It's Kind of a Cheesy Love Story

by Lauren Morrill

  “Whatever.” He shrugs, then nods at the keypad on the wall. “You gonna punch out, or are you trying to commune with the time clock?”

  “Uh,” I say, and I feel my cheeks turning red. Why is this guy being a dick, and why am I all flustered? I shake my head, trying to steady my brain, and end up just stepping aside. “Go right ahead.”

  He looks at me like I’m the two-headed cow at the state fair, then leans in close to the keypad. I feel his presence near me like an alarm. He smells like pizza and gasoline and something else that I can’t quite name. I feel warm standing this close to him, and I’m not sure if it’s the close quarters and the cooling-down ovens outside, or if it’s something else.

  He punches four numbers, the thing beeps, and then he leaves without a word or a second look. I lean in to look at the screen before the text disappears. TRISTAN PORTER, it reads, then the time. The name sounds sort of familiar. I think he goes to Brook Park, but isn’t in my grade. He must be a senior. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before, though. I mean, I think I would have noticed him. He’s a dick, but he’s sort of cute. Although I didn’t notice him at all tonight, and he apparently works here.

  “Did you forget how it works?” Julianne asks, appearing in the open door, her hat in her hands.

  “Oh, uh, no. Just waiting my turn,” I say, suddenly worried I’m disappointing her by forgetting my training. “Tristan was just here.”

  “He actually showed his face?” She leans past me and punches the clock like a reflex. “Dude’s like Loch Ness. Every night he slips in and out the back door. I think it’s his mission to complete an entire shift without ever speaking to anyone. He may not even talk to the people he delivers to.”

  Ah, so he’s the pizza delivery guy. “Does he go to Brook Park?”

  “Yeah. He’s a senior. Though I think he might do co-op or something? I never see him.”

  “Seems like a theme.”

  “Yeah, he’s not much of a joiner,” Julianne says, then she fixes me with a glare. “Not that I blame him.”

  There’s no mistaking the implication. I’m to blame for what happened to her. Or at least I represent the problem. I’ve seen her sitting alone in the cafeteria or drifting silently through the halls, hiding behind a curtain of hair, and I’ve never reached out, never done anything about it. I don’t know what to say. I’ve never been mean to her. Not on purpose. But I’ve also never gone out of my way to be nice to her. I’ve certainly never defended her. And I’ve probably laughed at a joke Colin or Tamsin made about her.

  But none of that would matter if I said it out loud. I’d still be me with my lunch table, and Julianne would still be at hers.

  “Yeah” is all I can think to say, and she huffs out this breath that sounds like rolled eyes look. Just total disgust. But she doesn’t say anything else, either.

  Suddenly my exhaustion drapes over me like a flannel blanket. I want to go home.

  “See you Friday,” I say, because my feet won’t let me move without saying something.

  “Sure,” she replies.

  It’s not until I’m halfway home that I realize I forgot to actually clock out.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  I spend the rest of the week at school thinking that I smell garlic—and that it’s coming from me. I can’t tell if it’s in my hair or if I’m having a stroke, and I can’t tell which option is preferable. When I get to the cafeteria on Friday and see pizza sitting on the hot lunch line, my stomach turns. Sure, Brook Park High’s pizza is rectangular and the pepperoni looks like little rabbit pellets that are more like jerky than actual pepperoni, so the whole thing bears almost no resemblance to the food I sling at Hot ’N Crusty. But still. At this point, pizza is pizza, and I don’t want anything else to do with pizza unless there’s a paycheck involved.

  Unfortunately, I was so exhausted from my shift last night that I opted for the extra three slaps on the snooze button and didn’t get the chance to pack my lunch. With no other option, I quickly head to the salad bar, where I hide a sad pile of iceberg lettuce beneath a mountain of croutons and shredded cheese, then smother the whole monstrosity in honey mustard dressing.

  As I make my way through the crowd with my tray, I spot Julianne sitting at a round table in the far corner of the cafeteria. I can barely see her face, since she’s staring down at an enormous hardcover book on the table in front of her, her thick, dark hair cascading down around her shoulders and hiding her face like a frizzy curtain. There’s only one other person at her table, a guy wearing an Apex Galaxy T-shirt who’s passed out on an open binder, the notebook paper speckled with drool. I quickly look away before Julianne can look up and notice me. I don’t know why, and I feel sort of gross about it.

