“Well, if it isn’t my best customer,” the woman calls, her voice sounding a little like nickels in a garbage disposal. She wipes her pink-polished fingers on a well-worn apron around her waist. “You park your buns at the booth in the back, and I’ll be right with ya!” And then she disappears back through the swinging door to the kitchen.
The booth is big and round and easily the most abused, with peeling duct tape covering the larger cracks in the vinyl. It’s where Naz and I usually park when we eat here, because the table is big enough that we can spread out homework or sketch pads or the multiple plates of food we usually order. But because it’s past the window line, tucked in the corner, it’s a little dark, so usually no one else wants it. Which means we don’t have to feel bad about commandeering it, even during a lunch rush.
I plop down on the seat and scoot around, Milo following behind me. Then I pluck two menus out from where they stand between the chrome napkin dispenser and a bottle of ketchup and hand one to him. He flips it open and starts scanning, while I lay mine on the table in front of me. I don’t need a menu. If Milo weren’t here, I wouldn’t even need to order. Kristin knows my usual by heart: cheeseburger, no onions, add avocado, with a side of extra crispy fries and a bottomless Coke.
Milo notices my neglected menu and raises an eyebrow over the top of his.
“If you’ve eaten here, you probably know the burgers are the best you’ll ever have,” I say. I lean over and flip his menu, pointing at the center column. “But if you’re looking for something with a little more local flavor, Kristin apparently makes the best pimiento cheese sandwich on the planet.”
“Apparently?”
“She wouldn’t know, because she’s never tried it,” Kristin says as she slides up to our table. She pulls the pen out of her bun, licks the tip, and holds it poised over her pad. She’s grinning at me, her lips closed tightly like she’s swallowed a secret and it’s bursting to get out. Kristin inherited the Diner from her grandmother, who inherited it from her father, who opened the place back in 1920, though back then it was more of a soda shop. Kristin has updated the menu, adding Fluffernutters and smoothies and the best damn lentil soup on the planet for her vegetarian customers, but some things remain the same. And the pimiento cheese is legendary.
I grimace. “Pimiento cheese looks like something that’s already been eaten,” I reply. I turn to Kristin and offer her a smile. “I believe everyone when they say yours is excellent, but no thanks.”
Kristin rolls her eyes. “I know what you’ll be having,” she says to me before letting her gaze roam over to Milo. There’s a sparkle in her eyes, and I can’t ignore the hint of a hair flip when she turns to him. I don’t blame her. “But what’ll it be for your fella here?”
I can feel my cheeks give away my embarrassment, but there’s no use fighting it. Kristin is Kristin, as I’ve come to know in my years eating at the Diner. She’s never met an emotion she could hide, an opinion she could contain, or a person she wouldn’t feed. She’s got the biggest mouth and the kindest heart in Wilder. She’s not quite old enough to be my mom, so she’s always felt like the cool big sister I never had.
“I will have the pimiento cheese sandwich,” Milo says, his eyes on me like a challenge, and Kristin laughs as she scribbles. He adds a water and a side of fries, a crooked smile playing at the corners of his mouth. I like this Milo, the one who can tease without taunting, the one who might even smile a bit.
“Girl, you got a live one!” she says, swatting at me with her order pad. She takes our menus and shoves them back into their slot by the napkin dispenser, then spins on her heel and beats feet for the kitchen.
With Kristin gone, Milo and I are left alone to stare at each other, and once again an awkward silence falls over us. But before I can open my mouth and say something 90 percent ridiculous, Milo’s phone beeps.
And beeps.
And beeps again.
Someone is apparently texting him a novel one line at a time.
Milo reaches for the phone, and something stormy passes across his face. Immediately my brain goes to the DailyGoss and the endless links and photos about Lydia. I wonder if this has to do with that. I wonder if it’s actually Lydia texting, but one look at his face tells me I don’t dare ask. He clamps down on the volume button, lowering the ringer until it’s silenced; then he shoves the phone into his pocket. And as if he can see the line of inquiry on my face, he dives into a conversation feetfirst.
