It's Kind of a Cheesy Love Story

by Lauren Morrill

  He pulls out his phone and taps at the screen a few times before slipping it around to show me. It’s a SocialSquare page. His SocialSquare page, for his burgeoning business. It’s called Wreck & Salvage Designs. I guess that’s why I couldn’t find him when I searched his name. Because his focus is here.

  “I thought you said you don’t do social media,” I say.

  “Not socially,” he replies. “This is for work.”

  He doesn’t hand me the phone to scroll, so I can only get a quick glance of the first few photos on the feed. I see a coffee table and a bookcase, and an elaborate picture frame that looks like it was made with vintage wood. Is that a thing?

  “These look really good,” I say.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re seriously not going to college? Not even community college?”

  He shrugs. “Why would I?”

  “I don’t know. A business major could be valuable if you want to start your own business.”

  “I’ve been working with my dad, and he’s owned his own business for twenty years. Anything else I need to know I just look up online or head to the library. And I already have started my business. It seems dumb to waste all that money and four years of time when I can go ahead and get started doing what I want to do.”

  “But, I mean, aren’t you worried about missing out on that experience?”

  “No.”

  “Seriously?”

  “No. College isn’t something I need or want. I’m not going to do it just because it’s what everyone does. It’s not thirteenth grade, Beck.”

  That stings a little bit. Maybe it’s because he’s so sure of what he wants to do, and here I am playing college counselor when I’ve got no idea what my future holds. All I’ve been concentrating on is leaving Brook Park. Beyond that, I have no idea. When I binge Law & Order with my mom, I think maybe I could be a lawyer. And when I watch The West Wing with my dad, I think maybe I can do political stuff. And sometimes, during epic Apex Galaxy binges, I think maybe I’d want to actually work on a show like that. Write or direct or something. There’s just so much out there. I always figured college was the place where I’d sift through and discover where I belong. Both my parents are teachers, so that’s probably in my blood, at least. But, honestly, I just want to be a college student who doesn’t live here. Because once I’m out of Brook Park, the probability of someone calling me the bathroom baby or trying to get a selfie with me or hurling a pizza pun my way will plummet exponentially.

  And yet I still can’t help but feel like it’s my job to convince him that he’s making the wrong choice. Me, who has no plans for the future, trying to change the plans of the guy who knows exactly what he wants to do. Who’s already doing it.

  “Okay, but if you’re so ready to start your business, why don’t you go ahead and do that? It’s not like you need biology or geography or literature to build beautiful furniture. Why not just drop out?”

  “I promised my mom I’d finish high school,” he says.

  Oh.

  “See? The dead-mom card usually ends all conversations you don’t want to have.”

  “Yeah, that’ll do it,” I tell him. “I can’t imagine my parents’ reactions if I told them I wasn’t going to college.”

  “I think if they saw that you had another path, one that truly made you happy, they’d be pretty jazzed to help you get there. And glad that you saved them tens of thousands of dollars.”

  “Oh, my parents don’t have tens of thousands of dollars. Wherever I end up, it’s going to be a place that offers me a hefty helping of financial aid.”

  “I thought you were one of those Legacy Park Princesses,” he says. I try not to feel stung by the accusation. I know he thinks I must be spoiled rotten after seeing me with Mac and Tamsin. The Range Rovers and the designer bags and the ski trips. Unfortunately, none of that stuff rubs off. Still, I try to brush it off. I don’t want to start a thing with him.

  “Uh, excuse me, I’m the Pizza Princess, and don’t you forget it.”

  He bows deeply. “My apologies, Your Majesty.”

  “That’s more like it.”

  His phone buzzes, and he swipes away from SocialSquare to check his texts.

  “Damn, a delivery. Looks like a big one. You wanna help out?”

  “Do I get tips?”

  “Here’s a tip: Don’t step on that power strip, especially not with your hand so close to the band saw,” he says. I practically leap six feet in the air and bolt away from the table, Tristan doubled over with laughter.

