by Rachel Vail
“My mom and your dad? No way. The lovebirds?”
She nodded, and one tear leaked out onto her pale, smooth cheek.
“Where are they?”
“Outside.” She opened her huge eyes then and stared at me, her mouth curving into a frown. “If they get divorced …”
“They’re not getting divorced, Sam.”
“You didn’t hear them. Kevin went back to sleep, to get away from them.”
I pulled out a chair and sat across from her at the table. “What did they say?”
She swallowed hard and didn’t answer.
“The hammock?”
Sam nodded, crying. Her cheeks blotched up, and her nose started dripping. Oh, girl of my heart—an ugly crier like me.
“So, grilled cheese for breakfast?” I asked, eyeing her barely touched non-breakfast-food breakfast. “You gonna eat that whole thing?” I asked.
She pushed the plate toward me. I picked up half of the sandwich. It had been cut diagonally, the way I like it best, and it had clearly been actually grilled, rather than just heated up. I took a bite.
“Mmmm! This is SO good,” I told her, my mouth still half-full.
“It’s the thing my dad is out-of-proportion proud of.”
“Out-of-proportion proud of? Meaning? Yum.”
“Everybody has something,” she said, eyes downcast, sniffling in the nose goo. “That’s my dad’s theory anyway. Something you are way prouder of than the thing deserves. Like, I’m proud of doing well in school, but that’s a normal thing. That’s in proportion. I am out-of-proportion proud of how good I am at blowing bubbles.”
“Gum? Or, like, soapy?”
“Gum,” she said. “Bubble gum is my favorite food. And I can blow excellent bubbles.”
“Cool. Was never good at blowing them, myself.”
“I could teach you sometime.”
“I’d like that,” I told her.
“Your mom is out-of-proportion proud of her parallel parking.”
I almost drooled grilled cheese out of my mouth, I was laughing so unexpectedly. “That’s true!” I said when I eventually regained control of my mouth. “She totally is! She is so freaking proud of how well she parallel … how did you know that?”
“She mentions it,” Samantha said. “Often. Any time we’re in the car with her. She is obviously a very accomplished person, but the only thing I have ever heard her brag about is—”
“Parallel parking!” I finished for her. “You are totally right!”
I guess I was grinning at her, because she was looking at my mouth, and she smiled shyly back at me. I nudged the plate toward her again. “I think your dad might be in proportion with this, though. It’s epic. Eat that. Share it with me. It’s even better that way.”
She slowly picked up the second half and bit off a millimeter, then, weirdly enough, chewed it, before asking me, “What about you?”
“Me?”
“Yes,” Samantha said. “What are you proud of, out of proportion to its worth?”
“Hmmm.” I put down the last corner of my half of grilled cheese sandwich to think. “I’m pretty good at humiliating myself.”
“Not something negative,” she said. “Something you are actually proud of.”
I thought again. “Losing my phone? No, negative. Ummm …”
“You can tell me,” Samantha said. “I think I know already.”
“What is it? Can you tell me?”
“It doesn’t really matter what I think you’re disproportionately proud of. You’re the one who has to be proud of it.”
“Maybe if you tell me, I’ll start being proud!”
“Oh, Charlie.”
“What’s Kevin’s thing?”
Samantha smiled. “His is pretty funny. He can—”
The back door slammed. We both turned toward it. Mom dashed across the kitchen to the stairs. The door opened again. Joe, his eyes drooping down in the outside corners where normally they crinkle up, dashed by us, in Mom’s footprints.
“Elizabeth,” he called after her. “Come on.”
He followed her up the stairs.
Samantha and I sat at the table in silence, our unfinished portions of grilled cheese rapidly cooling on the plate between us.
“People argue,” I whispered.
“She was crying,” Samantha said.
“People cry.”
She nodded.
“Hey,” I said. “People forgive, too.”
“Not really,” she said. “They pretend to, but really they don’t forgive.”
