“How much are you spending on those drinks? Your whole paycheck?” I asked, realizing something so obvious I wasn’t sure why it had taken me so long to think of it.
“Around seven dollars,” she said, putting the empty cup on the floor. “Why?”
“You know we have a blender, right in this truck.” I half-regretted saying it as soon as it was out of my mouth. What if the whole truck started to smell like vegan barf? It would all be my fault. “You can just make them here.”
“Really?” Mia thought about that for a second. “I guess you’re right! But I like the names, and how they craft the smoothie for me based on my mood. And where would I buy the ingredients? I mean, I guess I could grocery-shop….”
Mia was the kind of person who needed every tiny detail figured out before she started to do anything. Sometimes she’d even schedule in our bathroom breaks at school. Like Meet me after third period and we’ll go to the bathroom on the second floor and then walk to band.
“Oh, we could make up the names, too! That would be so much fun!” I said, and started driving to the high school, where everyone was meeting for the volunteer corps cleanup.
“You’re right,” Mia said. “Making up smoothie names, flavors, a fake person—we’re doing it all.”
She was right.
We were Katie McCormick, and we were embarking on a journey to completely humiliate Seth Manzell. We were doing this.
But then I realized this specific plan was totally stupid. “Wait a second. Scratch that. Why on earth would a snow cone truck be at the high school when school’s out for the summer?” I thought out loud. “There’d be no way for the snow cone truck to know about the meeting.”
“Right,” Mia replied, only half paying attention.
I continued, “Plus, he’s gonna want a snow cone. Seth is definitely going to want a snow cone. And then he’ll see us. And then he’ll know we’re always in this truck. And we won’t be able to drive around stalking him in it anymore.”
Mia looked at me like she had realized that ten minutes ago. “Right. Also, we won’t actually be inside the gym or wherever it’s being held. And who knows how long they’ll be in there? So basically it’s pointless to go.”
I thought about that for a minute. Maybe Mia’s obsessive planning was a good thing for this. I was impulsive. I wasn’t thinking things through.
I needed to focus and figure this out.
“We can just go straight to the beach. I mean, it’s normal for people to want snow cones by the beach,” I reasoned. “And then if he sees us, we can just say we’re helping my uncle out for the day.”
“No!” Mia whined. “We’re not doing that. I changed my mind. I’m not ready to do this. I’m not ready to see him.”
I picked the skin on the side of my thumb. “Unless we got Dennis to drive the truck, and we hid in the back, totally out of sight,” I suggested.
“Dennis needs to be in the shop,” Mia reminded me. “Plus, do we really need to drag Dennis into this? It’s gonna be totally embarrassing if he finds out what we’re doing.”
I rolled my eyes. She was making this difficult. “Okay. Fine. You can hang in the back. I’ll be the one to see him. It’ll help us find out more info that way.”
She hesitated a moment and then agreed.
—
“He didn’t write Katie back, by the way,” Mia told me. We had been sitting in the beach parking lot for what seemed like forever.
“That’s okay,” I reassured her. “He will. Give it time. Okay?”
“How come you’re so sure?” she asked me. “I mean, it’s not like people write to strangers online every day.”
“I know,” I said. “But I just have a feeling about this. She’s not really a stranger. She’s in the volunteer group. That’s why it works!”
It was something I couldn’t explain. It’s not like my feeling was based on any kind of proof or evidence or anything. It was just that—a feeling. Something in my heart told me this would work.
“Well, they’re not supposed to be at the beach until eleven,” Mia told me. “It’s only nine-thirty. Does Uncle Rick really expect us to sell snow cones in the morning?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe he just wants us to drive around. Ya know, like a mobile advertisement?”
“Maybe,” Mia groaned.
“Mia.” I looked into her eyes. “Just think about the moment when he realizes that we’ve been Katie all along. Think about that.”