  When I get to my usual table, Natalie is the only one there, so I take the seat right next to her.

  “What’s that?” Natalie asks, eyeing my plate.

  “Salad.” I poke at it with my fork.

  “Only if we’re drastically expanding that definition,” she replies.

  “Which do you think your mom would say has more nutritional value, my plate of croutons and dressing, or the cafeteria pizza?”

  “I think the mere prospect of choosing between those two would cause her brain to short-circuit. She’d need to consume, like, three green juices and some cauliflower rice just to get it working again.”

  And then Eli and Colin show up, both with plates stacked high with rectangles of pizza slathered in ranch dressing. When Eli drops his plate onto the table, a glob of ranch plops down onto the faux-wood linoleum top. He reaches down with his finger, swipes it up, and sends that finger directly to his mouth. I grimace.

  “I take it back,” Natalie says as she wrinkles her nose in their direction. She gestures to their plates with her fork. “That right there would cause her to keel over dead on the spot. Frankly, looking at it is enough to clog my arteries.”

  “Don’t knock it till you try it,” Colin says, lifting a dripping piece of pizza to his mouth and taking an enormous bite.

  “Hard pass,” Natalie replies, her mouth turning down into a frown, one I’m pretty sure I mirror.

  I’m watching in horror as Eli folds a piece of pizza in half so that it acts as a trough for the river of ranch dressing when a familiar figure catches my eye over his shoulder. It’s Tristan. He’s wearing the same denim jacket, his hair full of flyaways from what looks like a very recent nap. He’s holding a carton of milk and a bag of chips. As if he can feel my gaze, he glances up in my direction. Caught staring, I raise my hand in a little half wave, but he either doesn’t see me or he doesn’t want to, because he turns away and heads straight for the back door of the cafeteria. It’ll take him into the back corridor by the auxiliary gym, and eventually dump him out by the band room and the football field. We’re not supposed to leave campus for lunch (or anytime during school hours without a pass), but it looks like he either doesn’t know that rule or, more likely, doesn’t care about it. I watch him disappear through the door, wondering where he could be going. And wondering if he’s going alone. And feeling weird that I’m wondering about him at all.

  “Who were you waving at?” Tamsin asks as she drops her lunch bag on the table on the other side of Natalie. Because of course Tamsin saw.

  “No one,” I reply. I reach up above my head and rotate my arm for show. “I slept funny last night. Just stretching.”

  Her eyebrows shoot up into her hairline, but she lets it fly. She’s got more pressing gossip.

  “Did you hear about Mackenzie Morales’s car?” she asks no one in particular.

  Colin clutches his chest, a comically stricken look on his face. “Oh no. Not the Audi!”

  Tamsin nods deliciously. “Yup. She was apparently trying to film Carpool Karaoke when she rear-ended a UPS truck. They had to call a tow truck to yank it out from under the bumper!”

  “Is she okay?” Cora asks.

  “Oh, she’s fine,” Tamsin says, waving away the w
orry. “She’s milking a bruise on her cheek from the airbags, but I think she’s just glad it distracts from the epic hickey Miles Jensen gave her.”

  “Rest in peace, you sexy little sports car,” Colin mutters, wiping away imaginary tears.

  Tamsin tosses a piece of her ciabatta at him, where it bounces off his forehead and into a puddle of ranch dressing. “You know her dad will have her in a fresh new ride by tomorrow.”

  “A ride which you can observe from afar, because you ain’t never getting in the passenger seat of Mackenzie Morales’s car,” Eli says.

  “Speaking of rides, who am I picking up tonight?” Tamsin asks the table.

  “Me,” Cora says, and Natalie adds, “Me too.” It’s when Mac raises his hand for a ride that my heart plummets into my faux Frye boots. Because you know who doesn’t need a ride, smashed into the back seat of Tamsin’s Range Rover with Mac?

  “Beck?” Tamsin asks.