“So, you seem like quite the regular,” he says. It takes a moment for the sour expression to fizzle away, but it does, and soon it’s replaced by the happier Milo I recognize from TV. I don’t think Angry Milo is normal, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this Milo, Man of Sparkling Personality, isn’t real either. We might as well be sitting across from each other doing a late-night interview or something.
“I am, but how did you find this place? It’s amazing, but it doesn’t really scream, Hey, Hollywood, dine here.”
Milo shifts in his booth. The vinyl squeaks, an audible indication of his discomfort. “Someone, uh…someone told me about it.”
It takes me about point two seconds before the realization hits me like a glass of ice water to the face. The shiny black sports car. Rob and Milo don’t have the same car. Rob was driving Milo’s car. And the shadowy figure in the front seat, the one Rob kept glancing back at, was Milo.
Which means he heard…My mouth gapes as I try to fill the awkward silence, but no words come.
“I think the phrase you’re thinking of is ‘sucks out loud,’ ” he says. I can practically hear Naz’s voice, haughty and sure as it always is.
“You heard that,” I say, not a question, because I already know it’s true.
“Yup,” he says. He shrugs, giving a little shake of his head. His Sparkling Personality is cracking a bit, but he’s holding on to it with a tight, wry smile. I can tell he wants to make a joke out of it, brush it off, but I guess Naz already took care of that. “Also, ‘music to have a coma to.’ I gotta admit, that was a new one.”
I shift in my seat and purse my lips. “I’m sorry. About Naz. She doesn’t always have a filter, and…” I try to come up with something to say that makes the whole thing not so harsh. I mean, stuff like that gets said all the time about celebrities; it’s not like you really mean it. It’s not about them, exactly. And it’s not like you ever think they’re going to actually hear it. And even if they did, they’ve got money and fame and all that, so who cares what some small-town nobody thinks? But now that I’m sitting across from Milo and watching him struggle to hide the cracks in his foundation, I realize it’s not that simple. Or maybe it is that simple. Mean is mean, whether they’re a million miles away or right in front of you.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. No qualifiers, because it needs to be said.
“It’s okay,” he says. “I mean, I get it a lot. Not quite so often to my face, but definitely quite a lot on the Internet.”
I shudder. I keep my social-media feeds private, because the idea of strangers popping in on my life totally freaks me out. But that must be what Milo’s whole life is like: strangers raising their hands to offer up their opinions on his life. “I never thought of it like that.”
“You’re lucky,” Milo says. “It’s one of the less fun aspects of my job.”
I laugh, and Milo raises an eyebrow at me in question. “It’s just that you call it a job,” I say. “I mean, teacher, doctor, lawyer, those seem like jobs. Waitress, bagger at the grocery store, traffic cop. It’s weird to imagine a career day where you’d show up and introduce yourself as a worldwide teen pop sensation.”
He grimaces. “Okay, first of all, if I ever use the phrase ‘worldwide teen pop sensation’ to describe myself, promptly direct me to kick my own ass,” Milo says. And then there it is again. The smile, the real one, and a bit of a laugh. I want to whip out my phone and film it so I can watch it over and over again, but that’s pretty much the exact opposite of what he wan
ts or needs right now. “But it’s definitely a job. It’s work, anyway. One that never really stops, unless you want to disappear for a weekend to a private island.”
Kristin drops our drinks and some straws on our table, and Milo spends the next minute or so fingering the wrapper, tearing it into tiny bits and moving them around on the chipped Formica table. Our awkward silence is finally interrupted by the sound of heavy plates landing between us, our food ready in record time.
“Dinner is served,” Kristin says, an ancient floral dish towel in her hand acting as a hot pad. Her eyes dart between us, taking in our silence. “Don’t talk too much, now. That food’ll get cold.”
“Thanks, Kris,” I say. I give her a grateful smile, which she returns with plenty of warmth. I suspect if Milo weren’t here with me, she’d bend down and wrap me up in a hug. Across the table, Milo tucks into his pile of fries, so I follow suit. My burger smells perfectly meaty, the lettuce and tomato towering on top, and I know from hundreds of burgers past that as soon as I smash the lid down on the bun, juice will run down onto the plate, and I’ll be warm and full and happy. Such is the power of Kristin’s burgers. They always seem able to chase away the bad days.