I wanted to argue with her. But her words hit me like a punch in the nose, so I was unable to operate my mouth. Was that true? They pretend to but don’t really forgive? And what if you blow off their phone calls and texts and don’t even open up your email or Facebook all weekend, just take a vacation from everybody but your own weird, romantic, intense family for one weekend? Would a friend pretend to forgive again? Or was it too late for that, for me and Tess now, too? Was it all just pretending, this reconnecting?
Samantha watched me for a moment and then stood up in her solemn, graceful way and carried her plate to the sink. “He can name all the presidents in order, in under a minute.”
“Huh?” I managed. “Who?”
“Kevin. That’s his thing. One of his two things.”
“Is the other his drawings?” I asked. “Because I think he should be really—”
“No,” Samantha cut me off. “That’s proportional. The other is, well, do you have a crush on him?”
I felt my face turn bright red, faster than ever before. “No!”
“Yeah, I thought so. He does that, to girls. I’m gonna go up to my room and read now.”
“Samantha,” I called to her back. She stopped.
I looked at her hair, knotty in two spots and raggedly uneven in the back, and felt a wave of tenderness crash over me.
“Sometimes people make up,” I told her. “They fight, they’re mad, and then, sometimes, they move on.”
“Yeah,” she said. “They move on.”
“And sometimes,” I said, “seriously, Samantha, I think sometimes they really do forgive.”
She stayed still for a few breaths, letting that thought sink down on her, and on me. Then she went upstairs, leaving me to marinate in wonder all alone about whether anything I’d just said was true.
twenty-four
I BROUGHT THE water to a boil. Anya told me to pour about a half cup into the teapot and slosh it around.
“No tea leaves?”
“Not yet,” Anya said. “I know Penelope doesn’t believe me, but tea is going to be bigger than coffee within a year and we have to be ahead of the curve. This is the magic that is going to get us out of debt, I swear it. I’m not gonna lose this place, if tea catches on.”
Penelope and I made eye contact. She looked away first.
“Are you—is there a financial problem?”
“Always,” Anya said. “But tea is going to save us. Now pour it out.”
I poured the steaming water down the drain. “Why did I do that?”
“You have to warm up the pot first.”
“Okay,” I said. “Why?”
“So as not to shock the tea,” Anya explained, handing me a beige sleeve with loose tea leaves spooned into it.
I placed the sleeve in the warmed pot and poured boiling water over it, with Anya watching. “Wouldn’t want to shock the tea,” I said.
“Life is shocking enough.”
“Absolutely.” I almost hugged Anya for that image, of the tea being all shocked, the way I so often am. I couldn’t help appreciating how kind it is to warm the teapot to protect the tea from such an experience.
“And then you wait while it steeps,” Anya said, wrapping a clean towel around the teapot like a swaddled, much-loved baby. “Four minutes. Then throw away the bag of tea leaves. Got it?”
Ten minutes later, I was leaning against the shiny, clean counter sipping my
deliciously un-shocked cup of English Breakfast with milk but no sugar. Anya was right; it was completely different from the tasteless, sad versions of tea I’d ever had before. I held the mug with both hands, warmed inside and out, and put thoughts of angry Tess, squabbling adults, and solemn Sam out of my mind. I closed my eyes and thought about coming out of the shower, before work, and seeing the fogged mirror. Cool space was written there, invisible without the steam, but then revealed like a secret message to me, standing damp and charmed in my towel.
I had wiped it clean with one swipe of my hand. But, sipping Anya’s warm, magic tea, I promised myself the memory would never be erased from my mind.
It’s written in Sharpie on my heart, I was thinking, when Tess slammed open the door of Cuppa.
She glared at me and said, “There you are!”
“Uh-oh,” Penelope said beside me, without moving her lips.
I forced myself to smile. “Hi! Hi, Tess.”
“What are you good at making?” Tess asked me when she got to the counter.
“A mess,” I said.