“There’s nothing to think about yet,” she said. “He didn’t write back. He might never write back. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“Fine. I know that,” I admitted. “But that’s the way it is with everything. You never know what’s going to happen. You can’t predict the future. It doesn’t mean you don’t try.” I stopped talking and caught my breath. “We’re all so passive all the time. We let stuff happen to us. We just have to deal with whatever is thrown at us. We—”
“Justine, okay.” Mia interrupted me. “I get it.”
“Do you, though?” I asked her.
“Sometimes I think you forget that the Seth stuff isn’t happening to you,” Mia said. “It’s happening to me. And I get that you want to help. But it’s not, like, your responsibility to fix it.”
I avoided eye contact with her. I stared straight ahead through the windshield. Focused on a squirrel that was frolicking around on the grassy area next to the parking lot.
“Okay?”
I half-nodded.
“I appreciate what you’re doing,” she said. “I always do. But sometimes I think you’re so hard on yourself because you want to solve everyone’s problems. You think it’s your job to make everyone feel better. But you also need to focus on making yourself feel better sometimes.”
I couldn’t admit that this was making me feel better. That taking care of Mia always made me feel better. I wasn’t sure why that was. I wasn’t sure what I could do to change that.
“Let’s go,” she said. “We’ll drive around. We’ll go to Bridgefield Market to get smoothie ingredients so we can make our own. And then we’ll sell snow cones.”
“Okay,” I replied.
We’d been driving in silence for a little while when Mia said, “I can help you, too, ya know. I don’t have elaborate schemes like you do. But I’m always here. I feel like you never really want to talk about what’s going on with you, or your parents, or anything, I guess. But I’m here.” She looked at me. “You know I’m here, right?”
“I know.”
Focusing on your own problems felt pointless. They were never going to improve. And they were boring.
It was so much more interesting to focus on other people’s problems.
JUSTINE
“OMG, he wrote us back!” Mia squealed from the back of the truck later that morning, after she’d made her first smoothie.
I had my face against the cage of our mediocre fan. It wasn’t doing much to keep me cool, but it made me feel better psychologically.
“For real?” I stood up and she showed me the phone.
Yo Katie. Are you here? I’m looking for you…
We looked at each other like neither of us knew what to make of it.
“I’ll write back,” she said.
I sat down and read over her shoulder as she typed on her phone.
I bailed today. I’m a bad girl, I guess. How is it?
“Nice!” I brushed some sweat beads off my forehead with the shoulder of my T-shirt. We waited for him to respond. “I’m going to peek out again and see if I spot them.”
I looked out the truck window and there were bunches of kids on the beach holding big black trash bags, picking things up, and lazily throwing them in. It was hard to see faces since we were in the parking lot and they were on the sand, all wearing matching red CT TEEN VOLUNTEER CORPS Tshirts.
Mia bit her bottom lip. “Do you see him? Why hasn’t he responded yet?”
I took the phone, turned it over, and rested
it on my leg. “It says he read the last message. Calm down. He’s busy cleaning the beach!”
Mia laughed a little, and then we sat in silence for a few minutes, and waited for Seth to respond, and tried to stay cool.
“Let’s go,” I said. “We need to be at the baseball field when Little League practice lets out. That’s gonna be amazing for business. Uncle Rick will be pumped when we tell him!”
“We didn’t see Seth, though,” Mia whined.
“But that’s okay,” I reassured her. “He’s writing to Katie. We don’t need to see him, like, ourselves.”
We drove the truck over to the baseball field. I drank my iced tea and Mia sipped her smoothie. It had broccoli in it, and something called whey protein. She called it Whey Strong because her goal for the day was being strong about the whole Seth-and-Katie thing. And strong about her breakup.
Honorable goals, I figured.
When we were parked at the field, Mia groaned. “He still hasn’t written back!”
“But he will.”
“How are you so sure?” she asked.
“I just know.”
It was too hot for long explanations; I only had energy for three-or four-word sentences.