After a few minutes of silent—but delicious—chewing, I can’t take it anymore. I’m actually watching Milo Ritter, whose face lived for a short time in my ninth-grade locker, dribble pimiento cheese onto his lower lip and then slowly lick it off. The sight of it sends a shiver down my spine. I’m pretty sure no one in the history of ever has looked that good licking food off his own face. I feel like I’m starring in a Milo Ritter music video, like at any moment he might pull a guitar out from underneath the table and sing about broken hearts over our plates of fries. The fact that this is my real life and not an elaborate fantasy I dreamed up while getting my wisdom teeth out is straight-up insane.
I’ve stared at him (and the spot on his chin that he just licked) for a bit too long, though, because now he’s staring back, his hand holding his sandwich paused halfway to his mouth.
“What?” He reaches up and swipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. “Did I miss it?”
At that moment, the whole situation reaches a point so surreal as to be bordering on an episode of Candid Camera, and I’m pretty sure they don’t make that show anymore. I slam my burger down onto my plate, the silverware jumping on the table.
“Can we have friend talk for a minute?” I stare right into his bright blue eyes, ignoring the acrobatics in my stomach.
“Friend talk?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “It’s a thing my best friend and I do when we want to avoid the awkward and just get to the root of it. You know, not beat around the bush.”
Milo gulps like there’s a stubborn bite of sandwich stuck in his throat. “Um, okay?” He puts his sandwich down, then folds his arms on the table in front of him as if he’s preparing to give Senate testimony. I wonder when the last time he had something approaching friend talk. If the many faces of Milo Ritter are any indication, it’s been a while. I imagine quite a lot of his life is carefully choreographed and scripted by professionals, so this is probably quite a leap for him. I’m impressed that he’s going along with it.
I should probably think about this for a second, but if Naz were here she’d tell me to just get on with it. Real talk works best unfiltered, and let’s be honest, filtering has never been my strong suit. So I dive in.
“This situation is weird, okay?” I gesture across the table, but I’m talking about more than the meal.
Milo cocks an eyebrow at me, and I can see that he has no idea where this is going. Which is fine, because I’m not really sure, either. This is going to be harder than I thought.
“I mean, it’s fine, and you’re very nice now,” I add, giving him a pointed look. He seems to sink slightly in his seat at the reminder of his earlier bad behavior. “But you’re Milo Ritter.” I watch him glance around the Diner quickly, then slouch farther in his seat. Not that he needs to. Not a single solitary soul heard me, and even if they did, I doubt Roy or Melanie over in the corner eating her daily chef salad while reading a paperback mystery cares a bit. “I’m trying to be normal and cool, but it’s hard sitting here having dinner with a Grammy winner.”
“Nominee,” he mutters, picking at the toasted crust of his sandwich. Little crumbs sprinkle off his plate and onto the Formica.
“What?” I lean across the table. Milo sits up straight.
“I have four Grammy nominations. No wins,” he says. He picks a stray fry off the table and places it back on his plate before meeting my eyes again. “And things aren’t exactly normal for me right now,” he adds, his eyes now glued firmly to his plate.
“Okay,” I reply. The running headlines and the string of photos sit heavy on my mind, but one look at his eyes, which are starting to cloud over again, tells me not to go there. Instead I head for the question I’m dying to ask. “Fine. Forgetting everything out there for a minute. Let’s talk about this. Right here. And why, after being prickly and rude for a whole week, you brought me here.”
He sighs. “First of all, I’m sorry for being a jerk. Like I said before, it’s been…well…Things haven’t been great for me lately. Not that it’s an excuse.” He glances up at me, his face full of apology. I nod to accept it, and he continues. “It was that weird pee-pants story. Honestly, you were the first person to make me laugh since…well, in a really long time. And you weren’t trying to. You were just talking, not to ‘worldwide teen pop sensation Milo Ritter,’ ” he says like the words taste sour. “Just Milo. Like I was anyone. I’d forgotten what that felt like. And when I saw you freaking out, I felt like I should return the favor. I mean, I wanted to.”