“True,” Penelope agreed, not budging to let me talk privately with Tess. Tess flicked her eyes at Penelope and then back to me. I microshrugged in response.
“Well, if I order a latte or something, can you give me an employee discount?”
“No,” Penelope answered.
“I was just kidding,” Tess said, and turned back to me. Still hadn’t smiled. “Where the heck have you been all weekend?”
“Nowhere,” I said, hating the quiver in my voice. “Home.”
“Not answering your phone. Not online. What were you doing that you couldn’t even …”
“I lost my phone and …”
“Can you take a break? I have to tell you something.”
I looked at Penelope. “Not really,” she said.
I looked back and forth between them.
“It’s important,” Tess said. “I’ve been calling and texting you all weekend.”
“What happened? Tess, is everything okay?”
“It’s not like you’re being overwhelmed with business. Please? Five minutes.”
“Please?” I asked Penelope. “I’ll take your turn cleaning the bathroom.”
“Men’s room.”
“Yuck,” I said. “Deal. Thanks, seriously, Penelope.”
“Toilet, too,” Penelope answered.
“Vanilla bean java shake,” Tess said. “With extra whipped cream.”
“Whoa,” I said. “What happened?”
As Penelope went to make the shake, I leaned forward across the bar.
“It’s … listen,” Tess whispered. “I’ve been trying to get you all weekend. You disappeared.”
“Sorry. Is everything okay? Your parents?”
“Nothing like that.”
After Penelope handed her the drink and Tess paid, the two of us dashed to our table.
“Five minutes, max,” Penelope said to our backs.
“Not Max,” I called back. “Charlie.”
“And the urinal!” Penelope yelled.
I blew a kiss back at her, then whispered to Tess, “What’s wrong?”
“That girl is so weird,” Tess whispered back. “Can’t believe you have to work with her.”
“Penelope? She’s awesome. She hates me. I love her.”
“You’re weird, too.”
“True,” I admitted. “Tell me.”
“Don’t be mad,” Tess started, then took a long suck on her straw while I tried not to freak out. I hate being told not to get mad. Nobody tells you not to be mad unless she is about to tell you something that would obviously make you mad.
“What?” I tried to be patient while she sipped. “Tess, what?”
“Well, I don’t know your current status with Kevin, so I don’t want to upset you.”
“My current status?” She knew. I was screwed. I had no plan. She knew. Obviously she knew. Damn.
“Yeah.” She blinked twice, looking down at the table. “I mean, obviously he lives in your house, but are you, like, best friends with him now or something? Because …”
Wait. Best friends?
“What? No.”
“Seems like you only want to be with him, these days. Inside jokes, and then you go fully off the grid …”
“Tess,” I said, laying my hand lightly on top of hers the way my mom had done to me in the Thai restaurant. “You’re my best friend.”
“Well,” Tess said, with the half shrug, half eye-roll that meant Not so sure that’s true, but anyway.
“You know you are. Since third grade. My best friend.”
“We’re a bit old to be talking about who’s our best friend, like we’re still in Brownies.”
I willed myself not to burn up with humiliation at my own immaturity.
“That’s not the point, obviously,” she quickly continued. “I was talking about Felicity.”
“You were?”
Over behind the counter, Penelope cleared her throat at me. A line of people had queued up while I was sitting with Tess. Penelope was dealing all on her own, back there. I should have at least been running the cash register, it was clear.
“I gotta go, Tess,” I told her.
“I guess it can wait,” she said. “What I had to tell you.”
“No, just—tell me quick.”
Toby sludged into Cuppa, assessing the room through his heavy-lidded eyes. When he saw me, he lifted his chin slightly in greeting, then smirked toward Penelope, saying “S’up.” I was screwing up, and now the only two workers at Cuppa other than me were aware of it. Any second Anya would reappear and, rightly, fire me.
“Who’s that?” Tess whispered. “He’s kind of hot.”
“Nobody. Toby. He’s nice. So what did you want—”
“Just I think we should warn Felicity.”
