hannah, I m having a complete & total meltdown here, my life is over, now get ur ass into the second floor bathroom RIGHT NOW.”
Oh, God. I quickly type a text back. “Can’t leave 4th period, Mr. Cummings doesn’t give passes.” What happened to her not skipping class for some guy? And besides, we were just in the bathroom.
The reply comes super fast. “Get ur ass out here now.”
Shit, shit, shit.
“We’re going to the diner,” Ava declares a few minutes later, after I’ve told Mr. Cummings I’m having a bathroom emergency and begged him to let me out of class. I’m definitely going to get written up. I mean, I was late to begin with and now I asked for a pass and am not going to be coming back. It’s one of those big, wooden block passes, too, with the room number written on it in black Sharpie, which is totally unfortunate, since I’m going to have to bring it back to him at some point. Awww-kward.
“Ava, we can’t ditch on the first day,” I try, following her down the hall and knowing there’s no way she’s going to listen to me.
“Yes, we can,” she says.
“What happened to you not ruining your senior year grades for some guy?” I ask. She’s walking a lot faster now, and I double my pace, trying to keep up with her. I’m half-expecting someone to stop us, to ask us where we’re going, and why we’re in the hall and headed for the front door, but no one does. I think it has to do with the way Ava’s walking. It’s like she’s on a mission.
“He’s not some guy, and it won’t ruin my grades,” Ava says, as if what she said just twenty minutes earlier meant nothing. Which I guess isn’t really that crazy. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about breakups, it’s that things can change by the second.
“Fine.” I’m not looking forward to sitting with Ava while she goes on and on about how much she loves Noah and how completely devastated she is, but she is my best friend, and I’m the one who’s put myself in this position. I need to be there for her.
So twenty minutes later, we’re sitting in Cooley’s and I’m looking around, wondering if there’s any way there could be signs of what happened here last night. Like if Noah and I forgot to lock up, or if we somehow left something behind, or if some previously unknown hidden security camera taped us. Oh my God. I never even thought of that. A security camera! I’ve never noticed one before, but who knows if Cooley has one? He always seems to be getting into shady situations, so maybe he felt he needed a camera just in case anything bad happened here. The thought’s too disturbing to even consider, so I quickly push it out of my brain.
“Do you get some kind of discount or something?” Ava asks, scanning the menu. “Because let me tell you, being a camp counselor does not pay that well.”
“Um, not really,” I say. “I mean, I get free fries a lot, depending on who’s working.” Last week Cooley hired two women to work the day shift when Noah and Lacey and I went back to school. He made this huge fuss about it, and even implied that maybe it would be better for us all to drop out of school and work for him full-time. He made it seem like seventeen was way too old to be going to school and living at home. It definitely reinforced my idea that he’s a drug lord. Drug lording seems like the kind of profession you get into when you’re young.
“Fries sound good,” she says. “We’ll order fries. And iced tea.” She flips her newly-long hair behind her shoulder and looks at me seriously. “You’re my best friend, right?”
“Right,” I say, taking a sip of the ice water in front of me. You are a horrible person, the voice in my head says.
“And you would never lie to me, right?”
“Right.” More than horrible. I take another sip of water, the ice cubes hitting my lips as the liquid slides around them.
“Good,” she says. “Now tell me everything you know about Noah and what happened this summer. Everything, about any girl, and don’t leave anything out, even if it seems like the smallest detail, like, ever.”
I look at her, at the way she’s looking at me, and think about the way she pretended to be over the whole Noah thing when I knew she wasn’t. I think about how she acted like it wasn’t a big deal, about how she pretended she was going right back to class only to show up outside my English class, like, fifteen minutes later. I think about the night Sebastian cheated on me, and how Ava was there for me, how she took care of me and made sure I was okay. I think about how she was the only one that I wanted to be there for me that night, and now, when the tables are turned and her heart is broken, I’m the only one she wants to be there for her. And that’s when I know. I have to tell her. I have to tell her about last night, about what happened here. I have to tell her that I slept with Noah.
The Summer
I totally thought that after Noah told me about his screenplay that night at my house, that things would be a little awkward between us. But surprisingly, they’re not. In fact, it’s kind of the opposite—over the next couple of weeks we settle into a comfortable routine of him picking me up every morning before work, and the three of us (Noah, Lacey, and me) working double shifts at the diner.
Spending my days working at Cooley’s actually isn’t that bad, even though I’m usually super exhausted by the end of the night. Of course, this means I don’t have too much energy to spend thinking about Sebastian. I’m not sure if it’s because I have less time on my hands, or because I’m just naturally getting over him, but it seems like every day I think about him less and less. Where before, I would come home every night and wonder what Sebastian was doing; now I find myself in bed, watching TV or painting my nails or reading a book, and all of a sudden I’ll look at the clock and be like, Wow, I haven’t even thought about Sebastian since this morning. Lacey and I have totally stuck to our pact, and she seems to be doing better, too.