  * * *

  Back at Hot ’N Crusty, I help Tristan load fifteen pizzas, a dozen salads, and several small boxes of garlic knots into the back of the bus. It’s enough to actually overpower the smell of gasoline that wafts ambiently through Cecilia at all times. It’s a powerful scent, one that not even a tub of movie theater popcorn could hide, but apparently a few hundred dollars’ worth of Hot ’N Crusty will do the trick.

  I don’t pay attention to the address Tristan punches into his phone’s GPS, but it doesn’t take long for me to realize where we’re headed. The stone and iron gates of Legacy Park welcome us, as does a guard in a little stone hut, who waves us in when he spots Cecilia.

  “Anton knows me by now,” Tristan says as the gates slide open and we cruise on through without stopping. “Perk of driving a distinctive car.”

  “I’m impressed by your connections,” I say. I add a laugh, but it’s completely forced. It feels weird to be cruising through Legacy Park in Cecilia like some kind of social Trojan horse.

  Tristan steers the bus onto the bigger neighborhood loop, then makes an immediate left. The sign for the Legacy Park town green greets us as we cruise past a tennis complex and the pool, now closed for fall. He finally comes to a stop in a parking spot in front of the pavilion, which is lit up with twinkle lights. It looks like some kind of party is happening. I scan the crowd quickly, but don’t see anyone I know.

  I climb out and help Tristan with the towers of pizzas, then follow him toward the pavilion. I can’t look to see if there’s anyone else I know, because the half-dozen pizza boxes in my arms block my view. But then I hear a voice I recognize from TV. “Don’t pay dealer fees!” It’s usually shouted as the very tan, very handsome Mr. MacArthur draws the crowds into MacArthur Toyota.

  “Tristan Porter! Good to see you, son,” Mr. MacArthur’s voice booms with authority. He takes a stack of pizza boxes from Tristan’s arms and sets them on a nearby picnic table.

  “Tristan! Oh my gosh, how long has it been?” Mac’s mom comes hustling over. As soon as Tristan is relieved of the pizzas, she pulls him into a hug. “How are you? How’s your dad?”

  “Good,” Tristan replies with a tight smile, looking more uncomfortable than I’ve ever seen him. “We’re both good.”

  “Mac, Tristan is here!” Mrs. MacArthur calls to her son, who emerges from the crowd. I spot Eli and Colin back there with Tamsin, but none of them makes a move to follow Mac, even though I think they can see me standing right there. Mac sort of ambles over, tripping over his own shoelace on the way.

  “Hey, man,” he says, offering his hand for one of those complicated handshake-slash-slap situations dudes do. Only Tristan just sort of nods at him, leaving Mac’s palm waving in the wind until he drops it to his side and turns to me, shifting back and forth on his sneakers. “Hey, Beck.”

  “Hi,” I say, the word coming out small and quiet.

  “So how’s school going? Are you ready for graduation? What are your college plans?” Mrs. MacArthur is one of those moms who just peppers people with questions, hoping eventually one of them will stick. And that last one makes me wince. I know how into college the MacArthurs are. Their entire basement looks like the University of Michigan barfed in there. Just yellow and blue everywhere. They go for homecoming every year and spend lord-knows-how-much money on a fancy tailgate. I’ve seen the photos framed above their wet bar. Mac and his brothers are all pretty much expected to fo
llow in their parents’ footsteps and move to Ann Arbor as soon as they graduate.

  Tristan’s got to know it, too, if he spent any amount of time there in elementary or middle school.

  “Uh, I’m actually—” Tristan fumbled.

  “He’s doing an apprenticeship,” I tell her. “In woodworking.”

  “Oh, well, that sounds interesting,” Mrs. MacArthur says, her eyes darting back and forth between Tristan and me, apparently his newly appointed spokesperson.

  Mr. MacArthur pulls out a wad of cash and passes it to Tristan. “Oh, you already paid for the pizzas,” Tristan tells him, looking at what appears to be several twenty-dollar bills in his hand.

  “That’s a tip, son,” Mr. MacArthur says with a wink.

