“No way.”
I crossed my arms, which kind of forced the pie crusts into my armpit.
“What’s wrong with them? They’re even organic,” I said.
“Organic has nothing to do with it,” Zach said.
“Those berries are organic,” I said, pointing at the bag in his hands. “J’accuse!”
“Calm down.” Zach looked around the aisle, where the only other shopper was a woman in a long coat evaluating two packages of sweet potato fries. “There’s no need to have a meltdown in the middle of the store.”
“I am not melting down,” I said, and realized too late how much the words made me sound like a three-year-old having a temper tantrum.
Zach raised an eyebrow and I shifted my weight.
“It’s too cold here for anything to melt,” I said.
“Give me that.” Zach took the package of pie crusts and replaced them inside the giant glass freezer.
“The reason I got frozen blueberries,” he said, leading us toward the baking section, “is that they’re frozen when they’re still in season, so they won’t taste as bad as the fresh ones they ship in from Argentina this time of year. The organic thing is just a bonus.”
“Oh,” I said.
“And pie crust,” Zach said, “is just flour, salt, water, and butter. Or in this case, shortening.”
We stopped in front of a wall of brick-shaped packages promising “No Trans Fat” and “You’ll Assume It’s Butter”!
I made a face as Zach selected an appropriately cruelty-free chunk of shortening and headed for the checkout.
“I can’t believe you’re buying this stuff just so one person can eat your pies,” I said.
To our left, the woman with sweet potato fries was now arguing with the cashier over an expired two-for-one coupon as Zach swiped the groceries one by one across the self-scanner.
“I guess. I mean, I bought these, too,” he said, zipping the blueberries over the little red beam.
“Yeah, and? Everybody likes blueberries.”
“Right. But usually I’d use strawberries.”
It took me a minute to realize what he meant. Not using strawberries, so that I could eat the pies. Which probably meant something.
Didn’t it?
It means you’re friends, I told myself, before I could even articulate the question in my mind. He bought shortening for Alison, for crying out loud, and nobody likes her, except for maybe all the animals whose lives she’s saved.
“Thanks,” I said. It seemed like a good start.
“You’re welcome,” Zach said. “I mean, it would suck if you died.”
“Nattie!”
I spun around at the sound of my name, to see Meredith White, of all people, bouncing over to us from the doors.
“Hey . . . Meredith,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
It must’ve come out a little too accusatory, because Zach the Anarchist gave me a look. Meredith, however, didn’t seem to notice.
“Zach invited me to come help,” she said. She was wearing actual earmuffs.
“Oh,” I said. “Great.”
“Yup,” Meredith agreed, and for a moment we just stood there at the end of the checkout lane, listening to the woman harrumph over her coupon and the checkout girl’s voice cutting out over the PA system.
And that was when I heard it.
“Well she’s tough and she’s cool and she’s in command.”
“Wow!” I said, loudly, to hopefully to cover up the sound of the radio. Meredith frowned.
“Hey, isn’t this—”
“A crazy amount of butter?” I said, crazily. “Zach, why are you buying so much butter? That’s an awful lot of butter for one Friendsgiving.”
I sounded insane, but talking too much had successfully covered up the chorus.
“I’m in charge of pies for the family Thanksgiving, too,” he said. “So I need a lot of butter.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to sound normal despite the fact that my sex anthem was blaring out in the middle of Zach’s rich-person grocery store. “Is Bethany coming home?”
“Who’s Bethany?” Meredith asked.
“My sister,” Zach said, and shook his head. “She and her boyfriend are staying in New York. His family’s there.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, more pie for you guys, I guess!”
I laughed, hopefully loud enough over the music. Zach, being Zach, said nothing.
“I usually end up having to make the stuffing, because otherwise no one remembers,” I went on. “My mom and my aunt are turkey fanatics and my dad is content eating nothing but cranberry sauce and celery with peanut butter on it. But as you may recall, I’m not the greatest cook, so sometimes it ends up kind of crunchy.”