  I shake my head. “I have to work.”

  “What? No!” Natalie cries, like I’m shipping off to war. Fridays are usually our main hang. During the fall, we go to the game, then out for dinner, then usually off to the Dairy Barn for dessert until it gets too cold to tolerate standing in a parking lot eating ice cream. Then we all crash at Tamsin’s for a slumber party, which my mom approves of because it hasn’t yet occurred to her that Colin being Tamsin’s twin brother means that the guys are also having a slumber party, and we all just generally end up crashed out on whatever leather couch or easy chair we land in when the DVD starts. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t planning for the night when I wind up spontaneously sprawled out on a couch with Mac. Maybe I’d be the little spoon. Maybe he’d kiss the back of my neck, his arms wrapping around me to pull me in close. Maybe I’d turn my head … You know, if I ever manage to work up the kind of courage it would require to implement a plan like that.

  “Sorry, guys, I’m on the schedule for every Friday and every other Saturday from now … well, until kingdom come, I guess.”

  “Are you serious? That sucks,” Cora says.

  I shrug, because the truth is, I’m not totally heartbroken. I mean, yeah, I’d much rather hang out with my friends than work at HnC, but football is really not my favorite thing. The game is interminable, and now that the fall weather is starting to settle in, it’ll be freezing cold up in the stands once the sun goes down. Sitting on frozen concrete for three hours listening to the pep band play the Star Wars “Imperial March” every time there’s a first down (which is the only way I know there is a first down, because I’m still unclear on what a first down even is) is not my idea of a fun Friday evening. Even with Mac there.

  Besides, I can still meet up with everyone for the fun stuff after my shift is over. My dream of falling asleep on the expansive leather sectional in Tamsin and Colin’s basement, my head on Mac’s shoulder, is still within reach. My body lights up like a pinball machine at the thought of his warm, heavy body pressed against mine.

  “So what’s it like there, anyway?” Tamsin asks, leaning forward on her elbows. “Is it terrible?”

  “It’s, you know, work. It smells like pizza, and I have to talk to a lot of strangers, but it’s really nothing special.”

  “Is everyone nice?” Natalie asks.

  “Yeah. That kid you guys were talking about, Frank, works there. He’s nice,” I say to Colin and Eli. “And these two other guys, Jason and Greg, bus tables. I think Greg is in our grade?”

  “Oh yeah, Greg, uh—” Mac snaps his fingers, trying to pull the last name from the recesses of his memory. “Wooten? Greg Wooten? That sounds right. He’s in my AP US class. He seems cool. Sort of mumbly and sarcastic, but cool.”

  Yeah, that sounds like Greg.

  “Please tell me you’re not the only girl,” Tamsin says, and I gulp, because I was kind of hoping not to mention it. But why not? Hiding Julianne’s existence would probably make me as bad as the people who make fun of her, like I’m admitting she’s someone I’m ashamed to be around. Maybe this could be some kind of atonement. Maybe it’ll make her not hate me.

  “Julianne Scarborough works there, too.”

  “No,” Tamsin says, gasping all dramatic-like. “She’s so weird! I remember in seventh grade she was, like, obsessed with our social studies unit on the Salem witch trials. Seriously, obsessed.” She doesn’t even bother to keep her voice down. Julianne is clear across the cafeteria, so there’s no danger that she’d overhear, but other people could. It could get back to her. If anyone talked to her.

  “She’s actually nice,” I say, but even I can hear my voice coming out at only half strength. Nice backbone, Beck. And okay, she wasn’t exactly nice to me, but she was nice to all the customers. And to the guys.

  “I didn’t say she was mean. Just that she was weird,” Tamsin says with a shrug, like that makes it better. Like weird doesn’t come with its own mountain of baggage. I don’t even know what to say to that, so instead I stab at my honey mustard croutons and hope this conversation ends as quickly as it started.

  The rest of the lunch period passes with way too much talk about baseball from the guys and some in-depth discussions about exfoliation (namely, chemical versus physical, or, Cora’s treatise on why the St. Ives Apricot Scrub is murder for your skin). I may not be very into makeup, but skin care is my jam. It’s the one time I feel like I can full-on girl-out with Tamsin and Cora and Natalie, who—bless them—spend a lot of time talking about primping, and even more time doing it.