  Tristan stares at the money, and for one brief, horrifying second I worry he’s going to drop it on the ground. Or simply refuse it. But he eventually folds it up and shoves it deep into his pocket.

  “Okay, well, we should probably get back. Lots of deliveries tonight,” I say, giving Mac and the MacArthurs a little wave.

  “Oh yes, we’re about to start our neighborhood association meeting; otherwise I’d ask you both to stay. I’m afraid it wouldn’t be very fun for you,” Mrs. MacArthur says.

  “Then why am I here again?” Mac mutters, and his father shoots him a stern look.

  “Don’t be a stranger, Tristan,” Mrs. MacArthur says. “We miss you around the house.”

  Mac looks stricken, while Tristan looks like he just swallowed a bug. So I put a merciful end to the awkwardness and give everyone a wave goodbye, then drag Tristan by the arm back to Cecilia.

  When we’re both back in our seats, Tristan lets out a long breath and grips the wheel.

  “So that was weird,” he says.

  “Tell me about it,” I reply. “Mrs. MacArthur is awfully chatty.”

  “No, I mean you. You were being weird.” He shifts Cecilia into gear and stomps on the gas. I jerk back against my seat.

  “No I wasn’t! I was trying to save you,” I say.

  “From what? A hundred-dollar tip and a hug? I don’t need saving.”

  “Well, it seemed like you did.” I lean back and cross my arms over my chest. “I just thought I was returning the favor. Sorry.”

  “But something is going on with your friends, right? I mean, you didn’t even say hi to them.”

  “They didn’t say hi to me, either.”

  “My point exactly.”

  I stare out the passenger side window as the brick and iron gates of Legacy Park roll past. I feel myself relax the farther we get from them. I even do Tristan’s unclench thingy. Soon we’re back out on the main road, and I feel calm again. “I guess things are kind of weird with them right now.”

  “Why? Still not over MacArthur?”

  “No!” I cry, and realize that for the first time that’s actually 100 percent true. I really don’t have any feelings for Mac anymore. I’m totally and completely over him. Hell, it would be easier if that was the problem. “I just … think maybe … we’re growing apart?” I feel a catch in my throat, like maybe I might cry. “I don’t know, we haven’t really talked about it.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “Why did you and Mac stop being friends?” I ask, eager to change the subject. “And don’t tell me to ask him. I’m asking you.”

  “Oh,” he says, the word whooshing out on a long breath. “Well, I guess because my mom died.”

  “Are you playing the dead-mom card again?”

  “No,” he says, and for a minute I think he’s not going to explain. I watch his knuckles turn white as he grips the steering wheel, worrying it in his hands. He presses the accelerator a little harder, Cecilia jumping forward on the empty, straight two-lane road. And then he begins to speak.

  “My mom was diagnosed right at the end of fifth grade. Breast cancer. Metastatic, which is bad, and they told us she wouldn’t live for very long. We all thought that would be our last summer with her, so I quit baseball and my dad put all his jobs on hold and my mom handed off all her listings, and we piled in this van and we just took off. Mom wanted to see things, and so we took these crazy road trips between treatments. We saw Graceland and the Alamo and the Saint Louis Arch. We even drove out to the Grand Canyon. And then the summer ended, and she was still doing okay. Not great. She was basically always between chemo treatments. She looked sick, but she was still her. But there was always this, I don’t know, threat? It was just hanging over our heads at all times. The breast cancer was definitely going to kill her, we just didn’t know when. And I was only ten, and terrified, like if I went back to baseball or spent too much time at Mac’s house, I’d miss something huge. Or I’d come home from practice and find her gone.”

  He’s quiet for a moment. I look over to see his lips pressed together in a firm line, and I realize he’s holding back tears. He blinks hard a few times, and lets out another long breath, seeming to have beat them back. I think he might have had a lot of practice at it.

