by Anne Dayton
I reach for my third breadstick. These things are so addictive and so free. We’re going to need some more.
“I mean, look at Zoe and Marcus,” Riley says, pointing at me. “That took a long time to develop. It wasn’t like they rushed into anything, and now look how happy they are together.”
Ana’s face goes pale, and tears begin to well up in her eyes.
“Really happy.” I shove the breadstick into my mouth.
“Any guy would be lucky to have you,” Christine says quickly, adding a halo above the drawing of Ana. “It’s just that . . .” She trails off as tears begin to spill out of Ana’s eyes.
“It’s just that—” Riley picks up Christine’s thought. “Are you sure you’re ready for this? Are you really over Dave?”
“I’m over him,” she says quietly, but I know better than to believe her. I reach out and lay my hand on Ana’s back. She’s breathing deeply, trying to get her emotions under control.
“It took you by surprise, didn’t it?” Riley asks, almost under her breath.
Ana doesn’t respond, but then, slowly, she nods. “I never really thought we’d break up, you know?” Her voice comes out a little squeaky.
“I know,” Riley murmurs.
“I knew we’d been fighting, but I thought we’d get past it.” She takes a sip of water. “It really never occurred to me that it might end.”
I tear a breadstick in half. It sounds kind of stupid. I mean, we’re only sixteen. We’re way too young to be settling down for the rest of our lives. But at the same time, I kind of understand what she means. When you’re with someone for a long time, it’s hard to imagine not being with them. It seems like you’ll go on forever, the same as always, because that’s the way it’s always been.
“We’re with you. It hurts, but we’ll be here until it gets better.” I hand her my napkin, and she swipes it under her nose. “We’ll help you through this.”
“Plus, we’ll go to Dave’s house and beat him up if you want,” Christine says.
Ana laughs so hard that she seems in danger of snorting. “Thank you,” she says, wiping the napkin across her face. She takes a few breaths, keeping her eyes on her plate. “I’m sorry. Here I am freaking out when Zoe’s parents are breaking up.” She shakes her head. “Plus, Tom is halfway across the state and . . . and Tyler is being all . . . whatever. At least you have Marcus,” she says to me, biting her lip.
“Yeah.” I try to smile. “Thank God for that.”
25
The bell rings, and Mrs. Narveson is already standing behind her podium.
“THEME!” she yells. The thing about her class is, if you’re not ready the moment class begins, you’ll fall behind. “Westward expansion led to the growth of the new nation and allowed for the spread of slavery.” Despite her craziness, Mrs. Narveson is actually surprisingly logical and methodical, and she always lays out the argument she’s going to make at the beginning of a lecture, just like she wants us to do in our papers.
By the time I have the theme copied down, she’s already explaining how the balance of free states and slave states was carefully maintained as new territories entered the union. I hear furious scratching beside me, but somehow I doubt Dean is working so hard to capture every word Mrs. Narveson is saying. I’ve never seen him take notes in this class. I wonder what he’s working on.
It’s the last week of school before Christmas break, and I’m like a zombie. I work Tuesday and Thursday nights, plus Saturday mornings, and I’m almost getting the hang of things. Somehow, so far I’m managing everything: school, band, work, the Miracle Girls, the fight to save Ms. Moore, the fight to save my family. And Marcus. He’s been so understanding.
I’ve filled half a page with notes and two full pages with doodles by the time Mrs. Narveson declares her lecture finished and assigns us tonight’s reading.
“Oh, and before I forget!” She walks over to her desk on the side of the room and picks up a stack of manila folders. “I hold your futures in my hands.”
The hair on my arms rises. Ooh, this must be our next big project. I smile at Dean, but he’s writing something on his sneaker.
“The winds of change are blowing through our classroom.” Mrs. Narveson pretends she’s trudging through high winds to get back to her podium. “All that you know will soon be taken from you, and you must start life all over again.” She shuffles the folders at the front of the classroom. “SURVIVAL!” she booms, then turns and writes it on the chalkboard in her signature all-caps. “This is what it means to be American!”