Until one particularly hot day in July (seriously it’s like ninety-seven degrees) when the air conditioner at the diner breaks at around seven a.m. We call Cooley immediately, and he comes in and promises to fix it, but then disappears and is still nowhere to be found even though it’s now lunchtime. For a diner owner, Cooley is actually really irresponsible. I mean, he’s, like, hardly ever around. Seriously, we’re pretty much running the place, which is ridiculous since we’re only teenagers. You’d think he’d be a little more concerned. It totally reinforces my idea that he’s a drug lord, and the diner’s just a front for the feds. Or whoever it is that’s in charge of drug crimes.
Anyway, Cooley put Noah in charge, and Noah keeps getting these cryptic phone calls that are supposedly from the AC repair guys, but so far they haven’t shown up, leading us to believe that they are actually from Cooley’s brother, pretending to be the repair guy.
I try to say there’s no way he would lie to us like that, and that it really serves no purpose other than to piss us off more, but Lacey insists that he would, that Cooley hates confrontation, and that it reminds her of the time that Cooley sent in a bunch of his friends who pretended to be regular customers so that he could grade the employees on their customer service. Which, personally, I don’t think is that big of a deal. I mean, all the big companies send in secret shoppers.
Anyway, Lacey says I’m not allowed to defend him since I didn’t work there then, and I didn’t have to deal with this one man sending his iced tea back, like, five million times because it wasn’t sweet enough. Which I don’t think sounds really all that bad, like, in the grand scheme of things that customers could complain about, but Lacey claims it was horrible, that she had to open over fifty sugar packets, and that the guy was a real asshole about it.
So it’s sweltering hot, a
nd I’m standing in front of the fryer because some weirdo has ordered chicken nuggets with extra fries instead of, you know, a salad or a turkey sandwich or a milk shake like any sane person would order on a ninety-seven degree day, when Noah grins at me through the opening between the kitchen and the area behind the counter.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hey,” I grab some frozen nuggets from the bag and plop them into the fryer basket, then settle it into the hot oil. Steam rises up, making it even hotter than it already is, and I push my hair out of my face. Ugh. I’m all sticky and gross.
“So I think the AC guys really are on their way,” he says. Noah’s wearing his white Cooley’s T-shirt and a pair of crisp black pants, and he somehow looks fresh and put together, even though it’s like a million bazillion degrees in here.
“What makes you think that?” I ask.
“Well, they—”
“Hannah!” Lacey yells, rushing behind the counter. Her red hair is a frizzy mess around her head, and the strands that aren’t flying every which way are plastered to her forehead. She grabs my arm.
“Lacey,” I say. “Please don’t grab me, it’s way too hot for that.” I take a bottle of water out of the cooler, uncap the top, and down a quarter of it. One of the perks of working here is free cooler drinks and fountain sodas, which totally comes in handy on a day like today.
“He’s here,” Lacey says, her face all flushed from the combination of heat and excitement.
“Who’s here?” I’m confused.
“Who do you think?” she says. “Riker! He’s here!”
Noah and I give each other a look, an oh my God, this could definitely be bad kind of look. I glance over Lacey’s shoulder and peer around the corner of the kitchen. There, sitting in a booth, is Riker. He’s wearing tight black skinny jeans and a black Ed Hardy T-shirt. “God, what a poser,” I say. “Not to mention, I think Ava bought him that shirt.”
“Complete tool,” Noah agrees, “His jeans are so tight his balls are probably going to be rendered useless.”
“Can that really happen?” Lacey asks, sounding interested. I shoot Noah a look. He should know better than to get her going on illnesses. At least it’s one that can only happen to a guy. Otherwise she’d totally start to think she had it.
“Anyway,” I say. “So do you want me to go out there and wait on him?”
“Yes,” she says. “Would you? I would do it, you know I would, but—”
The door opens then, the tinkling of bells echoing through the restaurant, and I look up to see a girl who looks kind of familiar walking into the diner. She’s wearing really short denim shorts and a flowy pink top. Her platform sandals are super high, and she has a pair of sunglasses perched on top of her head. She looks around, then heads toward the back of the restaurant, and slides into the booth with Riker.
“Uh-oh,” I say. “That’s not . . .”
“Danielle!” Lacey says, her eyes narrowing. “I cannot believe she had the nerve to come here with him.”
“Don’t worry,” I say, reaching over and squeezing her shoulder. “You just stay back here. Have Noah make you one of those apple walnut salads you love.”
“Stay back here?” Noah asks, sounding panicked. “For how long?”
“Until they’re gone.” I grab two menus from behind the counter, not bothering to wipe them off. Danielle definitely doesn’t deserve to have a clean menu. She can put up with something a little bit sticky, since she stole Lacey’s boyfriend. Not to mention that the last time she was here, she gave me attitude and poured a whole glass of water on one of our tables. A whole glass of water that I had to clean up. Not that it was that hard. But still.
“Until they’re gone?” Noah says. “But that could be, like, an hour. How are we supposed to work with just the two of us? It’s almost lunchtime!”
“You cook and I’ll wait tables,” I say to him, rolling my eyes. “It’ll be just like it always is, except we’ll pretend Lacey’s on a break.”
“For an hour during the lunch rush?”
“Make it work,” I say, just like they do on Project Runway. I give Lacey’s shoulder another little squeeze, then slide out from behind the counter and march over to Riker’s table.