  “So I stopped hanging out, and hell, we were just little. Like Mac knew what to do in that situation. I had no fucking clue, and it was my mom who was dying. So I guess we just grew apart. I started spending all my time at home, which is when I started working in the shed with my dad. My mom would pick a project, and we’d work on it, and it was almost like if I could keep presenting her with birdhouses or shadow boxes or a new end table, she would stay. She could keep fighting.” His voice shakes, and I know that he can’t hold back the tears anymore. But I do him the kindness of keeping my eyes forward. I let him cry in peace. “And then at the beginning of freshman year, she died. We thought she had pneumonia, but it turns out that the cancer had spread to her lungs and heart when we weren’t looking. It happened really fast. Four whole years of waiting, and then she was gone in one weekend.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, but the words feel hollow, and anyway I don’t think he even hears them. They barely rise above a whisper, because now I’m crying, too. I never even knew her, but I know him, and I know what she was to him. And so I cry.

  Tristan sniffles, wipes his nose with the back of his hand, and then grips the steering wheel again. He shakes his head and rolls his shoulders, the whole thing looking practiced, like a ritual that he completes to pull him away from the sadness. To close the door and say “enough now.” He’s unclenching.

  “Mac and the rest of the team came to the funeral. And afterward they asked me to come back to practice. I mean immediately afterward. Like, I’m standing there on the lawn of the fucking church wearing a suit my dad bought and a tie that made me feel like I was choking, and Mac was all ‘Hey, dude, you should come to practice on Monday. We miss you.’ And all I could think was fuck you. My mom just died, and you think that baseball practice is going to make me feel better?”

  “Did you say that?”

  “No. I just walked away and never looked back. I think at that point we’d all grown up and moved on, which, honestly, was fine with me.”

  “I don’t think it was fine,” I say.

  He’s silent for a moment. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “I don’t think it was his fault, though.”

  He glances over at me, his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “He was fourteen. What fourteen-year-old knows how to cope with that kind of grief? I sure as hell wouldn’t have known what to do. What to say.”

  “He was my best friend. He should have been there.”

  “Do you think you would have been?”

  He’s quiet.

  “It sucks that that happened. And maybe he could have done a better job. But maybe he did the best he could. Just like you were doing the best you could. I don’t think either of you were to blame. I think you were both trapped in an unimaginably terrible situation, and you were fourteen,” I say. “You should talk to him. It’s never too late.”

  We drive a whole block before he speaks again.

  “Maybe you should take your own
advice,” he says. And I don’t ask him what he means by that, because I don’t think I want to know. He was brave in telling me all that, but I’m still just a coward.

  We ride in silence. I can barely see out the window my eyes are so clouded with the tears I’m holding back. Until suddenly, the bus shudders to a stop and I realize we’re back at my house. I let out a long, shaky breath, and then I feel steady. I turn to Tristan, who is still staring out the front windshield. But after a beat, he turns and gives me sort of an anemic smile.

  “Thanks for saving me,” I say. “You know, from the selfie lady.”

  Tristan laughs softly. “Anytime, Brix.”

  There’s more to say, but that feels like enough for now. I climb out of the bus, the metal door creaking open and shut. I hoist my purse up on my shoulder and start up the driveway, and then I hear a sound behind me.

  “Hey, Beck,” Tristan calls as he rolls down the window.

  I turn. “Yeah?”

  “Thanks,” he says. “See ya later?”

  I smile. “Yeah. Later.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  I think Tristan and I have become friends. Friends who kissed that one time, though we never, ever talk about that. It just sort of lives between us, this unsayable thing that rears its head anytime we get too close. Or maybe that’s just me, and he’s thoroughly forgotten about it all by now.

  “Yo, I brought you something,” Tristan says as he breezes in through the back door of Hot ’N Crusty, an empty warming bag hooked over his forearm. He drops it on the floor in the middle of the kitchen and reaches into the pocket of his denim jacket. He pulls out a square envelope and passes it to me. It crinkles in my hand, and when I flip it over I see a clear window showing off a shiny silver CD.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  “It’s a compact disc, Beck. It’s used to play music.”

  “I know what it is,” I say, matching his snark, as has become our game. “What am I supposed to play this on?”