“He figured it out,” Mia said, pacing back and forth in the truck. “I just have a feeling. He knows it’s us and he thinks we’re complete and total freaks, and he’s going to report us to the police, and everyone’s going to think we’re insane and we’re never going to be able to go back to school.”
“Mia!” I yelled. “Stop. Seriously.”
She stared at me, her mouth hanging open.
“You need to stop panicking,” I told her. “Just for a minute.”
“I’m going for a walk,” she said, and huffed away.
The only place she could walk was around the bases, and that’s exactly what she did. Around and around and around. She was making me dizzy.
Finally, the teams showed up: all these miniature boys and miniature girls in too-big uniforms and too-big caps.
Business would be booming soon! I just knew it.
When Mia saw that the teams were taking the field, she came back to the truck, covered in sweat. She ignored me, gulped her water bottle, and went to the back to make another smoothie.
So fine—this was how it was going to be.
I didn’t care. It was a fact of life that friends sometimes got annoyed with each other, especially when it was three billion degrees out.
Halfway through the game, a skinny mom with giant sunglasses came to the truck window.
“What would you like?” I asked in my most pleasant customer-service-y voice.
She read the list of snow cone flavors and then sang, “Ooh, I’ll have one of those,” pointing to the kale, beet, coconut milk, and blueberry concoction that Mia had left on the counter behind me.
“Oh, that’s, um, not for sale. My friend just made that for herself. We only sell snow cones,” I said. “Sorry.” I attempted to close the window.
“I’m desperate,” she said, stopping me. “I didn’t have time to stop at Juiceteria. And I’m stuck here for my son’s game. It’s nine thousand degrees out.”
“Well, the snow cones are really good,” I suggested. “And will totally cool you off.”
“I really only do smoothies. I need my kale.”
Why was it so hard for this lady to understand that we were a snow cone business? It said it right on the front of the truck.
“Well, I do have extra ingredients,” Mia finally chimed in from behind me, sounding proud of herself.
I stared at the desperate lady.
I wondered if making her a smoothie would be some kind of health code violation. Or maybe it would just be an Uncle Rick violation; he really wanted an only-snow-cone business.
Mia came to the front of the truck to talk to the woman. She listed all the smoothie-making ingredients she had stored in the van refrigerator.
“Okay, all of that, and extra kale,” the lady told her. “I need extra blending. Please make it as smooth as possible. I hate the chunks.”
Wow. For someone so desperate, she really had a lot of demands.
“On it,” Mia replied.
“You are saving my life,” the lady told us, and I think she really meant it. This woman was clearly starving and dehydrated and had some kind of anxiety problem.
“It’s the kale that really makes it amazing!” she yelled through the open window. “I know people say it all the time, but it’s really true. Kale is honestly the most important thing to eat.”
Okay, lady. We get it. Kale is great. Did she even remember she was here to watch her son’s game?
“It’s epic,” she continued.
And right then, at the same exact second, Mia and I said “Epic Kale,” and burst into hysterics.
We handed the lady her smoothie. Half of it was hanging over the side of the cup, and I tried to clean it off with a napkin.
She took a sip and we stared at her. My heart pounded like we were getting graded on this.
“How is it?” I asked.
“Amazing!” she said. “Seriously. I don’t know what you did. Maybe you have some kind of magic blender. This is better than Juiceteria. Way better. I’m going to tell all my friends about you.”
“Wait, wait,” I said. “We’re really just a snow cone business.”
“Oh, honey,” she said, taking another sip. “That’s just stupid. Make this happen.”
MIA
I remember the exact moment that I decided I loved Seth and desperately wanted him to love me back. It was a Tuesday afternoon and we were at a World Affairs Club meeting. We were going over all the rules for Model UN.
“Caucus,” I’d said in a funny voice, meant only for Justine and Alexis to hear. But Seth heard too, and he turned around, and soon he was saying it. “Caucus.”
