Ah! Lucy, our very pregnant shift supervisor, was nowhere in sight.
Rushing behind the counter, I almost slipped. Not that the line of disgruntled coffee-less customers shooting withering glares in my general direction would have cared. Chewing gum with a fervor, our drive-through guy, Frank, took car orders via headset and motioned frantically for me to work the register.
“Lucy’s in labor,” he hissed through gritted teeth and a fake smile.
Taking a breath, I flashed a grin at Tyler, the first in line.
“Hi again,” I said, turning back to him. “What can I get started for you?”
Professional . . . be professional . . . Don’t look down at his slightly fitted buttoned shirt, crisp and blue and soft all at the same time. The way his leather coat was slung casually across his shoulders in lopsided fashion as if he didn’t care either way—jacket or no jacket, whatever. His dark hair, slight sideburns, glasses. He was a young Clark Kent. Clarification—he was Captain America disguised as Clark Kent (which was somehow hotter).
“Maybe, uh . . .” He studied the menu and then looked over at me.
Why was he having trouble ordering? He got the same thing every single day.
“Could you . . . Would you mind just . . .” He looked pointedly at my hands. The gloves.
“I am so sorry! Ah! I never do this, you know, the register and all.” Ripping the offending garments off, I threw them to the ground, where they landed with a wet-sounding plop. I quickly washed my hands in the drink sink.
“The usual latte?” I said, and wrote “Tyler” on the cup.
Wow, stalk much, Zoe?
“It’s Tyler.”
“Oh, yeah.” I pretended to keep writing. “Thanks.”
“Rough day?” Smiling slowly, he seemed not to care about the line of people behind him.
“It’s getting better.” Returning the smile back at those ocean-blue eyes, I held his gaze for longer than normal, barely believing what I was saying. Was I flirting? Were we having a moment here? Would this be how our story started? The one we’d tell at our wedding, to our kids, to our grandkids? To their children? And their children’s children? I mean, I’m assuming life-prolonging drugs will be available by then. That’s only reasonable. Oh, and jet packs.
“Are you Amish?” He waited at the second counter. Placing the carefully made drink in front of him, my hand faltered. Amish? With my face registering surprise, he rushed to clarify.
“I mean—it’s just the hair, sorry.” He reddened a tad, which made my knees weak; it was that cute.
“Oh. Yeah. I have long hair. I’m not Amish, just . . .” I struggled to explain my upbringing in one word: Vegan. Bookish. Sheltered. Boring.
Friendless.
Only child with a micromanaging mother . . . “Homeschooled.”
“Ah.” His face cleared. “That explains it.” He motioned to my head. “Home-school hair. I knew there was something.”
I smiled and nodded in a daze as he turned and left. He knew there was something? What’s that supposed to mean?
Oh, Tyler. You were so perfect until you talked.
I guess there was something, though. Wasn’t there always Something? With everybody? Everybody has their Somethings. Their Someones and their Somethings.
My mom had cut my hair only one time. She told the story now and then—I wish I could say that it was after a few glasses of scotch with a cigarette hanging out the side of her mouth—but no, it was only when she’d gotten soused on black coffee, on a sugar high from her calcium chews. And she’d always start the same way: “Oh, Zoe, I regret ever taking scissors to that hair of yours.”
Then she’d stare at me, stroking my almost knee-length yellow locks until I inched away. And in those seemingly strange moments, I knew that she was thinking about him. My dad. Because I was too. I could still hear him. I could still feel the vibration of his rumbly voice against the back of my head during story time when I was a child. How he’d do characters’ voices for me in falsetto.
And after the infamously butchered hair, when I’d gone to him crying over my ragged ends, he’d held me tightly. So tightly. With strong arms and dog tag clinking. And he’d looked up to my mom; I’d felt his chin shift as he did, roughness rubbing against my cheek. He’d looked up to her and said, “Let’s let Zoe’s hair grow until I get back.” And I’d nodded in agreement through my tears, soaking his dusty green ARMY-emblazoned shirt as he whispered, “Hair always grows, Princess. Hair always grows.”