Okay, survival, winds of change . . . what could it be? Maybe we have to pretend we’re pioneers on the frontier and survive in the wilderness next semester? No, there are too many liabilities with that. Winds of change? What if it’s a Dust Bowl project? Something to do with alternate energy sources? Like windmills? Well, no matter what it is, I’m sure we’ll get an A.
“The first big change is you must leave your family behind and form new bonds in the New World.” She wiggles her eyebrows at us. Leave our families? “That’s right: new partners. You can never get too comfortable in America.”
My heart starts slamming in my chest. New partners? Granted, my partner and I haven’t worked together since October, but I was just getting up the courage to patch things up with him. It was all just a misunderstanding, and we can work through it. With all the change going on in my life, the last thing I need is a new partner.
“We’re going to do alphabetical order . . .” My heart sinks farther. No matter what she chooses, first or last name, we won’t be together. “By the fourth letter of your last names, just to keep things interesting.” I list the letters quickly in my head. R and C. Shoot! I have zero luck.
Mrs. Narveson reads down the list slowly. Christine gets paired with Jake, a soccer player who is the shortest guy in the whole junior class. After Kayleen, I’m sure she’s ecstatic to get a new partner. At least someone is, I guess. I get partnered with this Goth girl named Courtney who we’ve been going to school with since the dawn of time, but I don’t really know.
“Dean, you’ll be with Kayleen,” Mrs. Narveson says.
From my vantage point, I can see Kayleen’s face light up, and I bite my lip. It’s not that I care, really. It’s no big deal. But he was really smart and we did get an A. I just want . . . I glance at Courtney in the back corner. She has her head down on her desk, and her pants are fifteen sizes too big for her. I only want to do well in this class, and someone like Kayleen doesn’t deserve Dean—sorry, a partner like Dean.
Mrs. Narveson takes the chalk and scratches out CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY on the board.
“Brother against brother, old teammate against old teammate.” She smiles like it gives her great pleasure to see us so uncomfortable. “For your first project next semester, we’re going to look at the Industrial Revolution.” She grabs a stack of folders from her podium and then begins to weave her way through the classroom, passing them out. “You and you partner are forming a labor union to protect your fellow workers in a factory. I’ve assigned each team to a different industry, and you’re going to have to make some tough choices about which causes to support and what to neglect for the greater good.”
She drops a folder on my desk with my name at the top. I peek inside and find a huge stack of information on the assignment. It seems that Courtney and I work at a shirtwaist factory, whatever that is, in New York.
“Smart teams would get started on this over winter break.” Mrs. Narveson wiggles her eyebrows as we groan in unison. “You’re going to have to make your case to the fat-cat factory owners, and I am the sole member of—”
The third period bells rings over Mrs. Narveson’s voice, and she stops midsentence. She’s like a faucet that goes on and off at the sound of the bell. I yawn. How on earth am I going to make it through three more periods?
“Got to run, Red. Forgot something in my car.” Christine grabs her bag and waves over her shoulder as she dashes out of class
.
I wave lazily, then stand up from my desk slowly and stretch. Dean is kneeling down next to my feet, looking for something in the front pocket of his messenger bag.
“Looks like you’re going to miss me a lot next semester.” I motion at Kayleen’s back with my head so he gets what I mean.
“I doubt it.” Dean shoves his textbook into his bag and slings it over his shoulder. He shrugs at me and waltzes out of the classroom as I stand there with my mouth gaping open. Obviously I was kidding. He didn’t have to be so mean about it.
I shove my things into my bag, grab my stupid pencil, and trudge to the door. What an annoying jerk. He acts like we don’t even know each other.
“Zoe!” Marcus flies around the corner the moment I step out of the room.
“Ah!” I jump.
“I have something to tell you.” On the t in tell, Marcus launches a tiny spit bubble my way and it lands on my cheek. I wipe it off as something catches my eye.
“It’s about Ms. Moore.” He tries to catch his breath. He must have run all the way over here.