  The thing is, my friends are really pretty. All of them, even the boys. They could easily be TV teenagers, played by twenty-somethings, only they’re not movie-magicked into perfect skin and shiny hair. They’ve just got it. It’s like they took the express train to Puberty Town, skipping all the stops at Awkward Alley and Acne Valley along the way. The boys all have a relaxed, bordering on lazy, loose-yet-muscled look of high school athletes, and with the attitude to match. I suspect it’s because baseball involves an awful lot of standing around (though I would never say that to their faces, because they are very defensive about the slowness of their chosen sport). My friends are all absolutely gorgeous, and I can never tell if their good looks have rubbed off on me or if I just look majorly out of place.

  Because my parents started me in school right at the birthday cutoff, I’m almost a year younger than everyone else in my grade. I feel flat-chested and knobby-kneed and very Ramona Quimby around them. But hope springs eternal, as my mom always says, so I choose to believe that I can be pretty by association. Or at least not an awkward baby, which is how I feel 99 percent of the time and is 100 percent why I keep my crush on Mac a government-clearance-level secret. I’m terrified he thinks of me as someone’s little sister, because that’s what I know I look like.

  Lunch ends, and on the way out of the cafeteria, we drop our trash and separate back to our respective classes. Natalie and I have English together, but everyone else is headed to the science wing in the opposite direction.

  I’m halfway out the door when an arm reaches over my shoulder, holding it open for me. I glance up over my shoulder and see Mac smiling down at me, his bicep flexing right in my eye line. I feel like someone lit a sparkler where my heart should be.

  “We’ll miss you at the game tonight,” he says with that smile that causes my insides to liquefy.

  “Yeah, um, it’s a, uh, real bummer,” I sputter. God, it’s like I’m grabbing words blind out of a paper bag. My heart is pounding somewhere around my throat, like the sound is trying to escape out of my mouth. I’m three seconds from completely short-circuiting. Get ahold of yourself! “I’ll try to meet up with you guys after my shift.”

  “Cool! Glad to hear it,” he says, and then he’s off, headed toward Ms. Worthington’s bio class, not that I know his schedule by heart (except that I totally do).

  I have got to learn to be a normal human girl sometime between now and tonight.

  Unfortunately, Ms. Williams has plans for the rest of the period that don
’t involve me strategizing how to avoid acting like a total dork in front of Mac MacArthur.

  “As you know, junior year is all about the college search, so that when you get to senior year, you’ll be all ready to apply,” Ms. Williams begins. She’s perched on the edge of her desk, leaning back on her hands with her ankles crossed out in front of her in that “I’m not a regular teacher, I’m a cool teacher” pose she does. And to be fair, Ms. Williams is a pretty cool teacher, it’s just that sometimes her attempts to convince us of that are laughably transparent. But we let it slide, because she let us read The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks instead of The Scarlet Letter. “To that end, we’ll be spending the fall semester working on exercises to help you write your admissions essay as well as how to narrow down your choices and formulate your plan when it comes to potential colleges and universities.”

  Brook Park High is obsessed with college. As a typical upper-middle-class suburban school, we start talking about college choices in freshman year. Everything is about preparation, first for the PSATs, then the SATs (which some ultradedicated people take as sophomores, which my dad thinks is not only insane but a waste of money). By senior year, everyone is submitting applications and chewing their fingernails off waiting to hear back. The end of senior year is a parade of precollege celebration, from printing all our scholarship offers and college choices in the local paper to announcing our college plans as we cross the stage at graduation. The term gap year is not something that has ever crossed the lips of a student here. Sure, there are people in every class who don’t go to college, but unless they’ve enlisted in the military, everyone sort of acts like they don’t exist.

  “I want to start today with some small group dialogues to help you begin talking about your college plans,” Ms. Williams says, and then she counts us off into small groups. The next minute or so is spent scraping desks across the linoleum floor as we all get into little pods, prepared to discuss the questions Ms. Williams is currently passing out to the class.