But it had been ten years since he’d left. They’d delivered a flag.
And he wasn’t coming back.
So my hair was still growing.
CHAPTER TWO
A Superhero from the Fifties
TAKING THE ELEVATOR down to the first floor still felt strange. All the buttons, the seemingly infinite choices. And the people coming and going with strange packages indicative of their trips. Sometimes I just rode it for a while, up and down, making designs with the lights.
Without my dad, my mom had had something of a breakdown. I was young, so I don’t remember specifics exactly. Just a lot of lying on the couch, crying. Things being thrown and broken. My aunt and uncle spending time with me, their eyes laden with sorrowful pity. And after the metaphorical smoke had cleared, my mom was . . . changed. Of course she was. She couldn’t not be. But she didn’t really ever bounce back.
She never left the tower again. Never. In ten years.
And that means I didn’t either.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking. I know those labels. That box. But that wasn’t her; she wasn’t a Certain Way with a Certain Disease, Post Traumatic this and Agora that. To me, she was just . . . gone, I guess. Part of her was with my dad. And that was kind of okay with me. I wanted her to miss him, partly because my ability to was waning. I just didn’t have enough memories anymore. Yet it still felt selfish to go on with our lives as if nothing had happened.
She worked from home, we had groceries delivered, I was homeschooled. At first people were understanding of her . . . situation. But after a year, and then two, we got looks. We got calls. The concern was gone from the voices, replaced by anger. Snap out of it, they seemed to say. Other people can get through this, why can’t you? But. I don’t know. She just couldn’t. She still determinedly cooked vegan for us, avoided sugar like the plague, and crocheted, painted, and ordered books to read all the time. But she didn’t laugh as loudly as I remembered. We didn’t fly kites or have picnics or play softball or whatever it was that normal families did. But I thought she was still a good mom.
Until my job. Until the world was a kaleidoscope of all the things I’d missed—businessmen and dyed/pierced college students and soy low-fat extra-caramel macchiatos. I’d bluffed my way through most of it, not understanding pop culture references. (Who exactly was One Direction? And why did they make everybody so frenzied?) Cleaning the bathrooms had helped me transition well. I’d been able to focus on a mindless task and slowly became initiated into the ways of others. The quick jokes, how everything was sarcastically the opposite, the constant barrage of slang, the dirty innuendos. It never ceased.
The exhilaration of the elevator ride was fading, though. I felt like every other commuter, dragging my body, bleary-eyed, into the shop when my shift started. Work today was slow, and soon the customers filtered out. Frank went around cleaning various contraptions as closing time approached.
“Oh, Lucy had her baby.” His voice came dully from halfway inside the espresso machine, echoing off shiny copper surfaces.
I grunted in response. I hadn’t known Lucy very long and was secretly relieved to escape her unending labor topics. I’d heard enough traumatizing things to last me a lifetime, some of which had been titled: When Epidurals Don’t Work, Vacuum Assistance, Uncontrollable Pushing By-Products, and C-Section Scars. Oh, and the constant, recurring Labor Feels Like Being Burned Alive. That one was fun.
She’d come up behind me as I refilled a ma
chine or made whipped cream and whisper, “Burned alive, Zoe. Burned aliiiive!” Shoot, I’d almost lose my skittles. And I wasn’t even the one pregnant here!
I served a few customers—an older man and woman who stage-whispered that it was their date night—and then I saw him.
Tyler. At this hour? Nervously checking my hair, I adjusted my silky black blouse, though it remained hidden behind the company apron.
He strode in and jutted his chin sharply at me. Perfect hair, slightly mussed from the day. A green coat this time. And jeans. Dark jeans. I was a sucker for dark jeans.
“Hey, Home-School Hair.”
He had a nickname for me?! I died from excitement, forced resurrection for propriety’s sake, and then died again as he winked at me before placing his order. Filling it numbly, I barely remembered to smile. Tyler just winked at me. Like . . . wow. Who does that? He’s like a superhero . . . from the fifties! My brain was molasses. Counting his change like a three-year-old, I got it wrong multiple times and dissolved into one-sided laughter.