“The stuffing or the peanut butter?” Meredith asked.
“Both, actually.” I shook my head. “I have no idea why he does that. I think it’s a Schwartz thing? Or maybe just a my-dad thing.”
“Oh,” Meredith said politely. “I see.”
Without a word, Zach punched the Finish and Pay button, fed in two twenties, and went to bag our stuff. I stayed totally still, Sebastian’s voice echoing from the tile floors to the display cases of probiotic sodas, as the song ended.
“Well,” he said. “Let’s go, I guess.”
Laden with butter-filled bags, the three of us walked back to Zach’s house, me in awkward silence and Meredith contentedly chattering away about something.
“And so I was thinking of making one of the freshmen an editor next year, but usually it’s just rising juniors, so—hey, buddy!” She stooped as we came into the kitchen, where an overjoyed Bacon was yipping and jumping in circles at the arrival of humans.
“That’s Bacon,” I said. “Named for Francis Bacon, who was a philosopher.”
“Hey, buddy!” Meredith said again, clearly not concerned with what dogs were actually properly called. I tried to give Bacon an affectionate nudge with my knee since my hands were full, but he was too busy weaving in between Meredith’s puffy boots.
“Wow, he really likes me.”
I dumped my armful of butter on the counter. “You probably smell weird.”
“He’s just hyper from being cooped up all day.” Zach plugged his phone into the stereo and turned up the volume to its usual crash and crunch, then grabbed all the boxes I’d just put on the counter and swept them into the freezer.
“Aren’t we going to use that?” I said, tugging off my sneakers and jamming them in the shoe rack by the door.
“Keeping the fat cold makes the crust flakier,” Meredith said.
“Yeah,” Zach said. “Exactly.”
“I love baking,” Meredith said. “I do it all the time with my mom.”
She smiled, as if she had no idea how weird it was to still require adult supervision for food preparation at our age, and Zach reached up into a cabinet and pulled down a squat machine with a removable bowl and a bunch of clanking plastic parts on top.
“It’s a food processor,” he said, to my stare.
“I knew that,” I said. Bacon nuzzled my leg, and I hunkered down on the floor to scratch his belly. He stretched out as far as his stout doggy legs could and let out a floppy-mouthed sigh. “I’m just not that into cooking.”
“Oh man, we have the same scale at my house,” Meredith said.
“What are the odds?” I said. From my prone position, I could only see the bottom of the counter, the fridge, and Zach’s ankles. He was wearing black jeans, of course, but one of his socks was red.
“Cool,” I heard Zach say.
“Is Nattie just going to lie there?” I heard Meredith say.
“I’m right here.” I ran my hand diligently over Bacon’s belly. “Besides, it’s comfortable here.” I lay back and stared at the ceiling, the chandelier of pots and pans, and listened to the soft sounds of flour getting measured.
“’Scuse me.” Zach’s red-socked foot was nudging my bare one.
“Exc
use you,” I said, and gave him a little kick back.
“Ow,” Zach said, even though there was no way I had actually hurt him. “Jeez, Nattie, keep your hooves to yourself.”
“I do not have hooves,” I said indignantly.
“Your feet are gross,” Zach said. “What are you, part hobbit?”
I glanced down at my feet, which were admittedly not the nicest part of my body. All the going barefoot was catching up with me.
“Maybe. Shoes are boring.”
“We usually wear slippers in my house,” said Meredith, who was wearing two matching socks with hearts on them. I crossed my arms, which was not as easy to do on the floor, and looked back at Bacon, who was yawning. I followed suit. “Mmph. Can you just wake me when the pie is done?”
Instead of answering, Zach started the food processor.
Fine, I thought. You and your new girlfriend, Meredith, can make the pies all by yourself. Maybe Zach was some kind of serial monogamist who targeted girls whose names start with M. Not that I cared, because I totally didn’t care. I was the one with an inbox full of messages from Sebastian Delacroix. Even if I hadn’t gotten a new one in weeks.