Kristin appears at the table. I shoot her a look that says Please go away, we’re having a moment. She smiles apologetically, but doesn’t leave.
“Dee, I hate to break up the party, but Drew over there says a gentleman just stopped by the hardware store looking for your friend here,” she says with a nod of her head toward Milo. I turn and see Drew Walker, clad in coveralls fresh from the job site, leaning over Thelma’s counter. The buttons on the material are barely hanging on over his ample stomach, a by-product of eating every one of his meals at the Diner. He’s glancing our way, his face showing signs of triumph from having delivered some good intel.
“What kind of gentleman?” Milo asks. He sounds weary, like he already knows the answer.
“The kind with one of those cameras with a lens bigger than God,” she says. She turns to me. “He’s working his way down Poplar Street. Should be here any minute. If I were you, I’d go hang out by the dry goods until I can tell him where he can shove that camera.”
Milo curses under his breath, then stands up. “Come on, Dee.”
I’m temporarily frozen by hearing him say my name, but then the enormity of the situation hits me. Those grainy photos of Lydia? They come from situations just like this. Milo hasn’t been photographed in weeks, and a shot of him post-Lydia will be everywhere, never mind a picture of him having dinner with me, a nobody. I’ve read enough DailyGoss to know how that would go. I’d get called a “mystery girl” in the headlines, and a target would follow me for who knows how long. It’s the very thing that turned Milo into a misery monster, and I want no part of it.
I rise from the table and follow Milo behind the counter and through the door to the kitchen, pausing to look around when I’m on the other side. All these years of burgers at the Diner, and I’ve never once been on the other side of the counter, much less in the kitchen. I feel like I’m treading on sacred ground, but I don’t get long to genuflect. Milo grabs my hand and drags me through an open door just off to the right. The pantry, which is about the size of my bathroom at home, is filled with cans of tomato sauce, chicken stock, and bags of sugar and flour. Milo nods at me. “In here.”
I want to tell him it’s okay to relax. We’re safe back here. Only about three people in the Diner saw me with Milo, and none of them
are talking. Roy barely says two words to anyone, and while Melanie can talk a blue streak, she’s really particular about what she calls “outsiders.” She’ll say hi to me because I was born here, but she still shoots suspicious looks at my parents, New England natives who she refers to as Yankees.
Still, I’m not complaining about being in a confined space with Milo Ritter. A tasty meal and espionage with someone who recently sang on late-night television? Um, awesome. Granted, I got to eat only a few bites of said tasty meal, and the fine layer of flour that coats everything in here is making my nose itch. But it’s far superior to what I would otherwise be doing right now, which is wandering around my house ignoring my sketchbook and wondering where my life went. I’ll take hiding in the dry goods storage over that any day.
As soon as I squeeze in after him, I hear the bell on the door tinkle. There’s a man’s voice, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. The words “musician” and “magazine” drift through the doorway, but that’s about all I get.
Milo leans over me, his ear toward the door. That’s when I realize we are close. Like, close. The room isn’t that small, but the abundance of products leaves very little space for two people to stand in here. While his attention focuses somewhere over my head, trying to listen in to the conversation out front, I take the moment to look at him without embarrassing myself. Really look at him, without getting caught, for the first time since he wandered into the prop room that first day.
I must have seen his face staring out at me a thousand times from magazine racks, TV screens, blogs, and billboards, but now I’m close enough to study him. I start with his face, going over the lines, contours, and quirks like he’s a model I’m about to sketch. I notice that his left eyebrow has a little cowlick, so the hairs stand up at odd angles and make him look a little rascally. I notice two dark freckles marking his tanned skin, one under each eye, nearly mirror images of each other, the one under the right eye just a fraction of an inch lower than the one under the left. I notice the way his jaw, which looks like it was chiseled out of marble, tightens as he strains to listen for the reporter.
My Unscripted Life Page 7