“About what?”
“Kevin.”
“Kevin? What about—”
“That Kevin is more trouble than she realizes.”
“What makes you think Felicity and Kevin—”
“Friday night.”
“Friday … What happened Friday night?” I asked. “Friday night Kevin was at Brad’s.”
“This is what I mean.”
“What about Felicity?”
“Don’t get mad.”
“Tess! What would I possibly be mad about?” I could feel my eyes bugging out of my head, my face becoming the poster of every definition of madness. “I’m not mad!”
“We were sleeping over at her house, Felicity’s, a few of us—it was already planned before you and I made up, so don’t be insulted.”
That’s what she thought I would be mad about?
Wait, okay, that did make me kind of mad. They were planning to come have a sleepover at my house Saturday after a sleepover Friday at Felicity’s that I wasn’t invited to? And that would not be awkward because … what?
“I knew you were going to take it the wrong way.”
“I didn’t say—”
“Yeah, Charlie. Subtle is definitely your middle name.”
“My parents were going through a weird stage back when they named me, not my fault,” I joked back lamely, to show I was still marginally sane even though in fact I might not have been. “And I’m, you know, made of explosions, so …”
“Well, anyway, it’s so not the point, but you know Felicity’s mom is strict about how many people she’s allowed to have over, so she couldn’t invite you even after I told her everything was resolved between us. Though as it turns out, Darlene couldn’t come because she was grounded for smoking, so you probably could’ve been invited at the last minute, but—”
Anya opened the door to Cuppa, saw the long line and just Penelope behind the bar, hustling as fast as she could go to help people while I sat lollygagging at a table with Tess, and Toby was nowhere to be seen, in the back or the uncleaned bathroom or something.
“Tess, I gotta—”
“Fine
, but can you let me say what I needed to tell you?”
“There’s more?”
She leaned close and whispered to me, “Kevin and Brad snuck over, and we were playing flashlight tag, right? But then, right in front of us, or, actually, behind that big tree—you know that tree in Felicity’s backyard? It’s like a big pine tree or something?”
“Hemlock,” I said. “Yeah?”
“Hemlock? Isn’t that what Socrates took to kill himself?”
“Him and me both, maybe, but anyway, behind the hemlock what?”
Tess leaned in toward me again, like she was going to pass the gum in her mouth directly into mine. I could smell it in all its mintiness. Who drinks a vanilla bean java shake and chews peppermint gum at the same time? Only Tess. “Felicity and Kevin were, you know …”
“Were what?”
“Well, obviously you can guess. So I just think we ought to warn her, out of friendship, that no matter what he says that sounds so convincing and so romantic, we’ve both been there and, you know … we’re like the world’s two great experts on the crappiness of Kevin Lazarus.”
“Felicity and Kevin hooked up?”
“Congratulations, Sherlock. And what do you want to bet he twirled her hair while they were talking? Did he ever do that to you? Whoa, Nellie, I can tell by your face he did. Right? I know you have to live with him and get along, and you deny it, but you’re getting all tight with him. Still—let’s be honest. That boy is a total slut! The fact is, Kevin makes girls think he’s so madly in love with them, and meanwhile he’s off—”
“Charlie?” Anya interrupted, standing over me. “Everything okay?”
I looked up at her, not at all okay. “Yes,” I lied. “Sorry. I just …”
Anya smiled. “Looks like we could use some help at the counter.”
I nodded and stood up.
“Call me later,” Tess said, leaving.
I honestly have only the vaguest idea what happened in the next hour and a half. It felt like I was moving in slow motion through scalding water, shocked as tea leaves in an unprepared pot.
twenty-five
WHEN I WALKED into the house, Kevin was alone in the kitchen, his arms pretzeled across his chest and his face dead serious, as if he had been anticipating the fight I was bringing in the door, though when he saw me, his face brightened instantly. Damn that sexy smile of his; it wasn’t obliterating my resolve this time.