After a good thirty seconds of grinding, pulsing noises, I decided I’d had enough and righted myself from the floor.
“Just kidding. I want to help.”
Meredith, who was holding a measuring cup, looked at Zach, who was filling cold water from the tap.
“It’s kind of a two-person job,” Meredith said at last. Zach just kept filling ice water.
“Okay,” I said. “Well, Zach and I, when we bake together, usually also do Latin homework. So if you don’t mind—”
I insinuated myself in the stool between where Meredith was measuring flour and where Zach was now cubing butter and hefted my backpack onto my knees.
“Catullus Eight,” I said out loud, to no one in particular. “Valē puella. Iam Catullus obdūrat, nec tē requīret nec—”
“Nattie,” Zach said. “Can you maybe just read in English?” He glanced significantly at Meredith. “And not so loud?”
“We’re supposed to read the Latin before doing the translation.”
“I know, but . . .” Zach threw another significant glance at Meredith, who was humming tunelessly as she scooped out flour. I tensed my jaw and started again.
“Good-bye, girl. Now Catullus is firm, he will not seek you out, nor will he ask one who is unwilling, but you will be said, when you are . . . no one not asked?” I scribbled a note to refine my translation and kept going. “Woe to you, evil woman! What life stays for you? Who now will come to you? To whom will you seem beautiful? Whom now will you love? Whose will you be said to be? Whom will you ki—”
“Wow,” Meredith interrupted, and dusted her hands off. “What is this, again?”
“Catullus,” I said shortly.
“Roman poet,” Zach said.
“Whose girlfriend must’ve done something slutty,” I said, “because apparently he’s determined not to see her anymore and says no one will love her.”
“Harsh,” Zach said.
“I mean, it’s not as bad as some of his stuff,” I said. “In one poem he says this guy brushes his teeth with pee.”
“What? Gross. No, I meant you.” He plopped out a chunk of dough. “Calling someone slutty, I mean.”
Meredith winced. “Yeah, I try not to use words like that against other girls.”
My face got hot. “I mean, me neither, but, like, in this poem, you can tell—”
“He called her evil,” Zach said. “He’s name-calling and being pissy.”
“Whatever.” I put away my notebook and looked across the counter.
“Did you guys get pie plates?” Meredith asked. Zach looked at me.
“Oh,” I said. “I . . . may have forgotten.”
“Dammit.” Zach groaned. “I mean, my parents have, like, two, but if we’re making six pies—”
“Ooh,” Meredith said. “What if we just did pie pockets? Like homemade Pop-Tarts.” She smiled. “That way everyone can get what they want.”
Zach nodded. “Yeah. Totally. Good idea.” He stacked the plastic-wrapped hunks of dough onto one another and put them in the fridge.
“Ten minutes chilling?” Meredith said.
“Yup.”
“Cool,” she said. “This is fun.”
“If you’re doing something,” I said. “Speaking of which, can I do something?”
“I thought you said you weren’t into cooking?” Meredith said. I ignored her.
“Here.” He tossed me a lemon, which I almost didn’t catch, from the bowl by his elbow. “Can you juice that?”
Zach hit the Preheat button on the oven and went back to the island. By way of response, I sliced the lemon in half, pulled down a cereal bowl from a cabinet, and squeezed. I handed it to Zach, who promptly handed it back.
“Without the seeds?”
“Oh.”
I fished around the bowl, which was less than easy, while Zach dumped a bag of frozen berries into a saucepan, and Meredith, like she’d read his mind or something, hovered over his shoulder to add sugar and a few pinches of some spices.
“This is hard,” I said loudly, as another seed slithered from my grasp.
“You should have squeezed it into your hand,” Meredith said. “Then you could catch the seeds in your fingers.”
“Oh well. You’ll have to forgive me for not knowing all the secret kitchen tips. Raised on microwave lasagna, remember?”
Zach made a noncommittal noise and stirred the pot. Last seed retrieved, I handed him the cereal bowl.