“Let’s caucus later today,” he’d said, all formal-sounding.
“Oh, we’ll caucus like we’ve never caucused before,” I replied, giggling.
“Whoa, what is going on here?” Julian Glazer chimed in. “I don’t think we’re talking about world affairs anymore.”
Seth raised his eyebrows at me, and I raised my eyebrows at him.
After that, we just started talking more and more in school, until one day he asked me to hang out. I went with him to a party at his friend Jed’s house.
I was worried we’d get there and he’d stay with his boys the whole time, and I’d be left alone. But he stayed with me the whole time. Justine and Alexis didn’t want to come; they didn’t think they were really invited, even though I told them they were.
Everyone was in Jed’s backyard playing Cornhole and hanging out. Seth and I were a team, and after we’d won a game he turned to me and said, “Come with me. You need to see Jed’s basement.”
I smiled, shyly, and my insides felt bubbly. It was going to happen. My hair was half up in a clip and I smelled like apple body wash. I had bangle bracelets on and they kept clinking against each other.
All the talking and laughing in school had been leading up to tonight, this moment. I was sure of it.
So Seth and I went inside, and he led me down the stairs. Jed had one of those fancy basements with a pinball machine and a wraparound couch. Big speakers, a bar, a Ping-Pong table, and a pool table. My whole house could’ve fit inside his basement, probably.
“It’s awesome down here,” I said because I couldn’t think of anything else. After the words were out of my mouth, I realized how dumb it sounded. He didn’t really care that much about showing me the basement.
He nodded and leaned me against the side of the pool table. He kissed me, and then I hoisted myself up so I didn’t have to stand on my tiptoes. He moved in closer and put his hands on my cheeks and kissed me again. A real, true, openmouthed kiss.
I’d never kissed anyone like that before. Little kisses, sure. Middle school stuff. But this was different. This kiss made me feel like a person, like I was finall
y living the life I’d been waiting so long to live.
He pulled away, and I chewed my bottom lip, wondering who would talk first.
“What would you say if I said I was pro you?” He raised his eyebrows.
I laughed a little. “Um. I’d say I’m pro you, too.”
“Good.” He grabbed my hand and led me back up the stairs. We went outside and joined the group, and played another round of Cornhole.
But nothing felt the same after that kiss. The whole world looked clearer and brighter.
“I heard you make smoothies here too,” a lady said, appearing at the truck window, forcing me to pause my Seth slideshow.
“Well, not really,” I replied. “It was a special circumstance.”
“You’re clearly drinking a smoothie,” the lady reminded me. “And I’d like one. I need to get on the train for Manhattan in fifteen minutes. I would like my smoothie. I’m in a hurry.”
Wow. I took a step back. “Um, okay. Wh-what flavor?” I stammered.
“Something that’ll make me calm, focused, relaxed, ready for the day,” she lectured. “Something that’ll make me feel like I have it all under control.”
“I know the perfect thing.” I smiled. “Excuse me a moment.”
A line of customers formed behind her, and I walked to the back of the truck to start blending. Justine was standing there, perfectly still, holding her phone in midair and taking a picture of her feet.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“My new Stan Smiths.” She pointed to them. “I feel like Katie would have these and she’d totally Instagram them. But, like, ya know, in an artsy way.”
“Uh, okay.” I wondered if Seth would really care about someone’s sneakers. Would he click like on that kind of photo? “We have a ton of customers.”
“Smoothie or snow cone?” she asked.
“Smoothie. So far.”
—
After a few busy mornings with lines of smoothie customers, I asked Justine if she thought we should tell Uncle Rick, or Dennis, about our side smoothie business. She said no.
I didn’t really care either way, so I didn’t push it.
Slowly but surely, we started to get into the swing of things. At least in terms of the business, we did. We parked the van in the parking lot by the shop every night and picked up the keys in the shop every morning.
Kale, My Ex, and Other Things to Toss in a Blender Page 6