“Oh, hello,” I say, sliding the menus down in front of them. “Welcome to Cooley’s.” I turn to Danielle. “I’m Hannah. I think I’ve waited on you before.”
“Thanks.” Danielle takes the menu and looks kind of bored. She’s totally pretending that she has no memory of our little interaction a couple of weeks ago. Talk about passive-aggressive.
“Hey, Hannah,” Riker says, giving me a big grin. “How are you?” I narrow my eyes. What is wrong with him? I mean, seriously. He has to know that I know that he stalked Ava. He knows we’re best friends. He knows that we were just in Starbucks a couple of weeks ago, and Ava was getting totally creeped out by him. Not to mention the fact that he cheated on Lacey with her best friend. So why does he think it’s okay to say hi to me?
“What can I get you two?” I hope my tone conveys that they deserve each other.
“I’ll have peach pie with vanilla ice cream,” Riker says.
“Just a Diet Coke for me,” Danielle says.
“Great,” I say, forcing false cheer into my voice. So basically the whole bill will come out to about seven dollars, and they’ll probably leave me, like, a fifty cent tip. Also they’re taking up an entire booth that can seat up to six people, and they’re only a party of two. So annoying.
“What did they say?” Lacey demands once I’m back behind the counter.
“They said they’re both scum-sucking assholes.”
“No, seriously.” She bites her lip and her green eyes are serious.
“Nothing.” I shrug. “He ordered peach pie and she ordered some Diet Coke.”
“Oh.” Lacey’s eyes get all watery, and I realize she was hoping they had said something about her.
“Look,” I say, grabbing a glass and sliding it into the ice cubes, then sticking it under the soda fountain. I hit the button for Diet Coke, and the soda comes shooting out into the glass. The fryer behind me beeps, and, without missing a beat, I swing around and pull up the fry basket, letting it drain for a minute. “You shouldn’t be wasting even one second of your time on them.” I look her in the eye. “Listen to me: They are dead to you.”
“Okay.” She doesn’t look so sure. The bells over the door tinkle again, and I look up to see three repairmen coming into the store, dressed in dark blue overalls. They’re either the AC repairmen, or a bunch of random repairmen coming in to have lunch. At this point, I don’t really care. If they’re random, they’re going to have to work for their lunch by fixing the damn air conditioner.
“Now listen,” I say to Lacey. “I’m going to send the AC guys back here, and you’re going to show them where the air conditioner is, okay?”
“Okay.” Lacey nods, like she can handle this.
“I’m going to work on the lunch rush with Noah, and once Riker and Danielle are gone, you’re going to come out and help, okay?”
She nods again.
“And then later, we’re going to talk about this. Got it?”
“Got it.”
I redo my ponytail, slice a piece of peach pie, plop some ice cream on top, grab the Diet Coke, and head back out into the dining room.
But it doesn’t really work out. My whole plan to talk Lacey through her trauma, I mean. She gets so upset that she can’t come out of the back room, and then one of the repairmen gets really nervous because she won’t stop crying, and so finally Lacey has to go home. The rest of the day is completely crazy with me as the only waitress. (Seriously, at one point I look at the amount of people waiting for their orders to be taken, and consider just bursting into tears and/or walking out the door.) Noah and I are kept so busy that we don’t even have time to eat, so once we close, he makes us French fries, cheeseburgers, and onion rings and we sit down at the counter with our feast.
&
nbsp; “So this,” Noah says, “is Sting. Do you like it?”
“What’s Sting?” I ask. I sniff the air around him, assuming it’s some kind of scent. You know, like, Sting by Tommy Hilfiger or something. Noah’s not the type that wears cologne. Not that I know what type he is or anything, I’ve just never known him to wear cologne before, but maybe it’s something new he’s trying out. I get really close to him and smell his neck. But I don’t smell cologne. I just smell laundry soap and shaving cream and boy.
“Sting,” he says. “You know, the musician? The one you thought wore wraparounds?”
“Oooh,” I say. I realize he’s not talking about some new cologne, but about the song that’s playing. Ever since that day at the ice-cream stand, when he found out that I actually have Lady Gaga and the Jonas Brothers on my iPod, Noah’s been on a mission to get me interested in “better” music. He even brought in his iPod and a dock, which he hooked up to the diner’s speaker system, and now, whenever we’re cleaning up after all the customers have gone home, he makes me and Lacey listen to what he thinks is “good” music. Although, Lacey’s not as bad as me when it comes to music. She listens to bands that sound familiar but I’ve never really heard, like Modest Mouse and Hole and The Ting Tings. Their names alone make them sound trendy. And let’s face it, nothing is as humiliating as The Jonas Brothers.
“Sting’s the one in U2, right?” I ask, then take a sip of my drink. Of course, now I know that Sting was in the Police, but it’s fun to tease Noah and watch how pained he gets. It’s like every musician or song I don’t know is an attack on him.
“Oh, God,” he says. He stands up. “All right, I didn’t want to have to do this, but I think I’m going to have to use tough love on you now.”
Sometimes It Happens Page 10