Dean slams his locker and wraps some girl in a hug. Air whooshes out of my lungs. She’s some rocker chick. I put my hand against the rough stucco wall to steady myself.
Marcus steps toward me. “You okay?”
“Huh?” I focus back on Marcus, who is crestfallen. “I’m sorry. What were you saying? About Ms. Moore?”
This is good, what I wanted, after all. I wanted him to leave me alone.
Marcus follows my gaze across the hall, and we both stare at Dean making out with the girl for a moment. She’s really very short.
I roll my eyes. “I can’t believe they’re making out in the hallway. How gross can you be, right?” I touch Marcus’s hand and he turns back to me, but he has a funny look on his face.
“You didn’t call me back last night.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I sigh and will my eyes to stay glued on Marcus. But in my periphery, I can see that Dean and that girl have not come up for air. “I didn’t even walk in the door until eleven.”
Marcus glances behind him again. “Is that your history partner?” He looks from Dean to me, then back at Dean. Something in his eyes looks sad.
“Was.” I shrug. “He was my history partner, but we just got assigned new partners for next semester. I got Courtney.”
Marcus turns back to me. “Really?” I nod. Finally Dean and the girl pull apart. That was one for the books. Her lipstick is smeared, and he wipes it off with his thumb. They walk away holding hands. “It’s good that he’s finally made some friends.”
“Yeah, good for him.” Some friend. Maybe he was inspecting her tonsils with his tongue. Friends do that I guess. “Now what were you saying about Ms. Moore?”
Marcus smiles at me and holds out his hand. “Let me walk you to class.”
I take his palm and try to ignore that it’s slick with sweat. We head in the general direction of our fourth period classes.
“The district council voted last night.” We weave through the crowds, dodging small clusters of people. “It was four to three in favor of reinstating Ms. Moore, pending the lawsuit. Isn’t that great? That’s why I ran all the way over here.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means if she wins, she gets to come back!”
26
The jingle bells over El Bueno Burrito’s door ring out as our second customer in six hours leaves. The tip jar contains thirty-four cents. I was so bored I counted.
“Zoe, let’s talk about how you can up your game.” Gus takes a step toward the register and mans my normal post.
“Um, okay.” I stop scraping crusty cheese off the counter. “Feliz Navidad” has been playing on endless repeat for weeks, and the tacky paper holiday decorations taped all over the window are starting to curl around the edges. It’s totally dead in here, and Gus is hovering. He’s a nice enough guy, but it’s better when he’s busy—when he’s bored, he drives me bonkers.
“We want the customers to feel like this is their hangout, their . . . home away from home, if you will.”
I try not to laugh. It’s the week before Christmas, and no one wants to eat burritos. They’re all at their real homes, gathered around the fireplace with their perfect families, not here, ordering fake Mexican food.
“I want you to try making small talk with them when they come in.” Gus presses a few buttons, making the register drawer slide open. “Say, ‘Happy Holidays. Did you get all your shopping done?’ ”
Ryan, the lanky guy who was working the register the day I applied, has been promoted to fry cook, but he hasn’t had to grill anything for the past hour. Once Gus came out of the back, though, Ryan began to frantically clean his station. He’s been rubbing a dirty rag over the cooktop for thirty minutes.
“And don’t forget to smile, Zoe.” Gus stares at me. I take a deep breath and then try to give a very convincing smile.
“That’s better. And it’s really important with regulars to learn their order.” Gus rifles through the bins on the shelves under the register and finds a little notepad. “Write it down, and then say it to yourself a few times. Starbucks invented this trick, and I think we know how that worked out for them.” Gus nudges me with his elbow.
The jingle bells chime, and I move to try to reclaim the register.
“Okay,” Gus whispers as he steps aside. “Let’s practice what we’ve learned.”
Here goes happy. I look up and try to make eye contact with our customer—then freeze. My stomach drops. No, no, not now. Any time but right now, with my manager watching, when I’m wearing this stupid red and gold visor.
Dean strolls inside, clutching a yellow plastic bag in his hand. He’s got a knit wool cap pulled down over his dark hair, and his cheeks are flushed from the cold.