Frank looked at me strangely.
“Are you okay? What’s your obsession with Golden Boy?” Frank’s beard and mustache twitched as he talked. A hipster from Minnesota (I think?), he was in grad school for . . . something. I’d never really paid much attention.
“Golden Boy?” I scoffed as if nicknames were repulsively juvenile things, never mind my earlier behavior.
Frank joined me at the side counter, arms crossed, as I shamelessly peeked to take in the sights. He mimed looking at Tyler and then going faint, fanning himself girlishly. Collapsing, he clutched his heart silently and then laughed at his own lame joke.
“Stop iiiit,” I whined softly.
“I don’t know, Zo, he doesn’t seem right for you.” He eyed me and then looked back at Tyler, scrunching up his nose in distaste.
“ ‘Zo’? Really, Frank? Really? My name isn’t short enough already?” I rolled my eyes.
“What? Do you prefer ‘Home-School Hair’?” Tugging on my hair, he went to do more cleaning with an I-give-up pfft. I took the opportunity to clean too, sweeping by Tyler.
“Hey,” he said, looking at my broom with another smile. Wow, his eyes were crazy attractive when he smiled; they lit his whole face up like a . . . beaming beacon. Or was it “like a beacon, beaming”? Hmm.
Weird how beacon sounds almost like bacon.
I heard him laugh. “I think that part is probably clean by now.”
I groaned inwardly, mortified. How long had I been standing here like an idiot, sweeping the same spot and staring at him?! Please, God. If there ever was a miracle needed, open the ground and swallow me now.
“Yeah. I like to be . . . thorough.” I rushed to move, sweeping elsewhere as he laughed.
“You’re funny, Home-School Hair.”
Funny? I didn’t want to be funny! Funny was one step removed from weird. And I’d been called weird. Many times. By strangers in online chat rooms. By other students in group home-school projects over Skype. By relatives. By the takeout guy at the Chinese place across the street when I asked if they delivered thirty feet away.
Finishing the cleaning halfheartedly, I retreated back behind the counter to lick my wounds. Tyler, getting up to leave, walked past the register to the door.
But then he stopped, running his fingers through his hair . . . Did he forget something?
“Hey, Home School. What are you up to tonight?”
CHAPTER THREE
Navy Swimsuit
I’VE NEVER UNDERSTOOD the phrase “out-of-body experience” before. But I sure as heck did now. Tyler—the Tyler—my Tyler—had asked me casually, like I did things often, what I was doing tonight. What I was doing?! My first thought was the truth—heading home to watch The Biggest Loser with my mom, followed by Say Yes to the Dress (they seemed to go together somehow), while we ate homemade veggie burgers washed down with prickly pear kombucha. All in all, kind of a perfect night.
But I caught myself just in time with a noncommittal “Nothing.”
And then it was a daze. I seemed to watch him from afar as he mentioned the penthouse apartment in our tower, asking if I knew it. That they had a pool. If I wanted to come. That there’d be a few other friends there too. And I’d nodded and said “Sure, sure” a few times, shaking like jelly inside. And then he’d left. I’d turned to Frank and hadn’t needed to ask. “Go!” he’d said with a quirky smile. “Get out of here.”
And before I knew it, I was trying to find my swimsuit while simultaneously convincing my mom not to worry.
She sat on the edge of my down comforter–topped bed, dressed in her usual “somewhere in between dressy and pajama” clothes. “It’s just that I don’t know this boy, Zoe! I don’t know anything about him!”
“I know, Mom. But I really want to go. I’ve never been invited to anything before.”
Where is it? Digging among my seldom-frequented clothes, I frowned. I mean, I could swim, like if I had to. But we didn’t go often. There was a tiny public pool in the tower that was usually filled with overweight older men holding beers. Not to mention the fact that in Chicago it was only hot enough to be usable for a couple of months.