“Thanks.” He dumped the juice in and gave it another stir. There was a long pause, the kitchen silent except for the bubbling of the filling and the soft snuffling sounds of Bacon hunting for food scraps.
“I’m glad I could come help you guys,” Meredith said. “This is so fun.”
“Yup,” I said, wiping my lemony hand on my jeans. “Tons of fun.”
“You hate baking.” Zach snapped off the burner and moved the filling to a hot pad on the counter.
“I . . .” I didn’t really have an answer to that. Meredith didn’t seem to notice.
“I think it’s totally lame that there’s that other party happening,” she said. “It’s so rude of them! I would never go to a party instead of Winter Formal.”
Probably because you wouldn’t be invited, I thought meanly. Outwardly, I just smiled—also kind of meanly.
“Anyway, I know I’m not in your club, but I totally support you guys in this,” Meredith went on. “Also, can I use your bathroom?”
“Front hallway, first door on the left,” I answered for Zach. She disappeared, and Zach went back into the fridge for the dough.
“Rolling pin,” he said. It took me a moment to realize that the tool in question lived in the canister I was sitting next to.
“Oh, sure.” I withdrew it and brought it over. “Can I roll?”
“You can try.”
I took that as a yes and peeled out a circle of dough. Zach threw some flour on the counter, and I set the crust in the middle and began to work the pin over it.
It was like rolling over a rock.
“Maybe you can take this one,” I said after thirty seconds of ache-inducing effort. Zach said nothing, just took the pin and rolled it over the dough like it was marshmallow. I could see the muscles in his arms moving a little under the edge of his T-shirt sleeves.
“Um,” I said, because I needed a distraction. Zach looked up, and I tried to remember what we had been talking about.
“Cooking is kind of fun,” I said. “I mean, when it’s not backbreakingly difficult. Plus, it’s practically a science lesson when you’re doing it.”
“Mm.” Dough rolled, Zach moved to a second piece, which flattened obediently under his quick motions. I felt Bacon’s fuzzy nose sniffing around my bare foot and stooped down to acknowledge him.
“Though it really is kind of a two-person
job,” I added, picking at a flake of dough on my fingernail.
“I didn’t think . . .” From the countertop above, Zach’s voice came out quickly, then stopped, as if he’d thought better of it. Slowly, I rose to my feet, hefting Bacon up in my arms and wondering if I was missing something. Zach slapped aside the second round of dough, looked up at me for a split second, then shook his head and started in on a third.
“Nothing,” he said. “I mean, yeah. Science, cooking, et cetera.”
“And talking and stuff, too. Hanging out,” I said, since it seemed rude not to acknowledge that aspect. I mean, we were friends, after all.
“Yeah.” Zach sort of smiled to himself. “You’re being real social right now.”
“What?”
“Oh. Nothing.” The problem with Zach, I realized, was that sometimes he was so deadpan it was hard to tell if he was even being sarcastic. Either way, I had a rising feeling of anxiety in my chest that I ought to change the subject.
“This music is great,” I said loudly as Meredith reentered from the bathroom. “Zach’s made me a whole mix, so I know lots about punk music.” Total lie. “Do you like punk, too, Mer?”
“Me?” Meredith shook her head. “No, not really. Actually, I’m pretty into folk music. Have you ever heard of Joni Mitchell?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Of course I’ve heard of Joni Mitchell.”
I pulled out my phone as a signal that I did not want to discuss my favorite musician with someone like Meredith, and Meredith went amiably over to Zach’s side and started filling in the pies. Over the edge of my phone screen, I watched them work—a perfect little team. Whatever. I was probably moments away from receiving a message from a literal rock star. A literal rock star who thought I was attractive. I aggressively refreshed my Pixstagram feed.
“Hey, Nattie?” Meredith held up a trayful of little pies. “Could you please get the oven door?”
“Sure.” I climbed off the seat and pulled open the door with one hand. Meredith bent over with the tray, and I scrolled down on my phone. Something flashed and vibrated on the screen, and I almost dropped my phone in surprise.
Who's That Girl Page 18