“Zoe?” His face widens into a smile, and my cheeks burst into flames. I’m probably literally on fire.
I look down at my stained El Bueno Burrito apron. Even the smiling sun embroidered on it looks tacky and embarrassing. I feel Gus nudge me with his elbow. Right, the friendliness routine.
“Hi, welcome to El Bueno Burrito,” I say, faking a chipper tone. What would Riley do in a situation like this? I try to picture her face. I think she’d lift her chin up and pretend it didn’t bother her. But I’m wearing nasty old jeans and a T-shirt that smells like refried beans, and my face is greasy from the heat of the kitchen. “How’s your holiday shopping going?”
“I didn’t know you worked here.” Dean’s face is bewildered, but then he seems to notice the tall man hovering behind me. “Oh, um, the shopping is going well. Thanks for asking.” He steps up to the register, and I try to keep my chin up and smile as if I’m happy to see him. He gives me that smug look that always unnerves me. It’s like he knows how attractive he is, like he can see the butterflies zooming around in my stomach.
“Oh,” says Gus, stepping forward. “You’re one of Zoe’s amigos, eh?”
Dean’s eyes dance in delight, and I pray that the floor opens up and swallows me whole. “Yes, sir.”
Gus pats my shoulder. “She’s the best. I’m so glad you stopped by to see her.”
“I was hungry.” He tilts his head back and stares up at the plastic menu board above the register. “But seeing Zoe is a bonus.”
“Well, I’ll leave the shop in your capable hands.” Gus sighs, his ultimate friendliness fantasies having played out in front of his very eyes. He walks toward the back and stops as he passes Ryan. “I think that stove top is clean now. Why don’t you come with me, and we’ll check out the walk-in freezer together.”
Ryan’s shoulders sink, and he follows Gus to the back.
“What’s good here?” Dean lays the yellow bag down on the counter and studies the sign. It’s been so long since we had a normal, friendly conversation that my mouth feels like it won’t work. I swallow hard and give it a try.
“It’s pretty hard to mess up nachos.” I recognize the bag from the Mu
sic Hut, the little music store down on Main Street. “That’s about the only thing I would trust.”
“Can I get a Baja Burrito?”
“Living on the edge, I see.” I punch a few buttons on the register, but end up hitting the one for the Antojito Burrito and have to start over. I’m getting pretty good at this thing, but I can’t seem to get the buttons to work right all of a sudden. “That’ll be $7.50.”
Dean digs into his back pocket and pulls out a black leather wallet. He flips it open, and I catch a glimpse of a faded photo tucked into the billfold. It looks like Dean, but the guy in the photo has sharper angles in his face and lighter hair. He pulls out a ten-dollar bill and lays it on the counter.
“Ryan!” I call as I push the right buttons to open the register. I slide the bill into the correct slot, face up, and pick out the change. I hold it out, and Dean takes it carefully from my hand. His fingers are warm and rough.
I walk around the edge of the counter and peer into the back to see if I catch sight of Ryan or Gus. All is silent. Poor Ryan. Gus is probably making him restock and reorganize the walk-in, everyone’s least favorite job. There should be a law about forcing teenagers to freeze for several hours, but of course there isn’t.
I look from the walk-in, back to Dean. Well, I have no choice, do I?
“Be right back.” I roll my eyes and walk to the kitchen, which is separated from the front by a small counter. Okay, I know how to do this. There’s some chicken Ryan cooked earlier. It only looks a little dried out. A scoop of thick refried beans. A spoonful of guacamole, and some sour cream. Lettuce and tomato. I roll it all up. It doesn’t look as neat as when Ryan does it, but it should work. It isn’t until I’ve wrapped the whole thing in a sheet of foil that I realize I forgot the cheese. Well, hopefully Dean’s not picky. I can hear him drumming on the counter as I round the corner back into the main room. I reach under the counter and pull out a paper bag and begin to shove the burrito inside.
“Hey, I never said that was to go.”