“And it’s in the tower! I won’t be far!” I hadn’t known Tyler lived in our high-rise, but it explained the early-morning coffee almost every day before what I assumed to be his college classes.
She sighed.
“I guess I can’t argue with that. I just— You and . . . and boys. I can’t wrap my head around it. I’d still like to meet him.”
You could meet him anytime, Mom. Anytime. If you just left our apartment. Just leave. What’s the big deal? Why is the world so scary? And why have you projected your fears onto me? My inward comments grew callous as my frustration built.
“You can meet him after this. If it goes well. I’ll bring him by another time, okay?”
Victory! My trusty navy one-piece acquired, I hastily put it on.
“Okay, okay. Just stay out of trouble. And come back before midnight.” She gave me a swat as I left, calling out more instructions. But I barely heard. Grabbing my monster swim cap and goggles, I threw on a white T-shirt, running for the elevator like my life depended on it. Maybe it did. The life I hadn’t begun to live yet depended on me taking action.
Well, universe, this is me, Zoe, taking action.
The elevator doors closed with a deep thunk, and I pressed the button for the top floor. A screen prompted me to enter a code and I did, surprising myself that I remembered it through my Tyler-induced fog. My heart beat out of my chest. The goggles creaked ominously around my neck, and suddenly my breath quickened with a shot of adrenaline: A towel! I’ve completely forgotten a towel!
But just then the doors dinged open, and there was no turning back.
I took a step into the plush apartment at the end of the hall. It looked deserted. “Hello?” I called, but no one answered.
Everything was white and gray and silver. There were long, low couches and a huge flat-screen above the fireplace. Expensive-looking framed art and modern sculptures plastered the walls and tables around me. I thought back to our living room—the well-worn gingham couch and old laptop where we watched Hulu. Maybe this was a mistake.
As I turned to go, French doors I hadn’t noticed opened off to the side, and sounds of young voices cascaded out in a rush.
“Hey! Home School!” Tyler called to me, barely recognizable with only swim shorts on and a drink in his hand. He sounded boisterous, in his element. Whispering something, a couple of girls giggled, glancing in my direction.
Oh. I smiled weakly, noting their perfectly made-up faces and neon-colored bikinis. Their see-through lacy cover-ups that were more lingerie than pool-worthy. And heels. Goodness. They were wearing heels. Apparently “swimming with friends” was code for “Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show next to a pool.”
“Did you even wear a suit under that potato sack?” one of the girls muttered in my direction.
Ignoring them, I looked around for Tyler. He was over by a wall, pushing buttons on a remote and garnering oohs and aahs over the pool lights changing. His eyes lit up as he chatted with several girls. What happened to him heading in my direction? I guess he’d lost interest. The snooty girls walked past me with more whispering.
This was definitely a mistake.
I walked back through the beautiful cream furniture and impressive paintings out to the elevator again and pressed the button. Trying not to cry, I jabbed at it again and again. Why is this so hard? Why do people make it so difficult? It was like trying to grab a moving train from a standstill. Everyone had been accelerating their whole lives, while I’d been stuck on a platform, waiting. And could I come on now?
Not likely. Not truly. I could pretend I was the same, but I’d never—
“Zoe! Wait!”
The elevator opened just as I heard the voice. He knows my name?! That was an improvement, right?! I was starting to cringe at “Home School,” just waiting for it to become “Homie” and then “Ho.” Not the most desirable of nickname progressions.
Tyler rushed to me, shirtless, trunks dripping water on the tile floor. He was skinnier than he’d looked before.
“Look. Don’t go, okay? I don’t know what those girls said to you, but . . .” He lifted my chin a tad so I was looking at him. “Just don’t go yet, okay?”
For the first time I didn’t swoon at the slightest attention, despite his touch and half-nakedness. But then he widened his hand and slid it to my cheek, slowly stroking along my jaw before pulling back. Goose bumps poked up on every surface of my body in an instant, and I laughed quietly. Was he going to kiss me? Would this be my first kiss?
But he only grinned. “Should we try again?” He held the apartment door open and ushered me inside.
Once Upon Now Page 4
